The Red Cloud chief., 1881-04-28
TRAMPS WITH SAWS.

TRAMPS WITH SAWS.
Humors Of the Charity Wood Yard that
Has Been Started In PhiIadeIphin--Va-
grants Who Have Gone To Get saw
Grease and Never Come Back.
Rudely carved on one of the support
ing pillars of an old-fashioned wooden
arch over the entrance to No. 1922
Lombard street are two simple geomet-
rical characters, a circle and a cross, the
latter being within the former, which
in the homely but expressive sign-lan-
guage of professional tramps indicate
that it is a place the lazy members of
this nomadic fraternity should fear as
much as they do cleanliness and honest
employment. just below the cross and
ring signs is a lop-sided diamond encir-
cling a very crooked arrow. which to
the initiated proselytcs OF this royal
order of unwashed humanity means that
some kind member of the guild has in
vestigated the place and, not being
pleased with his reception, carved the
hieroglyphics described, and by them
his fellows are advised to "moye on"
The woodward is one of the best and
most successful of the new charitable
movements of the year in this city. The
difficulty of separating men who really
deserve help and are anxious to find
employment from the horde of lazy
tramps who apply for assistance was,
until lately, O problem the charitable
people of Philadelphia were unable to
solve. About two months ago the man.
ayers OF the charity organizations of
the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth
wards held a meeting and resolved to
open a kindling wood yard, like those
In Boston and Providence, where men
who apply for help are sent and given
work until they proved whether they
deserved further assistance or not.
House No. 1922 and u large yard in the
rear were leased, and six weeks ago the
first kindling wood was cut in the place.
The yard has been in operation six
weeks, and has proved more successful
in every way than the most sanguine of
its managers dared hope for when the
scheme was first preached. Not only
has the yard been self-supporting from
the first week, but the money
borrowed to begin operations with was
paid back some time AGO., IN the man.
ayers are now contemplating numerous
Improvements III -, Tilt ouDtT-
intendent, has thus far managed this
new departure in charity with great
success, and as he takes a warm interest
in work of this kind the future of the
"Tramps' woodward" as people in the
neighborhood of Seventeenth and Lom-
bard streets call it, is very bright. Dur
ing the six weeks of its existence no
less than sixty-seven men who applied
for help were sent to the yard. Of that
number twenty-five did not put in an
appearance at the wood-pile, twenty
two Others refused TO go to work after
they visited the place, and eight who
did begin work were dismissed for
drunkenness IS. The fact that only fifteen
out OF sixty-seven applicants for en-
ployment were willing to go to work
when it was given them convinced the
managers that the tramp element was
even greater among the applicants for
help than is generally supposed.
Each man is allowed to saw 4 quarter
of n cord of wood a day, and for that :
amount of work he receives fifty cents
in cash or. if the laborer wishes it, an
order for food and lodging at the Indus
trial home. on Catherine street. but this
~ IN IL tlIc /
wood yard in any way. DIR. Jefferis
says the managers do o intend to fur
nish steady work at the yard for the
men who are emf there. The object is
to select the deserving from the unde-
serving cases, and allow the former to
make enough to live until the managers
find them permanent situations. Good
situations have already been found for
five of the fifteen men who went to
work earnestly, and efforts are now be-
ing made to place the other ten in regu-
lar positions. The wood, after being
sawed and split, is packed in boxes hold
ing a thirteenth of a cord each, and one
of these boxes reGails at thirtv-three
cents. Over 1000 of these boxes have
been sold and 1900 more are ready to
supply the demand, which is increasing
daily. The Lafayette and Colonnade
Hotels receive all their kindling wood
from this yard, and a good trade among
private families is being gradually built
up. w. II. Magilton, the manager of
the yard, keeps a list of all men sent
there, together with an account Of the
date of each mans application, his trade
or business, the length of time the APP
plicant worked for his last employer,
his habits and whether he appeared to
deserve help or not.
These books show that w. II. Brown
worked fourteen years for n railroad
company, got tired, quit, idled a year;
to resume work, visited the
wood pile, when he changed his mind
and resolved not TO do anything until
he finds a position where labor will be
light and the remuneration handsome.
John Day worked thirty years for one
man and then a spirit of idleness came
him and for two or three years he
has done almost nothing. He drinks
and doesn't like to push q saw through
pine wood even if he does make an b,
honest living by it. 1t took Lewis /,
twenty-one years to find out that I
he didn't like his employer and that his i
wages as a shoemaker would not allow /,
him to live like a Rothschild. After 5
Idling some months he viewed the wood 7
ricks, examined the saw buck, borrow r
a chew of tobacco and has been gone :
weeks in search of a bacon rind to {
grease his saw with. James Mooney, Q
after working for seventeen years for a O
contractor, discovered that q
is a poor trade. He pre-
[erred the free and independent life of q
: vagrant; but, alter summering in the a
berks County Jail, being perforated by v
in a Jersey %hen-roost, and S
spending thirty days in the House of
he went down and c
iad . talk with MIR. Magiiton about @
he Utopian happiness a wood-sawyer r
Enjoys. He promised to begin work in s
he yard as Dor as he "got rested"
The scales fell from Thomas j. Jones' n
yes after he painted houses and signs v
years in Paterson, New jersey. Z
tramped four years and turned up
II the woodward one day last week
to work like a steam saw L
H. -1.-l-I Al--,-L 49, I'll ! z