Arizona republican., 1908-11-10

morocco covered account book and scrap book combined in which he re- cords all his travels, dates, mileage, etc., since 1883, when he began his professional career as a tramp, the home door having been closed against him by virture of similar short jour neys. He was then II years old and Is now 36. His home was in San Francisco, but he now claims Cam bridge Springs. Pa, as his home. that being where he keeps his tombstone with his tramp inscription upon it. To the date of his arrival here he had travelled 547.713 miles and this year he has covered 1O,30S miles, and beat a railroad out of every dollar of it.
 THE BETTER SIDE.
 But there is a better side to every thing, even to the life of A No. 1, and some people in the world may be glad he was a tramp for he has been the means of preventing twenty wrecks, for which he has newspaper clippings and the letters and business cards of railroad presidents and traf- fife officials to show. Various times he has been slowed away in the running gear of a train when the air went wrong and he crawled out to apprise the train men of it. He has boarded running cars and stopped them. Several of the wrecks he pre- vented would certainly have cost great loss of life, and always he re- ceived the commendation of the rail- road officials and sometimes some financial reward. He stops wrecks first to save his own life and sec ondly because it is the only kind of danger he yearns to be hero in. He continues the business well knowing some fatal day will end his career. He has an arm like a prize fighter and a hand like a blacksmith devel- oped by hanging on to the rods.
 More recently he has broken into literature. not so much for the money as the notoriety of it. The Railroad Mems Magazine has his story and an article from his own pen appeared in the September Bohemian. He sleeps anywhere except in bed. If in town he goes to a decent lodging house and sleeps on the floor. This is not antipathy to bed clothes so much as compromise with his asthma, but if he has no honeywell. he is a tramp and all that applies to sleeping, applies to eating.
 If 1t is absolutely necessary, A No. 1 can work, but he won't do it unless he gets his kind of a job which is wood carving or signs or the carving of figures out of potatoes. It is not laziness that keeps him from work for he is all energy. as nervous as a race horse and as lively as a flea, but he can't stay in one place long enough for any other kind of a job.
 A No. 1 says the one thing he will not tell concerning himself is his name. That is his secret and he withholds it from the world out of deference to his family which was once well known in San Francisco. Whether it is now he does not say. For years he sought a reconciliation but finally gave it up, knowing he would never again be able to settle down in one place anyhow. He is of a charitable disposition and has many clippings of his kindness to certain ones in distress. and often he has "panhandled" money for such people. He seldom begs for himself but sells his book when he can, works at carv- ing when he has to and picks his living along from day to day, He has travelled round the world three times and across this country scores of times. One of his prized posses sions which he carries with him is a gold badge given by Richard K. Fox of the Police Gazette for beating his way across the country in eleven days and six hours, winning over a large class of contestants. He swung on the rods again night or two ago and by this time is probably in Los Angeles, unless the fate he has in vited so long has finally caught up with him. Many of his credentials" are given by men well known in the business world who make them brief and in substance as follows: q don't believe in doing anything to encourage tramp, but am personally with A No. l and know he is all O. K"