The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-09-27

| to dig and delve until the sun was low
in the western horizon.
If there is anything distasteful to
the middle-of- the-road tramp, it is
hard work To is no wonder, therefore,
that those who have had taste of the
District vagrancy act, in many IN
stances, Jump from the empty box car
in which they have been stealing ride
when the suburbs are reached and
walk around the city to make connec-
| ton for the South at jackson City or
Alexandria, rather than pass through
Washington and take chances of being
picked up and vagged by the police.
SPEED THE HOBOS.
While making his rounds last night,
! Sergeant Daily came across about thir-
| ty members of the SouthbOund adj
vance-guard. They we're lingering
about the freight yard of the Richmond
and Danville Railroad, near the Long
bridge When they espied the fight
| ing sergeant" the hobos started across
| the bridge en- masse. In appearance
they presented every phase of the
tramp fraternity.
| There were veteran rOadsters with
unlIempt gray boards and hair and
wardrobes of greasy, soiled tatters.
| Young tourists" were in the party,
some of them mere boys, on their first
| uramp, perhaps. A sprinKiing was
| oolored, and there were Germans, Irish
men, Englishmen and other nationali-
| ties altogether, a motley, devil-may
| care crew.
One old fellow with whom Sergeant
Daley talked, said he had been on the
road thirty years. He sand his home i'm
Cairo, H., was burned to the ground,
and his wife and only child consumed
| by the flames. prior to that time he
had been a hard working miller. The
loss of all his family and home dis
| heartened the poor fellow, and at first
he contemplated suicide.
Il was too cowardly to do that" said
| the old fellow, as tear tricEled down
| his hardened features, land so / just
| threw up both hands and became a
| wanderer on the face of the earth,
| without either aim or object in this
life. You have read that poem which
speaks of the piece of human driftwood
| being buffeted about on the sea Of
| life?"
! The sergeant remarked to the aged
tramp that he appeared to be man
of some education.
| "Oh, yes" was the reply, my poor
| old mother and father did the best
they could for me. and | went to school
| for about eight years before | went to
my trade. But what is an education
when you have lost both family and
home. It is ieering moclzery'
There are some sad life stories hid
den beneath the ragged coat of the
tramp" unused Sergeant Daley, as the
aged tramp hobbled toward the bridge
TO rejoin his fellows who had taken to
the wet and soggy marshes of the Po-
tCmac flats.
These stretches of reclaimed land are
a favorfte stopping place for the soiled
men of the road. They shelter them
selves under the Overhanging wealth
of young willows and LAY low" as one
of them expressed it, until after mid
night, when the through freight trains
are made up and started on their jour
new to the southland. Soon after -
o'clock they sneak out of their retreat
singly and in pairs and threes and
quickly and quietly load themselves
into empty freight cars.
THOUSANDS ON THE WAY.
One of the hobos who was making
tracks toward Long bridge with a big
hand out of meat and bread Under
his arm, said that during the next two
weeks thousands of tramps would pass
through Washington en- route to the
cotton States, where many of them
raise stake by picking the feeey
commodity.
Texas is fayorite for the tramp
ing tourists. They are loud in their
praises of the generosity of the people |
of the Lone Star commonwealth. AS
one of the roadsters expressed it:
mo Teller need go hungry, dry or do
emmy hard work in Texas. The citizens /
there are good people, and the Next
cans will divide their last corn cake |
with yer"
Another knight of the turnpike vol |
unteeFed the statement that the people /
in Washington and Baltimore were
1.-THE chilliest lot" he ever struck. while |
''bhe cops would arrest a teller for
squirting his eyes
Among the hobos who arrived dur |
ing the past forty-eight hours were five |
one-legged men. Three of the number |
lost their limbs while stealing rides |
on the railroad. These stick together
like pards and divide their beggings.
They usually carry about half
dozen cheap lead pencils each, and
offer them for sale when they see po- |
liceman coming.
Owing to tine severity Of the vagran |
e. law here, and its application to itdn |
Grants found sleeping out of doors, |
the tramp who knows his business |
either slum.bers peacefully in jackson |
City, or in the willow-covered glens on
the flats, where they are safe from in
reference or arrest.
THE SONGS OF YESTERDAY.
Tonder where three horses harnessed