Chapter 14

Before writing finis to this tale of my life, I desire to supplement what has gone before with a few observations on the habits and customs of tramps, and to comment briefly on one or two other matters.

Where I have used the word "tramp" in this narrative, it is to designate those who depend solely upon begging, peddling, and the theft of food and clothing for a livelihood. Burglars, robbers and other thieves who infrequently associate with tramps are a class about which I know but little. As a rule, they only take to tramping as a means of hiding out temporarily, and though if known they are accepted as members of the clan, the wiser tramps shun their society as much as possible.

Hoboes and gaycats are definitely not tramps. The hobo is a migratory worker who makes use of the same means of transportation as the tramp, as does the gaycat. Gaycats are migratory thieves and beggars who seldom share their spoils with anybody. They are the ones who commit practically all the petty thefts attributed to tramps in the smaller towns and cities, and real tramps despise them.

Since I began to write these reminiscences of my life in Trampdom, I learned that several books on the subject have been published, and I secured those available at the Oakland Public Library and read them. Of those I have read in which the authors claim to have related their actual experiences, only one-- "Tramping with Tramps", by Josiah Flynt--bears evidence that the writer knew much about his subject. Even Mr. Flynt, whose experience antedated mine, was unable to get far below the surface of Trampdom, principally because he was motivated by the sole desire to gain information from which to compile sociological data. One has to be a tramp in body, mind and soul to really know them. With all my experience among them, I do not think that I know them fully. From a psychological standpoint, they are one of the most complex groups of society.

One writer in particular amused me when I read his book relating his experiences in Trampdom. The writer is a distinguished author in other fields, and styles himself "A Tramp Royal." In his book, presumably written in serious vein, he writes in great detail of his life on the road and gives word-for-word accounts of his conversations with various people. What a prodigious memory he must have had! He devotes more than five thousand words to an account of how he outwitted the entire crew of a passenger train--five men--by methods even the dullest-minded of tramps would scorn to use. He tells of running time after time, at station after station, from the front of the train to a point ahead of the engine, where he boarded the blind baggage each time after the shack had of necessity dropped off to catch a coach further back. Even the veriest tyro among tramps, when he finds that the shacks have spotted him trying to ride the blind, knows enough to drop back to the middle of the train unseen, go into a coach, sit down and wait until the train is well under way. He then merely goes to the platform of the car, stands upon the handrail, and climbs to the deck, a comparatively easy feat for an experienced tramp. There is little likelihood that the conductor will spring the tramp in the second or third coach, for the cons start their round of collecting tickets in the first car. Should a shack pass through the car in which the tramp is sitting, it is unlikely that he will be discovered, for shacks rarely notice the passengers and they certainly don't stop in the performance of their duties to count noses. On several occasions when pulling this stunt, I have met shacks in the coaches or on the platforms and by simply meeting them face to face and walking past them as a passenger would do, I have gained my ends. Shacks rarely get close enough to the tramp they are trying to outwit to be able to recognize him even in a brightly lighted coach. The tramp sees to that, for he seldom is out in the lighted spaces where he can be seen and identified.

When a tramp finds he can't ride the blind, he has another ace in the hole besides "swinging under". As the train pulls out, he gets onto the lower step of the front end of a coach, and with both hands clinging to the step handles nearest to the body of the coach he swings his body out of sight alongside the coach until he thinks the way is clear, and then hits the deck. Should a shack pass from one coach to another while the tramp is clinging to the step handle the tramp will not likely be discovered, for the shack is too intent on keeping his hips from being bruised by the handrails as the cars lurch from side to side. Should he be discovered, however, he is in a precarious position, for the shack can kick at him. In that event, the knowing tramp quickly swings himself forward, grabs the step handles of the forward car, and is up and onto the platform before the shack realizes what is happening. They are then on an equal footing, where they can fight it out if necessary. The tramp's chief stock in trade is a nimble wit.

In passing, I will add that shacks are seldom so zealous in keeping tramps off trains that they will risk being injured or killed while doing so. Before the advent of air brakes, shacks carried "Paddy-sticks" (usually sledgehammer handles), which they used to obtain leverage when tightening brakes, or for lifting coupling links into the best position for effective coupling of the cars. The paddy-stick also served as a formidable weapon, but since the advent of air brakes and automatic couplers they are no longer used. Shacks knew that some of their passengers were desperate characters, and when a tramp displayed unusual determination to ride, the wiser shacks let him alone.

But to return to our self-styled "Tramp Royal"-- at one place in his story he tells how tramps on the rods are sometimes killed when the shack lowers a coupling pin, with ball cord attached, between the ends of two cars, and manipulates it in such a manner that it will bounce up and knock the tramp off the rods - this while the train is rolling sixty miles an hour. One infers that the practice of doing so was not unusual on what he terms "bad roads". That story might serve to dissuade a six-year-old child from becoming a tramp, but the absurdity of it should be patent to any thinking person, and I surely cannot be the first to point it out.

To begin with, if a ten- to fifteen-pound coupling pin were used in the manner described, from a train traveling "sixty miles" per hour the strain on the free end of the ball cord would be sufficient either to break the cord or tear it out of the shack's hands -- unless he were foolish enough to wrap it around them, in which case his hands would be broken. One must also consider that on one of its rebounds, the pin will sooner or later lodge momentarily between two ties. The force of the resulting pull on the cord would make the cord holder wish he'd never been born. Further, what is to prevent the coupling pin from lodging under one of the wheels? Nothing. And if it did so, there would be grave danger of derailing at least the rear end of the train, for once a wheel flange is lifted to or above the top of a rail, the least sidesway of the trucks, or the swing of a curve in the rails, would be sufficient to derail the train. Shacks have too much regard for their own lives to attempt anything so foolhardy. Besides, they would be discharged immediately if such a practice were known to their superiors. The whole story is a libel on shacks and a reflection on the intelligence of anybody who reads and believes it.

In another part of this author's tale, he tells how one can get away from anybody who grabs one by the coat collar in such a manner that the grabber's hand or fingers are between the collar and one's body. All one has to do is to twist one's body repeatedly under the grasper's arm, whereupon ". . . the blood will be bursting out of his finger ends, the delicate tendons will be rupturing, and all the muscles and nerves will be mashing and crushing together in a shrieking mess." His method is based on the principle of a tourniquet, but he neglects to tell us that in the meantime hiw own larynx will be flatter than a pancake, his jugular vein will be so surprised it will forget to function, and long before the grabber's hand begins to bleed, the grabee will be unconscious. Another thing he forgot to mention was where in hell he buys his coats, with their superlative buttons and buttonholes. I would like to own one.

At yet another point this author writes that he spent "two weeks" in Washington, D. C., "trying to beg a pair of shoes" without success. Even a gaycat could do better than that; and what tramp would be so wasteful of his precious time, when he would know that all he had to do was to beg a shoestore for a pair of the half-worn shoes that so many customers leave behind when buying new ones? Or, the tramp would stand outside a well-patronized shoestore and mooch for shoes from those men who emerge from the store wearing new shoes and carrying their old ones in a neatly wrapped shoebox. One such might even be so philanthropically minded as to take the tramp into the store and buy him a new pair. It has happened. Failing that, all a tramp would have to do would be to mooch a few homes, where in the closets of most of them one or more pairs of old shoes have been thrown merely because the tenants were too busy to carry them out to the trash can. What a "Tramp Royal" he proved to be!

I can't resist recording this one, where this writer says he walked "forty miles" and " interviewed the housewives of a thousand homes" -- all within a space of "ten" (count them) hours. That works out to an interview every thirty- seven seconds. What a man!

I have not exposed the preposterous nature of the above author's fairy tales because of any "holier than thou" complex, but merely to show that the best and worst of human beings sometimes swindle the public by selling phoney things of one kind or another, and to affirm that the man who once said "all men are liars" knew what he was talking about.

Thirty-five years does not seem to have changed the conditions under which tramps live and thrive, if I can believe an old tramp, "Yonkers" whom I met in San Francisco about two years ago. I was looking at a shoe window display when he mooched me and his face, though lined by age, was so familiar that as I listened to his spiel I had no difficulty in placing him. I asked him if he wasn't the Yonkers Kid and he pretended he didn't understand me. However, when I added that I was Chicago Curly, he admitted his identity. I had met him when he was the punk of the old original Yonkers. He was about eighteen at the time of our first meeting, but except for age his features had changed but little. We had lunch together, and a good two hours' chin over old times. From him I learned that many of my old cronies were dead, including Michael J. and Tony. I gathered that conditions on the road were much the same as when I had left it except that the gaycat population had multiplied tenfold. When I left him I gave him what little money I had with me, and asked him to remember me to any of the old bunch he might meet in his ramblings.

Recently, I read Thomas Minehan's book, "Boy and Girl Tramps of America" and found it most interesting, as it covers a phase of tramp life unknown thirty years ago. In the old days there were but few women on the road and of these, only one--"Kansas City Kate"--was generally known to and accepted as one of them by other tramps. I met her; she was about 30 years old and masculine in build and features. She was not pretty, but what one calls "nice-looking". She wore her hair "chippy" style --cut short and curled with an iron. Her clothing consisted of divided skirts, black shirtwaist, jacket, and shoes, and a cloth cap. She asked no favors of other tramps because of her sex. She did her share of the work, often sewed on buttons and mended the clothes of her companions, and could beg more handouts in an hour than most tramps could in two. On her foraging trips she usually collected a few dimes, which she contributed to the general pot. She wouldn't touch whiteline or beer, but was an inveterate cigarette smoker. She bestowed her favors sparingly upon those whom she knew to be clean and not diseased, but played no favorites--an unusual trait in a woman.

I first met Kate in the jungles at Baker City, Oregon. Michael J., Tony, Portland Red, Washoe and I were sitting around a fire waiting for a mulligan to finish cooking when we heard a noise in the brush and looked up to see a woman standing beside a tree with a large paper bag in her hand. She smiled, rapped on the tree with her knuckles, and asked if she could join us. Washoe was the only one of us who knew her and he jumped to his feet, went up to her, and mockingly offered her his arm as an escort. He introduced her as Kansas City Kate and I was pleased, for I had long wanted to meet her. The bag she carried contained handouts.

During the meal, there was the usual exchange of news regarding the doings of other tramps, and when the tins were cleared and put away, she asked if any of us played cribbage. I was the only one who did, and we played for a couple of hours with a deck of cards and a small cribbage board she fished out of a pocket of her skirt. She asked me if I was a yegg, and when I told her that I was just an ordinary tramp, she seemed surprised and remarked that I was the best dressed tramp she had ever met. She stayed with our group about two weeks, by which time our original five had increased to twelve or thirteen, an unusually large number to be found in one "push". The increase, of course, was due to Kate's presence among us. She sneaked out one night without saying goodbye, and within three days our group was reduced to the original five.

During the time she was with us Kate and I took several strolls by ourselves, and I learned (in confidence) that her monicker "K.C. Kate" was merely a reversal of her real name, Kate Casey. She told me she was born and raised in Los Angeles and had never been farther east than Denver. I did not ask why she was on the road and in all probability she couldn't have told me, any more than I can tell today why I pursued the same life for so long a time.

I met Kate again about a year later. She was with a group of about ten tramps, and told me she was getting ready to "lam". I suggested that we lam together, but she would not consent to that. However, she did tell me where I could find her a week hence, provided I made it appear to be an unpremeditated meeting., because she wanted to preserve the legend of strict impartiality she had so carefully fostered. We took one last stroll together and that was the last time I saw her, for the affair that led to the kidnapping at Pocatello occurred a few days later.

In Edmond Kelly's "The Elimination of the Tramp", published in 1908, he writes of "an army of 500,000 tramps" and claims that in a period of four years, from "1901 to 1905", approximately 24,000 trespassers on railroad property were killed and 25,000 injured, "most of them tramps". Were these figures accurate, our so-called tramp problem would be solved. I am sure that while I was tramping there were no more than ten thousand bona fide tramps in the country, and probably not more than half that number of gaycats.

At the time mentioned, California in the winter was a Mecca for tramps; yet I had tramped the state from one end to the other in a period of four weeks or less, stopping at practically every town and jungle, without encountering more than two hundred tramps. Assuming that I missed six hundred who were either in jail or on the go, that makes only eight hundred tramps in a state notorious for the density of its tramp population. If my estimates are trebled, there remain some 450,000 migratory workers, mistakenly called "tramps".

It is my conviction that this latter class is as essential to the country's economic life as are those who operate our great industries. Without these migrant workers, half the farmers in this country would have to abandon their farms and take to the road. And at this point I find myself moralizing on a subject of which I know practically nothing . . .however, I do want to state that, in my belief, very few of the six thousand trespassers killed annually were tramps. Tramps seldom take chances when boarding a train, and they rarely travel when drunk. Until one learns all the tricks so essential to one's safety when riding forbidden trains, there is grave danger of being killed or maimed for life. One does not hand a boy a loaded revolver and tell him that by pressing the trigger the gun will be discharged, without first giving instructions on how to load the gun; yet I have seen one gaycat show another the rods between the truck and axle on which many of them ride, without cautioning the newcomer never to ride the rear rods of a coach, but to select the front ones instead. The reason is fairly obvious. When riding the front rods one has his back to the track, and comparatively little dust and small rocks are thrown onto the rider; rather, they are sucked away from him. The rear rods present an entirely different picture. When a train is rambling at fifty or sixty miles an hour, over a sandy or rocky roadbed, a vacuum is formed which, together with the unbroken force of the wind generated by the train's swift motion, picks up sand and pieces of rock. These, like the firing of a machine gun, are rained upon the hapless victim facing the barrage. His pant legs are blown to his knees, baring his legs to the pitiless hail. His face and hands are cut by the blinding sand and pebbles, and he is unable to breathe without filling his lungs with a fine dust more suffocating than the smoke of a burning room. It is no wonder that within an hour or so the man's will to live fails him, and he either smothers or deliberately slips off of his seat to escape the punishment he can no longer endure.

In my recent reading of what are presumed to be true accounts of tramp life, written by men who for one reason or another claim to have taken up tramping for a time, I have failed to find a word regarding this ever-present danger of rod-riding to the inexperienced hobo. Real tramps seldom ride the rods, and I venture to say that ninety-five per cent of those whose dismembered bodies are found scattered along the railroad's right of way are hoboes or gaycats who have fallen from the rods; and of the remaining five per cent, most are in the same category and took long chances in boarding a train, or fell from the bumpers when drunk. A few of all classes get killed at times when a train is derailed, but so do members of the crew and a few passengers. The proper way to ride the rods was one of the first things Curly taught me, and when I saw the gaycat showing his companion the rods of a coach I warned him of the rear-rod danger. I almost laughed when I read one of the foregoing authors' comments to the effect that railroad officials complain bitterly of being obliged by law to bury the bodies of the victims of their own mantraps.

So far as I know, little has been written by those with first-hand knowledge regarding the sexual life of real tramps. Havelock Ellis, in his "Studies in the Psychology of Sex," stated that in his opinion fully five percent of all men, or one in twenty, are homosexuals. In Trampdom I believe that one in forty would be nearer the mark for, as has been stated, the majority of perverts are found in the so-called upper classes of society. In Trampdom, the known pervert (and he is always known) is neither shunned nor over-welcomed. Most tramps regard him as an unfortunate person upon whom fate played a scurvy trick by endowing him with the body of a man and the instincts of a woman. At least. he is not condemned for his unnatural desires. Some tramps welcome his attentions, most are indifferent, and a few repulse his advances. Such advances, by the way, are safely made in Trampdom, for tramps never complain to the police; whereas in civil life, the pervert has to be more cautious, lest somebody either blackmail him or denounce him to the authorities.

Most of these homosexual men practice fellatio; there are few pederasts among them. They seem to take a keen delight in gratifying their desires by stealth at night on sleeping men, rather than by open solicitation. Should the sleeper awake during the pervert's ministrations, it would usually be too late to do anything about it; and few cared at that stage, thus the pervert often accomplished his purpose with those who, under other circumstances,would have repulsed him.

In the larger cities tramps encounter these perverts on every hand. They are found in all classes of society, from bellhops to bankers, and are of all races. Like the tramp, they are clannish and have their own hangouts. These are usually in some better-class saloon, in the neighborhood of which they solicit on the streets or in the parks in a discreet and unobtrusive manner. All tramps (and the police) know the location of these hangouts and some tramps seek the perverts there, for the confirmed fellatore will usually pay a dollar or two to the one he fancies.

In addition to the perverts among them, and the prushuns--not punks -- the tramp finds an outlet for his repressed desires in a number of towns where one or more kindly-disposed women may be found who are known to be charitably inclined. I have known tramps to boast of their ability to wheedle prostitutes out of half an hours' free entertainment. I never tried it myself, but I have always known that most prostitutes were considered to be generous givers to the down and out. I can't recall that I ever mooched one except once, when I cut across lots to the back door of a house. I did not suspect the nature of the occupants until I was invited in for a "sitdown". Before I left, the madame gave me four bits and a package of cigarettes - but nothing else.

Some writers on tramp life have assumed that the words "punk" and "Prussian", or "prushun", are interchangeable or synonymous terms. This was not true when I was a tramp. A punk was a boy used solely for the purpose of begging or stealing. A prushun was a boy used for begging, stealing, and as a means of sexual gratification to his jocker. I believe the word "prushun" is a variant of the old terms prunse, prunsing, and prunchon, the first to designate the act itself, and the second and third in the sense that one might say, "So-and -so is good prunsing", or "So-and-so is a good prunchon". As a rule, punks despised prushuns and seldom spoke to them.

A few writers have asserted that it was the custom for jockers to beat their punks and prushuns. I did not find it so. In most cases the relationship was more like that of father and son, and on several occasions I have seen punks display vicious resentment when disparaging remarks were made about their jockers. Most of them were little devils in the fights that occurred infrequently in the jungles or at a hangout.

Within their own ranks, the major offences were: snitching or squealing on one anoher to the police; and the attempt by one tramp to entice the punk or prushun of another tramp to leave his jocker for the enticer. Even if the punk wanted to leave his jocker, he would not be able to do so unless the jocker consented to the transfer. However, incongruous though it may seem, if the favored tramp and the punk ran away together the group would take no action against either of them. It was then up to the deserted tramp to either pursue the runaways or snare himself another punk or prushun. As a punk could be snared at most any town along the line, the latter was the usual procedure.

Stealing from another tramp, or holding out money on one or another of the group, without announcing in advance the reason for the holdout, were likewise serious offences, meriting at least banishment from the particular group with which the offender might be traveling. One reason for holding out on the group which always met approval was in case the holdout was made to provide tobacco, or a mouthpiece (lawyer) for a tramp in jail.

Tramps have an unwritten code of ethics which is more strictly adhered to than the code of any other group I can name. Violation of any of its major tenets is usually followed by ostracism for life, and the offender becomes a lone wolf shunned by every tramp who learns of the unethical conduct. The news spreads by word of mouth and travels fast, for there are always a few tramps who "jump" from coast to coast within a period of two or three weeks. As each group hears the story and passes it on it becomes, like all word-of-mouth messages, grossly exaggerated.

If the offence is committed against a member of the group with whom the group usually associates, each side is given a hearing. The group weighs the evidence and decides the matter in one of three ways. If the charge is sustained, the luckless tramp is usually told that a train is leaving in half an hour, bound in the direction opposite to that in which the group is traveling. If the group decides that the defendant was wrongly accused, his accuser is given the same sentence unless extenuating circumstances can be shown. If the group is unable to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused, both accused and accuser are admonished to drop the matter and not to bring it up at any future time, nor to mention the case to others outside the group. Usually, both parties to the dispute shake hands and forget about it. Most tramps, being clever liars themselves, can detect the slightest sign of falsehood in a statement made by either party in question.

Another major tenet of Trampdom's code of ethics involves relations with the "outside world". Rape or attempted rape, drunk or sober; destruction of property or premises where a tramp has been refused food or clothing; and abusive or insulting language to any citizen who refused help; the stealing of "gooseberries" (clothing) from a clothesline, except in the larger towns and cities; all are major offenses. In brief, the doing of any act that would tend to make the citizens of a place hostile to tramps as such; for many tramps spend over ninety percent of their time in the smaller communities, and such acts make life more precarious for them.

I am not sure Emily Post would approve of Trampdom's simple jungle etiquette. Tramps are scrupulously clean in the handling of their food, both before and after cooking. When a meal or mulligan is to be served, newspapers are spread on the ground. On them are placed bread, broken into chunks; raw onions, apples, tomatoes, roasting ears (according to season); and what-have-you for desert. If a mulligan constitutes the sole entree, it is dipped out with a ladle made from an empty tomato can, around which a piece of heavy wire has been twisted or to which a stick of wood has been nailed. The self-appointed ladler, usually an older tramp, does his best to be impartial in dividing the choicer tidbits like chicken. The older tramps and any newcomers who may be present are served first, and if one expresses a preference for lean or fat meat the ladler tries to comply with the request. He uses a piece of wire or a sharpened stick to spear pieces of meat and when the ladle is full, he pours it into another can of the same size and hands if to the nearest tramp, who in turn passes it on to the one whom the ladler has designated as the one to be served first.

The tramp who is served first invariably proffers his can to those sitting on either side of him, and the offer is invariably declined with thanks; whereupon he helps himself to a piece of bread and proceeds to dunk out a part of the liquid, using a small stick to scoop the solid particles into his mouth--in much the same manner as the Chinese use chopsticks. For second helpings, each one helps himself. There is always more than enough, but the "After you, my dear Alphonse" spirit prevails. When the meal is over, all hands help in washing the utensils which, when clean, are hidden in the underbrush with the bottoms turned up. Insofar as their own class is concerned, there is general observance of the Golden Rule.

Lexicographers, I am told, are unable to agree on the derivation of the word "hobo". Some seem inclined to believe that, like Topsy, it "just growed". One offers a gratuitous insult to tramps by defining a hobo as "an idle, shiftless, wandering workman, ranking scarcely above the tramp. "I disagree. From the standpoint of morality and the benefits conferred on Society, the hobo certainly outranks the tramp; but from the standpoint of intelligence and resourcefulness, the average tramp ranks many degrees above the average hobo.

However, all this is beside the point. I believe that the term "hobo" is derived from the words "Oh" and "Bo". When I was a tramp, the most common and frequently used salutation among tramps was the term "Bo". It was also frequently used as an apellation as, for example, in "Hello, Bo, which way are you going?" or "Pass the whisky, will you, Bo?" Tramps rarely called each other by their known names or monickers. When hailing a tramp from a short distance it was customary to prefix the term "Bo" with "Oh", as in "Oh, Bo, don't forget the salt and pepper".

Probably the most common occurence in which the terms were combined was when seeking a place to doss at night. Most tramps travel in couples or small groups as a measure of self-protection, and should one be ditched at night at any place that offered cover, such as a string of empty box cars on a siding, he would try to locate companions by stopping beside each boxcar door and calling "Oh, Bo". He would thus avoid the labor of climbing in and out of a number of cars, for it was the custom of tramps to respond to the call in some manner.