Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-10-29
THE TRAMP.
How He Travels About the
Country.
THE RAILROADS. INCUBUS.
Two of Them Get Into q Car Laden
With Champagne-The
Result.
THE TRAMP.
THE RAILROADS. INCUBUS.

The railroad is the tramp's highway
as those who have residences near the
route Of any operating line have discov
cred to their cost. Always with some
pitiful reason why they should receive
food, these Bedouins of civilization pass
along in never-ending procession. as
many as. forty having been counted pass
ing given point in one day. Some O.
them walk, but these are in the minority
and consist usually OF unfortunates who
are new at the business and have not yet
learned how to beat their way on a train.
OF these who travel by the cars some
are very expert, as was evidenced last
week when the three men that Detective
Will Smith was after made the journey
from Caliente to Deming, N. NJ, in
three days, distance of S62 miles.
Some OF them take advantage of an
empty box-car, others get on the "blind''
side of the baggage car, that is, the end
next to the engine, for there is no door
opening on to the platform Dy
which the wary brakeman can
pounce upon them. They jump off
every time they come to station and
100 yards or so ahead of the train where
they crouch down until the train comes
by. when they jump aboard. The most
daring ride underneath the cars on the
trucks and carry a small wooden plank
which they place across the springs and
use as a seat, resting their feet on the
brakebeam below. Some idea of the
numbers of homeless gentry who travel
in some such manner can be obtained by
the fact that in fully 80 per cent OF the
railroad accidents there is al
ways tramp killed, besides which
every month there are filed in
the railroad offices accident reports de-
failing the deaths of "unknowns" who
leave the world as unsatisfactory as
they have lived in it, at least the rail-
roads think so, who have to pay for their
burial. Sometimes, however, the wan-
derere prove of use as in the case of the
throwing of the switch at Ripon On the
Southern Pacific a couple of weeks ago,
where but for the fact that the engineer
had slowed up so that the brakeman
could eject two tramps who were enjoy
ing free ride on the pilot, terrible
accident involving the loss of many lives
would doubtless have occurred. The ends
of divisions are always headquarters of
these nomads and at nighttime haul
can always be made by visiting the
empty boxcars around the depots which
form as rule their resting
places. In small towns they occas-
ionally congregate in great force
and in Winnemucca, New, which
is on the edge of the desert, captured
that town about four years ago and held
it for couple of days, raiding the stores
and saloons and carrying on high links
in general. Southern California is their
FAvORITE WINTER RESORT, ,1
And about the lst of October they start
focking in from all directions, some of
them making the trip from Chi
cago, st. Louis and other East
ern cities. The Sou hern Pacific is
determined to wage war with them this
year, however, and orders have been
given to the night watchmen along the
road to arrest any loiterers discovered
after nightfall about the yards.
During the past week several raids
have been made on the outcasts at
Cotton and about dozen have been sent
to the County Jail for fifteendays'
sojourn. The railroads have more to
complain of than the public in general, |
for, apart from rides being stolen, good |
deal OF the missing freight goes into the |
hands OF these light-fingered gentry. They
always have an eve open for an unsealed !
car, and the quantity of boots and shoes
they steal during year would supply |
the wants of a marching regiment, They |
are also very fond of cigars and any
thing in the dry goods line !
that can be conveniently carried
away is always acceptable. Within the
past two weeks couple OF them got in
side car containing quantity of cham
paign consigned to this city. When the
car was opened at the freight house here
the two pilferers were found lying
side by side in sound sleep on
the bottom OF the car, and scattered |
around were no less than dozen empty
quart bottles of Mumm's Extry Dry, so
their carouse must have been a pro-
longed one. The railroads always
have a number of detectives at
different points on the road watch
ing for these freight thieves, but
the point at which the robbery is COM
mitted is very hard to locate. A car
laden with boots, shoes, cigars, ETC.,
may have crossed the continent, and ii
on being opened at it's destination, a
goad deal of its contests are missing, no
one can say on which line the robbery
occurred. The trainmen are often credited
with being the plunderera, and the grand
jury at Rawlins, Wyoming. has lately
returned twenty-three indictments
against conductors and brakemen on the
Union Pacific road for robbing freight
trains running between Rawlins and
Gree River. The robberies are supposed
to cover period Of from twelve to fif-
teen months, and it is said that the losses
will foot up several thousand dollars.
If now Mr.. Blaine be not disowned and
repudiated, what confidence can the peo-
pie repose in the antitrust professions Of
the Chicago platform? How much faith
will the country put in the sincerity OF
the measures ostentatiously introduced
by John Sherman and other Republican
Senators to restrain the mischiefs of
trusts and other combinatisns of capital
to control the prices of necessaries of liv-
ing? Even if these Senators should
make an honest effort in this behalf they
could not remove the fatal impression
produced by MIR. Blaine's speech, in
which he has taken the trusts under his
wing. The alternative is: Shall Blaine
be repudiated, or shall the Republican
platform and the candidate be aban-
doned. Philadelphia Record, Gnd).
What impresses us most strongly in
this narrative is the excellent under