The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-11-09
KING OF rRAsIPs.
An Insight Into the Mendieant Brother
hood, Given by their self-styied Chief


hood, Given by their self-styied Chief.
If our readers viii try they can call to
mind an old, gray-haired, ragged, gray
whiskered, seedy-looking man, now and
then perambulating our streets, looking as
though he was walking sign of starvation,
II e embodiment and personation of woe
;Ed misery. The old man is still in the
,ity, tramp by ayocation and from choice.
He has a history, and there is bit of ro-
nance in il, but our reporter does not pro-
pose to give it this morning, although he
hasit in the old mans own handwriting, as
beautiful chirography as was ever seen, and
couched in language as pure and chaste as
was ever read. For forty-two years,
since he was thirty years of age, he has been
a tramp. Domestic troubles and financial
embellishments made of him cynic, and
since then, like Bardolph-wasn't it 2--the
world has been his oyster and he has, from
time to time, been opening the she'll and
feeding thereon. He met HERALD re-
porter yesterday and remarked, Young
man, have seen you oftentimes in the last
wear. Occasionally you have given me
distinction by publishing some one of my
convenient aliases, when | have figured in
the police court as tramp or vagrant,
Young man, am a philosopher, and tell
you that life is as you make it. | am
tramp, miserable waif, battered
old .--piece of tlotsam that has
ridden many wave on li1es ocean to be
cast on this shore and that shore, and
washed off again by high rising tide for
further buffetings. have seen the sweet
est green isles that ever bloomed in any
ocean sketches, and have heard Peris sing
whose warbling would enchant world.
have toyed with shells, and like little
child, and oh, God! young man, once
was little child as pure and as inno-
cent as any prattler with its
baubles at its mothers knee in
all this great city-I say | have lifted from
the drift beds where they lay the shells from
every sea on earth, and | have listened to
their low murmurings, the songs that had
gathered within them, and that walled
their monodies, their comedies, their TRACE
dies, as the case might be, as a mans soul
might be sorrowful, or it might be glad.
But, young man, didn't stop you to give
YOU all this balderdash, | have q news
item to give, and, smart rs you may be
in finding out all that is ahoat this one you
never did "catch on" to and probably never
would but for an accident, which accident
enables me to tell it to you. Dallas has
been headquarters for tramps for two years
past, and during that time we have had n
rendezvous, comfortable.wi and sum-
mer, though our racket is to spend the
winter IN the south where the climate is so
much warmer and genial than in the north.
A short distance up Elm street toward East
Dallas, for some years dilapidated old
frame building has stood The building
and the premises have been unoccupied for
long time, and the tramps, of whom al
low me to say, | am king and the acknowl-
edged ruler, and director in Texas, have oc-
cupied it as quarters. In the middle of the
largest room in the building we
sank a hole two. feet deep and two
fire brick running the furnace some
eighteen inches above the ground. Con-
nected with this we had pipe for the es-
cape of smoke and gas. Our coal we got
from the coal cars on the Pacific and Central
cars near by. We were never out of fuel,
nor We ever out ofsolid and liquid comforts
Every day we would get cold hash here
and there from the good women of the
town; now and then some
one .,.~of JUS would "prig" a
ham hanging out in front of grocery door,
and chickens and turkeys from private
coops and poultry houses in the city and
the neighboring country adj libitum, and
a roasting pig that came in reach of us
never had a showing for his life. But, alas
it is all over We had what whisky we
wanted by doing little odd jobs of work now
and then, and it was royal times we en-
joyed. A tramp printer sold us out
We took good care of the fellow.
He came among us sick. We nursed
him as tenderly, as lovingly, as though he
was brother to each one Of us. We even
worked for money with which to buy him
medicine, and we bought him delicacies,
and when he got well he gave the place to
the police, and now the home is broken up.
They have torn down the old house and we
are homeless and houseless and the winter
on us. The most of the boys will sleep
ont, but four or five of us have
another place selected, and in less than
a week we will be comfortably situated
again. Your police, Mr.. Reporter, are not
worth cent. They are doubtless honest,
but they are as fresh as mulberry buds in
early spring. Take this biography of mine,
and when / am dead, for shall never leave
Dallas, you can publish it all, or as
much of it as you may think
OF sufficient interest, and simply
head it: 1t Might Have Been!' AS usual,
young man, there was a woman at the bot
tom of my fall, and my life's destruction.
The world is full of men who have loved
too well but not wisely. My heart is my
own, and if have chosen to let davis peck
at it, what boots it to other people?'