The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-02-15
Among the Tranps.
BY FRANK b. SANBORN
Secretary of the Social Science Association

A Study of their Life and Condition.
SPECIAL ARTICLE.

TT NSETTLED questions" said the
French statesman, shave no pity
for the repose of nations" The illustra-
tions of this maxim which we have so
recently seen in the field of international
politics are equalled in their recurrence
by certain social problems that are con-
tinually re-appearing, and not always
under new forms. The drink question
is one of these; the tramp problem is
another. Intimately as the two evils of
drunkenness and mendicancy are related,
they must yet be dealt with separately;
for it is not found possible to make root
and-branch work of either, and still less
of the two combined. One reason is that
the police, who have to arrest tramrs,
drunk or sober, are not themselves al
ways free from the worst cause of tramp
ing = the abuse of liquor. What
brought you here?" said the Judge to
the tramp. 1.-TWO policemen, your hon
or" II mean, had liquor anything to
do with it?" 10, yes, your honor, they
were both drunk" was the smart reply.
If it were not for the fraternity that ex-
lists between the seller of bad liquor, the
lower class of police. and the boosting
vagabond, the mischief which the last
named can do to the community and to
himself would be much diminished.
Researches of Prof. MCook.
Upon this point the persistent re-
searches of Prof. McCook, of Hartford,
are invaluable. In papers read at the
Social Science Congress of Saratoga, in
1894, and the New Haven Conference of
Charities, in May, 1895, he has shown
what an almost Incredible amount of
strong drink goes into the tramp, and
how he obtains it under various pretexts
from the easy-going philanthropist and
the sympathetic barkeeper. In single
grog shop in Hartford (euphonically
termed "saloon') a single tramp spends
from 81 to S1.50 day. when he is in
town, and that is very often. "At an
open-air feast which witnessed few
weeks ago." said Prof. McCook at New
Haven, there were certainly three gal
Ions of drink to every one of soup; and
before it was over two men we're lying
dead drunk, two were so drunk as to be
barely able tomove and talk, and two or
three others were intoxicated" This is
feature of the problem that is not so
commonly remembered as it ought to
be; if it were it would be made much
harder for the rowing tribes to get IL
quor.
Antecedents of Tramps.
Even more surprising is Prof. Nc
Cooks statement about the antecedents
of the tramping caste. I'm the first
place. the average tramp is originally
laborer, and skilled one. He has a
trade generally; and in any case he began
by working, and he works more or less
now. He is even an unusually intelli-
gent and skilled mechanic in many in
stances. In our foundries, the best
workman is the tramp moulder." This
is no doubt, because the highly skilled
workman Ia printer. for example) is often
the most tempted to drink, and then, in
any pressure of hard times the drinking
workman, especially if unmarried is
first discharged, and goes ION the
tramp" A few months often will dis
qualify him for steady work afterwards,
for nothing. not even war, so quickly de-
moralizes man as tramping. "Beggars
and suppliants," says Homer, "are sent
from Jove," but if Jove had known his
business he would have put them to al
most any other use before sending them
on such missionary service. Odysseus
himself, with a goddess to look after
him at every pinch, grew worse and
worse during his wanderings, and would
have spent much time in the ck-ups of
modern days if his pilgrimages, like
those of the Wandering Jew. his legiti-
mate successor, had been continued
down to our time.
The geometric curve of the tramping
wave. in times of industrial depression,
and soon after, has been carefully cal
culated by this Hartford mathematician;
the sine and the tangent are accurately
laid down for this social movement
which, at first thought, seems to be all
tangent. Not so; in time there is a re-
turn toward the social circumference by
this centrifugal chain Of atoms. Using
as his basis of computation the careful
returns of yagrancy of Massachusetts,
(which l began to require more than
thirty years ago, when Secretary of the
Board of State Charities, and which
continued and systematized, as inspec.
tor of charities in Massachusetts, from
1879 to 1881. Prof. McCook shows that
in the two marked periods of "hard
times" since 1870-in 1873 and 1S93-the
gain in the number of tramps was sud.
den and great, but that it continued to
rise for several years, in the first period,
and for shorter time in the second.
His remark on the apparent rise in 1878,
in consequence of the railroad strikes of
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