The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-15
From the Washington Herald.

N VII times have fallen upon the lo) poor old tra- ss.mers. those - salty wanderers, most of them flying the blood-red ensign of England at their stern to cheer the eyes of those af- ficted with wanderlust, harbored in all the stray ports of the world. It is they whom Kipling made to sing:
 we've fioundered off the Texel
 Awash with sodden deals,
 We've slipped from Valparaiso
 With the mortimer at our heels;
 We've ratched beyond the Crossets
 That tusk the southern pole,
 And dipped our gunnels under
 To the dread Agulhas roll
 Only to those men who have wandered far with the lust of adventure in their souls do these names, of drear out-of- the-way places of the world, mean any thing. But to the men who know "the well-plowed, windy sea-" these names will conjure up visions of strange-smell- ing ports, whose savor still fingers in the nostrils ports untouched by the mag nif1cent liners, but where the ocean 1TdInpS nave dlWdyS lOulid d WtiSObSs
 But now 1t seems the trade has fallen off, and in New York harbor alone there lie 50 or 60 of the weary wanderers, straining idly at rusting cables, without charters or hope of getting cargoes
 It is not that the commerce carried in tramp steamers has fallen off in Amer ican ports alone; word comes that in every large harbor of the world these wanderers of the sea are at enforced rest, waiting, Micawber-like, for some thing to turn up."
 Beyond all outer charting
 They've sailed where none have sailed" ," And for the time, at least, they sail no more. We have arrived at the truth voiced by the late Collis P. Huntington, when he said, The world is oversteam- cred" The agents for the tramps are In a quandary what to do; the only thing seems to be to put the vessels out or commission, pay off the crews, and let the ocean tramps lie with empty holds and cold fires, lapped by the eternal tides, until good times come again.
 These ocean tramps are the auxiliary commerce carriers of the Seven Seas. What cargo is left over from the float ing palaces these dingy, but plodding, vessels carry. They go, too, into the ports that the "big fellows disdain You shall find them braving the shifting cur rents of the Hoogly; dropping their rusty anchors in the waters of the Yangtse; of ha ma gravely dipping their tattered ensigns to the Statue of Liberty as they turn sea- ward from New York, or coughing nois- fly through the yellow fog of the Thames, where so many of them had their birth. The~tramp steamer is a favorite invest ment of British capital, and in good times it pays handsome return. Their crews arc not trim and alert like those of other vessels, but like the ships themselves are tired wanderers of many lands. im- patient of restraint, who can say that something in my cad upset 1t
 all,
 Till I 'ad dropped whatever twas for
 good
 An out at sea- be'eld the dock lights die. An met my mate-the wlnu that tfaihpS
 the world"
 An English newspaper, commenting on inc idleness of the large number of ocean tramps. says, 'The striking down of the tramp steamship trade amounts to na- tional calamity" and it undoubtedly does. It comes, perhaps. from overproduclion' for tramps are cheap to build ana cheap to maintain; or it may come rom tenn porary slackening of trade There is some hone that when the American harvest is ga adhered the souls of these old tramps .,,l, ,ibrate once more to the humping