Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1900 — WINTER HOMES OF TRAMPS. [ARTICLE]

WINTER HOMES OF TRAMPS.

—* T ’ Knights of the Hoad Have Favorite Jails in Which to Lodge. "It's very futiuy how the professional tramp will locate good awl bad jails with a view to spending as comfortable a winter as possible,” said the Sheriff of a neighboring parish, who has had pn extended experience with the hobo .fraternity. “You know how an epicure in a big city will hunt for quaint, out-of-the-way restaurants, awl when he finds one that is really excellent how he will hide the discovery from his friends, for fear .that popularity will deteriorate the ser-vice-well, it’s exactly the same way with tramps. They all calculate on spending the most Inclement part of each winter in jail and during their summer wanderings they endeavor to locate some ‘easy’ Institution where they will be well fed and warmed and not expected to do any work. When such a place Is found the secret is carefully gunrded, so the jailer’s heart will not be hardened by 100 many calls on his hospitality. "Last month I had a typical educated hobo on my hands for a fifteen days' sojourn and he unfolded his winter program in an amusing fashion. He said he had two jails located as desirable cold weather quarters—one in Southern California and the other in a small town in Florida. ‘I don't know anything personally about the Florida joint,’ he said, ‘but the last four tramps I've met from that country all warned me as a friend to give the town a wide berth. I judge from such solicitude,’ he added, ‘that the jailer there Is dead soft and gives pie at least once a week.’ The California lockup was in a small place, as I ascertained, avoided by wayfarers on account of the bad reputation of a former sheriff. ‘The bants don’t know that he Is dead yet.' said my guest, 'and I am doiug my best to keep tin* sad news from reaching their ears. The present incumbent is a peach—no work, three meals a day and plum pudding on Sundays.’ The jails that are regarded as especial ‘soft snaps’ are generally in remote country districts, out of the beaten track of tramps. The hobo who Is yearning for winter shelter will get himself arrested l>y committing some petty misdemeanor and Is often treated more as a guest than a prisoner by his kind-hearted captors. The location of such a refuge is a valuable trade secret. “Sometimes, however, the wanderers make painful blunders, as was the case a few years ago when a small army of vagabonds poured into a town in Pennsylvania which had enjoyed a past reputation for extraordinary leniency. During the summer a new vagrancy statute had gone into effect and every man arrested was given a year at hard labor in the State peuiteutiary. My educated hobo was one of the victims and shuddered whenever he recalled the experience. He regarded it as a gross violation of the sacred laws of hospitality.”—Now Orleans Times-Dem-ocrat.