The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-01-06
SOME TRAMPS DO DIE.
RAILROAD FREIGHT TRAIN THE
CHIEF EXECUTOR.

Many HOBBS Killed Accidentally
Fifty Percent of These Wanderers
With Their Boots On-The Barrel
House Victims Most Ptful.
Where is the tramp of yester year?
1t is nearing the time when an in
teresting possibility of the census
bureau might be tried out What has
happened to the tramp crop which
was gathered in the great cities with
the approach of warm weather and
scattered to the four winds, only to
return with the migration Of the birds?
How many Of the population hit
ting the pike" are dead since the
season opened? How many were
found by the demands of the western
harvesters and thrashers? How many
are seeking out their old metropolitan
haunts, to lie in a state OF semi-hiber-
nation till spring?
In the observation of the police and
of the coroners' Offices throughout the
country, the tramp family as risk
industry threaten to the toiler 1t is
more dangerous to seek the byways
of the idler than to harness up to the
machinery of toll Fifty percent OF
these roadsters die accidental deaths
of one kind or another; 20 percent die
of exposure and privation; 10 percent
are found dead in barrel houses, an
other 10 percent die in almshouses,
while another 10 percent are unac-
counted for.
In accidental deaths the railroad
freight train is OF first magnitude.
More tTamps die under the wheels or
in the shock OF collision, or from a
train jumping the rails at switch
than from any other one cause. There
is seldom a collision involving a
through freight in a general smashup
that does not number a tramp victim.
He is universal as a corpse. 1t is rare
that he is reported among the injured.
1.-THE reason for this is that he near
ly always has to take the dangerous
position on train" explained an old
railroad man. Nearly every tramp
that goes out Of Chicago or comes into
it rides on the bumpers of freight
train or on the trucks of the pas
senger. In either position a wreck of
any magnitude means death to him.
ut is not necessary always to have
the wreck, either. Sometimes there is
ice on the bumpers, and there are
times when the tramp on the truck
goes to sleep, as we have had reason
to suspect. A fall in either case
means death almost without ques-
ton. In times past trainmen who had
been worried by these insistent dead
heads would throw them off a train
with little conjunction. 1t is dan
gerous business. however. for cases
have been taken to the higher courts
and decisions rendered that a train
must be stopped and the tramp put off
with all the consideration that would
be due a passenger"
Roads Expect His Death.
AS indicating just how common is
the tramp funeral in connection with
railroading the railroads all over the
country in their rules and regulations
deal with him as a possible corpse
on their hands. One of the great
roads out of Chicago has this to say
of the genus as it infests rolling stock
and the company's right of way:
"If any trGmps are killed or injured
in stealing rides ON trains or in walk
ing on the tracks turn them over to
the town authorities We pay nearly
100000 year as taxes, and are
just as much entitled to have protec-
ton as are individuals, and to have
persons who are tresDassers and who
are injured through their own neg
ligence taken care Of by the town or
county But if the authorities will not
take care of them don't let them lie
in the sSTeets-take care Of them I'M
til some proper arrangement for their
care can be made"
Even where a tramp is killed on the
road between stations this company
instructs its men to pick up the body,
regardless Of the superstitions about
the coroner, and take the body to the
nearest station, only if possible not
to take it out of the county.
Second to the accidental deaths on
the rail are the accidents due to the
burning of barns and outhouses in
which tramps who smoke take shelter
In the course Of a year scores Of these
peripatetic ones go to sleep in the hay
of barn loft and their ashes are sort
ed out in the morning. Nothing will
that tramps have been sleeping in a
distant barn or crib. He is not afraid
of possible thefts; his fear is of the
tramp's matches and the tramps pipe.