OUT-DOOR RELIEF.
WE  may, perhaps, take it for granted that the principle of
what is called out-door relief includes two conditions,-first,
that the persons seeking such relief have a home or certainly a
residence in the community where such relief is to be administered; second, that the circumstances calling for such relief are
temporary in their nature.
It will be at once observed that the necessary existence of
these conditions will exclude from our present consideration the
two remaining classes of paupers, namely, those whose physical
weakness or mental infirmity renders it highly probable that they
will be permanent paupers, and also those able-bodied persons
having no homes and unable to finid employment, or unwilling
to labor, and familiar to us all as vagrants or tramps.
Out-door relief has hitherto been mainly administered in one
of three ways:
1.  With funds raised by taxation and distributed by paid
officials.
2.  With funds raised by taxation and distributed by a municipal board, in accordance with the recommendation of a body
of unpaid officials or supervisors selected firom reputable citizens.
This is now well known as the Elberfeld system of out-door relief. It has been in active operation in the German town of that
name, near Dusseldorf, since 1853, has been copied in several of
the neighboring towns, and has shown some remarkable results.
In 1852, Elberfeld, with a population of about 50,000, relieved
4000 paupers, at an expense of more than $44,000().  In 1869, with
a population of 71,000, there were less than 1100 persons needing relief, and the expense incurred in supplying their wants was
less than $19,000. The characteristic feature of the Elberfeld
system is the very minute and constant supervision carried on
by unpaid visitors of the best class, selected from representatives
of various callings.  It is considered essential to the successful
prosecution of the system that the district assigned to each visitor
should be very small, and the poor under lhis inspection very few,
zz
I 
~2
(not to exceed at any time four families), so that he can do his
work thoroughly, without encroaching upon the hours required
for his regular occupation. The visitors are instructed to make
a careful investigation of each case, ascertaining what means of
support the applicant may have, what relatives are able to contribute to his maintenance, what is his capacity for labor, and all
other facts pertinent to the inquiry. The visitor then makes
his report to the municipal board, who are to determine whether
any relief shall be granted and to what extent. In cases of great
urgency, however, the visitor is authorized to give temporary
assistance, pending the decision of the board. The relief is always granted for a brief period and the cases are frequently reheard and revised. Care is uniformly taken that while sufficient
aid is furnished, it shall not be given in such generous measure
as to make public charity attractive. There are moreover strict
police regulations, punishing with imprisonment refusal to work
when employment can be had, wasting the relief granted and
misspending time in amusement, idleness or drink, ill such a
manner as to render public aid necessary. The system is still
further felnced about with other restrictions and precautions,
which, together with its peculiar official machinery, need not be
detailed here. The essential and controlling idea of the system
is the minute and constant supervision of applicants for relief by
intelligent and trustworthy citizens, each having a small number
of families under his charge, with this limitation imposed upon
their operations, that the aid actually furnished shall be, as a
rule, distributed by still another class,-to wit, the paid servants
of the municipal board.
3.  With funds raised by voluntary contributions, and distributed by unpaid agents.
Now, bearing in mind that the only correct theory of out-door
relief is to furnish assistance to families who:ire not wholly destitute, and therefore are not candidates for thle almshouse,-that
it is to the last degree desirable, while affording the relief needed
for the moment, to avoid, so far as is possible, whatever will tend
to create o01 foster the habit of dependence, and therefore dimin —
ish self-respect and the disposition to be self-supporting,-and
that it is equally desirabl( to guide the applicant for aid into
the p)athls of hollorabl)le industry, to iripriess upoll him that the
relief furnished is intended to provide for a temporary emergen 
3
cy,-in effect, to bridge over the chasni between enforced idleness and remunerative employment; in other words, to exercise
the greatest practicable care that charity shall not be so bestowed
as to afford the means of vicious indulgence, or encourage continuous improvidence; keeping in mind all these and kindred
considerations, let us examine, very briefly, each of the modes of
granting out-door relief which have been indicated.
The first method, i. e., where funds raised by taxation are distributed by paid officials, seems to us to be open to the gravest
objections. Its direct and unavoidable tendency is to encourage
the pernicious notion that the state is bound to support all who
demand assistance; a notion which leads the recipient of relief
administered in this way to accept it without gratitude and use
it without discretion. The state represents to the professional
pauper a vast, intangible body, which somehow owes him a living,
which gives without self-denial or sacrifice, and without feeling
the burden of maintaining him, and which he can therefore plunder without remorse and with very little danger of detection.
The once honest pauper soon catches the contagion and accepts
the disgraceful situation. It no longer seems to him sinful to
deceive the official who feeds him. To live without labor has
become his only aim.
Hence this system not only encourages a confirmed habit of
dependence, and, as a natural result, a loss of self-respect and a
fatal willingness to belong to the pauper class, but also a habit
of pitiful deceit, maturing by rapid steps into positive dishonesty,
too often terminating in a career of crime. The family once accustomed to live in willing indolence, without  shame, content to
be maintained from the public purse at the hands of officials
whom it deliberately and systematically misleads, is simply a
training school for thieves.
Again, this system tends directly to political favoritism, by
putting into the hands of the distributing officers a most
powerful engine of corruption. It is surely so notorious as to
need no proof that votes are influenced by making the receipt of
assistance the reward of political services, in the confident belief,
(amply justified by experience), that sins of this description will
be readily condoned by the party which derives a temporary advantage from such flagrant dishonesty. That an evil of this
magnitude is inseparable from the system would seem of itself
to constitute a conclusive reason for.discarding it. 
4
But this method of relief is open to the further objection that,
even were the malign feature of )polities noI longet  an element
in the problem, there remains the incontestable fact that funds
raised by the simple process of taxation and distributed by official
machinery will never be expended in the wisest manner. For
the giving of relief in this way must always be to a greater or
less extent mechanical, where it is not mercenary or dishonest.
The disbursing official soon comes to discharge his designated
duty in a perfunctory, if not careless, spirit. Hle is animated, not
by motives of benevolence, but by an almost inevitable desire to
perform as l1ittle labor as will satisfy the scrutiny, (usually superficial), of the appointing power. It is far easier to pay to the
applicant a regular stipend, or from the caprice of the moment
to refuse it, than to make a careful examination into the merits
of the case and to repeat this examination at short, intervals. If
the officer commence his work with a conscience, he soon finds it
an inconvenient companion, interfering with his ease by increasing his labor. Day by day he abates his vigilance and relaxes
the severity of his rules.  HIe hardens his heart against the timid
and easily repelled applicant, while lie suffers himself to be deceived by the whining, or wearied into compliance by the inmportunate, or bullied by the sturdy beggar. Practically, hlie says to
himself, "About so much money will be spent anyhow; let me
give it in such a manner as will cause me the least possible distress of mind or fatigue of body."  He recognizes no duty to the
tax-payer; he is actuated by no desire to diminish the number of
paupers; he is stimulated by no sense of what he owes to the calls
of suffering humanity.  He is by turns a tyrant and a cowarda tyrant to the weak and shrinking applicant, a coward to the
bold and unblushing mendicant. He, too, has caught the contagion which infects alike the dispenser and the recipient of the
public funds.
If now, to cover all the possibilities of the problem, we may
imagine the case of an official who persists in doing faithful and
discriminating work, we shall see a man who receiveq scanty
support from those associated with him, if indeed hle does not
encounter their active opposition, and when he is displaced as
inconveniently honest, or voluntarily retires from a position the
dutiesof which are properly discharged with so much difficulty,
his place is promptly filled by one who has no such scruples, and
the work goes on in the old expensive and harmful way. 
5
And, after all, however faithfully as to frequent visitation and
careful investigation of the actual circumstances of applicants,
the work, under this system, might in a possible condition of
affairs be performed, there would always be lacking the most
important element of successful labor among the poor, the element of personal sympathy.  Such an official visitor as we have
described, at the best, recognlizes but one duty-to guard against
imposition. The applicant for relief sees him in but a single aspect-that of one who is appointed and paid to feed him out of
the public treasury. But the true design of administering outdoor relief includes muchl more than this.  It should( aim to preserve the self-respect of the recipient, to encourage him in all
honest efforts to maintain himself, and to impress upon him that
such aid ought to be withheld as soon as practicable, not merely
for the sake of protecting the public purse, but also on account
of the evil effect of dependence on the habits and character of
the recipient. Indeed, it cannot be urged too strongly or too
frequen-tly that the slightest aid, in any conceivable form, which
is given to one who is physically able to ilender an equivalent in
labor and who fails from any cause to render such equivalent, is
a positive injury to the person so relieved.
Now, to emphasize these and similar arguments to be addressed
to thie pauper, he must know that the visitor is rendering his services without renumeration.  He must be made to feel that the
person with whom he is dealing can be actuated by no motives
but those of pure benevolence.  Too much importance cannot be
attached in relieving and reformatory labor among the poor, to the
immediate c tact of unpaid visitors with the applicants for aid.
" Everything cbe done by personal intercourse with the poor,
nothing without    said one who had taken an active part in
the Elberfeld syst  of out-door relief.
In this way, perso  elonging to the intelligent and prosperous classes are brought. to close relations with the poor under
circumstances where wisely directed sympathy and good counsel
will do vastly more than the mere relief doled out to, preserve
heir manhood and lift them from poverty to a self-supporting
condition.
It has been truly remarked that "out-door relief should, so far
as possible, be temporary in its character and stopped the very
moment. it ceases to be necessary. In order to effect this the 
6
condition of the recipient must be re-examined at frequent intervals. Those who are proper recipients for aid one week may not
be so the next.  The great danger is that those who have once
experienced the convenience of out-door relief will relax all efforts
in their own behalf and invent excuses for rendering the temporary relief permanent. Relief acknowledged first as a gift and
gratefully received is at length demanded defiantly as a right."
Now it will not be denied that such frequent visitation, such
constant and close supervision, and especially such intimate and
friendly personal intercourse as we have shown to be necessary
to the best conceivable system of out-door relief, is, if not impossible, practically unattainable in the case of paid officials.
For we must always encounter, under this plan of operation, not
only the, perhaps, inevitable tendency of this kind of salaried labor to degenerate into machinle work, but also its invariable inadequacy in numerical forc, to do anything like justice to the
large area assigned to each official. If we are told that the force
might be increased indefinitely, the ready and sufficient answer
is that tax-payers would never consent to the burden which
would be imposed upon them by the army of disbursing agents
which would find full employment in such a field.
The second mode of out-door relief; i. e., with funds raised by
taxation and distributed on the recommendation of unpaid visitors, while free from many of the objections which have been
urged against the first method, is still open, at least so far as
this country is concerned, to several objections of a very serious
character.  Amiong them may be mnentioned the following:
1.  The funds distributed are to be raised by taxation.  We
have already indicated some of the evils attendant upon this
form of relief, prominent among which is the danger of encouraging the pernicious idea that the state is bound to support its
idle poor.
2. The visitors are directly appointed by the municipal board,
who in their turn are to be elected by one or the other of our political parties. Until civil-service reform has gained a firm foothold in this country, it is certainly unsafe, in the light of what
has been urged under this head, to entrust, directly or indirectly,
the distribution of public funds in the form of out-door relief to
a body of men dependent for their political existence upon the
popular vote. The fact that this system has worked well in Ger 
many, furnishes, we have too much reason to fear, no sufficient
evidence that it can be successfully introduced into this country.
We come now to the third method of out-door relief, where
funds raised by voluntary contribution are distributed by voluntary and unpaid visitors. It will, we think, be readily apparent that the evils which we have shown to be inseparable
from the other methods of out-door relief will not attach to this
system. An additional reason for preferring the voluntary system deserves to be stated.
It needs no argument to demonstrate that the unpaid visitor,
distributing funds raised in this way, will be free from many of
the temptations, and will naturally avoid many of the errors to
which the visitor under the first and second methods is inevitably
liable. He volunteers for the service because he is impressed
with its importance, and conscious of his duty to the coninunity
in which he resides. He is accepted because he is believed to be
competent, trustworthy and unselfish.  If he persevere in his undertaking, it is because he is convinced by experience that he is
engaged in a wise and beneficent enterprise, conducted according
to sound principles of alms-giving.   ii a word, the voluntary
visitor under this system, fully aware that hle is simply a steward
to disburse with intelligent and careful discrimination finds
which have been contributed by clharitable citizens, will realize
the sacredness of the trust committed to his charge, will perform
with ever-increasing fidelity the duties which he has assumed, and
will daily gain practical wisdom by varied experience, often depressing to the very verge of despair, but, in the long run, leading to the conviction that there is no more useful field of labor
for the enlightened philanthropist than the judicious relief of the
deserving poor.
In what has been said, we have purposely abstained from entering into details or prescribing any code of regulations in accordance with which such a system of out-door relief as we have
recommended should be carried into execution.  We have simply
aimed to lay down certain general priniciples applicable to the
topic under consideration. It may be well, however, before dismissing the subject, to indicate some of the points which should
always be kept in mind by those who  undertake to relnder outdoor relief under what may be called the volunztary systemn.
Thirst.-It should be remembered that mere alms-giving is not
7 
8
charity. True charity, in the form of out-door relief, is just that
amount and kind of assistance which is best adapted to the circumstances of the particular applicant. All alms-giving which
does not keep this principle constantly in view is ill-advised and
injurious.
Second.-The cases in which relief is afforded must be under
careful and constant supervision and the relief must be withdrawn
the very moment it ceases to be necessary.
Thtird.-Every effort must be made to preserve unbroken the
family status of the persons assisted where this can be done without endangering the morals of the recipients or diminishing their
desire to be self-supporting.
Fou,rth.-While it is highly desirable that the expenses of almsgiving under this system should be reduced to the lowest practicable point, it seems essential that there should be some expI)( —
rienced and competent supervising authority, receiving an adequate salary and devoting all his time to the work.
F~fth.-The area of territory in which out-door relief is to be
administered, if too large to be wisely committed to the control
of a single charitable organization, should be so exactly apportioned to different relieving societies as to render it impossible
for any family to receive assistance from more than one source. 
TRAMPS.
Paupers, or those who are unable or unwilling to provide for
their own support, may be divided, broadly, into three classes.
First.-Those who have been reduced to poverty by physical infirmity or mental imbecility or positive insanity, and whose condition renders it practically certain that they will be permanent
paupers.
Seconzd.-Persons fairly entitled to out-door relief.  Perhaps
no better classification of these can be given than is furnished
in a paper in the 8th Annual Report of the New~York Board
of State Charities, prepared by President Anderson, of Rochester
University.
"1. Cases of pestilence, failure of crops producing temporary famine,
accident, sudden commercial revolutions, or for the maintenance of families
of soldiers during war.
2. Where the progress of science and the arts works sudden changes in
manufacturing and mechanical processes to which persons in middle life
are unable to adjust themselves-as in the case of the hand-loom weavers
in England, or the introduction of iron for the construction of ships; or
when the raw material of any kind of manufacture fails-as did the cotton
supply in our late war; or a freak of fashion suddenly destroys the demand
for certain goods, throwing large numbers out of employment in those
handicrafts in which alone they are skilled.
3. Cases where the head of a family is removed by death or prostrated
by sickness, and where there is reasonable prospect of the mother being
able to keep her family together and ultimately maintain them.
4. Cases where aged and infirm persons are dependent upon relatives who
are able to care for them, but unable to meet the whole expense of their
support.
5. Cases of the sick poor who are too ill to be removed to the alms-house
or the hospital."
It will be observed that the recipients of this form of charity
are supposed to have homes in which the relief may be admninistered, and that the circumstances calling for and justifying assistance are temporary in their nature.
Thtird.-Able-bodied persons without homes and without regus
lar occupation, who are either unable to find employment or are
unwilling to labor.
2
:.1. I...:.,     I 
10
The second subdivision of this third class, the  able-bodied
paupers who are u', willingj to labor, are unfortunately too well
known to us all under the familiar designation of " Trarnps."
And as we utter the word Tramp, there arises straightway before us the spectacle of a lazy, shiftless, sauntering or swaggering, ill-conditioned, irreclaimable, incorrigible, cowardly, utterly
depraved savage. He fears not God, neither regards man. Indeed, he seems to have wholly lost all the better instincts and
attributes of manhood.  He will outrage an unprotected female,
or rob a defenceless child, or burn an isolated barn, or girdle
fruit trees, or wreck a railway train, or set fire to a railway bridge,
or murder a cripple, or pilfer an umbrella, with equal indifference,
if reasonably sure of equal impunity. Having no moral sense,
he knows no gradations in crime.   ie dreads detection and punishment, andche dreads nothing else. Whether a refusal to comply with his demands will be followed by murder or a muttered
curse depends solely on his chance of a safe retreat. Practically,
hlie has come to consider himself at war with society and all social
institutions. He acknowledges no allegiance, he asks no protection, hlie feels no gratitude. Iie has only one aim-to be supported
in idleness.  He has only one fear-to be deprived of his liberty.
Therefore, the offences which he commits are almost invariably
those which require no labor in preparation and call for no skill
in execution.  They are inspired by no motive except a mnomentary impulse of gain, or lust, or revenge.  The sight of a watch
dog or the suspicion of a revolver will at any time turn him from
his cowardly purpose and send him on a safer errand of villainy.
The strength and sacredness of family ties, the love of mother
or wife, or child, have often restrained, and sometimes reclaimed
a hardened criminal, to whom the idea of home was still a present reality.  But this possible refuge of respectability is wanting
to the tramp. Hle has no home, no family ties. Ile has cut
himself off from all influences which can minister to his improvement or elevation. His only associates are men and women of
his own stamp.  His only occupation is a lazy, loitering pursuit if purstit is not too strong a word-of food and lodging by beg ging or stealing. Ihis only amusement is an occasional debauch.
Insolent and aggressive when hle dares, fawning, and obsequious
when he thinks it more prudent to conciliate, b)ut false, treacher ous, ungrateful and malirgnant always, he wanders aimlessly fiom
".i:,.'.'.
I I I, i'
I 
11
city to city, from town to town, fronmi hlaiiilet to hamlet, wheirever
he goes, a positive nuisance and a possible criminal.
If in the cities he is sometimes and somewhat restrained by
wholesome awe of a vigilant and adequate police, in the country
he has become the daily and nightly dread of all well-disposed
persons.  Indeed his frequent presence in our village coinmunities, has again and again transformed their quiet, peaceful life
into a reign of terror.  Murder, outrage worse than murder, arson, highway robbery, felonies of all kinds and petty offences
without number, have marked the passage of this unclean beast.
The innocent little maiden on her way to school, the farmer's
wife busied about her household cares, the aged couple living
remote from the habitations of their follow men, are alike the
victimns of his homicidal or licentious violence.  Neitlher pity for
helpless and trusting childhood, nuoi respect for gray hairs stays
for one moment his brutal hands.
As Dickens has said of the English tramp-and many of these
cruel and cowardly monsters are contributions from the " mother
country"-" the pitiless rascal blights the summer road as he
maunders on between the luxuriant hedges, where even the wild
convolvulus and rose and sweet briar are the worse for his going
by, and need time to recover from the taint of him in the air."
Do you ask why the aid of the law is not invoked, and why
prompt punishment is not visited upon these high-handed offenders?
I answer, that your question touches one of the most trying
aspects of this painful social problem, viz: the difficulty of detection. The tramp has become such a common feature of our
daily life, that he excites little remark.  To-day, there are two
or three seedy, sunburnt, ragged, dirty loafers, lounging about
your streets or begging from door to door.  Usually, you give
or withhold your misnamed charity, as your fears or your easy
good nature or the caprice of the moment may dictate, your
motive, in most cases, being to get them out of your sight as
soon as possible To-morrow they are twenty miles away and
their places are supplied by as many more, with nothing to distinguish them, in the eyes of the untrained observer, from the
villainous visitors of yesterday.
Meanwhile an atrocious crime has been committed in that quiet
neighborhood.  Instant and vigilant investigation fails to fasten 
suspicion on any member of the little community. The conclusion then seems forced upon you that the offence was perpetrated
by some one of the tramps so recently seen in the village; but
what tramp?  Arrest one of these sons of Belial-the one to
whom vague suspicion most plainly points-aiand what will you
be able to prove against him?
Possibly he can be identified, with tolerable certainty, as having been seen in the village within a few hours of the time when
the crime was discovered. Beyond this, there is in many or indeed in most cases, no reliable evidence.
But this only tends to show that it is physically possible that he
is the guilty man. I need not remind you that this falls far short
of the evidence necessary to procure conviction. At the most
you have only proved opportunity.  You have not shown-in
nine cases out of ten, you cannot show-any especial motive appliable to the particular case. The burden of proof is upon you,
and you call offer no evidence of the defendant's past history, or
of any malign intent in visiting the town, or of any previous
grudge or expression of ill feeling against the sufferer-or indeed
of any fact legally tending to confirm your suspicions of the guilt
of the accused.
You will find his photograph ill no portrait gallery of thieves.
The police authorities are unable to recognize him as an old offender. He has no home to which he can be traced. There
is no clue by which the skilled detective can follow him to his
accustomed hiding place. Hle is simplya tramp. Iiin other words,
he belongs to that vast horde of idle and unprincipled vagrants,
who, by the fatal indulgence or apathy of our criminal legislation,
are permitted to roam, unchecked, throughout the length and
breadth of our land.
Ordinarily, flight from the scene of crime is an important elenientin the prosecutor's case. But here the instant disappearance
of the alleged culprit has little or no weight in the scale of presumptive evidence against him. It is only the customary course
of the professional tramp. To wander from place to place is his
daily habit.
Not to multiply, with undue prolixity, the reasons for our position, the dilemma is as follows-unless the stolen property can
be found in the possession of the accused tramp or unless the
sufferer from his larceny or his lust or his violence can positively
1 2 
13
identify him as the actual offender, the chances are that he will
go uiiwlwhipped of justice, with no result from the investigation but
to produce a fresh feeling of insecurity in the community and to
extend to the real culprit an implied license to pursue, unmolested,
his career of crime. Meanwhile, another case has been added to
the long and ghastly catalogue of undetected and unpunished
outrages against person or property.
Have I magnified the existing danger, or made my condemnnation of a recognized class too sweeping? Are all vagrants to be
ranked with actual or possible criminals?  Is there not among
them a considerable portion of deserving poor?
The more accurate criminal statistics of England lead us to
turn first to that country for confirmation of our statements.
The returns of 1869-1870 show that about 60,000 persons were
thenl wandering through England, Wales and Scotland, of whom
40 per cent. were computed to belong to the criminal class, and
only about six per cent., by the largest and most liberal estimate,
-and by some put as low as one per cent.,-were deemed to be
honest wayfarers.
One intelligent and experienced English police officer has said
that 99 out of every 100 professional mendicants are likewise
professional thieves, and practice either trade as occasion serves.
The same competent authority attributes to persons of this character the greater number of burglaries, highway robberies and
petty larcenies that take place, and gives it as his opinion that
if the present system of permitting professional tramps to wander about the country were done away with, a great deal of
crime would be prevented.
In the summer of 1870, I visited, at different times, various
casual wards inf London, at the hour when tramps or casuals apply for a night's lodging.
Each applicant is examined by a police officer or detective,
and the answers are taken down.
The inquiries are according to the following formula:
What is your name?
How old are you?
Where were you born?
What is your occupation?
Where did you sleep last night?
Where are you going to-morrow? 
14
These inquiries are made because prescribed by law, but not
the slightest credit is ever given to the answers. The tramp can
have no conceivable motive for lying, and must lie from sheer
force of habit. Nearly all had the stereotyped, professional, indescribable air of habitual laziness, and a majority were more or
less in liquor.
They were, almost without exception, able bodied men and
women. I conversed with many of them. Each one told a
very plausible story, with  great fluency  and much show of
earnestness. They were willing and even anxious to work and
had worked until within a day or two, being idle only because
it was impossible to find employment. But, when compelled by
the officer to show the palms of their hands, it was at once apparent that a long time had elapsed since they had performed
any manual labor.  They  certainly were not "horny-handed
sons and daughters of toil." Indeed, whenever on the occasions
to which I have referred, I encountered a collection of casuals, I
was informed by the detective in attendance, that there was not
among them a single deserving person.
To my unpractised eye, there was, at one of these interviews
with the casuals, an applicant whose appearance led me to believe that he might be an exception to the general rule.  His occupation, as he informed me, was that of a " translator."  He
was a young man, with a mild, modest, rather intelligent and
generally prepossessing face.  I said to myself  "Hiere is, perhaps, a precocious but unfortunate linguist, suffering the too frequent fate of unappreciated genius."  It was, however, explained
to me that the trasa.,1tio;z was not of some master piece of human
thought from a foreign into ouri English tongue, but of oldl boots,
(begged or purchased for a trifle), into shoes.  I was subsequently
informed that much money is often made in this way, sometimes
from twenty to thirty shillings per week.  The young "translator" confessed to having been occasionally "on the loose,"
but said that he was tired of leading the life of a tramp and would
gladly go to work again if he had money with which to purchase
the tools of his trade.
There was so much pathos in his tone, so much sadness in his
tearful face, so much apparent sincerity in his professions of a
desire to reform, that I could not help believing that I had found
at last a genuine case deserving assistance. The detective shook 
15
his head, cautioned me against the danger of being imposed upon, and even went so far as to say that the man was a palpable
fraud, but I still held to my more benevolent belief. Accordingly, I informed the youth that if he would call on nme at a
given hour on the following day, with any one of the numerous
testimonials to previous good character which he stated his ability to produce, I would give him such assistance as he needed to
set him up in business once more.  He was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, but he did not keep his appointment and
I have never seen him since that first conversation.
It is certainly unnecessary to prove  that the same general
principles, with reference to tramps, hold good in this country,
which are applicable to Great Britain.  If such proof were deinanded, I have only to appeal to the observation and experience
of every one who has paid any attention to this phase of pauperism in the United States.
Recent investigations by the State detective force of Massachusetts have led to the conclusion that the great body of tramps
are professional thieves.  Moreover, these officials have reason
to believe that such vagrants are -formed into organized ganlgs,
under the direction of skillful leaders, with general head quarters in the western part of the State, where their plunder is deposited and divided.
The inner history of the recent disgraceful and disastrous riots
in some of our principal cities reveals the fact that to large detachlments of our great standing arniy of professional tralmps,
and not to tle so-called "strikers," is mainly due the causeless
and criminal destruction of most valuable property.  It is indeed
a significant circumtstance that Pittsburg, wl}icll, doubtless from
some good or bad reason, had long been the favorite rendezvous
of these waldering hordes, was the lprincipal suffer(i from their
reckless outr;rages.  But the destruction of property was not the
sole or the most dangerous indic(ation of the evil which has justly
excited public alarm.  Thle man y wantoil murders which give  L
darker coloring to this sad picture of l:wl(ess violenie, find their
only adequate explanation in the baleful presence of the vagrant
class.
Now there can 1)be no practical difficulty il  the mind of any
thoughtful citizen in pronouucini(g such people as I hlave been
describing,Ialgerous to the peace of the co-rmmunity and deserv 
16
iig such treatment as will put it out of their power to continuec
their individual or organized warfare upon those rights which
society is bound to protect.
But, harsh as it may seem at first blush, there is no escape
from the conclusion that when those who honestly desire employment but can find.nothing to do, are reduced to the necessity of begging from door to door, they must, to all intents and
purposes and with reference to the remedy to be applied to their
unhappy circumstances, be classed with those who are unwilling
to labor. In other words, all able bodied beggars having no
homes must, so long as they remain in that condition, be treated
as vagrants.
If this view of the case seem uncharitable and unnecessarily
severe, let me invite your attention to a few considerations
which, in my judgment, fully warrant the position I have taken.
First.-It must be remembered that in this country, it is, fortunately, very rare that employment furnishing some remuneration cannot be obtained by all who are really anxious to secure
work.
Second.-It should be borne in mind that the really deserving
poor can usually find friends or acquaintances familiar with the
causes which have reduced them to poverty, and who, if not
able to assist them, will, at least, be willing to recommend them
as worthy objects of private charity.
T/lird.-(To quote from the tenth annual report of the New
York State Board of Charities), "Examination has made it clear
that by far the greater number of paupers have reached that
condition by idleness, improvidence, drunkenness, or some form
of vicious indulgence."
Fourth.-It is of the utmost importance, on every sound prinnciple of moral and political economy, that the habit of begging
should be promptly and effectually discouraged.
The desire, active or dormant, to evade the consequences of
the primal curse: "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread," is a well recognized and ever existing fact. If active,
and stimulated by homelessness, poverty and a dissolute life,
the genuine tramp is ready made. If dormant, a very few instances of injudicious alms-giving will prove a temptation to
habitual vagrancy which is rarely resisted. That is not true
charity, but a short-sighted and most harmful weakness which 
17
withdraws or suspends all motive for legitimate labor.  It has
been well said that " a tramp is one who wishes to live by the
sweat of another man's brow." The slightest aid, therefore,
whether in the form of food or money which is not earned by
an equivalent amount of labor, only fosters a tendency to improvident idleness which may be said to be inherent in human nature.
The evils resulting from  much of the so-called charity of the
present day cannot be too strongly emphasized. One man assists the beggar at his door because he fears to offend him,
another, because he dislikes to turn away a possibly deserving
case, another, because he has neither leisure nor inclination to
ascertain the truth of the pitiful story which has excited his surface sympathy; and yet in every instance in which assistance
has been rendered he has, probably, only confirmed the applicant
in his determination to live without labor.
"He tells you of his starving wife,
His children to be fed,
Poor little, lovely innocents,
All clamorous for breadAnd so you kindly help to put
A bachelor to bed."
But if we indulge ourselves in the violent supposition that the
applicant tells a true story of absolute destitution caused by no
fault of his, is it wise in the long run or justifiable on any correct principle of alms-giving, to afford relief without exacting a
labor equivalent? Does not the assistance furnished, without any
suitable return costing the person aided some honest exertion,
injure rather than benefit the recipient?  Are we not manufacturing tramps while we believe ourselves to be simply helping
the unfortunate poor? The truthful answer to these pertinent
inquiries is not far to seek. Careful and minute observation has
demonstrated, beyond all reasonable doubt, that it is difficult to
exaggerate the demoralizing influence of homeless mendicancy
or the rapidity with which the descent from decent, self-respecting industry to shameless laziness is effected.
The honest, reluctant beggar of to-day, telling his sad story
of undeserving suffering and enforced idleness, in a very few
weeks matures inito the professional tramp, coining his unblushing falsehoods as fast as he can talk, receiving alms without
gratitude and ready to "turn  again and riend " the hand  held
3 
18
out to help hiim-and all this, Inainly, if not solely, because he
has learned the fatal lesson that he can always find careless or
credulous listeners, who are practically willing to aid and abet
him in his efforts to live without labor.
Two questions remain to be answered
First (and in less general terms than those which we have
been using):  Who are vagrants?
Second, What shall be done with vagrants?
I do not know any better definition of vagrants than the one
given in the Massachusetts Statutes for the year 1866-viz.-" All
idle persons, who, not having any visible means of support, live
without lawful employment: all persons wandering about and
visiting tippling shops and houses of ill fame or lodging in groceries, outhouses, market places, sheds, barns, or in the open air,
and not giving a good accotrot of  themselves; all persons wandering abroad and begging or who go about begging from door
to door, or place themselves in the streets, highways or other
public places to beg or receive alms, shall be deemed vagrants."
Accepting this definition, if you please, as sufficiently accurate
for our present purpose, our next inquiry is What sh1all be done
with vayrants?  The evil, as we have seen, is one of enormous
magnitude, and unless speedily arrested threatens the very life
of society. It therefore calls loudly for heroic treatment.
Observe then:
Vagrants are paupers and therefore need relief.
They are able-bodied and are therefore competent to contribute
to their own support.
They are, as a class, disposed to prey upon the community,
and the community is entitled to adequate protection from their
lawless violence.
It seems to follow, therefore, that they should be placed in a
situation which will,
First: Provide for their necessities.
Second: Compel them to perform useful work.
Third: Prevent them from committing crime.
Fourth: Render it impossible for them to propagate paupers.
This, of course, involves the idea of confinement, with enforced
labor and separation of the sexes.  Now, such confinement with
enforced labor may be under the immediate direction and control
of the town ol county or state authorities, and for a longer or
shorter period. 
19
The laws of Massachusetts onl this point, recently enacted, permit each town or city within its borders, to give temporary relief
to vagrants under such regulations as to labor, with certain limitations, as the authorities of such town or city may see fit to prescribe. Wherever this plan has been thoroughly tried, it has
greatly diminished the number of vagrants infesting that particular locality.*
The plan: already legalized in Massachusetts  has been for
years pursued to some extent in England, under the charge of
the guardians of the poor districts. But, owing to the expense
of providing facilities for work, and the very small amount which
can be earned in this way, (the kinds of labor enforced being
almost exclusively oakum picking and stone breaking,) many
districts have made no arrangements for what is called " the labor
test."
It is, however, easily apparent that this mode of dealing with
the vagrant problem, althoulgh, perhal)s, good so far as it goes,
is wholly inadequate to the suppression or very material diminution of the evil complained of.
For, 1st: The avails or  such labor are merely nominal in
amount.
2d: The vagrant has no opportunity of learning any useful
trade or occupation.
a3d: The vagrant is let loose upon the community for a considerable proportion of the working hours of each day, with the
added privilege of roaming at large during the entire day and
night, if he elects to avoid a temporary seclusion from general
society; and,
4thi: This mode of relief leaves it optional with cities and
towns, whether they will put this, at best, inadequate remedy
into practical operation.
These and other kindred objections, apply, it will be observed,
to any system of affording tenmpor(ary relief, accompanied by
temporary labor.
* When the city of Springfield, which imposed upon wandering paupers to whom it
furnished lodging, the task of breaking stone till 11 A. M. of the following day, housed five
vagrants nightly, the city of Hartford, Conn., less than thirty miles distant, with about
the same population, was giving nightly shelter to about one hundred tramps, and,
as the Hartford authorities could not well turn applicants away when there was room for
them in the lockup, they are said to have been driven to the pitiful device of keeping the
windows open during the coldest season of the year, 
authority, attempt, however thoroughly, to deal with vagrancy
as an offence, to be punished by confinement with labor for a
teren of months, it would result in the establishment of a great
number of small work-houses, with an immense aggregate outlay for salaried officers, and, in every way, a very large disbursement, to be met by greatly increased taxation. The smaller
towns would naturally seek to evade the enforcement of a law
which entailed so much expense, and thus this poor remedy
would have only partial application.
Again, the mnere fact that a vagrant is found in Pigsgusset
to-day, and, if not arrested there, will be in ilardscrabble tomorrow, certainly furnishes no good reason why Pigsgusset,
although, perhaps, a thriving village, should be obliged to afford
him a home, and a sufficient support. Moreover, the inevitable
result of such a system would be, that those towns which are
situated on main lines of travel between great business centres,
would be compelled to sustain the lion's share of taxation.
Once more, if the arrangement of the matter under this system
were committed to the several coui,ties of each state, the plan
would, in many of the smaller states, be open to the same objection.  There would still be an unnecessary and wasteful multiplication of work-houses and salaried officials.
If I may venture to assume that the reasons which have been
urged against entrusting to cities or towns or counties the application and enforcement of laws in restra-int of the tramp nuisance are valid and controlling, we will proceed to consider,
very briefly, the only agency remaining to be examined-viz:
the States.
So far as I am aware, the wisest and most feasible plan yet
devised for dealing with the vagrant dilemmna is contained in a
Bill prepared and offered to the last Assembly of the state of
New York by the "State Charities Aid Association."  Omitting
for the sake of brevity many minor, but most essential details,
its main features are as follows:
Adopting the existing judicial districts of the state as the basis
of distribution, it provides for the appointiment of a board of
seven managers for each district, such managers to be reimbursed
for their actual and necessary expenses while employed in the
discharge of their official duties, but to receive no compensation
2l 
21
for their time or services. It is, moreover, expressly provided
that no member of the several boards of managers shall be interested, directly or indirectly, in leasing or hiring buildings or land
under the 4th Section of the act or in any contract for repairing
or furnishing any of the buildings to be used as district-workhouses, or in any contract for supplying food, raw material or
other merchandise for any district workhouse.
It is made the duty of each board of managers, within six
months of the time of their appointmnent, to hire buildings suitable for the confinement and employment of vagrants.
Proper provision is to be made for the separation of the sexes,
by placing them, respectively, in buildings so far removed from
one another that all inter-communication is practically irhpossible.
It is, moreover, wisely prescribed that no female officer or subordinate shall be employed in any building designed for men,
and no male officer or subordinate in any building designed for
women.
It is niade the duty of the Board of Managers in each district
to decide upon the kind of employment suitable for the persons
committed to each district work-house; to provide for their necessary custody and superintendence, and, in such provisions for safe
keeping and employment, to have due regard to the formation
of habits of self-supporting industry in the inmates, and to their
mental and moral improvement. All powers requisite to the
carrying into effect of these provisions are conferred upon the
Managers.
The Managers are to open an account with all vagrants duly
committed by the local magistrates to the work-houses in their
respective districts, charging them with all the expenses incurred
by the Managers for their board and maintenance, and crediting
them with a fair and reasonable compensation for the labor performed by them, and at the expiration of their terms of sentence,
paying to them such balance as shall be found due to them at
the time of their discharge.
Tlhe "contract system" is strictly prohibited, and no person is
to be allowed to oversee the labor of the inmates who is not employed and paid by the Managers.
So soon as the work-house in any district shall be prepared to
receive inmates, it shall be the duty of the justices of the peace,
., I. 
22
police justices, or other magistrates of such district, (any law to
the contrary notwithstanding), to sentence and commit all persons convicted of being vagrants under any existing or future
law of the state, whether such law shall apply to the whole state,
or to any special county thereof within which said person shall
be convicted, to the district work-house of the judicial district in
which such conviction shall take place, for a term not less than
ninety days or more than six months on the first conviction, and
for a term not less than six months or more than one year on a
second or any subsequent conviction.
It is also made the duty of every mnagistrate, justice, and court
which examines, or convicts, or commits any person, under authlority given in this act, to cause a record to be kept of the
name, age, birthplace, occupation, last place of residence and kind
of employment, of all persons so committed by them, together
with the reasons given for, or the particulars of the vagrancy
charged. A copy of said record is to be transmitted upon the
official order of the commitment of said persons to the superintendent of the district work-house as apart of the paper or order
which shall accompany each person to the work-house, and the
superintendent of such workhouse is to enter and keep in a book
of record all these and such other facts as are by law required
concerning the inmates of poor-houses.
It is further provided that the Managers of each district, having hired two or more buildings and land suitable for the confinement and employment of vagrants, shall make an estimate of
all necessary expenses to be incurred in establishing, equipping
and maintaining said work-house for the year ensuing, and shall
then apportion the expense, so estimated, among the several
counties composing the district for which said Managers wereappointed, pro rata, to the property tax of each county, as the
same shall be determined on.
An explanatory appendix to the Bill, of which we have given,
as already indicated, only the salient points, defends its general
design and predicts the beneficent results to be expected from
its adoption and enforcement, in sadt clear and cogent language,
that we make no apology for quoting it without abridgement.
It should be added that this "appendix," as well as the Bill,
whose wise provisions we have been considering, proceeds from
that most useful organization, the State Charities Aid Association of the State of New York.
.1.... 
... I.    -    e4 
23
' Having learned that the impression prevails ainmohg members of the
Assembly that the establishment of District Work-houses, as provided by
Assembly Bill, No. 79 (reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee), will
entail expense on the people of the State, we wish to call your attention to
the fact that it is, on the contrary, a measure of the wisest economy, for the
following reasons:
1. Because it proposes to transfer from the county jails, where they spend
the time of their sentence in absolute idleness, all persons convicted as vagrants, and place them in work-houses, where they will be compelled to
support themselves. The counties will thus be relieved of the burden of
maintaining thousands of idle and vicious persons while they are undergoilg punishment.
2. A system of reformatory treatment will be carried on in the workhouses, and it is believed that a portion of the inmates will by this means
be rendered permanently self-supporting.
3. The proposed discipline will become irksome to incorrigible vagrants,
many of whom will leave the State, and thus the work-houses will, both by
reformatory and deterrent influences, materially diminish the vicious population of the State.
4. The actual expense of establishing the work-houses will not be great,
since the members of the Board of Managers are to receive no salaries, and
the bill provides only for the hiring of buildings, and the purchase of furniture, tools and raw material for the employment of the inmates.
As no buildings are to be erected, the number hired can at any time be
diminished, should the diminished number of vagrants warrant such a
step."
Another consequence which we may reasonably hope would result from the passage of this bill or one embodying kindred provisions and embracing the sanie general principles, by any of the
States of our iUnion, deserves to be noticed. We have, I think,
a right to infer that such a legislative enactment, rigidly enforced, would drive from beyond the confines of the State, so
protected, all tramps who succeeded in escaping arrest, and disperse them over adjoining States where no such laws had been
adopted.
The communities so invaded would soon be driven in self-defence to resort to similar legislation, until at last there would be
no State, in which able-bodied vagrants would be permitted to
roam at large, disturbing the good order oft' society, stealing or
destroying the property of law-abiding citizens, wantonly taking
or endangering human life and generally bringing a grievous reproach upon our boasted civilization by the daily spectacle of
lawless violence unchecked and brutal crimes unpunished.
If it be urged that the professional tramp is rarely reclaimed 
24
and returned to the ranks of honest labor, we reply that the attempt at reformation has never yet been made under hopeful
conditions. When punitive measures have been put in force, the
term of sentence has always been so brief as to exclude the possibility of genuine amendment or of acquiring any knowledge of
such trade or occupation as will not only maintain the vagrant
while in confinement, but also teach habits of self-supporting and
self-respecting industry.
Surely, alike on moral and economic grounds, such an experiment is well worth being ptut to the test of a thorough trial.