The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-05-09
OUR ARMY OF TRAMPS.

daily papers referred last week to the great army
of tramps which is becoming a serious menace to
the peace and safety of many sections of the United
States. Civilized communities have had. from the
beginning, to deal with this human pest. In the life
of Count Runford. who the friend of the king
| and virtual ruler of Bavaria, told i'll most
interesting chapter that, in his time, the country
was swarming with beggars and tramps, and of the
methods he employed to suppress them.
In the large towns beggary was organized
imposture insoent, clamorous persistent The
rural districts were overrun with tramps of all
ages and every nationality, who levied contribu-
tions. robbed, and tyrannzed everywhere; and not
only their impudence and clamorous importantly
were boundless, but to the counts own words.
they had recourse to the most diabolca arts and the
most horrible crimes in the prosecution of their
Infamous trade. All the regular machinery for the
repression of vagrancy was unavang. The peo-
pie were disheartened Industry we'll nigh par
alyzed by the parasitic multitude, and the honest
peasantry had become so corrupted by bad example
that they would leave their work in the fields to beg
of travellers on the highway Beggary had become
so common and customary that it no longer seemed
shameful or Infamous
Yet the whole system fell in day when at
tackled by the counts resolute will and sterling
sense His remedy was work, fairly rewarded, 5,
presented as to make industry as attractive as pos
sible but vigorously insisted on. His plan for
housing. feeding and employing the beggar class
quietly perfected; then, the first day of
January. 1870, every beggar was arrested and set
to work.
The law was no ideness, no begging. no dirt
or debauchery; but work for all, good food, kind
treatment, and instructions in the ways of honest
living. In one day the plague of beggary was
stopped And it was not long before the majority
learned to prefer the comfort, decency and re
spectability of honest industry to their former
squalor. dleness, debauchery and crime. And the
experiment paid financially.
Count Rumford's report of the experiment.
written after it had been five years in operation,
shows that it had not only banshed beggary and
effected an entire change in the manners, habits
and appearance of the class which had been so
abandoned and degraded but that it had made them
The saving effected in cutting off
a great source of crime was beyond estimate.
In every part of the western and intermountair
states, especially in railroad towns and within
walking distance of our chief cities an order of
things is growing up the precise counterpart of that
which the count found in Bavaria The tramp is
everywhere, and the country people begin to look
upon him as an inevitable infiction, less danger
BUS when fed and sheltered than when hungry and
at large Refuse them food and your hen roost pays
he penalty. Deny them bed in the barn, and they
set it fire. They travel in gangs and dispense to
orage levying contributions right and left. Their
'agrant life suits them; and miserable as they seem
o be, no proffer of honest wages for honest work
will induce them to leave the road Every season
heir number increases, and competition only in
reases their audacity. Unless the evil is boldly
ealt with, it will soon become as intolerable as it
vas in Bavaria.
No method of treatment involving large prelim-
nary outlay for workshops, concert of action, or
central authority can be looked for here; we need |
lot one, but ten thousand Rumfords. Every town
must apply its remedies; nevertheless. it would
lot be hard to devise plan by which the whole
ystem of tramping could be as quickly broken up
S it was in Bavaria and that without taking the
ramps from the roads they love so dearly
Any town naugurate the plan by enacting
nd enforcing regulation to this effect: Fix the
enalty for begging-that is. professional begging
at ten days labor the highways for each Of
ense; there is no danger of failing demand for
hat sort of labor for the next fifty years. Give
very citizen the power to make arrests for va
rancy; and for every ten days labor by the party
0 arrested, credit the person making the arrest
18th five days toward the working out his road
Ak. For his labor, give the tramp decent board
nd lodging and from 10 to so cents day as wages.
ccording to his efficiency. Let such law be rig
rously executed and in little while we will have
etter roads and fewer tramps The honest seekers
II work would suffer less under such system than
ley do now when they apt to be COMPOUNDED
it'll professional beggars, who are always in search
a job somewhere else. If seriously in need of
ork and money, the temporary tramp would sim
~ apply to the road master, who would never be
ithOnt emnlnYment TO rive and Gft,, aA....