The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1878-09-11
TrsEnps I'm England.

A writer in on English paper
says: A common lodging house in
the country is a very different thing
from q common lodging house in @
large town. The former is haunted
exclusively by tramps-tramps in
search Of work, tr ramps who spend
their lives in beggary, and those who
have more or less pretence for spend
ing their lives on the road in an
honest or semi-houest way, as petty
hawkers, itinerant musicians and
acrobats. These people seldom stop
more than o couple of nights in any
one tramp house.
When a working tramp finds en-
ployment he hastens to secure better
quarters while it is not to the hawk
er, beggar or amusing vagabond to
make q heightened stay anywhere.
Every country town has an inn
generally the oldest in the place
with q tramp side. Quaint and
struggling tenements are these, mani
Testing everywhere a .upernbuudance
of material, q waste of space, and an
awkwardness of plan that would ap-
pal a modern builder. Here the tramp
has q taproom set aside for himself
1t is usually a low, .dingy, spscious
apartment, crossed by enormous beams
and looking very like the tween
decks of a ship.
There are three CT four heavy tables,
half a dozen long forms, and a num-
Der Of rude cooking utensils for the
place is used as kitchen and dining
room, as well Us a taproom. The
tramp, it may be remarked, always
does bis own cooking, 80 there is a
huge fireplace extending right across
one end of the apartment, and often
fitted up in old style with firelogs and
pothooks. The kitchen and the
tramp ~dormilory immediately above
it are always the oldest portions of
these old houses. Many of these
still remain just IS they we're lhree
hundred years ago.
TIE writer las examined various
specimens of them 10 Kent and
Devonshire. along the Welsh border,
and away in Cumberland aud Wss-
moreland, which ~certaioly dale from
early ib the fifteenth century. In OF g
hpary old ediGce there We're inches
in the massive walls Of the tramp
apartments containing images of oak
and stoue-wilfully shattered
others worn out Of shape by the course
of time and rough usage; but all
meant to represent saints. Thy
carry ones fancy to the times when
''tramping" had often a high relig-
Gus character. / have attempted to
give Some notion Of the kitchen ac-
commodation f; as to hat Of the DOR
mitories, reference may be made to
Shakespeare's carriers (HeHry ",
Part First.)
There are other country tramp
houses which are not licensed to sell
drink, and whose p~roprietors, there
fore, have to resort to devices of va
ricus sorts TO counteraet the attrac-
tions which the rival houses possess
in their tap-rooms. In such a souse,
not far from st. Adams, the lodger
pays threepence for his bed, and has
his shirt washed in the bargain.
There are other houses where the in-
dueements are still more tempting,
though not quite so wholesome.
Such houses, accommodating fewer
dodgers than the other, and having a
sort Of private character, are prefer
red by vagsbonds who have reason
for avoiding the publicity of a COM
MOI tap room. They are all danger
Gus dens.
i have noticed time after time,
that, On the pulling down of old
premises here and there about the
country, and the digging up of foun-
datlons preparatory to rebuilding,
human skeletons have been turned up
in various stages of decay. Wher-
ever it has been possible | have
made inquiries concerning the histo-
ry of such premises, to find in many
cases that they have been lodging
houses within a period quite sufficient
to account for the remains found
among the ruins. A notable In
stance occurred at Liverpool seven
teen or eighteen years age. Such q
house, which had been shut up near
ly as many years in consequence of a
protracted %chancery suit, vas pulled
down, to be rebuilt in better style f;
and in the rooms there were found
the remains of no fewer than seven
bodies-two being those of women,
one that of a boy, and the rest of
full-grown men. Two of the skulls
hare mrrka nj terrihla y~iolanPp