Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-08-10
OPPOSED ON PRINCIPLE.
Would Have Nothing to Do with
Work Under Any Cir
cumstanoes,

"A tramp or any number Of tramps,"
said q wealthy retired chemicals man
~ufacturer, according to the Washing
ton Star, will not work, however
many and good are the opportunities
afforded them, and l speak from ex-
perience. The comic pictures and
jokes make the tramp out to be per-
fectly happy il he has plenty to smoke
and drink and nothing to do except to
eat and sleep and be comfortable.
But it isn't true, as l proved. A dozen
years ago l thought / was on the eve
OF making a great discovery that
would revolutionize a whole lot of
things in my business, and one of the
necessities Of the discovery was cigar
ashes. And cigar ashes made by be.
ing smoked by the mouth. There is a
difference between such and those
formed ordinarily, and this difference
was what my discovery was hanging
on. I thought. Anyway, it became
necessary for me to secure ashes, and
though there were thousands of them
about they were not obtainable, and
10 I concluded to hire smokers and
get what l wanted The job was not
to be a steady one, so l looked for
tramps who were exactly fitted to do
the work. / 500 had 20 of the clean.
est ones I could pick up and 1 took
them to a nice, well-lighted and venti.
lated room in my factory, where l had
put in q lot of comfortable chairs, an
old sofa lounge or two, a lot of paper
back novels and cigars to burn. l was
to pay four cents a cigar, and 1 calcu-
lated that rs cigars would be a days
occupation. The cigars were not bad,
as ! paid four dollars a hundred for
them. Each tramp had a lot Z checks
with his number on them, AID every
time he got a cigar from the overseer
he handed in a check and the ashes
of the cigar he had smoked. The num-
Der of checks he had at quitting time
represented his earnings for the day.
In addition to this, l bedded and
boarded them at the factory boarding
house and allowed them beer with
each meal, and three meals a day. |
human beings ask more than
They could not, and at first the
tramps did not, and they said that
they not only had the snap of their |
lives, but that l was a public benefac-
tor and they were going to set aside a
fund out of their earnings to present
me with a loving cup. 1t made ashes
come pretty high, but if my discovery
amounted to what l thought it would
every ounce of ashes I secured would
be worth twice its weight in gold, so
[ wasn't losing anything by being "a
be~nefactor. Everything went
beautifully for the first three or four
lays, and to look at those chaps in
heir smoking room, Longing around
'eading, talking or just smoking and
lreaming you would have thought an
elysium had been reached at
asst. but they couldn't stand it. First
kicked on the quality Of the
and then another wanted q
on his chair, and another
Isked for a hammock, and another
lidn't say a word, but sneaked away
two days. and he was fol-
owed by two or three more the next
light. I got extra men to take their
places, but it didn't help the first
omers any, and at the end Of two
weeks I had only four tramps in my
and I couldn't find any COM
amy for them. These four weakened
he following week and my place was
mpty. However, l had enough ashes
0 60 on with my discovery business,
1hich never amounted to much except
0 prove co~nclusively that a tramp is
born vagsbond and iegitimately in
r,-nh1a