New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-19

| downslttings, both interesting and valuable to
| science.
The chronicle Of his year Is q simple one.
When the weather becomes warm enough for poul-
try to roost out of doors and for low-necked shirts
and well-ventilated trousers 70 be worn with com
fort, the tramp crop springs up in the country as
rapidly as the bugs in potato field or the tobacco
worms on Connecticut River farm. This
crop Is peculiar in one respect-that 1t never
needs watering And tho peripatetic Oscar Wilde
should extend the hand of fellowship to his brother
vagrant since the tramp, like the lily. tolls not
neither does he spin Except yarns pro-
ductive OF nickes and sandwiches. In tho
height OF summer tho heart of tho tramp
swels will in him. The lusty mid
summer vitality of all nature touches a respon-
sive chord in his bosom. Then it is that he brow
beats farmers wives and like the prmeval man
apprOprates to himself all the fruits CT the earth
that come in his way. Early autumn finds the
tramp still claiming the land for his own and pay
ing especial attention to the ripening cornhelds.
With noble self-abnegaton he aids the farmer in
harvesting hiO crops and Staying his chickens save
that the farmer labors in the daytime and the
tramp at night. Then with the change of seasons
the ramps poetic soul. his substitute for soul,
is permeated by the melancholy of autumn. This
skies, but from the fact that corn aud apples are
gathered under lock and key that poultry abides
within the barn at night, and that watchdogs,
stimulated by early frosts, show an abnormal and
malicious activity. Then 1t is that in the language
OF a BoweIy lodging house keeper, the boys como
in from the country" Other harvcsts have been
reaped and sent to the metropolis, and thther the
tramp conveys himself to be welcomed, If not with
open arms at least with energetically extended
boots. As is the won't Of reptiles In general, most
of the tramps winter is presumably spent IN state
of Information But unlike other alternating
animals the very coolest instead OF the warmest
winter weather appears to recall him to life.
When the thermometer falls to zero and piercing
gales whistle down Broadway, the paradoXcal
tramp takes his little tomato and starts out to
make the rounds of tho beer shops. After thought
fully emptying the beer kegs of their dregs he HES
him further up town, where he patiently angles Tor
milk pitchers at area doors. Thus pleasantly and
prodtably passes his winter, and IN the spring he
sallies forth But this year danger awaits
him. The April weather which has visited us
tempts him out like other tender shoots before the
time Rejoicing In the coming of spring h. betakes
him 10 the country, rocking nothing of the wlntry
frostS and SHOWS that weather prophets yet predict
The result will DO more horrible to contemplate
than the destruction of buds on the peach trees.
crop, a genus, n class by whatever name the tramp
be called which the country could rely upon rs i'm
pcity as on the coming of spring. will be cut of to
the last teddy blossom After the next snow
storm farmers in their spring ploughing Will un-
cover the tramp az cold and stitf as the hero OF
Excelsior" and like him, very probably, watched
by the faithful hound which guards the farmers
ben-yard Scientifically this will be interesting as
proving whether tramp can be frozen to death
Mill 1nua
on the other hand for the tramp will become as ex-
tinct as the dodO and it will be impossible for any
Smithsonian scientist to initiate himself into the
mysteries of the tribe, as Mr. Gushing is doing with
the Zunis Then it will be a great shock to people
in the rural districts to find dead tramps lying pro-
miscuously about their grounds.
The fate which the deuded tramps arc voluntarily
going forth to meet is especially to be deprecated
since the mortality among their number of late has
been immense. Every paper has teemed with ac-
counts of accidents to tramps. In the West twelve
we're shut up in freight car, when the car jumped
the track into ditch One tramp was burned up
in a lime kiln another fell into q vat of boiling
liquid. and tramps daily found on railroad
tracks throughout the country who have been in
caractated for further by the passage of one or
two trains. In the face of these facts, the tramp
shonld be solemnly warned that the season for his
summer pilgrimage is not yet come. And If he per-
ssts in sallying out into the country at this time
and is bhQhted by frost and snow, we can at least
feel that our conscience is clear