Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1911 — TALLS OF COTHAM AND OTHLR CITILS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TALLS OF COTHAM AND OTHLR CITILS

City and State Face Tramp Question

NEW YORK. —How can the Empire state and New York city solve its tramp problem? The vagrants now in the state would form the entire population of *a city the size of Albany. The Empire state, and especially its metropolis, is the mecca for this vast army of derelicts. The jails, penitentiaries and almshouses are put to an expense of |2,000,000 annually in endeavoring to cope with the problem which has arisen through the existence of this undesirable element. But far more serious than this is the loss caused by the destruction of property, robberies, fires and kindred misdemeanors, which costs the state, the railroads and other private Interests over $lO,000,000 annually. The immense number of tramps trespassing on railroads and the fatalities which overtake many of them may be judged from the fact that in a period

of five years actually 23,964 trespassers were killed and 25,236 injured in the United States while stealing: rides. Most of them were tramps, and at least one-fifth of the accidents took place in this state. A large proportion of these vagrants are youths and young men whose ages range from sixteen to twenty-one. Reared in the cities their yearning for adventure, uncontrolled by proper home conditions, causes them to take the road. Though one-half of these'finally quit the nomadic life and return hqjfie or settle down, the remaining half become inveterate tramps and gradually turn from, vagrancy into a career of crime or semi-crime. A very large percentage, however, are adults and comprise every species, from men who will not or cannot work through chronic unfitness to those who are innocent victims of downright adversity. One solution proposed is to form 8 labor colony. A labor colony is, briefly, a state-owned colony for the detention, reformation and instruction in agriculture and other industrial occupations of persons committed by magistrates as tramps and vagrants.