Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life

My companion and I, being somewhat better dressed than most of the lodgers, were objects of considerable interest. Our hats, peculiarly American in style, were the main curiosities. They proclaimed our nationality wherever we went. Never in my life have I been so bothered with stares. One day I took off my hat in a small crowd of people, and asked a bystander if he saw anything peculiar about it. He admitted that he did not; but still the citizens of Hull guyed me unmercifully, and, for that matter, so did their countrymen elsewhere.

I had been accustomed in America to dress fairly well when tramping, and the very clothes I was wearing in England had seen service at home and in Germany also; therefore I was quite unprepared for their comical reception by the British. There was only one man in the Dog's Home who appreciated our style, and he was a countryman not so very long out of America. He was a most interesting fellow; had been both workman and tramp at home; but one day bade good-by to Hartford, Connecticut, and decided to go abroad. He came to Glasgow on a cattle-ship, expecting to get a return pass on his arrival, but was deceived, and put ashore with only four shillings in his pocket. Naturally he was angry, and made up his mind to see Scotland, England, and Wales at the expense of Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen. It was a courageous thing to do, if not a moral one; and, perhaps, it was not so very wicked, for his one ambition seemed to be to see the Tower of London. He had been "on tramp" about two months, had had some interesting experiences, and had become somewhat opinionated. Hearing that he had been in Scotland, I was interested to know whether he liked the country and had learned any of the tramp dialect that one might need there.

"To tell the truth, mate," he said, "I was too drunk. You see, I got hold of a fellow in Glasgow who had some boodle, and we chummed it together till the boodle was gone; and the only thing I can tell you about Glasgow or Edinburgh is that they've got a fine pile of stone in Edinburgh, right in the main street, to the memory of that story-writer – you know his name – what is it?"

I suggested "Scott," and he went on:

"Yes; that's it – Scott. Well, since I've been out of Scotland I've had some hard times, and I'd 'a' been in Ameriky long ago if I hadn't pawned my rubber boots. I tell you, Jack, I'd ruther be lynched in our country than die a natural death over here; and as for moochin' and lodgin', why, I can beg in five minutes in New York more money than I can here in a day. As it is, I'm a little bit of a wonder to some of these fellows, because I'm so dead struck on havin' the pleasures of life. I look for 'em till I get 'em, you know, and so fur I've had my bob a day, besides chuck. And that's more than some of these blasted gay-cats can say. Did you ever in your life see such badly faked bums? They make me think of prehistoric gorillas. Half the time only a few parts of their bodies are covered in, and yet they think they can batter more when togged that way. How's that for bein' bughouse [crazy], eh? Oh, well, you can laugh all you want to; but by the time you've seen two per cent. of what I've seen, you'll say, 'Thet Yank warn't fur from bein' right.'" He promised to have another talk with me at the World's Fair.

The fellow was correct about the clothes and the filthiness of the English moocher. Generally he dresses in a way that in America would be thought indecent and in Germany criminal. He is too lazy to clean up, if he had the chance, and harbors vermin as if he liked them. It is not surprising that lodging-houses are so unclean; for if the proprietors of these places should admit only decent tramps, their houses would be left without occupants in a very short time. This is not an attractive theme, but it is one for the practical reformer to treat; for I am convinced that when a man becomes callous in regard to filth, his reformation will be far to seek. And there is nothing that can make a purely temporary vagrant a thoroughgoing one so surely as the inability to keep himself clean in person.

One little incident in the Dog's Home is worth telling, for it illustrates a trait that is international among tramps. A kid had in some way offended an older moocher, and the man was on the point of striking him, when the Hartford tramp stepped forward and said: "You wouldn't hit a kid, would you?"

The man started back and answered: "Well, I ortn' to, I know; but he plagued me like a reglar little divil."

That is a trait in trampdom, and even among criminals, that I have noticed wherever I have been. My own case illustrates it also. I am somewhat smaller than the average man, and I have no doubt that I have often enough offended some of my cronies; but never in all my experience have I had a real row or been struck by a tramp. I remember once quarreling with a vagabond until I became very hot-headed. I was preparing boldly for action, when the great, burly fellow said: "I say, Cigarette, if ye're a-goin' to fight, I'm a-goin' to run." Such sentiment is fine anywhere, and doubly fine when found, as it is so often, in the life of the vagrant beggar.

From Hull, Ryborg and I walked to York, visiting nearly every kip-house on the way, as this place is the best for studying English moochers. In the kip at Beverley we learned that Mr. Gladstone was always good for a bob – a statement that I very much doubt; for if it had been widely known, the Grand Old Man would have gone to the workhouse, so numerous are English beggars. Another story told there was that of the "hawker tramp." He had a little girl with him, and the two evidently did a very fair business.

"We've just come from Edinbro," said the old man, "and altogether we ain't done bad; but we'd been nowhere 'thout the bible.8 You see, now'days in England, to beg much of a swag a feller has got to have some sort of a gag, and the hawkin' gag is as good as any. We've had shoe-strings, pencils, buttons, and lots of other things in stock; but all the good they've done us, and all the good they do any moocher, is to get him into a house or pub with a good excuse. When he's once in, he can beg good enough; and if Robert comes along, he can claim that he's simply peddlin'. See? Besides, I've got a license, in order to be safe; it only costs five bob, an' is well worth havin'. If you're goin' to beg much in these parts, you'd better git one, too."

This is the "hawkin' gag," and very popular it is, too. In America it has almost exhausted itself, with all the other peddling tricks, excepting always the "mush faker," or umbrella peddler and mender, and the "fawny man," or hawker of spurious jewelry. In England simple and artistic begging is by no means so well done as in America. The English moocher has to resort to his "gag," and his "lurks" are almost innumerable. One day he is a "shallow cove" or "shivering Jimmy "; another he is a "crocus" (sham doctor): but not very often is he a successful mendicant pure and simple. He begs all the time, to be sure, but continually relies on some trick or other for success.

On arriving at York, we went at once to Warmgate, the kip-house district, and picked out the filthiest kip we could find. The inmates were principally in pairs; each moocher had his Judy (wife), and each little kid had his little Moll (sister). These children are the very offspring of the road, and they reminded me of monkeys. Yet one has to feel sorry for them, since they did not ask for life, and yet are compelled to see its meanest and dirtiest side. Their mothers, when they are not drunk, love them; and when they are, their fathers have to play mothers, if they are not drunk themselves. Never in my life have I seen a more serio-comic situation than in that York kip-house, where two tramps were rocking their babies to sleep. Moochers – Bohemians of the Bohemians – fondling their babies! I should far sooner have looked for a New York hobo in clergyman's robes. But tramping with children and babies is a fad in English vagabondage.

From this I turned to listen to a very domestic confab between a Judy and her mate. She had just washed her face, and made herself really pretty. Then she sat down on a bench close to her man, and began to pet him. This bit of discourse followed:

"Just go and get a shave now, Jim. I'll give you a wing [penny], if you will, for the doin' o' 't."

"Bah! What's the matter uv my phiz, anyhow?"

"Naw; you doan't look purty. I can't love you thet way."

"Blast yer love, anyhow! Doan't keep a-naggin' all the time."

"Please, now, git a scrape. I'm all washed up. You mought look as decent as I do."

"Lemme alone; I'm on the brain [I'm thinking]."

"Well, you mought have me on the brain a little more than you do. Didn't I git you out o' bein' pinched the other day?"

He looked at her, relented, patted her head, and went for a shave.

The surprise to me in all this was the genuine wifeliness of that Judy. She was probably as degraded as womankind ever gets to be, and yet she had enough humanity in her to be really in love.

Just a word here as to tramp companionship in England. Among the men, although one now and then sees "mates," he more often meets the male vagabonds alone, so far as other men are concerned. Women, too, do not often ally themselves with other women. But between the sexes partnership is common; though seldom long-lived, it is very friendly while it lasts. The woman is practically the slave of the man; he is the supposed breadwinner, but the Judy does more than her share of the begging all the while.

We went by rail from York to Durham, for there was little of interest to be found between the two points. Everywhere it was the cities far more than the country that furnished the most amusing and instructive sights. On the train a rather pleasant-looking man, overhearing our conversation, asked Ryborg who we were.

"You'll excuse me," said he, "but your intelligence does seem a little more valuable than your clothes; and would you mind telling me what you are doing in England?"

As he seemed a candid sort of fellow, Ryborg began very frankly to tell him our mission, and I took up the story when he was tired. It was difficult for the stranger to express his astonishment.

"What!" said he. "Do you mean to say that you've left good homes behind you, and are over here simply to study tramps? What good will it ever do you?"

"Well," said Ryborg, "it's one way of seeking the truth."

"I declare, you're the rummest pair of fellows I've ever seen," he returned; and he looked after us curiously as we got off the train at Durham.

Here we gave the vagabonds a wide berth, on account of smallpox; three tramps had been taken out of a kip-house that very day; so after a night's rest we moved on to Newcastle, stopping for a few hours on the way at the dirtiest kip that we found in England. One of the inmates, a powerful poser as a bully, was terrorizing an old man.

"I say, granddad, get me a light, will you? Be sharp, now!"

Old Man. I'm too rheumatizin'-like. Caan't you get it yerself?

Bully. Naw, I caan't. I waant you to get it. Hustle, now!

Old Man. I sha'an't do it. I ain't yer Hi Tittle Ti-Ti, an' I waant you to rec'lect it, too.

Bully. See here, pop; what date is to-day?

Old Man. Fifth of March.

Bully. Well, pop, just twelve months ago to-day I killed a man. So look out!

The old man brought the light.

Newcastle, from the vagabond's point of view, exists principally in Pilgrim Street. I visited three kips there, saw eighty-four new faces, and learned something about the wages of beggars in England. Four moochers gave me the information. They were quarreling at the time. Number One was saying: "It's a lie. I'd git off the road in a minute ef I could only beg what you say I can. Ef I hustle I can git four bob a day, and I'm willin' to fight that I can, too."

Number Two said: "You never mooched four bob in your life; you knaw you're happy when you git ten wing a day. I'm the only moocher in this 'ouse, an' I want you to know it. I beg 'xac'ly five bob in eight hours; an' ef I begged twenty-four hours, 'ow much'd that be?"

Number Three here put in: "Tired legs an' 'n empty stomach."

Number Four: "Keep still, ye bloomin' idjits!"

None of them could beg over two bob a day, and they knew it. There are beggars in England who can average nearly half a sovereign a day, but they are by no means numerous. Most of them are able to get about eighteen pence or two shillings; that is all.

Our Newcastle friends told us that the road between there and Edinburgh was not a profitable one. They claimed that the people were too "clanny-like," meaning too stingy. The Durham district they called the "bread and cheese caounty," while Yorkshire was the "pie and cake neighborhood." Accordingly, we took ship for Leith.

A fellow-passenger, half hoosier and half criminal, made up his mind that I was a crooked man. "Don't come near me," he said; "you're a pickpocket, an' I can feel it."

I said: "How can you tell?"

"By your hand-shake and the cut of your phiz."

And throughout the trip he continued to regard me as a species of bogy-man, while Ryborg he considered a most reputable traveler. So he was and is; but he made some of his most criminal faces on that same voyage, nevertheless. One of them, I particularly remember, seemed to say, "I can't eat, can't sleep, can't do anything"; and his under lip would fall in a most genuine manner. He was often eloquent in his representations of my ability to pose as a tramp; but I am sure that nothing I can do would so quickly throw even the vigilant off the track as that face of my companion.

We went into Scotland without any prejudice; but we had scarcely been in Edinburgh three hours when an English roadster tried to make me believe terrible things of the "Scotties," as he called the Scotch tramps. "The Scotties are good enough to mooch with," said he, "an' ain't bad people in some ways till they're drunk; an' then they're enough to make a cat sick. Why, Yank, they can't talk about anything then but Bobbie Burns. It's Bobbie did this, an' Bobbie did that, till you'd think the sun didn't rise an' set on anybody else. I wish the feller hadn't ever lived." The poor man had evidently never read Bobbie's "Jolly Beggars"; for if he had he would have long since made a pilgrimage to Ayr.

Edinburgh can almost be reckoned as one of the best mooching towns in Great Britain, and if I were a beggar casting about for a life-residence, I think I should select this beautiful city, and that from my own personal experience. There is something deliriously credulous in the true citizen, and the university makes it a specially good place for clothes. Our first meal in the town we found at a "refuge" in High Street. We paid a penny apiece for a quart of good thick soup and half a loaf of bread. It was the largest quantity of food I have ever had for so little money; but it should be remembered that it was a charity. Cheap-restaurant living, in both Scotland and England, is more of a theory than a reality. For twopence I have had a dinner at a Herberge in Germany that I could not get in Great Britain for five; and for ten cents I have had table d'hôte with four courses in Chicago that I could not get in London for a shilling.

The cheapest restaurants that I know of in the United Kingdom are the cocoa-rooms; but a tramp can live three times as cheaply in the kip-house, if he cooks his own food. Tramps fully realize this, and it is seldom that they go near a cocoa-room. One old moocher said to me, when I questioned him on the subject, "I've been in them places time and again, but I never get my stomach's worth in them" – a statement to which I can add my own similar testimony.

When traveling from Edinburgh to Glasgow, the tramp has two routes – one by way of Bathgate, the other by way of Linlithgow. Neither of them is a good begging highway. The people along the road are, as the German tramp would say, ausgepumpt. Nevertheless, it must be traveled afoot, for railway fares in Great Britain are much too high for the beggar's purse.

Ryborg and I determined this time to separate, he going through Bathgate, and I by way of Linlithgow. In this way we covered more ground, and at the same time Ryborg had the desired opportunity to play the tramp alone. His argument for the experiment ran in this wise: "To save my life, I don't seem to be able to talk with these beggars more than two minutes at a time, and I'm really afraid that I am spoiling your scheme. You see, if they discover that I am not what I pretend to be, our work is in danger; so I'll try this trip alone, and see if I can't get a little more into the tramp spirit." We promised to find each other in front of the general post-office in Glasgow.

On the whole journey I found but one interesting moocher, and that a moocheress. She traveled my way for about two hours, and as she smoked my cigarettes she gave me a little of her biography. She had lived just fifty years, did not know when she entered trampdom, had no recollection of her parents, and believed mainly in "booze," as she called it. She prided herself on being a fighting woman, as do a great many of the English Judies.

"Why, I'm a reg'lar Charley Mitchell," said she, "when I want to be."

"Wouldn't you rather be a John L. Sullivan?" said I, to test her patriotism.

"Oh, yes, ef I wuz Amerikin; but I'm English – I'm patriotic, I am."

"Then," said I, "you wouldn't want to be Lackie Thompson."

"D' you want t' insult me?" said she. "Naw; I wouldn' be anything Scot-like."

"How is it, Judy, that you are in Scotland, then?"

"Oh, I'm just lookin' fer me mate. I lost him in Edinburgh, an' 's soon 's I find him, I'm goin' back to England." Just before I left her she said: "Tell me how you draw thet smoke in. I've heard thet it's real good; but how d' you do it?"

I told her how to inhale the smoke of a cigarette. She tried it, choked, and promised herself by all the gods of her poor heaven never to try it again. English Judies are great smokers, but they use clay pipes, as a rule.

Glasgow is the best kip town that we found. Its lodging-houses are known all over Great Britain, and as soon as I was well within the city I asked for a "Burns Home." There are several of these in Glasgow, all belonging to Mr. Robert Burns, who was once a working-man, but is now a wealthy proprietor. He built his homes mainly to make money, but also to furnish poor workmen a cheap and fairly respectable sleeping-place. I stayed at the Watson Street Home, and although there were many workmen in the place, there were also numerous vagabonds. In the "sitting-room" there must have been about a hundred and fifty people, and some of them had been loafing around Glasgow for months. I made friends with one of these old residents, and he did me some good service. He had been in America, had been well treated there, he said, and so wanted to treat me well. I asked him about the industrial intentions of the lodgers at the "home."

"Well," said he, "it's hard to tell about all of them. Some of these fellows sit in this room from morning till night, and never are seen to beg a copper; yet they live, too. Others do a little work now and then as 'sandwich-men,' and other little jobs, while there's a few of us do nothing but beg."

"Is Glasgow a good town for moochin'?" I asked.

"Well, that depends on the moocher. There's enough charity here, and some to spare, if you know how to look for it. I never get over half a crown a day, but I can tell you a dozen places where you can get your dinner. Scoff's always more plenty than money."

"D' you mind tellin' what's the main gag in Glasgow just now, for raisin' money?" I queried still further.

"Well, I think gettin' vaccinated 's about the best thing goin' just now."

"What d' you mean?"

"Well, you see, smallpox 's on the boards; the people are scared; bums are likeliest to get the sickness; so it's been arranged that any man who will get himself vaccinated can have a week's kip free. Some blokes've been jagged [vaccinated] two or three times."

This same vagabond did me another good turn down near the docks. We were walking along a street when three town tramps came along and guyed my hat. My companion noticed it, and as I had told him that I had been considerably martyrized in this way before, he turned round sharply on the guyers, and thundered out:

"Who're you lookin' at? Ef you're tryin' to guy this Yank, you'd better stop. Ef you don't, there'll be a fight."

I said: "Let's run, if you really mean that."

"Not much! I'm English, you know; and I can knock out any Scotchman that comes around, and I'm in the mood for 't right now."

The town bums took him at his word, and left. I said to him: "You English fellows seem to have things pretty much your own way here."

"Yes," he answered; "we English fellers know how to bluff. We've been bluffin' the world now for a good many years."

"You forget the United States," I could not help interjecting.

"Beg pardon, Yank; beg pardon!"

Ryborg and I met at the post-office, according to agreement. He had seen so few tramps along the way that he was still in doubt as to his abilities. He remained courageous, however, and I proposed a trip to Dublin. This meant Irish Sea, no appetite, and general ill health. But off we sailed to see Ireland. We stayed nine hours, and then sailed back to Liverpool. On the way I saw more of Ireland in a dear old Biddy than I did in Dublin. She claimed that she saw Ireland in me also – a discernment truly penetrating, considering that the Irish in me died out about two hundred years ago.

In Liverpool our tramp work began again in good earnest, and I was fortunate in meeting there an old friend – Manchester Charley. We went around the Horn9 together a few years ago, and got very well acquainted, as tramps will on such journeys; but we did not expect to meet next in Liverpool, though I knew Charley had left the States for London. He seemed glad to see me, and yet a little ashamed of me, too. My shoes were rather played out, and in other respects, also, I was somewhat below the American tramp grade. Charley noticed this, and his first greeting was, "Shall I get you a new pair of shoes?" I explained the situation as best I could, but Charley could not understand how I could "lower myself so." I told him that I was certainly better dressed than most of the tramps I had met along the road, whereat he laughed most scornfully.

"Why, Cig," he said, "the fellers you've been bummin' with are nothin' but skugees [a species of gay-cat]. You haven't seen a first-class hobo yet, I'll bet."

That was true, if one takes the American hobo as the standard, and I admitted it. Then he introduced three of his companions, saying: "Here are some of the real article."

They were very clever-appearing vagabonds, and very well dressed, too. I acknowledged their vast superiority as politely as I was able to do, and asked Charley how it had come about that I had so missed the genuine beggars, as I had all the while been on the lookout for them.

Charley said: "The fact is, there are not many of us in England. Up at London you'll find more than anywhere else, but we ain't anywhere near as strong as you fellers in the States."

"Why is this? You certainly ought to be," I returned.

"Well," he replied, "this is how it is. The country is full of these half-and-half bums. They go everywhere, and the people get tired of them; so when a really sharp moocher comes along, he has to run his chance of bein' classed with them chaps – that is, if he begs at houses. If he does as I do, – sends letters of introduction, – his luck will probably be better. Here in Liverpool, for instance, we do fairly well at the letter racket; but we could never make a livin' at all if we had to batter the way most beggars do."

Later in the day Charley explained matters more fully, and it turned out, as I expected, that he did "crooked work" also, both he and his comrades. I said to him at parting: "I could succeed in England, too, if I wanted to do that sort of business; but that isn't legitimate mooching."

"It all depends," he answered. "A tramp ought to do anything he can, and there's no feller so able to dodge the Dee as a bum if he plays the beggar and is a crook besides."

This is a fact; but still it is not true hoboing or mooching, this being a beggar only in appearance. Some men do it constantly, I know; but the real tramp, wherever he is found, will rarely go into anything outside of begging and cheating. Thieving he leaves to more experienced hands.