Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond LifeFlynt, Josiah
History
Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life
Flynt, Josiah
Tramps
We lived in the "home" in the daytime, however, and were on the watch
for everything of interest. As for the "sweet charity" of Hull, I
learned that most of the moochers were satisfied when they could beg a
"bob" (shilling) a day besides "scoff," and some seemed happy on
fourpence a day. The old men and the young boys were most successful in
begging. There were vagrants of middle age, and some much younger, who
did fairly well; but they lacked the determined spirit of the
grandfathers and the kids. I had noticed this before in America, and
suppose it is because the very old and the very young tramps realize
that they must rely on their begging for subsistence, while the vagrants
of twenty-five and thirty know that they have an alternative in work
when luck goes against them, and are consequently less in earnest.
My companion and I, being somewhat better dressed than most of the
lodgers, were objects of considerable interest. Our hats, peculiarly
American in style, were the main curiosities. They proclaimed our
nationality wherever we went. Never in my life have I been so bothered
with stares. One day I took off my hat in a small crowd of people, and
asked a bystander if he saw anything peculiar about it. He admitted that
he did not; but still the citizens of Hull guyed me unmercifully, and,
for that matter, so did their countrymen elsewhere.
[Illustration: AN ENGLISH TYPE.]
I had been accustomed in America to dress fairly well when tramping, and
the very clothes I was wearing in England had seen service at home and
in Germany also; therefore I was quite unprepared for their comical
reception by the British. There was only one man in the Dog's Home who
appreciated our style, and he was a countryman not so very long out of
America. He was a most interesting fellow; had been both workman and
tramp at home; but one day bade good-by to Hartford, Connecticut, and
decided to go abroad. He came to Glasgow on a cattle-ship, expecting to
get a return pass on his arrival, but was deceived, and put ashore with
only four shillings in his pocket. Naturally he was angry, and made up
his mind to see Scotland, England, and Wales at the expense of
Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen. It was a courageous thing to do, if
not a moral one; and, perhaps, it was not so very wicked, for his one
ambition seemed to be to see the Tower of London. He had been "on tramp"
about two months, had had some interesting experiences, and had become
somewhat opinionated. Hearing that he had been in Scotland, I was
interested to know whether he liked the country and had learned any of
the tramp dialect that one might need there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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