Year: 1878

ing the lilies of human life, and strongly
opposed to toil and never condescending
to spin.


What shall be done to mitigate the
evil? How can the tramp nuisance be
abolished? How much longer musl we
patiently suffer and give our substance
to feed this shiftless, floating population
These questions, pertinent at all times.
are particularly so when the city hives
are swarming and the country has to
bear the onus of the burden.


Among the various plans that have
been tried, none appear to have reached
the root of the evil. Work-houses have
been used by the tramp rather as places
of temporary refuge, than been looked
upon as prisons; used when interested
motives 50 dictated, and avoided at pleas
ure, or at best simply driving from one
locality to another. The vagTant act is
not looked upon with any dread by the
professional tramp. The few days of in
earceration serve as rest and break to
the general monotony. Anything suits
hum but responsibility, labor or fore
thought; to them he is constitutionally
opposed.


Perhaps arrest, imprisonment and
forced hard labor to all who have adopt
ed the life of tramp, would be the
surest way of ending the matter; but the
want of system, of uniformity of action,
has thus far nullifed any good that
might have arisen from it. For a single
community to adopt stringent laws is
useless save for itself, unjust to others
and increases their burdens. There
must be general action. The law that
proves available in one locality, must be
extended to all-must be universal in its
working. Driving the tramp from one
region to another, does not in the least
do away with the eVil-simply tempor-
ICES with it The same strong hand that
is raised in Maine must be felt in GeOr-
gia; New York must aid Illinois, and
Virginia must second California. The
tramp must be taught that change Of lat
itude does not in the least lessen his la
bility to arrest and punishment; that by
slipping over geographical boundary
line he does not escape Argus eyes and
stone walls and iron bars, and-it may
come to that-the treadmill. And there
must be no lingering delay, or technical
loopholes of escape. The penalty must
follow swiftly upon the heels of trans
gression. The law must be one reaching
to all portions of the land alike, and if
States cannot or will not act in the mat
ter, then the general government should
take it in hand.


1t must come to this, or something
equally decisive. There is no longer any
excuse for the bearing, and the more it
is neglected, the more the fungus growth
upon society increases; the more the
pestilential, parasite plants suck out and
fatten upon the blood belonging to 9TH
ers. And in view of these facts, in view
of the urgent necessity of the case, why
should there be any temporizing, any
delay? We must either live at the
mercy of tramps, or they must be taught
that even as they SOW, so shall they reap;
that food and shelter and warmth and
clothing come only by honest labor; that
the day of promiscuous giving is past;
that if they will not willingly work they
will be made to do so; in short, that the
tramp, tramp, tramp by shiftless and
dishonest vagrants who not in strikes
and glory in confagrations has come to
an end.