Hoboland--Gay-Cat Country--The Road--what memories these names bring to mind! Years ago they stood for more than they do now. There were not so many _bona fide_ out-of-works or tramps as at present, and the terms described distinct territories and boundaries. Now, the hang-outs are overcrowded with wandering "stake men," and the real hobo, the "blowed-in-the-glass-stiff," more often than not has deserted the old haunts and built for himself new ones, hidden away in bushes or concealed in woods. I think, too, that the real article, as he existed in my day, is giving way, more and more, to the army of casual workers and itinerant day laborers. Whether he has "squared it" and lives respectably, or whether he has broken again into criminal ranks and is trying once more for the final grand "stake" that is to make him independent and comfortable, I cannot say. It is several years now since I have been on the real Road, in the United States, and I only infrequently look up old acquaintances in cities, where many of them are stationary the year round. The Road of twenty years ago, however, I learned to know during those eight months of travel, as probably few boys of my years and bringing-up ever did know--or will know it. The word Road was used as a generic term for the railroads, turnpikes, lanes and trails which all wanderers, professional and semi-amateur, followed for purposes of travel, "graft" and general amusement. Hoboland was that part of the Road which the "blowed-in-the-glass-stiffs" were supposed to wander over--the highways and byways where the men who would not work and lived by begging alone were found. Gay-Cat Country, as undefined in the geographical sense as was Hoboland, for it stretched all over the United States, was the home and refuge of those tramps who _would_ work on occasions--when winter came on, for instance, and box-cars grew too cold and cheerless. In spring, like the modern "stake" men, they gave up their jobs, and went merrily on their way again, the Road having become hospitable once more. Both Hoboland and Gay-Cat Country dovetailed into each other after a fashion--one "hang out," for example, often had to serve both sets of vagabonds--but the intersecting was almost entirely physical. The same railroads and highways were as open to the Gay-Cats, provided they were strong enough to assert their rights, as to the hoboes--the "hang-outs" also at times; but here the association stopped. The hobo considered himself, and really was, more of a person than the Gay-Cat, and he let the latter know it. Consequently, although both men in a year's time often covered pretty much the same territory, each one called this territory by a different name, and held himself pretty well aloof from the other--the hobo, on account of pride and caste, the Gay-Cat because he knew that he was unwelcome in the "blowed-in-the-glass" circle. To-day, I make no doubt that the Road is