Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 180, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1911 — TALES OF GOTHAM AND OTHER CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TALES OF GOTHAM AND OTHER CITIES

New York May Establish Tramp Colony

The immense number of tramps' trespassing on railroads and the fatalities which overtake many of. them may be estimated from the fac*t that In a period of five years 23,964 treepassers were killed and 25,236 were 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. The bill proposes as a solution the’ establishment of a labor colony. The latter, briefly, is a state owned colony for the detention, reformation and instruction in agriculture and other industrial occupations of persons committed by magistrates as vagrants and tramps. In Switzerland there is such a colony, located at Witzwill, in the canton of Berne, and it has proved most successful. Practically all of the work Is done by the Initiates. Not only is agriculture carried on, but other enterprises are also conducted. The buildings of the institution have been erected by the inmates and all of the futniture is made by them. They even make wagons and carriages and the various- tools and appliances used on the farm. With the establishment of such a colony the vagrant In New York would find himself between the horns of an uncomfortable dilemma —either detention at the farm colony or the giving a wide berth to the state in which he now is found most often. Whatever choice he makes should mean an annual saving to the pubUo of millions of dollars.

NEW YORK.—The tramp evil in this state may soon be solved. A bill provides not only for the appointment of a commission to inquire carefully into the conditions of vagrancy, but also makes an appropriation for the purchase of 600 acres of land upon which to establish a tramp colony. That there is need of some more adequate method of dealing with the vagrant class than has formerly obtained is known to every person, and the establishment of a farm where vagrants- might be employed and reclaimed is beUeved by those who have made a study of the subject to be the proper solution of the .difficulty. The vagrants now in this state would form a population as large as that of the city of Albany. The jails, penitentiaries and almshouses are put to an expense of 12,000,000 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 tne loss caused by v the destruction of property, robberies, fires and kindred misdemeanors which cost the state, the railroads and other private interests over 110,000,000 yearly.