In Chicago, for instance, there is a "joint" near Madison Street in which some men simply live day and night, excepting the few hours they spend in looking for the pennies they need. In the daytime they sit on the benches and talk shop, and at night they lie on the floor. There is a watchman who cares for them at night; he sleeps near the door in order to let in any belated beggar. But he first lights his candle, and commands the beggar to show how much money he has. If it is five cents, the price of a mug of beer, he is allowed to enter.
In New Orleans I once saw a place somewhat similar, the only difference being that at night ropes were stretched across the bar-room for the men to lean on while sleeping. Some persons fail to note much difference in the lives of the two-cent dossers and the tomato-can tramps, but the two-cent dossers make a sharp class distinction out of their greater privilege. Personally, I should rather live in a barrel or box than in a joint, if only for the sake of cleanliness. The joint is simply a nest of vermin, and cannot be kept clean; whereas, if a man is careful and works hard, he can keep a barrel fairly habitable for himself, and with no other occupants. Still, I am sorry to say that few men who do live in barrels achieve or desire this success. The most unique feature of the two-cent dosser class is its apparent happiness. The men are always funny, and crack a joke as easily as they tell a lie. I remember most vividly a night in one of their joints in St. Louis. All night long some one was laughing and joking, and my questions always met a witty reply. I noticed, for instance, that several of the men were blind in one eye, and I asked the meaning of this.
"Ha! ha! Don' cher know! Why, it's 'cause we're lookin' fer work so hard."
Another man wanted to know whether I could tell him where he could get a "kid." I asked him what use he had for one.
"Oh, prushuns [kids] is val'able; when you've got 'em, you're treasurer of a company."
Nevertheless, these men very seldom have boys, because their life is too unexciting, and the lads will not stay with them. A prushun, as a rule, wants something livelier than loafing around saloons and corners, and consequently is rarely found in these two classes.
The other types of city vagabondage can be classified as the "lodgin'-house-gang," with the exception of the room-beggar. I must therefore consider them in relation to their different styles of begging rather than living; for when once a beggar can live in any sort of lodging-house, he has a right to belong to the general crowd, no matter what he pays for his bed. The seven-center house, for instance, is considerably lower than the ten-center, but its being a lodging-house is sufficient to separate its inmates entirely from the two classes who live in boxes and beer-shops. And to make the classifying feature more intelligible, I shall give first a short account of the lodging-house in all its grades, omitting only those that are carried on by charity.
Beginning with the lowest, there is the seven-center, in which hammocks of a bad order are used as beds. The covering is very often the lodger's coat, unless he happens to have a blanket of his own. In winter there is a large stove in the middle of the sleeping-room, and this keeps things fairly warm. The usual lodger in this house is the town tramp, although the wandering hobo goes there too. I have also seen a few genuine seekers of work there, but never two nights running. One night is usually enough, and they sleep out in preference to mixing in such a crowd as the place shelters.
The ten-center is the next grade above, and is probably the most popular of all in the United States. It is built after various models, the commonest being the "double-decker," where the bunks are made of gas-pipe, one right above the other. In this case the bedding is a straw tick and a blanket; that is all, as a rule. Yet I have known sheets to be used. Another model is something like the forecastle of a ship. Around the walls several tiers of bunks are built, sometimes twelve feet high, and in the middle is the "sitting-room," with stove and chairs. Occasionally the only bedding is straw, there being no blanket of any kind. The class of men found in places of this type is hard to describe; the town tramp is there, and so is almost every other kind of vagabond. It is a sort of cesspool into which are drained all sorts of outcasts, and the only way to distinguish them is to know them personally. Young and old, the intelligent and the ignorant, the criminal and the newsboy, all are found in the ten-center.
The fifteen-center comes next, and is very much like the ten-center, except that its customers are a little more orderly, and that it furnishes lockers into which the lodgers can put their clothes. This latter point is really the raison d'être of the fifteen-cent lodging-house, according to my experience. At any rate, I have failed to see any other good reason for charging five cents more for the beds, which are usually no better than those in the ten-center.