That tramps are expensive no one will deny, but how much so it is difficult to decide. I have tried to show that a large number of them eat and wear things which certainly cost somebody considerable money, but a careful census of the vagabond population alone can estimate the amount. No one can tell exactly what this tramp population numbers, but I think it safe to say that there are not less than sixty thousand in this country. Every man of this number, as a rule, eats something twice a day, and the majority eat three good meals. They all wear some sort of clothing, and most of them rather respectable clothing. They all drink liquor, probably each one a glass of whisky a day. They all get into jail, and eat and drink there just as much at the expense of the community as elsewhere. They all chew and smoke tobacco, and all of them spend some of their time in lodging-houses. How much all this represents in money I cannot tell, but I believe that the expenses I have enumerated, together with the costs of conviction for vagrancy, drunkenness, and crime, will easily mount up into the millions. And all that the country can show for this expenditure is an idle, homeless, and useless class of individuals called tramps. FOOTNOTES: [5] In Germany and England the tramps usually eat their set-downs in cheap restaurants or at lodging-houses. They beg money to pay for them, rather than look for them at private houses. [6] It is most interesting to talk with Eastern tramps in the West who are homeward bound. If they have been in the West long, and look rather "seedy," and you ask them where they are going to in the East, they invariably reply: "Gosh! P. A., o' course. We wants to fatten up, we does." And there is no better place for this than Pennsylvania. PART II TRAVELS PART II TRAVELS PAGE I. LIFE AMONG GERMAN TRAMPS 169 II. WITH THE RUSSIAN GORIOUNS 200 III. TWO TRAMPS IN ENGLAND 229 IV. THE TRAMP AT HOME 267 V. THE TRAMP AND THE RAILROADS 291 I LIFE AMONG GERMAN TRAMPS