There is one more fact which cannot be overlooked--the temptation which the railroads have for a romantic and adventuresome boy. A child possessed of _Wanderlust_ generally wanders for a while, anyhow, but the chance he now has to jump on a freight-train and "get into the world quick," as I have heard lads of this temperament remark, has a great deal to do in tempting him to run away from home. Hoboland is overrun with youngsters who have got there on the railroads, and very few of them ever wander back to their parents. Once started "railroading," they go on and on, and its attractions seem to increase as the years go by. Walking has no such charms for them, and if it were their only method of seeing the world, the majority of those who now keep on seeing it, until death ends their roaming, would grow tired. The railroad, however, makes it possible for them to keep shifting the scenes they enjoy, and, in time, change and variety become so essential that they are unable to settle down anywhere. They are victims of what tramps call the "railroad fever," a malady for which a remedy has yet to be prescribed. * * * * * Can the tramps be driven off the railroads? It was to satisfy my own curiosity in regard to this question, and to find out how successful my employer, the general manager, had been in his attempt to answer it in the affirmative, that I undertook the investigation which I have described. Previous to his efforts to keep tramps off railroads, it had been thought, as he has stated, that it was cheaper to put up with them than to pay the bills which a crusade against them would occasion. It has at last been demonstrated, however, that they can be refused free transportation, with a saving of expense to the company, and with great benefit to the community; and the time has come when the public should demand that all railroads take a similar stand in regard to this evil. If all the companies would take concerted action, in a few years very few tramps, if any, would try to beat their way on trains; an appreciable number would give up tramping entirely, because their railroad privileges are to many the main attraction of the life; a few would try to become professional criminals again, partly out of revenge and partly because tramping on the turnpikes would be too disagreeable; and a large number would take to the highways, where some at least might be made to do farm-work. The reader may take exception to the third possibility, and think that great harm would come of an increase in the professional criminal class; but, as I have said, tramps are really discouraged criminals, and a return to the old life, of which they had made a failure, would only land them in the penitentiary.