Year: 1877

A Suggestion rs to the Method ot Dealing


with the summer Rambler


The New York Herald says: City


people, as a rule, know very little about


the tramp. To them he is an unpleas.


ant person who in the winter time crowds


the police stations Mt night, begs from


door to door during the day, ard in the


early summer weeks takes possession OF


the seats in the squares and parks, to


the disgust of mothers, nurses, lovers


and children. They read sometimes in


the newspapers about his lawless and
desperate exploits, and, not however as


often MS could be desired, they are told


of his death as he was about to perpe.


trate some horrible crime. The tramp


is, comparatively speaking, law-nbid-
ing citizen in the large centers of popu-
lation. He breads policeman's club
and he has horror of a term in the
penitentiary. He will steal when he
gets good chance, but he rarely goes
higher than petit larceny. The tramp
presents an altogether different side of
his nature in the country. He is the
terror of the women and children, a
roaming vagabond, ready to commit any
crime if time and opportunity serve his
purpose. To the lonely dwellers on
scattered farms he is always thief and
possibly murderer. To men he is
meek, humble, submissive. With wo-
men he is bold, insolent, and, if he
knows thew are unprotected, brutal.
How to escape him, what to do with
him, is the great problem in the country
districts.


Before an evil, large or small, can be
effectively eradicatel it must be first un-
derstood. In dealing, therefore, with
the tramp question it is all important to
know that these strolling outlaws and
vagabonds are banded together in an
organized body whose primary object is
to prey upon society. They have their
seasons of coming and going, of appear
ancc and disappearance. They hav
dstricted the States and sections of
country in which they travel as accu-
rately rs the internal revenue bureau or
the collectors of taxes. They have signs
and signals, which are so much Greek to
those not belonging to their guild, but
perfectly Ineligible to one another.
Mysterious chalk and charcoal marks ON
fences, doorposts and crossroads tell
whom and what to avoid, where the
shotgun gives warm reception or some
soft-hearted dupes may be found. In
fact, the brotherhood of tramps is on
established fact, and must be dealt with
rs such if we desire to be rid of it. The
evil, SO far from decreasing, is increas-
ing and calls for the sternest measures
of repression. Different State Legisla.
lures have already enacted laws on the
subject, different towns have taken it in
hand, and, in measure, saved them
selves from the annual summer incur
sions of these unwelcome visitors. But
what is needed is concert of action. The
only effective way that has been discov-
cred of dealing with the tramp is to make
him work for what is given him. No work
no pay soon drives him from house or
locality. The unlucky pioneer leaves
behind him the warning to his fellows.
Some of the smaller towns in New Jer-
sey have tried this plan with abundant
The tramps were fed and
lodged, but next day made to give an
equivalent in SO much work, and in a
short time they disappeared. A week in
The county Jail is looked upon by some of
them as rather joke than punishment.
It gives them needed rest and insures
them something to eat. The true policy
is to put them to work. That is the So
luton of the tramp question.