The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-07
DRIFTERS IN The FAR EAST.
AMERICANS WHO WANDER ALL
OVER THE PACIFIC.

Fhe Highest Grade Tramps in tho World
Many OF Them Clerks and Shorthand
Men and All Well B~ehaVed-They Rove
TIL They Fin Just what They want.
WASHINGTON, Oct. CT came across
several scores Of the highest grade tramps
In the world on thisl last trip" said an agent
OF che Departments Of Commerce and Labor,
who recently returned from a tour Of Japan
and China, where he investigated market
conditions in the interest OF American manu-
features. They're not tramps in the true
sense Of that word, but just drifters.
They are well behaved young Americans
Impregnated with the rowing spirit. The
great majority OF them are clean, decent,
unusually competent fellows who work for
good salaries most of the time and who do
most Of their drifting with money in their
pockets.
"They all settle down sooner or later
somewhere in the Orient or among the
Pacific islands, but not until they've found
just about the thing they want. Some OF
them keep up their drifting for rs much ais
twenty years.
These men are clerks and shorthand
men for the most part, and a great many
OF them are from New York city. San
Francisco was the starting point Of most
OF them, and Honolulu generally the first
jump Of he mainland. "
-One Of them whom | met in Yokohama
got sick OF his job in New York in 1890, He
was then %, and be was a stenographer in
O New York steamship office, earning SIS
or SIS a week. He had a couple of hundred
dollars saved and he decided to throw up
his place and travel as far West as he could
without swimming.
THAT brought him up in San Francisco,
where within t~wenty-four hours he got a
stenographer's job In the Office OF a Pacific
steamship company. Pretty soon he. tossed
his Job In San Francisco and rode down to
Honolulu without having anything in sight.
Two hours after landing in Honolulu he had
q sob with the interisland steamship com
pany as shipping clerk at $3.50 a month.
sThe work wasn't easy, and after a few
months he went up on the Island OF Hawaii
and took a Job as timekeeper Of a big
sugar plantation at the same salary. Visit
ing Honolulu one day the purser Of one
OF the Australian steamers just in tipped
him of that a big English shipping firm
in Apia, Samoa, wanted a shipping clerk
and shorthand man in the worst way, and
he went down to Samoa on the nsxk
Australian steamer headed south. -
He got the job and stuck there for Z
year, picking up, in addition TO his $3.50 q
month, quite a sizeable lot OF change on
the side, writing typewriter letters for
other Arms in ApiR after his regular Office
hours, which weren't long. From Apia
he moved down to Manila by way of Hong
Kong, where he went to work for another
big shipping firm at $50 a month gold.
He stuck there for three years, and then
firing Of the climate he went back to Homo
lulu, where he got his old job back as
timekeeper. After a year, or so OF that
be went TO Papeete, Tahiti, with a firm OF
cochineal and Copra shippers. But Tahiti
didn't suit him, and he went TO Ceylon on
ship that had put in at Papeete.
A Ceylon he got work as .~bookkeeper
with the main firm engaged in tho pearl
fishing industry. He hung on to that Job
until he'd seen all he cared to see OF the
Cingalese, when he vent to Java and got
mother timekeeper's job. this. time on a
coffee plantation. Thence he moved M 10
Japan. where be went TO work as shipping
CLERK Tor one OF the big JaPanese art goods