The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-01-27
TIE EXPERT TRRMP'S ART

more interesting Inan wnen sitting
around some hang-out campfire, discuss
! ing their notions of the kind of ghost
stories that go best with different sorts
of people. Indeed, the bulk of their time
Is passed in conferences Of this charac-
ter. Each man, like the passionate gam
bier. has system, and he enjoys "chew-
Ing the rag about its intricacies The
majority of the systems are founded on
the tramp's knowledge of women TAX
ing. the country by and large, he sees
more of women on his begging tours than
of men, and it is only natural that his
theoretical calculations should be busted
mainly with women. Some tramps be-
seve they can tell to a nicely what
blonde woman will give In excess OF a
brunette, or vice versa, and the same of
a large woman in contradistinction to 4
small one. Much of their theorizing in
these matters is as futile as is the gam
bler's estimate of his chances Of luck
but certain it is that after long appren-
tlceship they become phenomenally ac-
curate in sizing up people; and it is he
who can correctly size up the greatest
number of people at first glance and
adapt himself to their peculiarities, that
comes out winner in the struggle.
Next in Importance to the ability to apa
praise correctly the generous tendencies
of his patrons, and to modulate his voice
and to concoct stories according to their
tastes, comes the trampS' clothes and the
way he wears them. 1t probably seems
to most persons that the tramp never
changes his clothes and that he always
looks as tattered and torn as when they
hoppen to see him, but the expert has
almost as many changes as the actor.
Some days he dresses very poorly; this
is generally the case in winter and. on
other days he looks as neat and clean as
the ordinary business man. It all de-
ponds on the weather and the beat he has
chosen for the days work Every morn
ing before he starts out on his tour,
he takes a look at the weather and de-
cides upon his beat. The beat selected.
he puts on the 'togs" which he thinks
suit the weather, and away he goes for
better or for worse. In New York city
there are probably a hundred scientific
beggars of this character. and they live as
we'll as does the man with a yearly in
come of $4,000.
Sunday is the dismalest day in the week
to the average tramp, the beggar who is
content with his three meals day and
place to lie down in at night. But few
men who go on tramp for the first time
expect that Sunday is going to be any
different from any other day in the week.
They usually reach the road on q week
day after debauch, and they find that
their soiled clothes and general unkempt
condition differentiate them In public
thoroughfares very little from hundreds
Of workingmen. No policeman worries
them with suspicious glances, and in large
cities they pass unchallenged even in the
dead of night Indeed, they receive SO
little notice that they wonder how they
had ever imagined that outcasts were
such marked human beings.
Then comes their first Sunday. They
get up out of their hayloft, or wherever
it may be that they lay. down the night
before, prepared to look for their break
fast Just as they did on the day before.
and after brushing off, their clothes and
washing themselves at some pump or
public faucet, they start out. In small;
town they feel that something is wrong
before they have gone block and by ?
o'clock in large towns they decide to go
without their breakfast, if they have not
yet got it, A change has come over the
earth: they seem out Of place even to
themselves, and they return through
back streets to their lodging houses or
retreats on the outskirts Of the town, sim
cerely regretting that they are travellers
of the road.
A number of men in the world have to
thank this Sunday nausea that they are
to-day workers and not tramps. The lat
ter feel the effects of it to the end of
their days; it is as unacceptable as death,
but, like certain seafaring men who never
get entirely free of sea sickness and yet
continue as sailors, so old vagabonds
learn to expect and endure the miserable
sensations which they experience on the
first day Of the week. These sensations
are due to the remnant of manhood
which is to found in nearly all tramps.
The bulk of them are for all practical
purposes outcasts, but at breakfast time,
on Sunday morning, they have emotions
u nm lor
them credit for.
1t was my fate, some years ago, to be
one of a collection of wanderers who had
to while away a Sunday in a dugout on a
bleak prairie in Western Kansas. We
had nothing to eat or drink and prac-
tically nothing to talk about except our
DISMAL lot. Toward nightfal1 we got to
discussing in all earnestness the mis-
crableness of our existence, and I have
always remembered the remarks of a fell
low sufferer whom we called West Vir-
ginia Brown. He was supposed to be
the degenerate scion of a noble English
family and was one of the best educated
men I had met in Hoboland. He took
little part in the general grumbling, but
at last there was lull in the conversation
and he spoke up
II wonder" he said, "whether the good
people who rest on Sunday, go to church
and have their best dinner in the week,
ledll1e now lie IS turned upside down for
us on that day. There have always been
men like us in the world, and it is for us
as much as for any one, SO far as I know,
that religion exists, and yet the day in
the week set apart for religion is the
hardest Of all for us to worry through
Was 1t, or wasn't it the intention that
outcasts were to have religion? The
way things are now we are made to
look upon Sunday and all that it means
with hatred, and yet I don't believe that
there's any one in the world who tries
to be any squarer to his pals than we
do. and that's what 7 call being good
The last the road knew Of Brown he was
serving five years sentence in Cana
dian limbo. His lot cannot be pleasant,
put methinks that on Sunday, at least,
he is glad that he is not outside. New