Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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. TRAMP KICKS SOME, t v f < The dilapidated Gentleman and His Profession. k . - ' THINGS THAT DISPLEASE HIM Criticises Authors and Their Writings as to Who and What Constitute a Hobo?Tells Friends to Be on the Lookout, fCopyright, 1908, by T. C. McClure.] y "There are some things about this tramp business that make me very tired," said the dilapidated gentleman as he got his pipe alight for a smoke and a talk. "I have been reading a newspaper here for the last hour and have come across such expressions as lasy tramp,' "vicious tramp/ "drunken ? ????????I i ? ' k ^ jtUt* _ " . "because i'm a dilapidated gentleman i'm set down as yeby bad." . tramp,' and so on. It contains two Items about robberies In the suburbs - - flaw thev -were undoubtedly com mitted by tramps. Miliions of men k and women talk about tramps as glibly as you please, and yet not one in a thousand knows a tramp for what he Is. The police don't The judges don't "You will find many a book in which the author says he went to sea because It . was in bis hlood. He was born a wanderer?a nomad. No one ever criti\ <&es him for it It's only when you come to the nomad of the land where they can him the tramp that can see ^ no good in him. The only real difference is that one wanders the sea and the other the highways. They are rest0 less instead of vicious spirits. I've tramped this country from end to end three different times, and yet I'm nervous to go over the old roads again. "How many drunken tramps did yon ever see? I'm not talking about the corner bums, but about tramps. I'll .wager that you never saw three the worse for liquor. Your professional is out a drunkard. He has no more taste for liquor than the average citizen and far fewer opportunities to gratify it ' jWben you hear of half a dozen tramps being gathered In on a raid it means half a dozen men who have not left the city for years?free lunch fiends k ' and corner loafers. . "A? for lazy tramps, I never met one. I've met them working by the month, the week and the day, and I've met them working for a meat They are al ways willing to pay their way. They expect to render quid pro quo. As a role, when working for a band-oat meal their labor is worth more than the food. 44And abont robberies in suburb or country, ftot one time in a hundred is K It the tramp. It's the hoodlum. Ifs the chaps who know where they can sell their plunder. The tramp knows >y q{ do one to buy, even if he should Accumulate plunder. They call the fellows on the park benches tramps. They call the sleepers in doorways tramps. They are ofT their bases. They are city bums, pure and simple. St Not Vicious. / "Why should a tramp be more vicious than the average man? He isn't There's nothing to make him vicious. He is having a fairly happy time of it and is willing to live and let live. I have arrived in village after village, i minding my own business and respectful to all. and yet was set upon by the town bully. If he got what he deserved then I was arrested as a vicious tramp. The bums and loafers are in a class by themselves, and the tramp wants nothing to do with them. ** "One of the funny things of the road is tramp reform. It's been tried on me a hundred times. Say I knock at the / door of a house in a village and ask for a bite to eat The woman or girl goes away for instructions, and a man appears. It may be the minister or one of the deacons. I am invited in. . I am requested to tell my story, be' sinning back when I was eiaht vears v?""" O " ~ o m j old?of smoking, drinking, chewing, ly- j lng, going to the circus and fifty other things. I am told that society is ready to receive me. I am to be aided to climb a ladder. Then I am prayed with ^ and turned out into the night as hungry as a wolf. Why, that man fairly encourages me to steal his own chickens. Not a nickel, not a crust, but I must subsist on reform. "I have never struck a village yet in which there wasn't need of moral reform, and yet they wait for me to come along and then shove it under my nose. - I have no wife to beat, no children to - cuff, no desire to hang around saloons. I am innocent of theft, I worked for my last meal, and there are no chicken feathers on my clothes. And yet because I am a dilapidated gentleman I am supposed to be in dire i V need of reformation. I have had women cry over me and exact a promise that I would strive to become president of the United States when their own husbands were town loafers and drunk half the time. "For the crime of stealing three sour apples off a tree in Indiana I was arrested. The constable hadn't done an honest day's work in five years. The justice before whom I was arraigned had been charged with exacting illegal fees. The jailer to whose care I was consigned was a blinking old bum who i? ? * T horvnoiiDil tn th<> Util I LL1?> ? JLI C? A uuppv>u\.vt vV ww ? only prisoner in the jail for the first fifteen days, and the reformers swarmed in on me. I had a bed not fit for a hog, but they didn't change it. The place was alive with vermin, but nobody sent In stuff to kill them oSl. I hadn't half enough to eat, but no more was offered me. What they did offer was prayers and advice, and because I got sulky and wouldn't sing 'Nearer, My God. to Thee' the jailer starved me for two days. I was looked upon as the worst desperado the town had ever known. "I can't remember when I have lied. As a matter of fact, I have nothing to lie about The merchant and his clerks lie every day. All last summer my stealings amounted to perhaps a dollar's worth of fruit and vegetables. There are a thousand so called respect OPQ rrr?ftin<T flip :l VPr.lCTG auie UJCU nuw ait w city oat of hundreds every day in the year. I may get a glass of beer a week. The average man. If he likes it, may get three a day. 1 swear. So do fifteen men out of twenty. 1 smoke. So do tens of thousands of others. But because I'm a dilapidated gentleman I'm set down as very bad and in need of all the moral influence that can be brought to bear. That's the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum, you see.Public Fooled Again. "There's a general opinion that the tramp is ignorant That's where the public is fooled again. I never met one in all my wanderings, unless he was a foreigner and only over a little time, that wouldn't pass muster with the better class of mechanics, and some were graduates. At a campfire with six or seven average tramps about it you'd have hard work to find one who isn't up in orthography, mathematics, history, and so on. I've found plenty ' ? ! . UU?AM, up ID UIDUCOJ eveuis, UUVitfUL uiatuij and scientific questions. Why not?. The tramp is a tramp simply because he was born restless. That spirit would have given him the luxuries of travel if he had been rich. As he didn't happen to be he had to go on the tramp to see the world. "Of all people the farmer understands the tramp the best, except in one thing. He can't understand why Weary Willie doesn't want to buy a farm and settle down. The farmer always has some chores to do. He most always | seats the tramp at the family table. He often gives him a good bed. If he was ever afraid of him it was years and years agp. After supper the tramp feels that it is up to him to entertain the household. He sits down with it and can be mighty Interesting without the longbow. He can tell of arrests. escapes, jails, police, and so on. He can tell of Niagara falls, public buildings, conflagrations, the moun tains and big trees of California, and what not I've been a delighted listener scores of times myself. "If a tramp has bad his fill of tramping for the nonce he'll turn to and work for a month; If not it's no use to try to detain .him. The call of the road is as strong as the call of the. wild. The farmer understands this and plans accordingly. The tramp may take a few apples or tnrnips from him and at long intervals a chicken, but next time be comes along he may turn in and work like a beaver to save the hay or wheat crop. As for what we call gratitude, the tramp has got his full share of it "Therefore, my friend." continued the dilapidated as be knocked the ash from his pipe and pocketed it "when next you read that 'a tramp did if just make up your mind that the lop shouldered reporter is mixing his dogs and cats all np together and doesn't know his trade. There are bums, there are loafers, there are hoodlums and there are?yours truly? .? >? if Arr* r\ irauups. xu.. v^uau. Mean of Her. " "Boohoo! Ter think my own mother 'd go an' play me such a low down measly trick!" "What she done. Arabella?" "Made me take care of de kids while she chased off to a mothers' meetin'!" ?St Louis Post-Dispatch. Literally So. "I thought you told me you had a light role in the new play." "So I have." "Get out! I saw the play last night, and you're nothing but a 'supe.'" "Maybe, but don't I carry on the lamps?"?Pittsburg Post Not For Her. "I am going to give Miss Oldgirl a new wrinkle"? "For heaven's sake don't! She is trying to have the old ones smoothed out now."?Baltimore American. HE DIDN'T SWEAR. But a Court Record Quoted Him as Using Strong Language. One day during a term of court at Macon. Mo., Judge Shelton, who was running through a stenographic record of a trial, detected a sentence which reflected upon the piety of appellant's senior counsel. Major B. It. Dysart, an elder in the Presbyterian church. "Major." he said, "I have just been reading this record. I was inexpressibly pained to note in it some very disrespectful language you used in the presence or trie court. A funereal solemnity would fall short j of describing the appearance of Dysart's features. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Of course you may have been excited a bit during the trial, major. 1 know those other fellows were worrying you like everything, but that is hardly an excuse for using cuss words. You should have waited until you got outside. It wou't do"? "Does your honor mean to intimate that I swore in your presence while trying a case?" demanded the major sternly. "I don't intimate anything, major, but you just look at that." And he handed the transcript to Dysart. There, nestling in the midst of a long argument over an objection, printed as plain as type could make it, were the words: "It is a damned obscure injury." It required nearly five minutes for the major to think out how it happened. Then he grabbed a pen, shoved it +v,n in lr hnttlp and viciouslv iuiv; luu wiu scratched out the ribald sentence, over which he wrote: "It is a damnum absque Injuria," meaning a damage without an injury. ?Kansas City Star. SHOPPING IN CAIRO. Where Bargaining Is the Perfume, the Poetry of Trade. "I entered Sidi Okba's shop in Cairo," said the man with the oriental labels on his luggage, "and a handsome carpet caught my eye. 'What is the price of that?' I asked. " 'That carpet is not for sale,* Sidi Okba answered. 'I bought it at great cost for my own delectation only. How beautiful it is! But will not monsieur partake with me of coffee and cigarettes?" "I partook. The next morning 1 was in that neighborhood again, and Sidi came forth and saluted me. He had, or>cmA Mo mlnrl nhrmt retflinincr the V UaugVVi UAtf WWMV - ? ?? c carpet Allah forbade selfishness among the true believers, and since I desired the thing he'd let me have it for $1,000. " 'I'll give you $10,' said I. "He fell back, almost fainting; then In a weak, pained voice he ofTered me - coffee again, "Next day when I turned up he came down to $900, and I went up to $15, and we drank more coffee and smoked. Next day he dropped to $800, and I rose to $17.50. We were very cheerful over the coffee and tobacco that day. We had the carpet spread before u? to admire. It was evident that we would strike a bargain yet, and just before I left Cairo we did strike a bargain. The carpet became mine for $50. It would have cost $250 at home. As we shook hands in farewell Sidi Okba said: " 'I love a good bargainer like yourself. Bargaining is the bloom, the perfume, the poetry of trade. I adore it'" ?Exchange. Another Kind of Guest. "Won't you pleasp write In my guest book?" said a woman to the friends she had entertained at dinner. And she brought out the treasured volume, with Its record of hospitality. The names were inscribed. "Why, what's this?' said the modern Eve as the pages were fluttered before the book was returned to its owner. "There are lots and lots of names In the back and all in your handwriting too." The hostess laughed. "Do you want to know what these names are?' she asked. "Well, I suppose I might make a confession. They are names of guests, all right, but of another kind It's the list of the servants I have had since my housekeeping experiences began."?New York Press. Apply It to Your Life. Ilave you ever watched the exceedingly delicate and yet firm pressure of the. hand of a skillful tuner? He will make the string produce a perfectly true note, vibrating in absolute accord with his own never changing tuning fork. The practiced hand is at one with the accurate ear, and the pressure is brought to bear with most delicate adjustmept to the resistance. The tension is never exceeded, lie never breaks a string, but be patiently strikes the note again and again till the tone is true and the ear is satisfied, and then the muscles relax and the pressure ceases. Barnum's Ready Retort. Barnaul once appeared at Oxford to lecture ou "Humbug." The rowdy students would not give him fc hearing. At length, in a momentary lull, he shouted. "Then you don't want to hear anything about humbug?" "We don't!" was the answer in a roar. "Well," retorted Barnum, "I've got your money, and jthere's no humbug about that!" The disturbance came to a sudden finish, and Barnum proceeded in peace. Broke the Law. "What got me Into trouble? Failure I tn irmnro thf> lnxr " "That seems odd." "Not at all. I couldn't resist the temptation to give the law a swift | kick."?Louisville Courier-Journal. i j Granulated Sugar 18 Lbs. $1.00 FRESH ROASTED COFFEE 103. ot 35c. Green, Black ard Mixed Teas 30c. to SOc CHEON TEA The best 50c. value in America r\..~ t.sj n ^. or, ? n,->^ ULir vuu "i" u< D Favorite. Baker's Chocolate and Cocoa. SUGARS AT COST 75 Stores in United States C. D. KENNY CO. 1639 Main . Phone 151 GUNS, AMMUNITION, Sporting Goods I of Every Kind. Automobile and Bicycle Repairs We carry in stock guns of the best make, hunting outfits, the best shells on the market. We guarantee satisfaction in every instance. We solicit the trade of .our i I Y awI -r? rr4-r\n fVinn/Ja Call trt UCAiilg bVU XI IViAMWi wmxa vw [ see us and we will please you. I Jacob Brothers, j GUNS & LOCKSMITHS 1719 Main Street, | COLUMBIA, S. C. L J. BOBBINS, Ret 0. ; WL1W Manufacturing Optician, 1641 Main Street, Columbia, S. C. The only exclusive optioal house in Columbia. I grind all my glasses. I do only highclass work at reasonable prices. Beware of peddlers and fakirs. frffc rffc <tfe <tt? 4fc ^ 4fi 4k <tb <tt < k SV W HV HAVE YOU ENOUGH to pay your way should the salary stop? To go into business, buy a home or make your old age comfortable? If not, your duty is plain. Start an account with our Savings Department at once, save and deposit every dollar you can and have money on hand when needed. 4 per cent, interest will be added to j your money here. j Carolina National Bank, COLUMBIA, S. C. W. A. CLARK, President. T. H. MEIGHAN, Cashier. STOP! I Just received a ne^ and colors to select satisfaction. Big lot of new Shoe buy. Everybody knows from Seaboard dep Union depot. 919 Gervais Street an ?' :'' ^JS n ! mommm i^b#?p i Jt^' 1* i 1 ? ! |jgggj||g ^ It Matters 11 N NoK M] INTLRI! NATIONAL i: E| always iHii B n ^ i ^ i w Exquisiteness cr design: I A rectns2S l?' s^'c: ^cr^cc^' W IN SHORT all that 13 8 a M^f-nnr.li^n Citv t^Tinrir | tSt ] Pe^encc Unrivalled Equi: 5 Method?, r.t Competitionthis magnificent new line I r? im 11 ? m wilu ji i FOR Ri E. A. EARGLE, C PEAK I carry everything and am here to pie wa Town Lots ALFRED J. FOX I MAIS J J ! i i G. M. Harman's Home ? a o H O H I 233 it. & L_ ?? ? H 2 2 3 ^ 0 rr- . i u 206 ft. g ; -J j ? ? | ? M 182 ft. i Is | !? ^ i I i 1 15S ft. ; FORT jOOK! JL TT c? yi rl riill /~k"P TP a 11 ?2 /V CJj?JL\A. X U.11 XXXXV^ WX X. C-CXX K_; from. "We guarantee ; )s, all styles and prices. the place?Blum Old ? ot, and our Main street d 402 1-2 Main Street, J^LC^^jg is EST. 7%,. ci'.kmtrfl-iTn^ce /-. ? ? o E t"t /~ r r\r~ ! X I Uwl rw WUXAlV^wO \Jl 1UU1 IV. V^Wl' :n in fit: Elegance in finish. best ar. d latest in high class | .T, the result of Seasoned, Expmcr.t, Straightforward Business -staggering prices. Call and see at ILE BY General Merchant, j Si C. ase my customers. See me for your nts. For Sale by teal Estate Dealer i STREET ' , | i I r i i ! I . I i "I i I I I I i , I Methodist Church I i i I r m \ o ? : * 193 ft. w ] ? H ? H g 525 ? to o ** I * r ' a ? i I in ft. i i?:? ! ' 8 ^ ! to c ! ? ? j r I - ' ! ; ?Lft ! j is ? ! [ ^ * ?*" CO f 119 ft. | STREET : ; j jste:N'! luits, latest styles a fit and will give See us before you Stand?three doors - store is opposite - Columbia, S. C.