It was useless to argue with him, and we separated, he to join a detachment of the "push" in western New York, and I to continue on my way westward. Since the meeting with Peg I have been back several times in the "push's" territory, and have continued to make acquaintances in it. In the tramp's criminal world it stands for the most successful form of syndicated lawlessness known up to date, and, unless soon broken up and severely dealt with, it will serve as a pattern for other organisations. Whether it is copied or not, however, when the history of crime in the United States is written, and a very interesting history it will be, the "Lake Shore Push" must be given by the historian a prominent place in his classification of criminal mobs. FOOTNOTES: [1] Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. [2] A "Peter-man" is a safe-"blower," and Peter-work is safe-breaking. CHAPTER IX. HOW TRAMPS BEG. It is a popular notion that tramps have a mysterious sign-language in which they communicate secrets to one another in regard to professional matters. It is thought, for instance, that they make peculiar chalk and pencil marks on fences and horse-blocks, indicating to the brotherhood such things as whether a certain house is "good" or not, where a ferocious dog is kept, at what time the police are least likely, or most likely, to put in an appearance, how late in the morning a barn can be occupied before the farmer will be up and about, and where a convenient chicken-coop is located. Elaborate accounts have been written in newspapers about the amount of information they give to one another in this way, and many persons believe that tramps rely on a sign-language in their begging. It is well to state at the outset that this is a false conception of their methods. They all have jargons and lingoes of their own choosing and making, and they converse in them when among themselves, but the reported puzzling signs and marks which are supposed to obviate all verbal speech are a fabrication so far as the majority of roadsters are concerned. Among the "Blanket Stiffs" in the far West, and among the "Bindle Men," "Mush Fakirs," and "Turnpikers," of the middle West, the East, and Canada, there exists a crude system of marking "good" houses, but these vagrants do not belong to the rank and file of the tramp army, and are comparatively few in numbers. It is furthermore to be said that the marking referred to is occasional rather than usual. Probably one of the main reasons why the public has imagined that tramps use hieroglyphics, in their profession is that when charity is shown to one of them the giver is frequently plagued with a visitation from a raft of beggars.