The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1878-08-30
GJhe 99alilg Argns,,.
RocxrsLAnD............II11noas
stocks for Tramps.

H
It must be said that there is little sense
and no truth in paragraph which we find
quoted in many of our exchanges touching
the treatment of tramps, and advocating /
the immediate capture of them wherever;
found and the placing Of them 10 the stocks
in public places, where the passers-by may
kick them at pleasure and pelt them with I
dead cats and dogs as,8 according to the
paragraph is the English custom. England
dealt thus With its vagrant some years ago, |
but at present il would be as difficult to
find public stocks there as it would be ioI
come upon the chairs which we're once |
used for ducking scolding women IN ponds,
or gags to keep the music of their voices /
| from being heard To the best OF our re- /
collection Mr.. Piekwick 10 the pound and
Count Ricabocca in the stocks were the |
last persons who were thus publicly ex-
posed on Albion shores to the gaze OF the |
merry multitude. The tramp is undoubt- |
eddy an Inconvenience and a danger. but |
he is also problem which could never.
be solved by throwing at him dead cats
and dogs, carefully oollated throughout
wide districts BY methods which we confess
our inability to explain or even compre-
bend. Probably he is the first and worst
human being brought by distress to idle
ness through the business troubles which
| followed on the heels of the rebellion, and
which first affected the weakest and has
come nigh to turning them into animals
whose only work is to eat and sleep. Idle
ness has become his habit, and he would
with Walt Whitman turn to and live with
the beasts, not one of whom lis decent
or respectable over the whole earth.
If he could live on grass he would
do SO without reluctance, but
as he must eat the food of men and wear
their clothes, neither of which he pro-
duces, he has become source of trouble
and Indignation to US. When better times
come he will disappear with his brutality
and the crimes that are bred by sloth aud
shiftlessness His name Is legion, and
there naturally is much talk of dealing
with him, though but few places have
seen fit to make special laws touching his
case Social science associations publish es-
says about him, and Dennis kearney,
though he much prefers him to the Chi
nese, who work for little while he does not
work at all, thinks that he is one of the
Is hideous results of the importation oil
lie moon-eyed lepers and should snmmarily be
, lpooled as an issue. Doubtless there Is
Everything to be said against the tramp
0OQ Wl6D at u lUSS tOI SUGuOtn1uk CLSS ~
e saw il is not wonderful that people shoulo
T recommend that he be placedIn the stocks anc
made subject TO an ejaculation OF cats ane
dogs: but never was there poorer remedy
than this for the evils of vagrancy. The
= tramp is low enough and bestIai enough
- already.
It is probable that many of the tramp'
were turned loose on the world four O
Eve haoor1oo fhnu fhpn lnsf shpI
protectors, for in very many families Their
are always incompetents and "ne'er-d
wells" to say nothing of young mel
brought up in the belief that their parent
- were rich and that somehow or other the
would inherit wealth and position, Upo
the dissolution of the monasteries in Fog
6 land, By which many of the poor had bee
81 fed, great numbers Of people were turne'
out iuto the world and became as serious
nuisance as our own tramps The Parma
Ut ments of Henry VII. attempted TO mltlgai
the trouble which the King had caused an
. passed the most severe laws against va
grants, and men and women were not onl
placed 10 the stocks but publicly beate
s till the blood ran to the ground. and BIZ
IF den to move on to the end of the worit
No good came of such measures, for GOO
. never comes of adding shame to mlser.
Doubtless the hoodlums of the time grea
" enjoyed throwing miscellaneous article
- at the poor creatures, but it is hardly su
posablo that even they were material
benefited by their cruel pleasures. Whe
we shall have taken the course recomme
NE, ded by Professor Sumner in his exaEin
itv ton before the Labor Committee, and bu
up once more our depleted fortunes
ted honest Industry throughout the countr
ilei the tramp will be as rare a being as
was twenty years agu. When he beconl
robber let US imprison him; when he
! come murderer let us hacg him, and
some circumstances let US shoot him
= sight but let us not deplete the country
valuable cats and dogs, in the shying
which at bis head the bad boy may relo
and the nearest rum-selling Alderman
lglad.