Winder weekly news. (Winder, Jackson County, Ga.) 18??-1909, December 31, 1908, Image 18

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

ABOUT REAL TRAMPS lgnoranc3 of Public Regarding Them, by One Who Knows. HOBO IS SIMPLY A TOURIST. H* Work* Hi* Way Hero and Then and Take* In Scenery and Not a Few Adventure* as Ho Goes, Says Di lapidated Gentleman. [Copyright, 1908, by T. C. McClure.] !TL general ignorance • film I public regarding tramps eon- M tlnues to be a source of sur prise to me, though I have been bucking up against it for many years,” said the dlluj (dated gentle man ns he hitched a little nearer to the red licit stove In the ollice of the lodging house. ‘‘The public draws a line between the doctor aid (lie law- fffff CAURinii AWAY ALU TUE IRON ISAKS TO THE WINDOW. y<*r, but no line between the tramp and tbe bum. In (lie latter case every thing is dumped into one basket and labeled ‘Tramp.’ “If you will go out and walk tbe streets for an hour you will come across fifty men that the press and then the public characterize as tramps, and yet not a single one of them be longs to the profession. They are town bums. They seldom leave the city for a day. They are a bad. vicious lot. AM of are liars and most of them thieves. No professional tramp hitches up with them In any shape. 1 have often argued with officials of the law about this matter, but have seldom been able to make them see it. “A tramp, my dear man, Is simply an impecunious tourist of America on foot, lie is working his way here and there and taking in the scenery and not a few adventures as he goes. If 1 was worth a million dollars and want ed to get acquainted with America and Americans I would sooner take the role of a dilapidated gentleman than to travel la a palace cur. Why, mas, I can tell you more about the natural scenery, the bills, the rivers, the villages, the farmers of twenty dif ferent states in this I’nlou than the governors of them. Fifty tramps trav eling over the country could give the agricultural bureau at Washington bet ter crop reports than it would get from a thousand farmers. -** ">\o mallei wb il seuds tbe D. G. forth ou bis travels, lie starts out to see the country tbe same as tbe .wealthy tourist, and be has uo more evi in Ids mind. He simply has less money and must attain bis object in a different way. He beats the rail roads because he oau’t pay fare; he ap peal at the Uihfliet| door because he dimTat Ti hotel. Name any rich man you will who has ‘done’ America and I’ll wager that 1 can tell him of hundreds of points he has missed. 1 oau name ten towns or teu rivers to liis one. 1 can tell him in an hour more about rural village life than he learned In a year of travel. “Would the wisest college professor in t*e country plan to go on foot from New York to San Francisco and steal his food en route? Would he burn barns and haystacks? Would lie be Impudent to farmers or assault their wives? Well, a dilapidated is uo more of a fool than a professor in that re spent. He walks the highways a* lam est man. If he has a cent in his pocket he will offer to pay for his food; if he hasn’t he will offer to pay in work. The general Idea is that he won’t work That’S another mistake. The harvests of America would be a failure but for the tramps who turn in and do a month's bard work.. They put in a moijth in the planting, another in the hoeing and the third in the harvesting, and you can’t reasonably expect more of a tourist. He has got to have time to shove along and see the country. Trip to Niagara Falls. “I was on the road two years before I got around to Niagara Falls. 1 was headed that way, but detained here and there. When 1 got there at last I enjoyed the wonder of nature Just as I had a million to my credit two houses of the st ate tot. I had to sleep under the steps of a store and beg my meals from house to house, but I went away well posted and haven’t got over the awe of it yet. “Would you think, to lock at me. that I ever had a longing to see the big trees of the Yosemlte? No. yon wouldn't. The Idea seems absurd to you, and yet I made a tramp of 1 300 miles to sit In their shadow. 1 walked around them: I talked to them: I measured them: I slept beneath them. In fact, I wrote a poem on them. And I wasn't fifty miles away when I vra arrested on suspicion-of having stolen two chickens, and, though I hadn't a feather about rue, I was sentenced to a dirty jail for three months. You'd laugh If I told you that I walked the width of n stale just to gaze on the mighty Mlssfsslpi i river for half a day and call up I)c Soto and las tire less ambitions, and yet why net? “If the dilapidated gentleman didn’t do o stroke of hard work the year round he ought to be welcomed und fed and lodged for assisting in the cause of general knowledge. lie Is u walking eacyc loped la. Scores and s ores of times I have sat down at t'ae fireside of a farmer and paid my keep ten times ever by the information I gave him and his family. I have helped his children with their school lessons, and 1 have helped and his wife to better understand the coun try they were /living in. It wasn’t two months ago that 1 asked n farm er bow much wheat he thought the United States harvested tills season. He thought for a moment and then put it at about 500.000 bushels. When 1 made his figures 5,005,000 bushels he stood with his mouth open for fully two minutes. lie was born and raised in the country, but didn’t think there was much going on ouk fde his own county. “One trouble 1 have found with the farmer Is his liking for the grew some. He'd rather hear of a robbery than a flying machine and of a murder than all the crop statistics. lie tells you so, and then as his guest you have got to humor him. That Is, you have got to put your imagination at work. His idea is that because you are a dilapi dated traveling about you must have met up with ail sorts of crimes. 1 go ahead and give him the particulars of two or three atrocious murders that 1 keep on tap and end off with a bur glary and a case of horse stealing, and when we are ready for bed he is ready to admit that he has passed a pleasant evening. 1 have made myself a liar, of course, but 1 settle that with my conscience by saying that the end jus tifies the means. “There is one subject, however, that I don’t have to draw the long bow in talking about. That is the county magistrates, constables and jails. I am walking along the highway, as is the right of any man to do. 1 have been at work for a farmer for the last fortnight and have $lO in my pocket. I am no mendicant or fugitive from justice, atul yet a constable seizes me and drags ire before the justice of the pence. They are In cahoots as to foes. I am (barged with vagabondage. 1 show my money as proof to the con trary. It is a fatal mistake. I am at once suspected of robbery. I ask for a lawyer, but am refused. Protests of No Avail. “Tbe c instable swears that I have been ‘hanging around-’ the neighbor hood for weeks, and I am given a sen tence of sixty days in jail. Protests are of uo avail; demands only bring the warning to shut up. They won’t let me send for the farmer for whom f worked. It's all their way. and to jail 1 go, and the focal furnished is hardly tit for a hog. because the jailer stands iu with the other two to beat the county by beating prisoners. “It’s the same old game in every state, from Maine to California, and it's no use to kick. Only th prisoners know how bad it is, aud when they come out and talk no one believes them. For this reason the dilapidated must figure that it’s all in tbe day s work and put up with it. The only way he can get even is to do as much damage to the jail as he can when he decides to make a hole iu the wall aud continue his sightseeing tour. The last coop I got out of I carried away all the iron bars to the window and later on read iu a newspaper that 1 was not only a tramp, but one of the most ungrateful of the species.” M. QUAD. Full Information. “Brother, what's a featherweight fighter?” "Ain’t you ashamed, sis. to be so ig •rerent. A featherweight fighter is a game rooster, of course.” Baltimore American. Would Seem So. Crawford—Do the rich know how the other half live? Crabshaw—After taking their money from them they must be able to form some idea of how they are compelled to live.—Puck. As You’ve Noticed. “There is a great fad for imitations >f stage celebrities nowadays.” “Yes, and quiteSjaturally many of them are put on by Taxation actors.”— Citv Times. ' - nv ' pwpn? ~ - -“ SHE KNOWS ENOUGH. SHE does not know who Caesar was Nor when Columbus sailed the - seas. She may, for alt she says or does. Think Botticelli is a cheese! Now, gentle reader, don't commence To say you think it is a pity To iive in ignorance so dense— You see, she’s pretty. She will not wrinkle up her brow To call to mind a verse of Keats. Ask her if Shakespeare's writing now. She’ll say site likes the parquet seats. Of current topics she may speak And show misinformation simple, Eut in the rose pink of her cheek There is a dimple. She’ll tell you socialism’s cute Because a friend who’s rather plain Is lecturing from here to Butte And has so many in her train. She cannot tell you what i3 meant By the philosophy of Ibsen, But hers is beauty that is blent— A Pi3her-Gibson. Of differential calculus She may discourse in language clear Until at last it comes to U3 She means some automobile gear. The fact that Raphael Is dead Leads not to (alk on pictures olden— Her lips are cherry -ripely-red, Her hair is golden. So what is history to her? What are reformers and their ilk? She has the latert word on fur And wears the newest shades In silk. Sigli not that she must live alone. For her unlearnedness quench your • pity. She knows all that needs to be known— You sec, she’s pretty! —YVilbur D. Nesbit in New York Life. The Ninety and Nine. A certain minister was deeply im pressed by an address on the evils of smoking at a recent synod. He rose from his seat, went over to a fellow minister and said: “Brother, this morning I received a present of a hundred cigars. I have smoked one of them, but now I’m go ing home and burn the remainder In the fire.” The other minister arose and said it was his intention to accompany his reverend brother. “I mean to rescue the ninety and nine,” he added.—Philadelphia Ledger. The Simple Life. W\\ M l i . ii r7'v. 1,-<i. ■in— “lf you were to put more water into the meal, they’d digest it in half the time.” “Toitue haiu’t of uo ’count to these ‘ere pigs, mister."—Taller. Crucial Test. She vowed tbe man she accepted must be brave, and be felt as coura geous as Robin Hood. “But what proof have 1 of your brav ery?” asked this apartment housemaid. “I defy the world!” he shouted gal lantly. “Tut! Tut!” she laughed. “I have heard that before. Go down and defy the janitor and tell him to put some more coal into the furnace. 1 am al most frozeu.” But the young man paled and called for his hat and eane.—Chicago News. No Consolation. “Well, it’s all over, my boy,” sighed Mr. Oldboy, an antiquated bachelor. “Miss De Yonug has refused me.” “But 1 suppose she let you down easy by promising to be a sister to you?” rejoined his friend. “No,” replied Oldboy' bitterly. “She wouldn’t even be a granddaughter to nie.”—St. Louis Republic. In Training. “Are you going to miugle iu the gay life of the capital?” asked Mr. Cum rox. “It depends ou whether mother and the girls can teach me to eat ice cream with a fork without dropping any ou my Sunday shirt bosom.”— Washington Star. Hurts No Feelings. “One would imagine a boss tailor would be disliked by his men.” “Reason ?” “He often makes cutting remarks.” “Ye.s, hut he makes up for it by mak ing lots of fitting ones.”— Kansas City Times. Lucky Dog. “My wife Is excessively fond of her poodle. Actually I’m beginning to look ou It as a sort of a rival to me.” “Say, you’re lucky. I’m only a sort of a rival to my wife’s poodle.”—Kan imc" > F. W. Bondurant & Cos. Insurance. Winder, ■ - Georgia. Do you contemplate a change in your banking connections? Come in and talk the matter over with us. THE WINDER BANKING GO. WINDER, GEORGIA. AT THE OPERA HOUSE You will see all kinds of Buggies, Surreys and Wagons Made up in the latest styles, of the very BEST MATERIAL. The quality is there and the prices are RIGHT. R. L. ROGERS, Winder, - Georgia NOTICE! I have withdrawn from the firm of ELROD & BARRON, And purchased the SHA VING PARLOR Locatedfin the Granite Hotel, where I would-be pleased to greet my old friends. Thanking you for past patronage, and hoping you will call upon me at my new quarters. Respectfully, W. F. FLROD, WINDER, - GEORGIA.