Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-06-19
The TRAMP AND THE RAIL
ROADS.

Mr.. Josiah Flynt's article on "The
Tramp and the Railroads. in the June
Century embodies his experience in
investigating the ira mp nuisance on
| single road. He estimated that ten
| thousand tramps ride free on Ameri-
can railroad trains every night of the
| year.
To-day it is the boast of the hoboes
that they can travel in every State Of
| the Union for mill per mile, while
in number of States they pay moth
| ing at all. On lines where brakemen
demand money of them, ten cents is
usually sufficient to settle for jour
ney of a hundred miles and twenty
cents often secures a nights ride.
| They have different methods of riding
| among which the favorite is to steal
into an empty box-car on freight
train. At night this is comparatively
easy to do; on many roads it is possi-
BILE to travel this way undisturbed,
till morning. If the train has no
''empties," they must ride on top of
the car between the bumpers" on
one of the car ladders, or on the rods.
On passenger trains they ride on top,
on the "blind baggage and on the
trucks.
Taking this country by and large, it
is no exaggeration to say that every
night IN the year ten thousand free
passengers of the tramp genus travel
on the different railroads in the ways
mentioned, and that ten thousand
more are waiting at watering tanks
and in railroad yards for opportuni-
ties to get on the trains. I estimate
the professional tramp population at
about sixty thousand, third of whom
are generally on the move.
In summer the entire tramp fra
ternity may be said to be in 1'transit."
The average number of miles travel
ed daily by each man at this season
of the year is about fifty, which, if
paid for at the regular rates, would
cost, say, dollar. OF course one
should not ordinarily pay SO much to
ride in box car as in passenger
coach, but the ordinary tramp is about
as comfortable in one as in the other,
and, on dollar a. trip basis, he and |
his other SO, 999 companions succeed in
getting out of the railroad companies
sixty thousand dollars worth of free
transportation every day that they all
travel. Multiply this figure by hun
dred, which is about the number of
days in year when all trampdom
''fits," and you have an approximate
idea how much they gain.
Another serious less to the rail-
roads is that involved in the dissap-
pearance of goods undergoing trans
portation, and in claims for personal
injuries. Some tramps steal, and some
do not, but every year considerable
thefts are made from freight cars, and
tramps, or men posing as such, are
generally the guilty parties. Profess
sional thieves frequently become
tramps for time, both to elude cap
ture, and the probability is that the
greater thefts are committed by them.
Tramps proper are discouraged
thieves, and I have seldom known
them to steal anything more valuable
than fruit from freight cars and metal
from idle engines. In years time,
however, including all the thefts COM
mitted by both tramps and profession
Al thieves, very appreciative loss
results to the railroads, and can re-
call, out of my observation, robberies
which have amounted to several
thousand dollars.