Evening star., 1909-01-24

pTeSSIOn, writes careful student OF tranpS ana
vagrants, that the narrow, Cramped conditions
under which boys often live, without sufficient var1
ETY. and wholesome interests in their lives respon-
sib1e for much of the constant recruiting IN the
ranks of the tramp army 1t is unnatural for young
people to live life of dead monotony, and the boy
who breaks away in sheer desperation, without an
education to equip him for any better life soon
drifts to trampdom and becomes irreclamable to
serious life"
All Have the Tramp Instinct
THIS desire for variety and the instinct for trav
cling about nothing morbid. They are found
in every normal breast; though stronger in some,
of course, than in others. If poor, commonplace
lad happens to have it strongly ne becomes plain,
every day tramp; if talented or wealthy lad has
it in the same degree he becomes explorer like
Stanley and Livingstone and Peary, or a globe
trotter like Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Rudyard
Kiplng and a host of others. Darwin was scien-
tiic tramp, and Huxley. The voyages they
made round the world in the interest of natural
science also voyages for the satisfaction OF
strong tramping instincts The late Josiah Flynt,
himself victim of this instinct, tells us that he has
known men the road . who were tramplng purely
and simply because they loved to tramp" They
had no criminal tendencies, no vicious habits. no
marked taste for liquor or tobacco; but somehow
or other they could not conquer that passion for
rowing They were trampS because they were
lacking in normal self respect and were too much
afraid of work little higher up the scale of human
ity and we have the rovers IN whom ambition and
self respect are not yet completely dead; such, for
example as the takers and quack doctors; higher
still and we have the hard toing seamen and brake
men, who stick to their hazardous and poorly paid
callings because they best satisfy the rowing IN
stinct; and so on up the line through the drummer
the actor the lecturer, the scientist and, to some
extent perhaps, the missionary.
Man is a rowing ANIMAL and In that respect
brother to the fishes of the sea- the birds of the air.
and the beasts of the earth. Civilized man does
not roam about like the Tartars, the Huns, the
Bedouns, Lapps, Gipsies, Wandering Herdsmen,
Indians or even like the medieval knights errant;
but he runs away from home and business and goes
on an excursion, or crosses the pond at every
opportunity he gets, covering more territory IN
few days than his ancestors did In a year.
In England, we are told 1t IS hard to md anyone
whose income is above five six hundred pounds
a year who is not habitually migratory, who does
not frequently visit the Continent In his latest
book H. G. Wells the brilliant and scholarly writer
declares that in the Modern Utopia, which he tries
to picture for us, travel must be in the common
texture of life. To 60 into fresh climates and fresh
scenery to meet different complexion OF humanity
and a different type Of home and food and appa-
ratus, to mark unfamiliar trees and plants and
flowers and beasts, to climb mountains, to the
snowy night of the North and the blaze OF the trop-
ca midday, to follow great rivers, to taste lonel
ness in desert places, to traverse the gloom OF
tropical forests, and to the high seas,wll be
an essential part of the reward and adventure OF
life, even for the commonest people"
Tourist and Runaway
NOV, the point wish to emphasize is this: when
~ Johnny's father packs his grip and purchases
ticket, he calls himself tourist and in SO doing
experiences a considerable expansion of the chest
but when Johnny bravely foots it without these
pensive accessories, which he could enjoy much
as his father if he had them, he is branded loafer
and a runaway. And yet Johnny is his father s
son, and of the two he should do the touring,
for the blood is rushing through his veins like a
mountain stream in early spring and his blooming
young soul is hungerng for freedom and adventure,
for sensations and varied experiences. And
this is true, even though Johnny has been reared
in the most punctilious of homes and trained from
infancy to walk the straight and narrow path.
Listen to the testimony of just such young man
Il cannot recall having ever gone from home with
pleasure; but during my early teens l began to
feel a of oppression from remaining at home.