Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-08-08
TRAMP 27 YEARS.
Extols the Life-"All Novelty and
 Mind is Free From Care."

IAtolS tuc Lhie- All NoNcuy 0hu
 Mind is Free From Care"
 St. Louis, Aug. Son the way from everywhere to anywhere, Jack Dalton, 'fioater" and champion tramp printer of the world" passed through St. Louis.
 Dalton is forty-six years old. For twenty-seyen years he has been a derelict, floating wherever the winds of chance blew him. He has been around the world several times, is yet drifting, and expects to drift as long as he lives. He is tramp because he likes the life.
 "Tramping is the most beneficial and healthful life there is, he says. Dalton is an Irishman. Anyone might tell that by the humorous, laughing expression of his face.
 He was in his shirtsleeyes when he arrived here. He wore an old battered straw hat. The collar of his shirt was turned down at his neck, and his duck trousers that once were white were almost black.
 Would you rather tramp than settle down and be decent?" he was asked.
 Would I? Why of course would. The tramp is the only real aristocrat. He has no boss. He sleeps when he likes to. He eats when he feels hungry. When he is tired of one place he gets up and goes. His life is full of change and novelty. It is all new and inter- esting. He hasn't care. Now isn't that better than tying yourself to one place and being a slave to business as you are?"
 He said he had a good education and that after he had learned the printers trade and had worked at il a while he became a philosopher and decided to live by his wits.
 I'm what you might call mis- cellaneous character" he said. I'm the nearest approach to the wander. ing minstrel of the middle ages that you could find in these days. I am a professional story teller in my own way. Wherever go the people are sorry when leave. You see I have been all over the world. l never forget thing and I'm loaded with anecdotes and folks are glad to feed me and give me all can drink in return for my entertainment.
 Oh, you drink, do you?"
 Drink? way I haven't been sober in years. Whiskey has pro. 'longed my life. I drink it all the time, and drink it straight, without water or chasers. travelled a year and a half with Francis Murphy, the great temperance lecturer. He used me as a terrible example. Fact, assure you. stayed with him because I got drunk every day and then in the meeting l would get up and make spieI and sign the pledge. But I always broke it the next morning. It was great.
 I've been up against it all, the rough, the smooth, the slick and all In elocution I don't take a back seal from any one. am the onl. American that ever made a home rule speech in Ireland.
 II made it in a blacksmith shoI in Wicklow when I was such hi that John Moore, a man who had made his fortune in the gold fields of Australia, took a liking to me and kept me in his house for si, months. That's what education and wit will do for a man. Oh, tell you I've put my education ant experience to good use"
 Why are there so many tramp! in this country?"
 Because tramping is such fint life. Take me, now; I'm pioneer and an adventurer. always want ed 10 travel to some place and haven't found it yet. I've beer haunted from one place to another all my life, and I'll keep 1t up til I go back to mother earth. Once in Birmingham, England. I walked up and down the docks debating fl my own mind whether I'd go tC London for the summer or go tC Chicago for ;he worlds fair. I de cided to go to Chicago, and in two WSeks was tneTe.
 How did you get there?"
 " That's a part of my trade I car travel anywhere in the world as fast almost as If paid my way. was ir Oklahoma when the strip was open ed; and again when Edward wa: crowned; I saw the funeral of Ceci Rhodes in South Africa; came across thesPaeiic ocean on the same steamer with K!pling; I was in Calcutta dur, ing the famine and managed to bef good meal or two every day; I wal in Havana during the spanish-Ameri can war. ...
 Were weak. poor mortals. all o us. and are controlled by a power higher than us, and we can't hell what we are. and that's fact. Don't you doubt it. It was cut out for me to be a tramp. and l am one, and couldn't be anything else if I tried
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