1
THE TRAMP AT HOME
BY
LEE MERIWETHER
SPECIAL AGENT OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
AUTHOR OF "A TRAMP TRIP ; OR, HOW TO SEE EUROPE
ON FIFTY CENTS A DAY"
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1889
6%
Copyright, 1S89, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rightt reierved.
u. c.
IDEMY OF I
[PIC COAST
IISTORY
PKEFACE.
HERBERT SPENCER argues that if left to themselves
private individuals would perceive what measures are
desirable for their welfare, -and would carry out such
measures without the intervention of Government.
This will not always hold. Certainly, were the collec-
tion of statistics left to private enterprise, few would be
collected. An enthusiastic individual might be found
here and there hunting data concerning his particular
hobby; there might be enthusiasts upon all questions
of public importance, but their efforts would be desul-
tory, would lack combination, and the results, as far as
the public is concerned, would be almost nothing.
The importance which the " Labor Question " has at-
tained is evidenced in no more striking way than by the
establishment of labor bureaus for the collection of sta-
tistics bearing especially upon labor. Massachusetts was
the first State to establish such a bureau. Her example
has been generally followed, until now more than half
the States in the Union, and also the General Govern-
ment at Washington, have departments engaged in the
special work of gathering data concerning labor.
That such information, if accurate, is valuable, will
not be denied. If data be obtained for a number of
years showing, for instance, the direct and indirect ef-
VI PREFACE.
feet of strikes whether they are followed, directly or
indirectly, by gain or loss such data would afford ma-
terial for valuable deductions, and would probably have
an effect on the frequency or infrequency of strikes.
I spent upwards of a year in the kingdoms of the Old
World studying the condition of working-men. After
submitting a report to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
at Washington, embodying the results of my observa-
tions in Europe, the Secretary of the Interior appointed
me as a special agent to obtain similar information in
America.
The dry statistics gathered in my travels as special
agent have been submitted to the Department. The
following pages contain, not the dry figures, but a few
of the incidents amusing and otherwise that befell
me in my intercourse with the working-classes of Amer-
ica, together with a brief account of a journey to the
Sandwich Islands undertaken in connection with an in-
vestigation into the condition of sailors.
One or two chapters of the present matter have al-
ready appeared in HAKPER'S WEEKLY and HARPER'S
MAGAZINE. The rest is now in print for the first time.
LEE MERIWETHER.
ST. Louis, December, 1888.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN.
CONDITION OP WORKING - WOMEN. SUSPICIOUS OP GOVERNMENT AGENTS.
WHAT is WOMAN'S " SPHERE ?" THE POOR IN BROOKLYN. MISTAKEN FOR
AN INSURANCE AGENT. A NIGHT ON THE BOWERY. POLITICAL ECONOMY
IN A BATH-TUB Page 1
CHAPTER II.
FACTORY LIFE.
THREAD A THOUSAND MILES LONG. HOW LACE IS MADE. GIRLS AT A COOK-
ING-SCHOOL. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY GIRL-PRISONERS IN THE BROOKLYN
PENITENTIARY. A BROOKLYN TAPESTRY- WEAVER. WHY A BAGGING MANU-
FACTURER WANTS PROTECTION 21
CHAPTER III.
IN NEW ENGLAND.
HOW FACTORY OPERATIVES LIVE AND WORK ; THEIR HOME LIFE. AN ITALIAN
AND AN AMERICAN FAMILY COMPARED. SMALL ECONOMIES. A ONE-CENT
ICE-CREAM SALOON. CRUEL RESULTS OF CHILD-LABOR. CONSUMPTION AND
INSANITY ON THE INCREASE 36
CHAPTER IV.
NEW ENGLAND Continued.
THE KIND OF LITERATURE FACTORY PEOPLE READ. BOARDING-HOUSE KEEPERS.
I FIND A BABY IN THE WEEDS. SAINTS AND FOUNDLINGS. LIFE OF THE
NUNS. AMONG THE SHAKERS. THEIR CURIOUS WORSHIP AND DANCES. . 48
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
IN NEW ORLEANS.
THE SNUFF-DRUMMER. A MANUFACTURER WHO WAS U AGIN THE GOVERNMENT."
CONDITION OF LABORERS IN NEW ORLEANS. A GLIMPSE OF ITALY AND THE
TEMPLE OF VESTA. WHY GIRLS DISLIKE DOMESTIC SERVICE. MISERABLE
PAY AND CONDITION OF SEWING-WOMEN. INFLUENCE OF THE LOTTERY. NO
MONEY FOR BREAD, BUT ALWAYS A DOLLAR FOR THE LOTTERY Page 58
CHAPTER VI.
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS.
AN ANCIENT ACADEMY. TUSCULUM, NAMESAKE OF CICERO'S VILLA. LIVING
ON TWENTY CENTS A DAY. INDEPENDENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN FARMERS.
HOW COTTON IS RAISED ON SHARES. SKETCHES OF FARM LIFE IN EAST
TENNESSEE. A RELIGIOUS MEETING WHERE THE WOMEN WASHED THE MEN'S
FEET, AND THE MEN SWAPPED HORSES 73
CHAPTER VII.
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS Continued.
THE "KING OF CORN COVE." LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. THE 'SPRISE DANCE
AT SAMANTHA'S. WHY BILL CALLED HIM A SNEAK. MOUNTAIN ETI-
QUETTE 82
CHAPTER VIII.
A NIGHT ON THE DEVIL'S NOSE.
LOST ON THE MOUNTAIN. MISTAKEN FOR A REVENUE- OFFICER. IMPRISONED
IN A CAVE. HOW I ESCAPED. A PIOUS MOONSHINER. 1 RIDE INTO NORTH
CAROLINA , 88
CHAPTER IX.
IN TEXAS.
A GIFTED LIAR. HOW HE ASTONISHED LORD PALMERSTON AND THE QUEEN.
HOW HE FILLED GENERAL HANCOCK WITH WATERMELON AND SAVED THE
REBEL ARMY. TEXAS COWBOYS, THEIR WAGES AND ROUGH LIFE. THE CAT-
TLE KINGS OF THE PANHANDLE. A TRIP INTO MEXICO. CONDITION OF LABOR
IN THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC. THE CUSTOMS-OFFICERS ON THE FRONTIER. . 97
CONTENTS. ix
CHAPTER X.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS.
THEIR EDUCATIONAL EFFECT. GREAT INTEREST TAKEN BY WORKING-PEOPLE
IN ECONOMIC QUESTIONS. FALLACIES. MR. POWDERLY AND THE BEER BOT-
TLES. THE HILLS AND HOLLOWS OF KANSAS CITY. WHY " TREATING "
FOSTERS DRUNKENNESS AND RUINS WORKING-MEN. INTERVIEWS WITH ST.
LOUIS LABORERS Page 107
CHAPTER XI.
HOW NAILS ARE MADE.
A BIG STRIKE. COAL-MINERS. THEIR GLOOMY LIFE. A MAN WHO BELIEVED
IN INSULATION. WHY THE POLAR-BEAR FROZE. THE LADY COOK. LIVING
BY ABSORPTION. A NIGHT ON PIKERS PEAK. A MORMON PEDESTRIAN. . 126
CHAPTER XII.
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY.
BY BUCK -BOARD, BOAT, AND STAGE. GOVERNMENT "REQUESTS." A CON-
DUCTOR WHO WANTED TO EJECT ME. THE CHINESE GARDENS IN PORTLAND.
UP THE COLUMBIA. LOGGING IN WASHINGTON TERRITORY. A FOREST
FIRE. WE HAVE TO CLEAR THE WAY. THE INLETS OF PUGET SOUND.
A FLOATING PHOTOGRAPHER 141
CHAPTER XIII.
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA.
A RED-BEARDED MAN WHO DEMANDED AN EXPLANATION. CLOTH AND PAPER
HOTELS. ROUTED BY ROACHES. RUINOUS INTEREST PAID BY WESTERN
FARMERS. A HARDWARE DRUMMER DISCOMFITED. A HOLE IN THE GROUND
TWO THOUSAND FEET DEEP. AN ENGLISHMAN WHO HAD BIRD ON THE
BRAIN. WESTERN STAGE-COACH DRIVERS 155
CHAPTER XIV.
CALIFORNIA.
THE " LABOR QUESTION " ON THE PACIFIC COAST. UNSETTLED CONDITIONS.
MILLIONAIRES, PAUPERS, AND DISCONTENT. GREEK SCHOLARS AT WORK SIDE
BY SIDE WITH CHINAMEN. A WAITER WHO DOES NOT PEEL POTATOES.
X CONTENTS.
CHINESE LABOR UNIONS. THEIR STRIKES AND BOYCOTTS. PHOTOGRAPHING
UNDERGROUND DENS BY AID OF ELECTRIC LIGHTS. FRIGHTENED MONGO-
LIANS. AT A CHINESE FUNERAL. BAKED PIG AND BIRDS' NESTS. MUST THE
CHINESE GO? Page 167
CHAPTER XV.
CALIFORNIA- Continued.
THE MYTHICAL CITIES OF THE GOLDEN GATE. HOW LAND IS MONOPOLIZED, AND
WHY WAGES IN THE FAR WEST ARE GROWING SMALLER. A PACK-MULE TRIP
OVER THE COAST RANGE MOUNTAINS. A FRONTIERSMAN RIDING COW-BACK.
LOCATING A TIMBER CLAIM. REAL-ESTATE SPECULATIONS ON THE SANDY
PLAINS OF SAN DIEGO. CALIFORNIA HOSPITALITY. HYDRAULIC MINING.
HUNTING BEAR WITH SIBERIAN BLOOD-HOUNDS 193
CHAPTER XVI.
SAILORS' WOES.
RAILROADS VERSUS PEOPLE. TWO OPPOSITE VIEWS. ORIGIN OF THE LABOR
BUREAU. CARROLL D. WRIGHT, COMMISSIONER AND STATISTICIAN. THE
SEAMEN'S STRIKE. HOW POOR JACK is TREATED. EXTRACTS FROM TESTI-
MONY GIVEN IN THE OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION 203
CHAPTER XVII.
A SAILOR'S STORY.
CRUEL TREATMENT AFLOAT AND ASHORE. BEATEN WITH A BELAYING-PIN AND
LOCKED IN THE DARK-HOLE. HOW MEN ARE SHIPPED 215
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SAILOR'S STORY Continued.
PICKLING A CHINAMAN. THE CREW MUTINY. ESCAPE TO A TROPICAL ISLAND.
WORK SECURED ON A SUGAR PLANTATION. THE SAILOR BECOMES A LAW-
YER AND WINS A WIFE 224
CHAPTER XIX.
A TROPICAL TRIP.
INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE. A BURIAL AT SEA. THE PASSENGER WHO WAS
"A BIT PUT ABOUT," AND THE TALL MISSIONARY. CURIOUS SCENE OFF THE
CONTENTS. Xi
SAMOAN ISLANDS. LABOR ON THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. EFFECTS OF THE
CONTRACT SYSTEM. ILLUSTRATION OF GEORGE'S LAND THEORY. LIFE AND
LABOR ON SUGAR PLANTATIONS Page 234
CHAPTER XX.
TWO VOLCANOES.
A NIGHT ON THE VERGE OF SHEOL. THE AWFUL FIRES OF KILAUEA. IN THE
IAO YALLEY. THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. WE BECOME LOST IN THE
CRATER OF A VOLCANO 253
CHAPTER XXI.
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS.
WRETCHES BANISHED FROM THE WORLD ; THEY DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES, AND
GIVE "COFFIN SOCIABLES" TO RAISE FUNDS WHEREWITH TO PURCHASE
COFFINS. FIGHT WITH A SHARK. AH FOO'S EXPANSIVE FAMILY 264
CHAPTER XXII.
BANQUETING WITH A KING.
ROYALTY'S HULA-HULA GIRLS AND THEIR VOLUPTUOUS DANCES. TROPICAL
ORGIES. A PIG STUFFED WITH THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND SILVER DIMES.
WHY THE CAUCASIANS REVOLTED. TRAVELLERS NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE
THE KINGDOM UNTIL THEIR DEBTS ARE PAID 274
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
LABOR BUREAUS SHOW, BUT WHO WILL IMPROVE, THE CONDITION OF LABOR ?
THE FIVE METHODS COMMONLY URGED FOR BENEFITING WORKING-MEN
ONLY MAKESHIFTS. THE REAL REMEDY 284
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
An Opium Den Frontispiece
Brooklyn Tobacco-strippers 13
The Brooklyn Cooking-school 23
Homes of the Poor 29
Foundling Children Eating Dinner 53
Shaker Worship 56
A Poor Seamstress at Work . . . ; 68
" Moonshiner's " Cabin on the Devil's Nose 94
Iron-workers 119
Coal-miners Going to Work . . . 129
The Signal-station on Pike's Peak 137
Loggers in Winter , . 149
California Girls Peeling Peaches 168
Lottery Shop 175
Alley in Chinatown , 183
Chinese Merchants 187
Railroad on a Sugar Plantation 245
The Water-flume , 248
Crater of Kilauea 261
Hula-hula Girls *. 275
Hawaiian Female Costumes 281
THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER I.
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN.
CONDITION OF WORKING -WOMEN. SUSPICIOUS OF GOVERNMENT
AGENTS. WHAT IS WOMAN'S "SPHERE?" THE POOR IN BROOK-
LYN. MISTAKEN FOR AN INSURANCE AGENT. A NIGHT ON THE
BOWERY. POLITICAL ECONOMY IN A BATH-TUB.
UPON completing my report on the condition of working-
men in Europe, I was deputed by the Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics at Washington to examine into the condition of working-
women in large American cities. Brooklyn was the first city
selected. Before beginning the investigation I delivered to the
Knights of Labor in Brooklyn several letters of introduction
that had been given me by members of the order in Wash-
ington. An appointment was made for me to attend an open
meeting at the Knights of Labor hall on Fulton Street. I went,
and found that the introductory letters had been unfavorably
received. My arrival was the signal for hoots and jeers.
" We want no Government spies !" cried one man.
" You can't come in here !" cried another.
" They sneaked one man in on us last year ; it can't be done
again, though !" shouted a third.
" There is some mistake," I said, as soon as the excitement
abated enough to let me be heard. " I supposed your order
was friendly to the Labor Bureau. The commissioner did not
send me to you. He knows nothing of my purpose of coming
here"
1
2 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" You haven't told Carroll Wright, eh ?" interrupted one of
the men. " Well, you can tell that to the marines. We have
no more faith in Carroll Wright than in any other Massachu-
setts man, and that is saying we have mighty little."
I endeavored to explain that all I wanted were suggestions
as to where I had better begin the investigation where I wold
find most working-girls. The Knights would not listen.
I fear labor investigations will be attended with more seri-
ous obstacles in the United States than in Europe. In Europe
the men always seemed willing, even anxious, to talk with me.
They freely told of their low wages, of their hard struggle, and
in return listened to the stories I related of America. At home
I have often found it difficult to win their confidence. Ameri-
can laborers are suspicious of anything connected with the
Government, which they seem to believe is run entirely in the
interest of the rich. Once, as I was leaving a large New Eng-
land cotton-mill, whither I had gone to secure the names of
some of the operatives with the purpose of interviewing them
at their homes, an old woman who had given me her name and
residence came running up.
" If you please, sir, I think I would like to have my name
back."
I was a Government agent, and some one had cautioned her
not to trust a Government agent. I gravely read from my
note-book the name and address she had given me ; whereupon
she returned to her loom apparently satisfied. Afterwards,
when I called upon this same woman, she evinced surprise that
I remembered her, and knew where to find her house after I
had given back her name ! She seemed to think it vain to at-
tempt to further evade so acute an investigator, and answered
my questions quite freely.
The possessor of moderate intelligence is the hardest to deal
with. A workman of first-class intelligence understands the
value of statistics, and to assist in throwing light on the " labor
question" will submit to what ordinarily might seem an im-
pertinent examination into private affairs. On the other hand,
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 3
laborers of very limited intelligence men and women who,
through drudgery, have become mere machines will answer
questions as they will do anything else they are bidden. But
from that portion of the community with just enough sense
and schooling not to be automatic machines, yet not quite
enough to comprehend the purpose of statistical inquiries
from this class it is difficult to extract any trustworthy infor-
mation whatever. The flippant evasions, the would-be witty
replies I received from this class would fill a volume.
"What is it all for?" one will ask. I explain. "Well,
what does the Government want to know my wages for? It
ain't the Government's business if my work ain't healthy."
" It will not harm, it may benefit, you to tell me about your
work."
" I believe I would as lief not," they reply, glancing at me
furtively, as if taking me to be the emissary of an enemy.
Experience made me expert in distinguishing this class.
Often I could tell at a glance whether a man or woman would
be willing to give information. I left with some of the work-
ing-girls printed forms with questions as to the effect of their
work on the health, the average of wages, hours, etc. Here
are a few specimens of the written replies made by shop-girls
to those questions :
" Work makes me feeble, and troubled with corns."
" Very injurious work. Gives me toothache, and rheumatism in my left
ankle. I have to support my entire family consisting of twelve persons,
not including my future husband."
" Weakly. Diagnosis of my case most miserable. Very weak around
the ankles."
" Don't get any wages live on love and fresh air. You forgot to ask
what number of shoes I wear. Well, I will tell you. I am noted for my
very small feet. I wear my father's old socks and my mother's shoes.
It is below my dignity to wash dishes. I mind the baby instead, who is a
darling boy with a beautiful mustache, and kisses too nicely for any-
thing."
"If you want any information about me, come around some time when
I'm out, and get all you can. It's none of the Government's business what
wages I get."
4 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" Sanitary condition very bad, a young man being across the way result-
ing in my having palpitation of the heart. Make the Government pass a
law to remove that young man, or else make him shave off his mustache.
Otherwise I shall die of heart disease."
" Can't fool me. The Government ain't going to help us working-girls.
It never did."
" My entire family belong to the Salvation Army. Call to see my pa
and he will tell you the rest, and set the bull-dog on you besides."
" Work is injurious to the rotary motions of my interior organs. My
left eye has a fixed look, owing, no doubt, to my habit of squinting at the
young man across the way. Am also afflicted with bandy-leggedness in
pedal extremities, which I attribute to standing on one foot. Am gradu-
ally growing one-sided. To keep a straight appearance, am forced to
stand on an oyster-can."
" If you want any information call some time when I am not in. I would
be delighted to improve an acquaintance so agreeably begun; likewise my
pa, whose shot-gun is not yet out of order, and who is considered the best
shot for miles around."
Such instances could be multiplied indefinitely, but the above
suffice to illustrate the point. Those girls doubtless giggled
and were highly amused at the wit they imagined they were
displaying. At the same time, if there really was anything in-
jurious in their work, or if there were any evils capable of legis-
lative remedy, no more effectual way could have been taken to
choke off inquiry and prevent the probable benefits that might
follow an accurate and complete knowledge of their condition.
I believe I had less difficulty in Europe, because there I adopt-
ed the dress of a workman and lived with the working-class.
Doubtless, had I gone to them as an agent of the Government,
they also would have been suspicious and churlish. In Italy,
where I began my tramp trip, I used frequently to fall in with
strolling peddlers and mechanics. In answer to their questions
I told them frankly that I was tramping merely to see the peo-
ple. An itinerant umbrella-vender, whom I met on the way
from Palermo to Rome, required to be told several times before
he would believe that I was doing for pleasure the very thing
he considered the hardest sort of work. Said he :
41 Amico mio my friend you are not crazy. You wish not
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 5
the people to think you crazy. Well, do not tell that you walk
from Palermo to Rome for love to walk and see people. You
have a pack on your back ; say you sell umbrellas, but that
they are all gone. Then people will not think you mad."
It may be that truth is not, like honesty, always the best
policy. Certainly sometimes in Italy, when the peasants
crowded too close to stare at the " mad American who walked
about in the sun for nothing," it would have been more agree-
able to have sought shelter under the humble but honest occu-
pation of an itinerant umbrella-vender.
A great deal is said about woman's sphere. One declares
it is in the kitchen ; another, that it is in the nursery ; another,
in the parlor. It is in a dozen different places, according to
the classifier's taste and imagination. Careful investigation in
many lands has led me to the conclusion that whatever wom-
an's sphere should be, it actually is about the same as man's ;
and that is in the very front rank of the hard battle of life.
That small class of idle, daintily dressed fine ladies to whom
men pay most homage only furnishes an exception to the
general rule. The aristocratic American feels disgraced if his
sister or daughter engages in manual labor. In Europe the
upper classes look down on men as well as women who work
for a living. The Turkish gentleman owns his wives as he
owns his dogs or horses, and, if rich enough, keeps them
in idle luxury These idle and pampered women, however,
are few in number in comparison with the women workers of
the world. In America, in Europe, even in Turkey, where it
is pretended women are so highly esteemed where it is sac-
rilege for men to even look at their faces the labor investiga-
tor will find that the great majority of women work for their
daily bread, often working side by side with men. More than
that, he will see woman, gentle woman, whose "sphere" is in
the home, in the kitchen, in the nursery, doing hard and coars-
ening work, while her lord and master does some softer service,
or perhaps lounges idle by her side.
I can never forget the astonishment, mingled with shame,
6 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
which I felt the first time I gazed upon a woman harnessed
by the side of an ox. It was on a lonely road in Switzerland,
near the Italian frontier. Night had already set in, and the
bonfires lighted by woodsmen hundreds of feet above my head
gave scarcely enough light to pick my way over the rough,
rocky road. I hurried on to reach the next village. In my
hurry, and in the darkness, I almost ran into a huge mass of
moving hay. A woman was pulling that hay, and an ox, not
a man, was helping her. On that same road I overtook a num-
ber of women who looked like walking hay-stacks. Strapped
to their backs were funnel-like contrivances, into which hay
was stacked to a height of five or six feet. The husbands
piled the hay into the funnels; the wives carried it. It is to
be hoped such shameful sights will never be seen on American
soil.
I secured the names of a number of the employes of a large
Brooklyn rope factory, and on Sunday one of my assistants, a
lady, went to interview them.
" When I called at the first house," said the assistant, " the
girl seemed surprised.
" ' Where is the young man ?' she asked.
" She was dressed in all her finery, as if expecting a beau
instead of a Government agent. At another place the girl's
mother opened the door.
" ' Pshaw !' she exclaimed, ' isn't he coming ? I stayed on pur-
pose to see him. I was going to a funeral to-day ; but when
I heard the Government was sending young men around to
talk with my girl I thought I'd better stay to home and see
what was up.'
" She was very friendly, however, and insisted on my taking
a chair and writing comfortably at the table. I did so. Very
good. But when I arose to go it was very bad. The chair
arose too. It had been freshly varnished, and stuck to my
dress. The good woman was greatly put out. She scrubbed
and rubbed my dress, pinned up the rents, and insisted on my
staying to dinner by way of making amends for my torn dress.
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 7
I remained, and had a working-family's Sunday dinner : soup,
ham, potatoes, coffee, bread and butter, and pie.
"A poor rope -maker, after she had read my credentials
stating that 'any assistance rendered would be valued as adding
to the statistical information of the bureau,' looked a little
troubled.
" ' I am right hard up,' she said, hesitatingly, * but I am
willing to help what I can. Will twenty-five cents do any
good ?' "
The poor woman thought the great, big, rich United States
Government was soliciting financial assistance. It was perhaps
comical, but also a little pathetic, her willingness to drop into
its overflowing coffers her little mite of twenty-five cents.
When she understood that information, not money, was solic-
ited, she cheerfully answered the questions necessary to fill the
blanks.
An old woman whom I met on the streets was carrying a
mountain of cheap " pants " on her back. I spoke to her.
"Kann kein Englisch," said the old woman.
"Also, wir wollen Deutsch sprechen," I answered, address-
ing her in German, and told her I wanted to visit her and in-
quire about her work.
** Wollen mich besuchen?" (Want to come to see me?) her
eyes opening wide with astonishment. " Was soil das heissen ?"
(What does that mean?) " I don't know you."
"But I want to know you. I want you to tell me about
your work, your wages. It is for the Government."
" For the Government ! Where, then, is your uniform ?"
In Germany every official, however lowly and humble, wears
a uniform decorated with brass buttons. The old German lady
refused to believe I was a Government agent, and marched off
eying me suspiciously, and muttering, "Der naseweise Junge,
cine alte Frau so anzureden !" (The impudent rascal, to bother
an old woman like me !)
However, it is not difficult to find the homes of the "pants"
makers. Passing along the streets, one knows their places by
8 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
the clattering of the sewing-machines. Here is the table of a
Brooklyn " pants " and coat maker :
Condition. Family of seven : mother and six daughters. Occupy four
small rooms on the third floor of a tenement-house, paying $10 a month
rent. Two of the rooms are very plainly furnished, the other two are
mere closets. The mother works at hcme finishing "pants," cooking,
and keeping house. Two sisters work out, the others go to the public
schools. By working from six o'clock in the morning until half-past
six in the evening, one girl has made as much as $11.70 in a week.
Ordinarily she earns from $6 to $9 a week. The higher figure, however,
is made only when the mother helps.
Diet. Breakfast : Tea or coffee and bread. Dinner : Bread and butter,
fresh meat of some kind, potatoes, occasionally pie or pudding. Supper :
Same as breakfast.
Amount earned by the two girls making " pants," per week, $16.
Cost of living for family of seven, per week :
Rent $2 50
Meats, salt and fresh 3 00
Potatoes 56
Butter 30
Flour and bread 1 30
Tea and coffee 50
Clothing 2 30
Fuel and light 1 00
All other expenses, religion, repairing furniture, etc 4 00
Total weekly expenses $15 46
Total weekly income 16 00
Total weekly savings $ 54
This would make the savings of this Brooklyn family amount
to $28.08 a year a small sum with which to meet sickness or
other misfortune.
In the large cities, as New York, Philadelphia. St. Louis, etc.,
wages appear to be higher than in small towns, though not suf-
ficiently so to compensate for the greatly increased cost of liv-
ing. In New York it is impossible for the average workman
or woman to live in anything like comfort. Rents are high,
provisions are high, every necessity is high. Few working-men
get off with less than ten dollars a month rent, and it may
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 9
safely be said that any habitation in New York City at that
figure would be of the most miserable and squalid description.
I have visited many tenement-houses, and found not a few
cases where the children of a family, grown sons and daugh-
ters, occupied the same sleeping apartments. Not only will
such crowding create physical disease, but it must necessarily
destroy all natural delicacy and possibly deprave the morals.
Still, there is nothing as bad in New York as the lodging-
houses I have seen in Italian cities, where men and women,
strangers to each other, often bunk together. The philanthro-
pist who studies tenement life in large American cities will
readily perceive the evils resulting from overcrowding, and seek
some remedy therefor. Take, for instance, the Tenth Police
Precinct in New York. In that precinct a large proportion*
of the population dwell in a poor class of tenement-houses, and
New York statistics of crime show a figure ten per cent, greater
in proportion to population in the Tenth than in any other pre-
cinct where the number of tenement-houses is smaller. This
of itself might not mean much ; but when careful inquiry in
several large cities shows that there is uniformly a much larger
per cent, of crime in districts where great numbers of people
crowd in tenement-houses than in districts not so crowded, the
fact, to say the least, is significant. I was unable to get the
statistics of crime in European cities in this connection. Had
they been obtainable, doubtless the same story would have been
told. The poorer class of tenement-houses are usually filled
by the lowest classes of society. It may be said that these low
classes furnish a fertile soil for crimes and vices. Overcrowd-
ing in dark attics and damp cellars certainly will afford these
* The Registrar of the New York Board of Health writes, March, 1888:
"A tenement-house, as legally defined, is one in which more than two
families live independently ; but in this census no cognizance has been
taken of what are called * apartment-houses ' or ' flats,' but only of the
poorer class the houses commonly known as ' tenements ' front door
never closed. Total number of such houses, 31,534; total number of
families, 250,105 ; total number of occupants, 1,016,135."
1*
10 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
unfortunates no chance to improve their condition mentally,
morally, or physically ; on the contrary, a perpetuity of vice
and crime is assured. One hundred years ago less than a thir-
tieth of the population of the United States lived in cities of
eight thousand and over. The census of 1880 showed that the
urban population constituted 22.5 per cent, (or nearly a fourth)
of the entire population. The tendency to crowd into cities
still continues, and, if not checked, will result in producing the
same squalid poverty that may be said to be the rule in Europe,
but as yet is only " sporadic " in America.
Considering its size and proximity to New York, rents in
Brooklyn are surprisingly low low even as compared with
smaller cities. I found a skirt and lace embroiderer on Lexing-
ton Avenue, Brooklyn, in a brown-stone-front house which might
easily be mistaken for the residence of a well-to-do merchant
or banker. The lace-embroiderer paid fifty dollars a month for
this three-story stone-front house. She sublet the first floor for
twenty dollars, and the third for fourteen dollars, making the
rent of the second floor, which she occupied with her grand-
mother and cousin, sixteen dollars a month. The front room,
overlooking the elevated railroad, was handsomely furnished
pictures, piano, carpet, etc. The cousin paid four dollars a week
on this, and on her wages of ten dollars a week the lace-em-
broiderer supported herself and grandmother in comfort.
A comfortable two -story frame house can be rented in
Brooklyn for $20 a month. I called on the family of a car-
penter living in such a house. There were double parlors, a
bath-room, closets, and other conveniences. The house was
nicely furnished, and the family were intelligent and well
dressed. The father, a master carpenter, earns $900 a year.
Two daughters in a straw-hat factory make, the one $400,
the other $312 a year. A son twenty -two years old receives
$21 a week as clerk in a wholesale house in New York.
The total income of the family of eight is $2854 a year.
Their annual expenses fall short of this amount by about $600,
leaving a snug sum to lay aside for a rainy day.
ADVENTUKES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 11
A few days after my call on this family I was at one of the
New Jersey sea-shore resorts. To my surprise, upon entering
the parlors of the hotel, there was the hat-maker, daughter of
the carpenter, in a pretty white dress, her cheeks round and
rosy.
" I am taking my vacation," she explained. " I have some-
thing to ask you," hesitating. "You will not tell how you
came to know me, not tell that I am a factory girl ; they do
not know it here. They think perhaps that I am a school-
teacher. They would be unpleasant to me if they knew I was
a factory girl."
She was not ashamed of her work, but she knew the snob-
bishness of the world. I observed her with considerable in-
terest during my stay. Several of her friends came up from
the city. One, a musician of no mean ability, was the son of
a judge; another was a book-keeper; another a medical
student. The hat-maker sang well. Accompanied by the
judge's son, she treated the hotel to an excellent amateur con-
cert.
It is gratifying to be able to note such cases as the lace-
einbroiderer and the carpenter's family, because they indicate
the possibilities of thrift and industry in this country. Such
cases can scarcely be paralleled in Europe, even among the
exceptions. The reader, however, who imagines that even in
America any large number of working men or women live
in as comfortable a style as the two families just described will
make a mistake. As far as I have observed, they are the pleas-
ant exceptions to a very unpleasant rule.
From the cosey home of the carpenter I called on a tobacco-
stripper's family. Six persons inhabited two fifth-story rooms.
The parents both worked in the tobacco factory, earning to-
gether nine dollars a week. They stand at long tables, side by
side with men and women of all colors white, black, and yel-
low stripping the leaf tobacco from the stems. For each
pound of stems the stripper is paid three cents. Two dollars
a week goes for rent ; on the remaining seven dollars the fam-
12 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ily of six clothe and feed themselves. Their diet consists of
little else than bread, coffee, and potatoes.
Some of the girls whom I approached affected indifference,
and would hardly condescend to answer my questions. I called
one evening on a twine-spinner, daughter of an Irish laborer.
The old father was present.
" What is it, Mary ?" he asked.
" The census-taker," replied Mary.
" Humph !" said the old man. " A great nuisance, this cen-
sus business. I suppose, though, we must stand it."
Stretching himself out in his chair, he assumed an important
air, and continued :
" I was born forty-nine years ago, in "
" I beg your pardon, sir," I interrupted. " The present inves-
tigation does not require me to bother you with questions. It
is your daughter I wish to interview."
"What? You don't want my name ? How is this? Why
do you take Mary's name and not mine? I'm the head of the
family."
W T hen he understood that I was deputed by the Government
to investigate the condition and wages of working-women, he
rather resented it as a slight put on masculine dignity.
"Can you tell me where Miss Aggie Williams lives?" I
asked a young woman leaning on a gate in Franklin Avenue.
The young woman gave me a keen glance.
"Oh yes; she lives in the middle of the next block."
A little farther on I stopped a youngster blowing a mouth-
organ, and put the same query.
" Miss Williams ?" repeated the youngster. "Why, you've
passed the house. See that lady there ? That's her."
The lady indicated was the very one who had directed me
to the middle of the next block. She was still leaning on the
gate, looking daggers at the little boy. When I started back
she hurried into the house and slammed the door. A special
agent cannot afford to stand on trifles. It was necessary to
investigate the condition of Miss Aggie Williams. I deter-
BROOKLYN TOBACCO-STRIPPERS.
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 15
mined to do it, and pounded on the door until it seemed about
to fall in. Finally it opened six inches, and an elderly woman
cried through the crack,
" Go away from here ! Go away ! She don't want to be in-
sured. That's all there is about it. Go away !"
" Insured ? Who wants to insure you ?"
" Ain't you the insurance agent ?"
"Decidedly not. I am an agent of the United States," and
proceeded to explain the object of my visit.
" Well, I do declare ! Not an insurance agent, after all ! These
insurance fellows have been bothering Aggie mpre'n a week
to get herself insured. She thought you was one of 'em. You,
Aggie" raising her voice and calling up the steps "come
down here. It ain't him at all. It's somebody else. Come
right down."
In a few minutes the young lady came down and apologized
for slamming the door in my face. I put her at ease, and she
told me of the hard struggle she had to keep body and soul to-
gether. She was a vest "finisher," and made on an average
$3.90 a week.
" It is not as bad for me as for others," she said, cheerfully.
"True, I have lost my parents, but I live with a widow lady
who knew my mother. She helps me along a little, and does
not treat me as she would a strange boarder. There's Fanny
who sits next to me in the factory. She rents a little closet of
a room for a dollar and a half a week, and lives by herself.
She buys a loaf of bread and makes her own tea in the morn-
ing that's her breakfast. At twelve o'clock she has a sand-
wich of bread and cheese, and when she can afford it, a piece
of pie. At night she gets a fifteen-cent dinner at one of the
cheap eating-houses. You know what that is ?"
Yes, I knew what that was. I knew that cheap eating-house
dinners and dyspepsia are closely related.
" It is hard enough," said Aggie, " when a girl is well and
able to work. When she's sick it's worse ; sometimes as bad as
can be. One day last winter Fanny didn't come up to the fac-
16 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
tory. I went around Sunday to see what was the matter. She
was sick in bed, and looked like a skeleton. Nobody had been
near her. You see, all her friends are working -girls, and
couldn't stop a minute in the day, and at night we are that
tired we want to rest. If I had come a day later Fanny would
have been dead. They took her to the hospital, and she wasn't
able to work for six weeks."
"Why do you not tell your employers you cannot live on
$3.90 a week?"
The girl gave me a strange look.
" Tell them ? Well, you ought to be a working - girl, and
find that out for yourself."
" As I cannot be a working-girl perhaps you will tell me ?"
"Molly Smith tried that, and well, she goes on the Bowery
now. That's what comes of following our employer's advice."
"What was that ad vice?"
"Well, we all know they get twelve cents for what they
pay us six cents. Molly Smith went and told our boss she
couldn't live on her wages, she was all the time hungry, and in
the winter all the time cold. He said to Molly, 'You are a
pretty girl ; why don't you get a young gentleman friend to
help you?' That made Molly mad. She flew up and talked
back, and got turned off. It was dead of winter. She was
took sick because she had no fire, and well, I don't know just
how it happened. All I know is, most any night, they say, you
can see Molly on the Bowery. She never comes nigh us any
more."
This case was not an isolated one. In Philadelphia I sent
my lady assistant to the dry-goods stores and other places em-
ploying women, and instructed her to ask for work.
" In some places," said this agent in her report, " the mana-
gers bluntly said, 'You are not good-looking enough.' At
other places where the need of new hands was more pressing,
I was offered three dollars a week. * But I cannot live on
three dollars. My car-fare will be sixty cents. I Jive four
miles from your factory.' The answer to this objection was
ADVENTURES IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 17
too often, ' We can't help that. You must get a friend to
help you.' "
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising to learn by
actual inquiry that a large per cent, of the fallen women in
large American cities are graduated from the shop-girl class.
The shameful responsibility rests on the shoulders of employers
who, as was demonstrated in Philadelphia, actually tell young
girls applying for work that they must not expect to receive
living wages, but must get a " friend " to furnish them with
the necessities of life in other words, must sell themselves in
order to live. We should cease to boast of our civilization
while such things are; should stop sending missionaries to
Christianize heathens while our own Christian girls are daily
drawn to destruction. That a still larger number of poor
working-girls do not yield to the tempter and succumb to the
severity of the situation, speaks well for the natural inclination
of women to lead lives of honesty and purity.
A few nights after my visit to Aggie Williams I went to a
low dancing-den on a little street running into the Bowery.
The coarsest and most degraded women, the most brutal men
are to be found in these dens off the Bowery. The women I
saw were all young. The oldest did not appear more than
twenty-five, the youngest seemed scarcely sixteen. A physician
told me that these poor creatures almost always die young in
years, though old in vice and the suffering which vice brings.
On the walls were legends in big letters :
NOTICE.
" No excuse if caught with another man's hat."
" Gospel meetings in this place on Sundays, for women only."
Written under this last sign were the words, " For fools and
women. Who wants your d d old meeting ?"
Hopeless as it may seem to hold Christian meetings in such
foul places, the effort to do so is in the right direction.
These wretched girls skipped about and chasseed to the right
and to the left, now and then varying the performance by kick-
18 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ing their partner's or some by-stander's hat off, and screaming
with hysterical laughter as the men scurried over the floor to
pick up their property. The highest kicker seemed to be the
greatest favorite.
While sitting in the gallery looking at the mad scene, won-
dering if among any of those reckless women was the once
modest and honest working-girl friend of the vest-finisher, a
young woman came and seated herself opposite me. In the
most free and easy way she opened up a conversation.
" Hello, Billy ! Treat. I want a warmer ;" and without wait-
ing my assent or dissent, she beckoned to a waiter and ordered
a whiskey straight.
" What'll you take ?" she asked me.
" A glass of lemonade, if you please."
" Oh, you are one of those preacher fellows what come to
see us, and then shows us up on Sundays. All right, then.
Just one whiskey straight, Johnny, and hurry up, will you."
The whiskey was brought and drunk, and my self-invited
companion grew more sociable and confiding.
"Don't you know," she said, "I rather like you preachers;
makes me think when I was kinder good myself, and went to
Sunday-school and all that."
" I am not a preacher."
. " What then ? Newspaper fellow ? Nobody else ever comes
to look at us but the preacher and newspaper chaps. Want to
write us up ? Well, give us a good send-off."
"Do you like this rapid sort of life?" I asked, looking at
the dancers, who grew more and more uproarious.
"Well, it's about the best I can do now. It's harder on
them that can't get here. There's Moll Smith got turned off
Thursday for cussing a fellow too much, and now she's a-walk-
ing the street. She would give her eye-teeth to get back again."
At this moment who should loom up but Moll herself, ac-
companied by a " friend." My acquaintance greeted her joy-
ously.
" How did you make it, Moll ?"
ADVENTURES IX NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 19
" He fixed it," with a jerk of her thumb towards her com-
panion. " GUS made it all right. Sit down, Gas, and treat."
Gus seated himself, and called for three whiskeys and gin.
" We've just come over from Brooklyn," said the woman,
"and a jolly time we had too. Gus licked one of his best
friends in Tony's bar-room gave him a black eye he'll carry
for a month. Coming over the bridge we got into another
row, and Gus licked another friend of his."
Gus, highly pleased at this account of his valor, frowned sur-
lily, and drank his whiskey with a gloomy face.
I looked at Gus's burly form and big fists, and decided I did
not care to possess his friendship. I thought something of
asking his companion if she was the Molly Smith who had
been the little vest-finisher's friend, but, on second thought, de-
cided not to do so.
After disposing of their drinks, Gus and Molly and the
woman who had first spoken to me repaired to the floor be-
low. The last I saw of them they were in the thick of the
crowd, the two girls kicking their heels high in the air, and
the redoubtable Gus rolling up his trousers to take part in the
nimble can-can. About three o'clock in the morning, a man
in blue uniform and brass buttons, whom I at first thought was
a policeman, elbowed his way through the dancers and drink-
ers, with a pile of Police Gazettes on his arm. He was a spe-
cial agent of that journal, selling copies of the last number as
they came hot from the press.
Painful as is the picture here drawn of the degradation of
women, it is well the world should see it, to fully understand
the consequence of that advice to working-girls to "take a
friend." I left that Hester Street dance-house feeling some-
thing as Macbeth did when he thought it would take an ocean
to make him clean. As the ocean was not convenient, I went
to a Turkish -bath establishment, where, after melting off a
pound or two of flesh in a sweat-box, I witnessed a comical
scene. A German and a bald-headed man, who were taking
sitz-baths, began a discussion of the tariff, It was funny to
20 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
hear political economy discussed by men wrapped in sheets
and sitting in tubs of water. The bald-headed man kept nerv-
ously twitching about.
" You want to ruin American industry, that's what you want.
You want our country to be dependent."
"Dummes zeug! verrueckt!" grunted the German. "Vat
you dink somebody makes you buy all your fleisch from my
store, ven you get dot same fleisch next door half so scheap ?
Hey, vat you say ? Don't you vant dot fleisch from dot
bootscher vat sells scheapest ?"
"I tell you," the bald-headed man exclaimed, excitedly, "it
is better to pay twice as much, and patronize your own institu-
tions. It is more patriotic."
" Ya, dot is so more patriotic for dot man you buys from ;
but vat you say 'bout dot man vat buys hey ? I vill get my
dings where I gets 'em scheapest dot's my patriotism."
" You don't know what patriotism is !" shrieked the shiny-
pated man, jumping out of his tub and dragging the tail-end of
his sheet in the water. " You want to throw American work-
ing-men out of employment. You look here, and I will show
you the whole thing. There are four million five hundred
thousand "
But I staved to hear no more.
FACTORY LIFE. 21
CHAPTER II.
FACTORY LIFE.
THREAD A THOUSAND MILES LONG. HOW LACE IS MADE. GIRLS
AT A COOKING-SCHOOL. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY GIRL-PRIS-
ONERS IN THE BROOKLYN PENITENTIARY. A BROOKLYN TAPES-
TRY-WEAVER. WHY A BAGGING MANUFACTURER WANTS PRO-
TECTION.
THE labor investigator, in searching for information, has
difficulty with employer as well as with employe.
" See here," said the proprietor of a Brooklyn hide-cleaning
establishment ; " what's this mean ? Going to boycott us, eh ?
You can't come around here talking that way !"
" First I've heard of such a thing. Who has been talking of
boycotts?"
" Why, your agents have been around to see some of my
girls. They said the Government is going to boycott us for
not paying wages on the Fourth of July and on Christmas."
This boycott idea came from the fact that my assistants had
expressed surprise when the girls said they were docked for
time lost on the Fourth of July and on Christmas. Said one
of the girls,
"Of course I told the superintendent the Government was
going to put the boycott on him. Isn't that why they ask us
so many questions about our wages, and whether we are paid,
vacations or not ?"
In the Jennings Lace-works I saw thread so fine, 850,000
yards weighs only one pound. A ball of this thread long
enough to reach from New York to Philadelphia and back
could be carried in a man's pocket. Upwards of nine thou-
sand different sorts of thread are used in the manufacture of a
single pattern. Weeks of patient work are required to adjust
22 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
these thousands of threads. The expert workman who arranges
the new pattern keeps a sharp eye on the maze of silk before
him. If a single thread out of that wilderness becomes tangled
or out of place, it must be seen and remedied. The workman
who does this adjusting gets twenty-five dollars a week. The
designer of the pattern generally stands by the machine until
it is made perfect. Of new designs in lace seldom more than
a thousand yards are made at first ; for it often happens that
even a very pretty pattern fails to strike the popular fancy, and
so the entire lot is returned to the factory. Said the manager
of the Jennings Lace-works :
"What may seem commonplace to our artist may meet
great favor with the public. On 'the other hand, the artist's
pet design may, every yard, be returned to us. "We calculate
that the public taste changes completely in seven years. Those
twenty-four machines there in the next building have been idle
four years. It is too expensive to remove them, or to change
the patterns to which they are adjusted. Come back in three
years, though, and I dare say you will see those machines busy
again, while the machines now at work will by that time be
old-fashioned and idle."
When the lace leaves the machines it is finished just as
the purchaser sees it, with this exception : the threads are
not cut.
A rose or a lily is made ; next comes a bird or a vase. The
fine silk or linen thread, a million yards long, is not broken ; it
is carried over the space intervening between the flower and
the vase, and there taken up by the innumerable needles and
formed into the next design. The loose threads over these in-
tervening spaces must be cut away. The girls who do this are
called " clippers." They are paid so much per hundred clips.
In very fine lace, where the designs are small and the threads
numerous, as high as a dollar is paid for clipping the loose
threads on one yard. In less costly designs the figures are
large and coarse, the number of loose threads are fewer, and
it sometimes costs only three cents to clip a yard.
FACTORY LIFE. 25
To a casual observer the business of clipping seems wonder-
ful. I saw a deft girl run her scissors down a strip of lace
six inches wide, shaving it clean of every loose thread, and not
injuring the lace itself; all the time she was talking away to me,
apparently paying no attention to the fine lace or the sharp
scissors that, by a slight mishit, would have lost her a week's
wages. The girl said she was only sixteen, and not married,
" Though," she added, " it won't be long before I shall be. I
don't intend to work all my life."
"Suppose you marry a worthless man? Then you will
have to support him and yourself too."
" Humph !" was the young lace-clipper's reply, " you'll never
catch me supporting a husband. When I marry he will have
to take care of me."
She was quite serious in her purpose to marry early, and
was preparing herself for the event in what I thought a very
practical way. She was member of a woman's club, the object
of which was to learn dress-making, cooking, carving, and other
household arts. I attended one of the classes, and saw the
young misses deeply absorbed in the contemplation of juicy
beefsteaks and roasts. On a table was a chart with diagrams
of beef, a turkey, and a chicken. Porter-house and tenderloin
steaks, the spareribs, the sirloin steaks, and other choice portions
of a beef were all clearly defined. With a knowledge of how to
select as well as to prepare good food, the young housewife is
certainly on the high-road to the favor of her dear lord. To cook
well is an accomplishment far too rare in America. Having
lived to a great extent in hotels and restaurants, and having ob-
served the diet of families in every State in the Union, I am
able to speak knowingly on this subject, and to speak feelingly.
In the New England and in the Eastern States plain cooking is
often pretty well understood ; but in the West and South-west
good bread or well-cooked food of any kind among laboring
people is so seldom found that he who is unfortunate enough to
have to travel there must make up his mind to get dyspepsia.
The little lace-clipper was very sensible to learn cooking be-
2
26 THE TIIAMP AT HOME.
fore marrying. She Lad paid a dollar for the course of twelve
lessons, and could already cook a steak to a turn.
"And next week," she said, proudly, " I am to take up roasts
and carving."
Although she looks upon marriage rather prosaically as a
means of stepping out of the factory, I predict that her future
spouse will be able to content himself with the substantial, if
not romantic, blessings with which she is preparing to provide
him. The condition of her family is thus shown by my note-
book :
Table of Brooklyn Lace-clipper's Family.
Condition. Six in family : parents, two small children, and two grown
daughters. The father is a printer, earning eighteen dollars a week when
work is steady ; owing to strikes, union assessments, and dull times, has
for some months averaged only eight dollars -a week. One daughter is
an invalid, the other clips lace ; family live in four rooms on second floor
of tenement-house ; front room is used as bedroom, parlor, and dining-
room ; place poorly furnished ; a few cheap chromos on the walls ; bare
rough floors ; ventilation bad.
Diet. Breakfast : Bread and butter, pork or ham, tea. Dinner : Fresh
meat, potatoes, sometimes cabbage, pie. Supper : Same as breakfast, with
occasionally part of dinner left over.
Cost of Living :
Bread, and flour for pies, per day 2*5 cents.
Meats, salt and fresh, " 20 "
Coffee, " 10 "
Sugar, " 05 "
Potatoes, " 10 "
Food of all other kinds, " 30 "
Total daily cost of food for six persons, $1 00 ; per year, $365 00
Rent, per month, $8 00 96 00
Clothing 76 00
Doctor's bills 36 00
Incidentals, including fuel, lights, religion, etc 42 00
Total annual expenses of family of six $615 00
Earnings of father per week $8 00 ; per year, $400 00
" lace-clipper, per week ... 3 50 ; " 175 00
" mother by odd jobs, 60 00
Total yearly earnings $635 00
Balance left, $20.
FACfORY LIFE. 27
The majority of people who go to the penitentiary think
they get there quite fast enough. It was otherwise with me
when I started on a Nostrand Avenue car for the Brooklyn
Penitentiary. A stingy man spreads a little bit of butter over
a big bit of bread; in the same way the houses are spread
thinly over the long blocks in the suburbs of Brooklyn. A
full hour elapsed before the car stopped and let me out at the
warden's gate. The gate-keeper at first refused to admit me
without a permit ; but upon showing my credentials and ex-
plaining the official nature of my call, he swung open the heavy
iron gates and let me in. Passing through a long corridor and
through a large court-yard about an eighth of a mile across, I
entered the wing where are employed one hundred and eighty
women at shoemaking. The "Bay State Shoe and Leather
Company " leases the convict labor, and employs the one hun-
dred and eighty women from without the walls. Except for
the stigma that attaches to the word " convict," it might be
said that the prisoners' condition is better than that of the paid
girls. The girls are almost as much deprived of their liberty
as the convicts. They come to the prison early in the morn-
ing, and are not allowed to leave until work is over in the even-
ing. The convict, when he finishes his day's labor, is furnished
by the State with plain but abundant and wholesome food and
lodging. The so-called free girls get, on an average, a dollar a
day. Then they trudge, often through rain and snow, to small,
crowded tenement-houses, and work at night sewing either on
their own garments or doing other people's sewing, to pay
rent, buy food, clothing, medicines, etc., which they cannot
purchase with the wages received from the shoe factory alone.
The girls in this penitentiary are better off than the average ;
first, because they are paid a slight advance over the market
rate of wages (otherwise the lessees of the prison would be
unable to get them) ; and secondly, because the work is steady.
There are no strikes, no two or three months' stoppages on
account of dull seasons. Notwithstanding these advantages
which they have over the average working-girl, many of the
28 THE TKAMP At HOME.
one hundred and eighty girls who every morning voluntarily
enter the Brooklyn Penitentiary to make shoes enjoy fewer
comforts than the criminals who go there involuntarily.
' The girls are not thrown in contact with the convicts. They
work in a large hall in the top of the building, with numerous
windows and an abundance of fresh air. Five tables, each one
hundred and forty feet long, run the entire length of the room.
On each side of these tables the women sit bending over and
manipulating the various parts of a shoe. The clatter is deaf-
ening. An eager, strained look is on the girls' faces. Here a
young miss seventeen years old is putting buttons by the hands-
ful into a sort of hopper. The buttons come out of the other
end of the hopper sewed on the shoe. Another girl is making
button-holes. The machine goes tearing away, turns at the
right place, and almost before you know it the button-hole is
cut and finished as one sees it in the finished shoe. Most of
the women are members of a society, to which they pay ten
cents a week. In case of illness, members receive a benefit of
twenty dollars a month. Some had been paying dues for years,
and said they almost felt as if they were being cheated in not
getting sick and receiving a return for their long subscrip-
tion.
The five hundred convicts and one hundred and eighty
women make three thousand four hundred pair of shoes a day.
The division of labor is reduced to the finest point. This
convict here, a gray-haired old man, with a sad face and hope-
less expression, stands ten hours a day by a machine feeding
the knife with leather. The knife is made in the shape of the
sole of a shoe. The hopeless-looking convict puts the leather
under the knife, touches a lever, and a shoe-sole drops into a
basket. This operation he repeats without variation hundreds
of times in succession. At the next machine stands a prisoner
whose only business is to place the leather sole on a mould ;
the machine presses the sole in shape. The convict puts an-
other sole in, that is pressed, and so on through ten long hours.
There is no exertion, no strain, but the monotony is terrible.
HOMES OF THE POOR.
FACTORY LIFE. 31
Formerly a shoemaker's brain was called at least to a slight
extent into play, but now little more intellect is required by
the man who attends to the different parts of shoemaking
than is required by a wooden automaton. Brain power seems
to have been transferred to the machines. The sewing appa-
ratus sews shoes together almost like a thing of life. All the
convict has to do is to set the leather in the right place ; the
thread is on a large spindle, a small lighted lamp revolves
with the thread to keep it warm, a revolution is made every
minute or less, and at each revolution a sole is sewed on a
shoe-top. A dial registers the number of stitches to the sole.
Before the patent expired, the inventor of this machine received
two cents on every shoe. All he had to do was to drop around
occasionally, look at the register to see how many stitches had
been recorded, and collect his royalty. The inventor had put
in the brains, and so got the money. The operators, who watch
the machines do the work, put little or no brains in the opera-
tion, and so do not receive much money. They are glad to
make two dollars a day.
There is a keeper to every forty workmen in the Brooklyn
Penitentiary. This keeper sits on a raised platform, whence
he can see every man of his gang. The convict who violates
any of the rules which forbid talking, or lagging at work, is
sharply reprimanded, and is punished if the offence is repeated.
Above, in the hall where the free girls work, the rules are
equally strict. A girl who talks is reprimanded by the fore-
man. If she speaks to her neighbor at the work-bench she is
punished by being discharged or fined. At twelve o'clock the
girls eat the cold luncheon they bring from home. At the same
hour the convicts form long lines and march in close lock-step
across the wide court. As they pass the window of the great
kitchen, each man, without stopping, is handed a bucket con-
taining his dinner. He is locked up alone in his cell thirty
minutes. At the end of that time the lock-step is reformed,
the prisoners file back to the shops and begin work again. It
was a pitiable sight on either hand the convicts, with their
32 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
sad faces and shameful stripes, the girls, in their shabby cloth-
ing, looking care-worn, overworked, and underfed.
Notwithstanding the low wages and high cost of living of
the vast majority of American working men and women, the
claim is still made that protective tariffs bring to the laborer
wealth and good wages. I asked F. Coit Johnson, head of a
weaving and bagging mill in Brooklyn, if he favored protec-
tion.
" Every and all the time," was the emphatic reply.
During the course of the conversation he informed me that
his factory was selling goods in England.
" How do you manage to compete with pauper labor ?"
"Oh," replied Mr. F. Coit Johnson, "it is very simple. We
sell goods twelve per cent, cheaper in London than in Brook-
lyn."
"Is there a profit when you sell at that reduced rate."
" Of course there is."
" Why, then, is a tariff necessary to make your business
pay?"
*' In this business," replied Mr. F. Coit Johnson, " it is not
to make a profit, but make all you can. The tariff enables us
to charge more, and we do it. We would be fools not to
charge all we can get."
Mr. F. Coit Johnson may be right ; it may be unwise not to
charge all he can get for his goods, but the American people
are unwise to give more than they are obliged to give, are un-
wise to permit a system that enables men like Mr. F. Coit
Johnson to " get all they can," to sell goods cheaper to stran-
gers three thousand miles away in England than to next door
neighbors in Brooklyn.
Mr. Johnson's weavers, who average six dollars a week, mind
three looms each, each loom turning out from fifteen to twenty
yards of bagging per day, according to the quality. An Italian
weaver earning thirty cents a day makes, with his old-fashioned
machine, ten, or, at most, fifteen yards. Summary : In Italy a
thirty-cent weaver produces ten yards of cloth. In Brooklyn
FACTORY LIFE. 33
a dollar weaver produces sixty yards. It does not take half an
eye to see that even if Mr. F. Coit Johnson does pay higher
wages per day, he does not pay higher wages per yard, and
that therefore the advantage is with him, not with the " pau-
per labor " of Europe.
At No. 239 Meserole Street, Brooklyn, I found a tapestry-
weaver who earned the highest wages paid in the factory.
What were the highest wages ? Ten dollars a week ! This
was the only woman I found earning so much. The average
was only six dollars.
The tapestry-weaver and her sister, who worked in the same
place, earned together $816 a year. They live, with their
widowed mother, in three rooms on the third floor of a frame
house. On their combined wages, $816, the three women and
a young brother live plainly and comfortably. The floors were
scrubbed clean ; everything bore an appearance of thrift and
neatness. The girls subscribed for the New York Sun, and
were posted as to current events. Their diet for breakfast
consisted of bread and butter, coffee, and occasionally a piece
of sausage or cold meat left over from the preceding day's din-
ner. Luncheon, at twelve o'clock, was bread and butter, cheese,
or cold meat. Dinner, at half-past six, prepared by the old
mother, consisted of bread, potatoes, pork, sometimes roast-beef,
coffee in winter and beer in summer. The cost of food for
the four was eight dollars a week, or a fraction less than ten
cents per meal per person. Here is a leaf from the family
expense-book for one week :
Meats, salt and fresh $2 00
Potatoes and other vegetables, sugar, eggs, etc 3 00
Bread, and flour for pies 75
Beer, during three or four months in the year 49
Tea and coffee 45
Other food 1 03
Butter. . 28
Total weekly cost of food for four persons $8 00
Total yearly " " " $416 00
2*
34 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
Brought forward $416 00
Clothing of eldest daughter, per year $40 00
Clothing of younger " " 35 00
Clothing of mother and small brother 40 00
Total yearly cost of clothing for four persons 115 00
Fuel and light, per year 75 00
Rent, per year 72 00
Other expenses 30 00
Total yearly expenses $708 00
Total yearly income 816 00
Annual savings $108 00
The work-room in which the girls weave is large and airy.
A tapestry-weaver requires strength.
"Even the best ones," said the girl on Meserole Street,
" turn out only six or eight yards fifty-two inches wide in one
day. The cheap grade of tapestry is more easily made, ten to
twelve yards being an ordinary day's work. In summer there
is a half-holiday on Saturdays ; the rest of the year we must
be at the mill from seven in the morning until six at night."
"Are there many girls at the factory who have no friends
or parents, and live in boarding or lodging houses ?"
" Not many," answered the weaver. " Most all stay at
home, or board with friends who don't charge much. They
couldn't very well do any other way on four or five dollars a
week. A friend of mine tried it once, but she couldn't pay
board and clothe herself on her wages. She was not very strong,
and made only four dollars a week."
" What did she do ?"
The tapestry-weaver hesitated.
" Well," she said in a low tone, " she went to the bad. She
had a little sister to support. There was rent to pay and coal
to buy, and four dollars a week wouldn't do it. She dropped
away from work, and I don't like to talk of it. Rich folks
can't understand a poor girl's troubles."
" Perhaps not, but I am not rich. I can understand all you
tell me."
FACTORY LIFE. 35
But, with a natural delicacy, she refused to say any more
about her unfortunate friend.
An intelligent sales-girl, Agnes S., of 264 Plymouth Street,
Brooklyn, explains in a letter now in my possession why I
frequently found it so hard to elicit information.
"The girls in our store," writes Miss S., "are afraid to talk to you.
They fear it will get back to the boss and hurt them even cause their
discharge. You ask about my expenses. Last year I spent exactly $108.50
for board. Nearly all the rest ($111.50) went for clothes, and I make iny
own dresses. But then the bosses make us dress nice, and it costs half
our wages. I hope your work will help us, and that the Government will
make the price of dress goods come down."
Here is a tariff reformer, though an unconscious one. This
sales-girl probably does not understand ten lines of political
economy, but forced by the nature of her occupation to spend
a large portion of her meagre earnings on dress, she wants the
Government to help her by making " the price of dress goods
come down."
The principal way for the Government to accomplish this is
to abolish the high tariff taxes ; that is the first step that is
being demanded by wage-earners, both men and women, the
more they reflect upon the way " protection " protects them by
raising prices on all the necessities of life.
36 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER III.
IN NEW ENGLAND.
HOW FACTORY OPERATIVES LIVE AND WORK ; THEIR HOME LIFE.
AN ITALIAN AND AN AMERICAN FAMILY COMPARED. SMALL ECON-
OMIES. A ONE -CENT ICE-CREAM SALOON. CRUEL RESULTS OF
CHILD-LABOR. CONSUMPTION AND INSANITY ON THE INCREASE.
THE Riverside Mills, in Olneyville, Rhode Island, are on the
Woonasquatucket River. I crossed over this very small river
with the very big name, and went through the mills, where are
used every year four million pounds of wool, or the product of
about a million sheep. The gas-bill of these mills was former-
ly $40,000 a year: now electricity furnishes better light for
$20,000. The great halls, crowded with machinery, are dark
and gloomy. Operatives on the inside aisles seldom see the
light of God's day, seldom feel the rays of the glorious sun.
It is dark when they go to the mills at six in the morning, it
is dark when they quit at night. During the day the only
light they see is that artificially supplied by electricity. Weav-
ers near the windows are more fortunate. They require arti-
ficial light only early in the morning, and for the last hour or
so in the eve*hing.
Prior to January, 1886, the hours of labor were from half-
past six in the morning until half-past six in the evening. The
law limiting hours of labor to not more than sixty a week went
into effect in the beginning of 1886, since which time work at
the Riverside Mills begins at seven and ceases at six, with an
hour at noon for dinner. Children under ten are forbidden by
law to work. Between ten and fourteen they are required to
attend school three months each year. The remainder of the
time they may work if they wish, and if their parents compel
them. Such is the law, but it is often evaded. Some parents
IN NEW ENGLAND. 37
do not hesitate to perjure themselves, and declare their children
of the legal age for work in factories ; and some employers do
not hesitate to nullify the law by affecting to believe the par-
ents' falsehood. On my visits to the homes of operatives I
often asked the ages of their children iu the factories.
"Do you want their real age or their factory age?" these
mothers would reply, laughing at their own deception.
The difference between the real aud the factory age was any-
where from one to four years. These mothers seemed utterly
unconscious of the cruelty of making such young children work;
the manufacturers seemed equally callous on the subject, self-
ishly preferring to hire child-labor rather than pay the few
cents extra demanded by adults. The births of children should
be registered, and both parent and manufacturer be punished if
found working a child under age.
I met a group of girls, some of them mere children, on their
way to work one morning. Their homes ought to be in the
fields by the road-side, with the green hills around, and those
girls should play in the open air, the blue sky above them, the
sunlight on them. It is cruel to permit such little creatures,
undeveloped in brain and muscle, to spend ten hours a day amid
the rattle and roar of machinery, breathing the foul air of close
rooms filled with flying particles of wool or cotton fibres. It
would be more merciful to drown these children at birth, than
thus by premature labor dwarf and disease them, body, mind,
and soul. Under this labor-torture the little things grow pale
and thin, pinched and rickety. More children are employed in
the woollen-mills of Massachusetts than in those of any other
State except Pennsylvania. The average weekly wages of the
operatives, counting men, women, and children, is $6.40 ; in
paper-mills, where few children are employed, the average is
$6.60. The small advantage in pay is doubtless owing to lack
of competition with children ; yet to save this sum, this pit-
tance of twenty cents, manufacturers of woollen and cotton
goods will see the children of the State slowly murdered by
work in their mills. The increase of consumption is directly
38 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
traceable to the enfeebleraent of the constitution of children by
work unsuited to their years. According to the census, there
are 5207 deaths a year in Massachusetts ^ from consumption.
In Illinois, with double the population, there are only 4653 ;
in Indiana, 3943 ; in Mississippi, 1287. In Mississippi, during
the short season of cotton-picking, many negro children work,
but not in factories. The negro children in Mississippi pick
cotton in the open fields ; the white children in Massachusetts
pick it in heated rooms. They stoop over buzzing looms, they
smell the grease, breathe fibres, and die early of consumption
and other diseases.
In 1880 the Pacific Mills paid a dividend of twenty-two per
cent, on a capital of $2,500,000. The Merrimac Mills paid
ten per cent. ; the Middlesex Mills, twenty per cent. ; the Bos-
ton Belting Company paid eleven per cent. These immense
profits are made by working children ten hours a day, by work-
ing men and women at wages ranging from $4.35 to $6.00 a
week, and by increasing the price of the necessaries of life by
the imposition of a tariff tax on every article the factory hand
uses. How the arch enemy of mankind must grin in gratified
derision at this destructive policy ! Those very mills, which
were paying twenty-two per cent, dividends, and sending cards
to their employes virtually commanding them to vote for high
tariffs, giving them to understand that free-trade would lose
them their places those very mills were paying the munificent
wages of ninety cents a day ! The Willimantic Linen Com-
pany pay the same liberal wages, and the Willimantic Company
one. year declared a dividend of eighty per cent. ! There are
in Massachusetts 5127 insane, 5423 paupers, and 5207 deaths
from consumption. The number of criminals is proportion-
ately large. Is it not probable that a close connection exists
between this moral and financial bankruptcy of the people and
the unhealthy increase of the wealth of manufacturers, and
their cruel grinding down of the working-people ?
While looking at the rows of joyless children stooping over
the shuttles, the words of Mrs. Browning came to my mind :
IN NEW ENGLAND. 39
" Do you hear the children weeping, oh, my brothers,
Ere the sorrows come with years?
They are leaning their young hearts against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in their nests,
The young fawns are playing with their shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west;
But the young, young children, oh, my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the play-time of the others,
In the country of the free!" .
We have no right to boast of freedom so long as we have
slave children toiling in the mills, killing themselves by inches.
As I saw them going to their work in the morning, it looked
like a funeral procession to the grave ; at night it was the same
sad procession returning from the grave ; and to what homes
they returned ! mean, dirty quarters ; miserable, close rooms
in crowded tenement-houses. The negroes in the South, no
matter how poor, are better off. They have space, air, light;
they have the best gifts of God to man the ground to walk
on, the heavens above, pure air to breathe, and the health-
giving light of the sun.
Of the 1900 persons employed in the Riverside Mills, 1020
are women and children. These 1900 persons produce yearly
a million and a half yards of worsted cloth, worth from one
dollar to three dollars a yard. The two huge 1100 horse-power
engines that furnish the power to make this cloth consume
ten thousand tons of coal a year.
I watched the warpers at work. Five hundred bobbins, or
spools, of pink thread were on a stand. These five hundred
pink threads pass through the teeth of a steel comb. A young
girl, pale, thin, feeble-looking, sat on a stool watching the maze
of threads as they slowly unwound from the spools, passing
through the steel comb on to large bobbins below.
When the quick eye of this girl detects an imperfection in
the thread, she stops the machinery, corrects the imperfection,
40 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
then touches a lever, and starts the threads on their endless
journey again. Nine-tenths of her waking life are spent on
that stool, intently gazing at the maze of threads a life well
calculated to bring on softening of the brain. The pay for this
dismal work is from $4.85 to $5.00 a week.
" The work is very exacting," said one of the burlers. " The
tiniest knots in the thread must be straightened out. After the
cloth leaves our hands it is passed over a roller. An inspector
stands facing it, slowly pulling the cloth over the roller. When
he sees a place where the thread has been broken and left un-
mended, he makes a dash at the cloth with his blue pencil and
marks the place. These marks are counted, and when there
are more than forty tp a yard we are fined twenty-five cents."
The constant dread of these fines helps on the brain-soften-
ing process.
Adjoining the mills are two large dining-halls, furnished with
plain tables and benches. At twelve o'clock the army of men,
women, and children file into these halls, each individual carry-
ing a bucket with luncheon, generally of beans, pork, bread
and butter, and pie. In pleasant weather they eat rapidly, and
in fifteen minutes the greater number are through and out on
the grounds, to pass the remainder of the dinner-hour in walk-
ing, chatting, and breathing the fresh air. Five minutes before
one the whistle blows, and the operatives scamper back to the
door-ways, hurry up the steep flights of stairs, and precisely at
one are at their looms and spindles.
Of eleven girls whom I interviewed there was one earning
eight dollars a week ; two earned six dollars ; two earned nine
dollars ; and six earned four dollars and fifty cents. Of these
eleven girls, selected at random, all but one lived at home ;
some paid their mothers three dollars a week board ; the ma-
jority, however, gave in all their wages, and the family expen-
ditures were made in common. The one girl who did not live
at home was from Ireland. She earned six dollars a week, five
of which she spent on herself, saving the remaining dollar to
send to her parents in the Old Country.
IN NEW ENGLAND. 41
A number of the operatives in Providence and Olneyville
live in tenement -houses owned by the mills, and rented a
little cheaper than the market rate. These tenements are all
built on the same plan: a basement, divided in the centre by
a narrow hall, with rooms on each side let to different families.
The first floor, reached by a fourteen-foot stair-way, is divided,
like the basement, into two distinct homes by a narrow hall.
The second floor is the same as the first. The halls are com-
mon to all the tenants of the house. I called one night on
the family of a coal-heaver who lived somewhere in the tene-
ment, but whether in top or bottom I did not know.
"Non parlo Englese," said a woman, when I inquired at a
door in the basement.
" Bene, signorina, parliamo Italiano ?" and proceeded to talk
to her in the remnants of the pigeon Italian I had brought
back with me from Italy. She was delighted to find an Ameri-
can who could even make an attempt to speak her beloved
language, and chatted most volubly. She had not been long
from Italy, and thought the wages she was making (sixty cents
a day) quite princely. In Italy she had made but a lira and a
half (thirty cents) a day for even harder work.
"But, signore, in America everything is so dear. I make
more money, but, of a verity, I must spend more."
There were eight in her family, from the husband down to a
" bambino " two months old. Three miserable rooms in the
cellar or basement, renting for five dollars a month, constituted
the Italian family's home. The coal-heaver's family, for whom
I was looking, occupied five rooms on the floor above the Ital-
ians. The sitting-room was about twelve feet square, cheaply
carpeted and plainly furnished. Another room, fourteen feet
long by twelve wide, was used as kitchen and dining-room.
The other three apartments were mere closets, with little or no
furniture save beds and chairs.
" Mother does the cooking and house-work," said one of the
girls, in answer to my questions. " Sal and Dorothy and me
works in the Atlantic Woollen-mills, weaving. They are awful
42 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
strict. If I was to come a minute after a quarter to seven I
wouldn't be allowed to enter, and would have to lose the whole
day. If a little oil is spilled, or a thread is broken, we are
fined from ten to forty cents. Some weeks, when luck is bad,
the fines eat up almost half our wages. Ma cooks breakfast
by six o'clock, and we never leave home later than half-past
six. There is an hour at noon, but it is too far to come home,
so we carry a lunch, and get dinner at seven o'clock when we
get home."
The condition of this family is shown by the following table,
prepared from answers to numerous questions put to the moth-
er and daughter :
Table of a Typical New England Factory Family.
Condition. Family numbers nine : parents, three daughters, aged 21,
18, and 14 ; a boy, aged 9, girl, aged 7, and two babies ; rooms poorly fur-
nished; bad light and bad ventilation; no privacy. The father is a day
laborer in a coal-yard ; the mother tends the babies, cooks, and sews ; the
three oldest children work in woollen-mills.
Earnings of Family :
Of the father $7 00
" eldest girl 5 00
" 18-year-old daughter 4 00
" 14-year-old daughter 325
Total income per week $19 25
Yearly (48 weeks) $924 00
Diet. Breakfast: Bread and butter and coffee. Dinner: Pork and
beans ; sometimes beef, potatoes, coffee ; sometimes pie or pudding. Sup-
per : Bread and butter, coffee, and occasionally portion of dinner warmed
over.
Cost of Living :
Bread and flour, per month $6 00
Sugar, vegetables, soap, and other groceries 40 00
Meats, salt and fresh 14 00
Milk.. 1 50
Total cost of food per month for family of nine. .$61 50-
Yearly ditto $738 00
Rent per month, $6 ; per year 72 00
IN NEW ENGLAND. 43
Brought forward , $810 00
Clothing 100 00
Incidentals 11 00
Total yearly cost of living $921 00
Total yearly earnings 924 00
Balance $ 3 00
This is a gain of thirty-three and a third cents a year for each
member of the family. How long, at this rate, will it take a New
England factory family to lay something by for a rainy day?
Table of another New England Factory Family.
Condition. Five in family . widowed mother, two sons, and two daugh-
ters. The mother cooks and works at home, the t\vo girls work in worsted-
mills ; both sons are laborers at odd jobs, and do not have steady work ;
the girls look faded and tired ; they are at the mills twelve hours a day
five days in the week, on Saturdays work only seven hours and a half.
Earnings of the two daughters, $5 each per week : $480 per year.
Potatoes cost 23 cents a peck ; butter, 25 to 30 cents a pound ; rurap
steak, 12 cents a pound; pork steak, 13 cents a pound.
Cost of Living :
Potatoes per week $0 46
Butter u 75
Steak, four days in the week . " 78
Eggs " 75
Flour for bread and pies " 1 00
Food of all other kinds " 176
Weekly cost of food for five persons $5 50 ; per year, $286 00
Wood and coal per year 19 00
Kerosene at 15 cents a gallon . " 20 00
Rent at $5 60 a month " 67 20
Clothing " 7500
Incidentals " 12 80
Total yearly cost of living $480 00
In the above table no account is taken of the earnings of the
two sons. They were drunk half the time and idle half the
other, making it impossible to estimate with any accuracy the
amount of their earnings. Here the gain is nothing, and the op-
eratives seem absolutely without a chance to save and prepare
themselves against sickness or other unforeseen emergency.
44 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
It will be interesting to compare these New England factory
families with the life of factory operatives in Europe. Here
is a table taken from "A Tramp Trip," p. 60, showing the con-
dition of a family of Italian woollen-weavers:
" Condition. Family of five : parents, two children five and six years of
age, and mother of the father. Parents work at hand-looms ; the grand-
mother spins (at home), attends to the children and to two goats, the milk,
of the goats being sold at four cents per quart. Occupy a room with earth
floor on a level with the ground; room divided into two compartments.
Weaving-room on same street, up a steep hill ; only six looms ; level of
room three feet below level of street ; no windows, lighted by the door.
Each weaver has a small bucket or jug of hot ashes or coals. This the
women put under their dresses ; tlie men place them at their feet. In un-
usually cold weather a large pan of coals is set in the middle of the room.
The weavers quit their work occasionally to sit for a few minutes around
this pan and warm their hands and feet.
" The fuel for this primitive heating arrangement consists to some ex-
tent of brushwood, clippings from old grape-vines, etc. Coal is imported
from England. Price per ton at West Mediterranean ports, $5 to- $6;
price in interior, $7 to $10.
"Diet. Breakfast : Bread, coffee or wine. Dinner: Macaroni or cheese,
finnochio, bread, sometimes tripe, wine. Supper : Bread, wine or coffee.
Amount earned by Family :
Earnings of father, per year $126 00
" mother, " 97 50
" " grandmother (spinning) 48 75
" ' (sale of milk) 43 80
Total yearly earnings $316 05
Cost of Living :
Rent $14 40
Bread 53 00
Macaroni 6940
Groceries, finnochio, olives, eggs, oil, etc 72 50
Wine 51 00
Coffee and milk 17 25
Wooden clogs and leather shoes 7 50
Clothing 19 65
Iron bedstead, chairs, etc 8 70
Total yearly expenditures $313 40
Balance $ 265"
IN NEW ENGLAND. 45
The investigator, who knows how small are their wages, and
sees their uninviting surroundings, may be surprised to learn
that wage-earners of this class are quite particular as to the
quality of food they buy. They will go in threadbare cloth-
ing, and live in dark closets, may even limit themselves in the
quantity of their food, but it must be of good quality.
" No one can say that I do not give my family the best of
flour, the finest sugar, the very best quality of meat."
This is the boast of the coal-laborer earning seven dollars a
week. The families of lawyers, of book-keepers with incomes
of two thousand dollars or less a year, will often be content
with a cheaper grade of flour, a cheaper sugar, and a cheaper
meat. Economy in this line is scorned by the poorer work-
man. He wants the " best," and spends his last cent to get it.
Quite good butter was selling in the market at twenty -five
cents a pound, but the coal-laborer's family were using butter
costing twenty-nine cents. No one wishes American workmen
to adopt the unquestionably lower standard of living prevailing
in Europe, yet it must be admitted that a study of economy
would do no harm. The soldo (cent) which an Italian saves
for his Sunday holiday is with us tossed aside or thrown away.
It is too small to be appreciated, yet even a cent is not so
small as to be despised, as I found when tramping over Eu-
rope. One cent a day, if put out at six per cent, interest,
would in fifty years amount to nine hundred and fifty dollars;
ten cents so saved and put out at interest would amount to
nine thousand five hundred and four dollars. Half a dollar
saved daily and put at six per cent, interest would amount in
fifty years to the snug sum of forty-seven thousand five hun-
dred and twenty dollars.
In Europe so hard is the struggle for life, the working-
classes, though ever so thrifty, are barely able to support exist-
ence. They cannot even put by the modest sum of one cent.
In Florence I had a good opportunity to study Italian economy.
Within five minutes' walk of the celebrated Piazza Dei Signore
is a narrow street, given up to working-men's stores, lodging-
46 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
houses, and cheap restaurants. There was one place much
frequented by the peasants who came to the city on Sundays
to hear mass. A ladder reached from the stone floor to a kind
of loft fifteen feet above. Up this climbed two fiddlers, pulled
the ladder up after them, and scratched off Italian airs while
the peasants in their gay costumes ate ice-cream below. The
ice-cream, served in bowls scarcely larger than salt-cellars, cost
one cent per bowl. How careful those poor people were with
their tiny dishes of cream ! How they nibbled at it, taking at
a time only the smallest taste that it might last as long as pos-
sible, and that they might not have to get up too soon, and
thus lose some of the music ! These were occasions in their
lives to look forward to, and, when over, to look back upon as
pleasant to be remembered. In that Florentine restaurant when
I laid down cinque soldi (five cents) and ordered five plates of
cream at once, the good people stared. Such extravagance
raised me one hundred per cent, in their estimation. They
immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was the fortu-
nate owner of a small shop, and possibly of two or three asses.
Even this extreme economy does not bring much reward in
the densely populated and oppressed States of Europe. What
it may accomplish in America is shown by those cases where
Italians and Germans corne to our land bringing with them
nothing but their habits of industry, thrift, and economy, and
become in a few years substantial, prosperous citizens.
I saw a man past the middle age board the steamer in Genoa
for New York. He related with pride how he had worked for
years carrying stone, how he had saved a few hundred lire, and
how he intended to pass his remaining years in ease sitting on
a box dozing and selling pea-nuts and. candy. This was the
goal of his ambition. He may go no farther in the road to
wealth, but his children, with their thorough knowledge of
economy, will probably bloom out into prosperous fruit mer-
chants or dealers in Italian wines. I know two Italians who
came to America in the steerage, with their worldly possessions
done up in a red bandana handkerchief. They began life in
IN NEW ENGLAND. 47
New York shoving a banana-cart. One of these Italians is now
a wholesale fruit merchant ; the other deals in imported wines
and liquors, and is worth two hundred thousand dollars. These
satisfactory results were achieved primarily because the two
men had good business sense ; but it is safe to say, except for
their habits of economy learned in Italy, their prosperity would
not be a quarter of what it now is. In their own country this
rise would be next to impossible. Taxation is too high, popu-
lation too dense, royalty and standing armies too dear.
Besides the one great cause at the bottom of all low wages,
to which I shall refer at length in a future chapter, there is a
cause which in some degree tends to lower New England factory
wages in particular. I refer to the competition which New Eng-
land factory operatives must undergo with French Canadians.
On the banks of the St. Lawrence, in Lower Canada, live a
class of people closely resembling the French peasantry in hab-
its of thrift and economy. The average farmer in this section
owns sixty acres, worth four or five thousand dollars. He has
his hay-field, his corn, his wheat, a small flock of sheep, a few
cattle, and, in fact, a small supply of all the necessaries of life.
The head of the house attends to the cultivation of every inch
of his sixty acres ; the wife sews, spins, weaves, and does house-
work ; one daughter milks, one son does general farm-work.
Now, if there are other sons and other daughters, they go to the
" State^" not to live, but to work a few years and see the world,
while making what seems to them high wages. Accustomed to
the frugal life of a Canadian farm, and to small wages, they are
happy to work for the New England factory for ninety cents or
a dollar a day. In a few years the Canadian returns to the St.
Lawrence and, if a girl, marries one of her neighbors ; or, if a
man, gets his father to help him buy a farm and settles down to
a quiet, humdrum life, as his ancestors have done before him.
The native American operatives, who see these Canadians
come in and undersell them in the labor market, are beginning
to think a tariff on foreign laborers, not on foreign goods, is
what would best protect American working-men.
48 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER IV.
NEW ENGLAND continued.
THE KIND OF LITERATURE FACTORY PEOPLE READ. BOARDING-
HOUSE KEEPERS. I FIND A BABY IN THE WEEDS. SAINTS AND
FOUNDLINGS. LIFE OF THE NUNS. AMONG THE SHAKERS.
THEIR CURIOUS WORSHIP AND DANCES.
THERE is a model New England village on the Connecticut
River known as the " Paper City." In the immediate vicinity
of that city, Holyoke, are manufactories employing a combined
capital of $12,000,000. A great water company has built a dam
across the river, has trimmed the banks with stone walls, and
cut long canals out of solid rocks.
In 1845 there were only fourteen houses in this place. In
1850 the population was 3245 ; in 1880, 25,915. At first a
single man, struck by the clearness of the water and the cheap-
ness of power, started a mill here. In six years he was able
to buy a new mill with the profits of the old one. To-day
there are twenty-three paper-mills, making one-half of the
writing paper used in the United States. They turn out
350,000 pounds of paper a day.
I was surprised to find the free-trade sentiment so strong in
a manufacturing town like Holyoke. The Paper World said
once:
" It is now time for the paper-makers to see more of foreign
markets. A cutting down in the rate of tariffs will greatly
assist in this, and would give the paper-makers a large part of
the world for their domain."
Another paper, The Manufacturer, also published in Holy-
oke, advocates the same principles.
I asked at the library in Holyoke what class of books opera-
tives usually call for.
NEW ENGLAND CONTINUED. 49
" The boys and girls rarely read anything else than detective
stories," was the librarian's reply.
" Do they read papers ?"
"Not the large dailies. There are a few cheap evening
sheets, filled with local news, which have a good circulation
among factory employes."
I asked one of the girls if she ever went to lectures.
" Sometimes we go on Sundays," was the reply, " though
most of us visit then. The bosses don't like us to go to lect-
ures."
I remembered, then, that once when the Commissioner of
Immigration from a Southern State had endeavored to get the
young operatives together to hear him describe the climate
and advantages of his State, they told him they dared not listen
for fear they would be turned out of their places.
The life of a spinning-mill operative is bliss compared to
the sickening, soul-killing occupation of the grinders, chemical-
makers, and type-founders. In the large room where children
grind the rough edge off knife-blades, imperceptible particles
of dust will fly up in spite of the elaborate blowing apparatus.
In the chemical works I saw a set of emaciated, wan-looking
women with young yet wrinkled and yellow faces. Some were
not over sixteen, but had been working in mercury several
years. The average life in the mercury room does not exceed
eight years.
Young men when advised by moralists to marry are often
told that living is cheaper for two than for one. Whether or
not this is always true I cannot say ; I am of the opinion, how-
ever, that the married factory operative generally has the advan-
tage over his unmarried brother. All the eligible members of
his family will be employed at the mills, and if cottages are
owned by the factory, the man of family will usually get his
rent at a reduced rate. Then he will take one or two unmar-
ried working-men as boarders, and thus eke out a living. I
came across some families who kept as many as six or eight
young men boarders, and almost made their expenses from that
3
50 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
source alone. Sometimes I stopped with factory families my-
self. They afforded more opportunity to observe the charac-
teristics of the people. The family with whom I boarded in
Providence had a good breakfast every day in the week ex-
cepting Sunday. On that morning the fare invariably consisted
of bread and butter, and pork and sweetened beans, which I
found detestable, though the rest seemed to find them palata-
ble enough.
The mistress of my boarding-house in Lowell was an un-
pleasant, sour-faced widow, who seemed to be suffering from a
chronic case of dissatisfaction with the world and everybody
in it. An old beggar knocked at the door one morning while
we were at breakfast, and meekly asked for something to eat.
" Oh, these beggars !" muttered the sour-faced woman, shut-
ting the door in the old man's face; "they are the bother of
rny life. When people get too old to work they ought to be
killed."
Her father, an old, gray-haired man eighty-six years of age,
sat at the table and received the full benefit of this amiable
remark. As a rule, those who have experienced hard knocks
in the battle of life are apt to have a kindly feeling for people
who have to stand still harder knocks. Charity and sympathy
for suffering is much more characteristic of the poor than of
the rich, but the Lowell widow was a decided exception to this
rule. She not only had no sympathy for beggars, but had
little for her boarders, and I was glad to get away from her
meagre table. My boarding-house keeper in Providence,
Rhode Island, was of a different type a round, fat, talkative
person, entirely too social. She would bother me with friendly
chatter even when I was writing in my room of a morning.
"You don't give me much trouble," she would say, with a
view to making herself agreeable while making up my bed ;
"but the man in the next room is awful troublesome. He
smokes in bed, and I have to shake the ashes off his sheets
every morning. I never had any trouble with my tother lodger,
Mr. Long, but his wife has. They're a funny couple. If he
NEW ENGLAND CONTINUED. 51
were only as long as his name, it mightn't be so bad, but
he isn't. He's a little bit of a fellow only up to his wife's
shoulder. They're just married, but have quarrels all the same.
He comes home tired, and wants to read the paper, but she is
for going out to some place. Then they have a fuss. My
girl Sal says she'd rather never marry than carry on that way.
However, I don't guess Sal '11 ever get married. She ain't but
twenty-six, and she ain't got a sound tooth in her head. All
her upper teeth are false, and the doctor says the others '11
have to come out this winter. Somehow we have bad luck in
our family. My husband has been laid up with rheumatics
half the year. I have dizziness in the head, until I'm that
afeard I guess I'll tumble down-stairs some day."
Coming home one night from the houses of some factory
operatives, I heard a sort of smothered, crying sound in the
weeds near the sidewalk. It was in a poor part of the city,
not closely built up. At the place where I heard the noise one
side of the block was entirely vacant. I poked about in the
weeds with my umbrella; it struck upon a soft bundle: the
sound came from that bundle. I picked it up, and, to my
amazement, found a wee specimen of humanity in it. Had
it oeen an elephant I would not have been more nonplussed.
I could not leave it there to perish, and to walk about the
stveets at midnight with a squalling infant in my arms was not
pleasant. The situation was painful. An hour passed I
thought it a dozen before I found a policeman and got rid
of my wailing bundle. Not being a family man, I am not
practised in the fine art of holding babies, and all the time I
carried that unhappy infant I was trembling with fear lest I
should let it fall and smash its little head open, and be held
for murder in the first degree. The child was doubtless that
of some poor girl who, barely able to support herself on fac-
tory wages, abandoned her babe in despair.
One does not find a baby in the streets every night. When
safely rid of the burden, I was quite proud of the achievement,
and soon after related the incident at a social gathering. An
52 . THE TRAMP AT HOME.
innocent young lady asked whether the infant were a boy or a
girl. To my great confusion, I was compelled to admit total
ignorance on that important point.
Three months afterwards I visited the foundling asylum to
which the policeman had taken .the baby. A Sister in sober
costume of gray opened the door and conducted me to a large
parlor, where, while awaiting the Mother Superior, I observed
the stiff furniture : the rows of chairs ranged in precise lines
around the walls, the pictures of saints and priests, and the im-
age of the Virgin Mary in an alcove over the door.
The Mother Superior consulted her books. Three foundlings
had been admitted the same day my find had arrived. All three
were living, and there was no way of distinguishing " my " baby
from the other two.
I was permitted to go through the buildings and look at the
score and more of infants some lying on their little beds, some
in baby-carriages, some crawling on the floor. A few were
healthy, robust-looking ; the majority had pinched faces; some
looked wrinkled and old. This comes from want of mother's
milk : artificial food is almost fatal to new-born babies. In the
next hall I saw children from eighteen months to four years
old. The moment we entered, the whole gang of them, some
fifty or more, scrambled down from their seats and toddled up
to me like a flock of chickens, caught hold of my hands, my
coat-tail, my legs, all in a chorus crying " Howdy ! howdy !
howdy !" The Mother Superior looked on smiling a moment ;
then, with maternal command, she said,
" To your places, children !" and the fifty little chickens flut-
tered back to their little benches, and popped down and stared
at me with their hundred little round eyes. They certainly
were well trained, and seemed to be happy and healthy. The
Mother Superior said if a child could be kept alive until past
the teething-time, it has a fair chance to live and grow strong.
Painted on the polished floors were lines and circles. A girl,
thirteen years old and blind in one eye, drummed a march on
a piano, while the motley crew of infants in calico gowns
NEW ENGLAND CONTINUED. 53
marched around, following the figures indicated on the floor.
One black-eyed little rascal of three years was rather untamable.
Every time the line passed me he broke ranks and waddled to
my chair, where he would stare at me with his wondering black
eyes, until the Sister grabbed him by his fat arms and put him
back in place again.
Overlooking this curious scene was a wooden figure of the
Virgin, that sat on a bracket over the piano. When I arose to
leave, the infants again clattered up to me to say good-by,
FOUNDLING CHILDREN EATING DINNER.
every little fist stuck out in the friendliest way. It was with
difficulty that I tore myself loose and made my escape. The
dining-hall adjoined the kitchen ; the tables and chairs were
all on a miniature scale. The little toddlers, as they disposed
of their soup and mashed potatoes, looked as solemn and dig-
nified as judges. The oHest was just five ; yet so well drilled
were they that they fed themselves, and ate in peace and har-
mony with their neighbors.
A very saintly looking Sister in the laundry showed me how
her wonderfully stiff, fly-away-looking bonnet was ironed and
54 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
made to stand out. She took pride in the work, and was as
pleased as a child at the compliments I bestowed. Speaking
of the life they led, the Mother Superior said,
" We arise at four in the morning, and pray until five ; then
we eat breakfast ; from half-past five to six we tell beads ; then
begin the duties of the day : some Sisters nurse, some cook,
others work in the laundry, others sew. Dinner is at eleven,
then prayers. From two to three is meditation hour. During
that time we all sit together and silently meditate ; not a word
is spoken. Our prayer-books or some holy work of the fathers
are in our laps to suggest pious thoughts. By nine o'clock,
often by half-past eight, we are in bed. Such is our daily
routine."
" Do you ever weary of the routine ?"
The Mother Superior smiled gravely.
" We should never weary of well-doing," she said. " One
of our Sisters has been blind twenty-two years. In all that
time she has not missed a day in the chapel. Every morning
she is up at four o'clock. For an hour she prays on her
knees, then an hour standing. After breakfast she prays again.
Her prayers are worth to us far more than any work she could
do."
" She is a saint, then ?"
" Yes, she is a saint," replied the Mother Superior, with per-
fect faith.
Before leaving the establishment I was shown an old, old-
looking picture of the Virgin Mary.
" See the wonderful sweetness of her expression," said the
Mother Superior ; " that painting has worked miracles. A
woman who had been afflicted nine years with paralysis went
to Father , and begged him to pray for her. He did so.
Masses were said before this painting for nine consecutive
mornings. On the ninth morning the woman arose from her
bed, and walked two miles to Father O 's church to return
thanks to him and the blessed Virgin Mary for her miraculous
NEW ENGLAND CONTINUED. 55
As a contrast to this phase of religious feeling, I will picture
another no less earnest in faith.
From Pittsfield, in the western edge of Massachusetts, I drove
over the mountains to the Mount Lebanon Shaker settlement.
It was Sunday, and, fortunately, the weather was fine, otherwise
I would have missed seeing the Shakers' way of worshipping
God. The Shakers do not consider cleanliness next to godli-
ness they consider it godliness itself. They will not hold
services in rainy weather lest mud might be carried by the feet
into their church, the floor of which is not carpeted, but always
scrupulously polished and clean. The meeting-hall was crowd-
ed with Shakers, and perhaps thirty or forty " world's people "
who went to see the curious, not to say fantastic, performance.
When I went in, a tall slim woman who held herself so straight
that she leaned backward, darted on me a sharp glance with
her sharp, black eyes, and readily detecting that I was not a
Shaker saint, but a poor " world's man," sent to me one of the
Shaker brothers, who showed me where I was to sit, with the
other world's people. The Shaker congregation did not sit
down they took their stands, the men in one row, the women
in another, and began to sing at first in a slow, chanting way,
each one keeping time with both hands waving up and down
with a gentle motion as the two rows marched around in a
wide circle, meeting, mingling, crossing, and turning in a won-
derful way, moving faster and faster as the music of their song
grew more and more exciting. I noticed that the tall woman
who had eyed me so keenly every time she passed by the
" world's people " darted at us warning glances which seemed
to say, " Make no noise, or you'll catch it !"
The dress of these people is quaint and severely simple ; the
women's gowns, utterly destitute of frills and furbelows, hang
straight down to the ankles; the men wear broad-brimmed
hats and loose, home-made garments. The singing and dancing
went on for an hour and a half, then all stood still, and one of
the Sisters was moved to make an address, after which the ex-
ercises ended.
66 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
The first Shaker settlement was founded by an English-
woman named Ann Lee. Being persecuted and called a luna-
tic, this woman came to New York in 1774. Six years later
the settlement at Mount Lebanon was under way. The society
is now wealthy, owning a good deal of land and valuable build-
ings. Recently they sold a large tract of land with barns,
SHAKER WORSHIP.
houses, etc., to a Mr. Burnham, who has opened an industrial
school for homeless boys and girls. At the opening in Sep-
tember, 1887, twenty -five boys were booked ready to learn
farming, or some one of the trades that are to be taught at
this school. The town of New Lebanon, near which is situated
this industrial school, seems to have imbibed the Shaker idea
of celibacy. Shakers do not marry, and many of the people
NEW ENGLAND CONTINUED. 5^
of New Lebanon also seem to prefer single blessedness. I do
not know of a place with as large a proportion of old bache-
lors and old maids. It is not uncommon to find a brother and
sister unmarried, and past the middle life, keeping up the home-
stead long after the old folks are dead. Samuel J. Tilden, who
in his time was America's most prominent bachelor, came from
New Lebanon. He now lies buried on a hill overlooking the
town of his birth.
3*
58 THE TRAMP AT
CHAPTER V.
IN NEW ORLEANS.
THE SNUFF -DRUMMER. A MANUFACTURER WHO WAS "AGIN THE
GOVERNMENT." CONDITION OF LABORERS IN NEW ORLEANS. A
GLIMPSE OF ITALY AND THE TEMPLE OF TESTA. WHY GIRLS
DISLIKE DOMESTIC SERVICE. MISERABLE PAY AND CONDITION
OF SEWING-WOMEN. INFLUENCE OF THE LOTTERY. NO MONEY
FOR BREAD, BUT ALWAYS A DOLLAR FOR THE LOTTERY.
FEW points of interest can be mentioned regarding the con-
dition of labor in Philadelphia. Rents are cheaper, and there
is not so much rush and hurry as in New York and Brooklyn ;
generally speaking, however, the conditions are similar to those
already described in her two large neighbors, and a particular
description would weary the reader as much as the six weeks'
trudging through rain and snow, visiting factories, wearied me.
After six weeks of hard work and disagreeable weather, I
finished the investigation in Philadelphia, and transferred the
scene of my labors to a warmer clime. I started for New Or-
leans. One who has travelled on European railways will be
struck, on taking a long journey on an American road, with
the apparent utter lack of regard for human life in America.
Wherever a wagon-road crosses a railroad in Europe there is a
guard, who will permit none to pass if a train is near or due.
I have seen these station-guards at little cross-roads in south-
ern Russia hundreds of miles from any city. Whenever the
train approached they closed the gates and stood at present
arms until the last car had passed. In Heidelberg one morn-
ing I wanted a glass of water. There was a fountain on the
platform on the other side of the depot. No train was near,
so I started across the track to get my glass of water. A
gendarme came running after me and grabbed me by the
IN NEW ORLEANS. 59
shoulder as if he thought I meant to steal the fountain, water
and all.
" Sind sie verruckt ?" (Are you crazy ?) he said, " that you
run such risks. Besides, it is five marks fine to cross the track."
He showed me steps that led down to a tunnel, through
which I made my way, and up steps at the other end, to the
fountain, where I got a glass of water ; then I returned to the
other side of the track by the same way I had come, down the
steps and through the tunnel. All this may be over-caution ;
but on American roads they are over-careless. Even in enter-
ing large cities there is often only a sign-board telling you to
look out for the train. The American railroad manager thinks
he has done his duty when he has had such signs put up at
the crossings. If you don't "look out," isn't it your fault?
So, if you are run into and killed, the railroad men merely sigh,
and wonder why people will be so careless. An acquaintance
of mine has been confined to his bed for fourteen months, the
result of being lifted into the air by one of the Iron Mountain
Railroad's engines on the corner of Fourth and Poplar streets,
St. Louis. My acquaintance was riding in a street-car, dream-
ing of no danger, when the engine turned the sharp curve and
sent horses, street-car, passengers, and all into the air. Such
an occurrence is an impossibility in Germany or Russia, where
human life is held too dear to be sacrificed except in battle.
While flying over the bottom-lands of Louisiana, I over-
heard the conversation of two men in the seat behind me. The
one a sleek, well-fed, self-satisfied-looking young man, had a
long brown beard, which he stroked with great pride and af-
fection. His companion was a mild-mannered, gray-haired old
gentleman with an innocent face. Every time the train drew
up at a depot, or passed through or in sight of a village, the
younger of these two men made disparaging remarks on the
general appearance of things and people.
" Look at the poverty," he would say ; " look at the squalor.
What an indolent way the people have !"
The scene was not particularly prosperous or brilliant, still
60 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
I did not see any squalor. The houses were small, the barns
roughly built, but were good enough for that mild climate.
"They ought to prosper down here," said the mild-eyed old
gentleman. "The soil is rich, the climate genial; what's the
matter laziness ?"
"Snuff's the matter," said the younger man, with a self-com-
placent smirk.
"Snuff?" repeated the mild-eyed old man.
" Yes ; they've got the climate, and they've got the soil. It's
all the women's fault they are kept so poor."
" How so ?"
" The women spend all their money on snuff : they eat snuff
from morning until night. That's what makes 'em so lazy and
shiftless and sallow."
The astonishment of the innocent-eyed old gentleman was a
triumph enjoyed by the other. The train drew up at a station
soon after, and I took the seat the old gentleman vacated, and
fell into conversation with the complacent young man with the
long brown beard. It was not long before he told me that he
" hailed " from Wisconsin, and that his mission was to travel
and " minister to the depraved taste of Southern women ;" in
other words, he was a snuff-d rummer.
"I travel all over the South and sell the merchants snuff.
They sell it to the women, and the women eat it."
" Do you sell much in the South ?"
"Much? I should smile!" answered the snuff -drummer,
with an exultant grin. "I sell millions of dollars' worth a
year."
" Millions !" I gasped, aghast at the awful picture conjured
up of my countrywomen gobbling so many tons and tons of
the despicable weed.
" Southern women buy every year four million dollars' worth
of snuff."
" And Northern women ?"
"Oh, Northern women seldom use it; although the factory
women of New England eat a good deal. There is a snuff fac-
IN NEW OBLEANS. 61
tory at Byfield, Massachusetts. The factory women eat twelve
tons of snuff a year. They do not use sticks in snuffing, as do
the Southern women ; they use little wads of cotton, which
they sop in the snuff-box and cram in their jaws."
The snuff-drummer, who had just left Memphis, Tennessee?
said that city was not in good favor with drummers.
"Why not?"
" Memphis puts a tax on drummers ; consequently drummers
ain't fond of Memphis."
Of course I deeply sympathized with the wrongs of the no-
ble snuff-drummer class. I told that young man that Memphis
acted badly when she put a tax on snuff-drummers. A snuff-
drummer who came all the way from Wisconsin to " minister
to the depraved taste of Southern women" ought to be received
by a deputation of society belles, the prettiest of whom ought
to carry his sack containing snuff samples. At night they
ought to serenade him, so that he might sleep sweetly after
drumming during the day to minister to their depraved taste.
The snuff-drummer gazed at me reflectively a moment, then
picked up his satchel containing snuff samples and went over
and sat at the other end of the car near the water-tank.
In New Orleans a new difficulty altogether was encountered.
A number of the manufacturers and employers were like the
proverbial Irishman, " agin the Government." One shoe man-
ufacturer declared no Government agent should go through his
factory. I explained that, although an agent of the General
Government at Washington, it was a State law that required
factories to open their doors for inspection. This altered mat-
ters. He did not want any " big nation agents" about, but if
the State of Louisiana wanted a man to go through his place,
all right. He respected the State, and would obey its laws. I
was surprised and also a little embarrassed, the next day, to
find that the manufacturer with whom I had had the wordy
war, and who was compelled to admit me into his place, was
the very person to whom I had a letter of introduction, and
with whom I had an engagement to dine.
62 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
In New Orleans I got a glimpse of Italian life. My room in
the top of a high building had a window overlooking the roof
of the adjoining house. The janitor of this latter building was
an Italian. On Sundays he sat with his family on the roof
basking in the sun, while his wife combed his head. In Rome
a crowd of peasants may be seen any fine morning sitting on
the steps of the ancient Temple of Vesta, the mothers combing
the heads of their children. In the Uffizi Gallery at Florence
is a painting by on6 of the old masters, entitled "Venus Comb-
ing the Head of Cupid." I always thought that old master
must have done a good deal of loafing around the Temple of
Vesta. His Venus is a speaking likeness of the mothers, and
his Cupid of the type of children one sees on the steps of the
ancient Temple of Vesta.
The glimpses I got of the Italian janitor having his head
combed on Sunday mornings took me back in memory to the
Temple of Vesta, and to the old master in the Uffizi Gallery
at Florence.
The condition and general appearance of the working-classes
in New Orleans reminds one of the working-classes in France
and Italy. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that there
are more points of resemblance between New Orleans and
French and Italian cities than between New Orleans and other
American places. French and Italian families live on seventy
cents and less a day. Hundreds of New Orleans laborers sup-
port families on the same sum. French mechanics wear blouses;
so do many New Orleans mechanics. Both speak French. The
investigator rambling through the shops and factories of dilapi-
dated, quaint New Orleans can easily forget America, and im-
agine himself on the shores of the distant Mediterranean.
This similarity is easily explained. The French and Spanish
originally settled the country, and from those Latin peoples
were received the first characteristics which an uninnovating
spirit and a warm climate have tended to preserve, with com-
paratively little change, down to the present day. Stop a man
in New York or St. Louis to inquire where the Post-office or
IN NEW ORLEANS. 63
Court-house is, and if he notices you at all it will be merely to
jerk his thumb towards a policeman and tell you to ask him.
Stop a man for the same purpose in New Orleans, and he will
tell you all he knows and more too. I once lost my way in the
narrow streets of the French Quarter, and, as there were no pass-
ers-by, stepped into a shoemaker's shop to obtain directions.
" You wish to go to Washington Square ?"
" Yes."
" Well, come ; I will show you."
He laid his tools and shoes down, and we started off together.
The few people we met on the quiet, almost deserted street did
not seem to think there was anything odd in the shoemaker's
walking along with me, his sleeves still rolled up, his leather
apron tied around his waist, his workman's cap on his head.
" I did not mean to put you to this trouble," I apologized.
" If you will tell me the way I can find it."
" Oh, it's no trouble," returned the shoemaker, jovially. " Be-
sides, you couldn't go by yourself. The streets are very nar-
row and very crooked."
The rest of the distance about a block and a half we
talked politics, a subject in which the shoemaker was well
versed. Then we came in sight of the square, and my guide,
with a bow that would have done credit to a dancing-master,
touched his cap and returned leisurely to his shop. This little
incident, which is characteristic, not exceptional, shows the
dolcefar niente spirit that pervades the people. Thousands of
years lie behind them, thousands of years lie before them.
Why rush ? Why hurry ? Do we not go to our graves fast
enough without hurrying? So they do not rush or hurry.
People move about slowly, and seem to care more for the
social side of life, and to derive more enjoyment therefrom, in
New Orleans than in any large city in the United States.
Within the last five years this easy-going gait has been dis-
turbed to some extent, and it is likely to be more and more
disturbed in the near future. Already there are several facto-
ries, employing each from one hundred and fifty to three hun-
64 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
dred hands. There are a dozen or so employing smaller num-
bers. In all these places it would be a serious mistake to
suppose anything is left of the dolce far niente business. On
the contrary, in these factories, owned or operated for the most
part by Northern men, the hours are even longer, the work
harder, than in the East and North.
Excluding domestic service, three-fourths of the women in
New Orleans who earn their livelihood earn it by the needle.
Of these three-fourths, only a small portion work in factories.
The majority sew at home, live in low, mean surroundings, on
bad and insufficient food ; they work from six in the morning
until late at night to make two or two and a half dollars a week.
It is the boast of their employers that they manufacture cheap-
er than the Eastern manufacturers ; that they are underselling
Eastern men in their own markets. This is credible. Women
in New Orleans make jean " pants " for fifty-five cents a
dozen less than five cents a pair. The employer sells the
same " pants " for from a dollar to a dollar and a half a pair
twice as much for one pair as he pays the sewing-women for
making a dozen pairs. Mr. Edward Atkinson may involve him-
self in a maze of statistics, and succeed in proving to his own
satisfaction that labor receives a larger return than capital. I
fear, however, he will find it difficult to convince the New Or-
leans sewing- women that they receive a just proportion of
labor's products. On the contrary, the sewing-women know
very well that there is an unjust distribution, and they know
the injustice does not lie at their door. The sewing-woman
gives three times as much as she receives. Cobden said,
" When two employers are after one workman, wages rise ;
when two workmen are after one employer, wages fall." This
is a homely way of expressing the law of supply and demand.
In New Orleans it is not two but a dozen seamstresses that
apply to one employer, hence the extreme lowness of their
wages. In the half-hour that I was engaged in conversation
with a manufacturer, as many as four women came pleading for
work. To each was given the same reply no more sewing
IN NEW CHILEANS. 65
to give out. They looked in vain for a chance to make jean
" pants " even at the pittance of fifty -five cents a dozen.
Whole streets are given up to the makers of cheap clothing.
Walk through the Third District, and behind the closed shutters
of nearly every house will be heard the clatter of a sewing-
machine. On the table of the machine is a loaf of bread from
which the operator from time to time takes a bite, and stays the
hunger that is seldom or never fully satisfied. In many cases
that fell under my notice this loaf of bread constituted the sole
menu ; with almost all was it the principal item, being helped
out in the middle of the day by the one so-called square meal
of coffee, potatoes, and salt pork or oilier meat. The figures
furnished by one family, typical of the class, will convey a bet-
ter idea of their condition than would pages of description.
Table of New Orleans Seamstress and family.
Condition. Family of six : parents, and four children from one to nine
years old. Occupy a board shanty overlooking a canal. In summer the
canal dries up, mud and stench very disagreeable. The rooms are bare,
wretchedly furnished ; a bedstead, a few chairs, and a rough kitchen table.
The father is a cigar-maker. When at work, he earns $6 to $9 a week,
but has been idle for some time. The mother operates a sewing-machine,
the father assists in sewing buttons, making button-holes, etc. Earnings
of the two, $3 a week.
Cost of Living :
Bread per day 18 cents.
Sugar, milk, and coffee. . . " 10 "
Meat and potatoes " 12 u
Total cost of food per day 40 cents ; per week $2 80
Rent of shanty per week $1 00
Other items, as fuel, light, clothing, lottery tickets, etc.,
bring the total up to five dollars a week. When the husband
is earning wages, the extra income is spent in paying debts,
and in buying extra food supplies and extra lottery tickets.
The expense for fuel and clothing is very small.
The old-fashioned Southern, or perhaps, in speaking of New
Orleans, it is best to say Creole, idea of woman's "sphere" has
66 THE 'TRAMP AT HOME.
operated to confine women to the needle. Even yet that nar-
row idea governs women, and limits the number of avenues of
work, and narrows those few that are open to them.
"Girls working for me?" said a Creole shoe manufacturer,
with a virtuously offended air. " Well, I should think not.
Thank God, it has not come to that yet."
" But the girls must live ; why not by making shoes?"
" And work in the same room, at the same benches with
men ? Impossible !"
Nevertheless, it is possible. Men who talked like the Creole
shoe manufacturer two years ago now employ women by the
dozen. Were they to persist in the old idea, they would have
to give way to others who do not believe that woman's "sphere"
lies exclusively in the nursery and the kitchen, or that her work
is confined to the needle and the wash-tub.
Why is it that the women of New Orleans dwell in shanties,
and sew until late at night to earn two dollars and fifty cents
a week, when they can make twice that amount, and get good
board and lodging besides, by hiring out as cooks or house-
servants? The explanation lies in the word " servant."
"Do you think I'd be any stuck-up woman's servant?" said
a " wash-lady," which means a girl who works in a laundry for
three dollars a week. It was Sunday, and as she walked to
church dressed neatly and well, she felt as fine as the finest.
"If I were a servant I shouldn't be on the way to church.
I would be answering somebody else's door-bell, or eating in
the kitchen."
To this Sunday work, and still more to the wide line that
is drawn between mistress and maid, is due the repugnance felt
against domestic service. In some New England towns that I
have observed, as Pittsfield (Massachusetts), Portland (Maine),
and other smaller places, the line is not so sharply defined. In
some towns I have found myself seated at table by the side of
the cook, who, having finished her culinary duties, had rolled
down her sleeves and taken a place alongside the family.
There is little of this spirit left in the cities, and it is perhaps
IN NEW ORLEANS. 67
growing less in the country and the town a fact to be de-
plored, as it will materially increase the difficulty of getting
good house-servants.
Nothing of this kind ever existed in New Orleans. Before
the war servants were bought. They cannot be bought now,
and unless something be done to make domestic service prefer-
able to being " wash " ladies and other sorts of " ladies " who
work their fingers to the bone and half starve, the mistresses
of American households will ultimately be obliged to do their
own cooking and house-work. Any number of women may
be seen waiting to be employed in a factory eleven, hours a
day on wages of four dollars a week and less, but the applicant
for a good house-girl or cQok often goes a long time before
the demand is supplied. The fact is, few working-men's wives
and daughters know how to cook, and if they did know they
would still prefer factory or shop life, which, if more laborious
and less remunerative, is yet, in their opinion, a more honorable
and independent occupation. Rather than be " servants," girls
prefer to stand on their feet from seven in the morning until
ten or eleven at night.
Sales-girls are required to be dressed neatly. Seamstresses
work as hard as sales-girls, but they have this advantage, they
are not compelled to spend so much on dress. In garrets in
New York and Brooklyn I have come across women in calico
gowns that did not cost above thirty cents. Their rent cost
from five to eight dollars a month. The rest of their meagre
earnings, after paying for the thirty-cent gowns and the rent,
went to buy food to sustain the human machine, that it might
keep on with its daily grind of toil. Did seamstresses have to
spend as much for dress as sales-women, statistics would doubt-
less show a much larger proportion of former seamstresses
among fallen women than is now actually the fact. Despite
their miserable pay, the number of sewing-women who go wrong
is less, proportionately, than in almost any other occupation.*
* Only seven and a half per cent, of degraded women were ever engaged
in sewing of any kind for a living. This percentage is obtained from an
68
THE TRAMP AT HOME.
A POOR SEAMSTRESS AT WORK.
The reason that women prefer such bard work to the less
arduous occupation of domestic service is, as just remarked,
almost entirely because of the badge of inferiority they think
attached to the latter. European workmen and women have
less of this sort of pride. In Europe the social line is more
rigid and fixed ; the poor never dream of passing it. The
German shopkeeper stands no higher in the estimation of the
titled loafer than does his clerk or house-servant. Both work,
and work is degradation in the eyes of a legalized aristocracy.
The effect of this is, the German shopkeeper does not keep his
clerks and house-servants at so great a distance as the American
shopkeeper keeps his. In Germany everybody looks down
investigation of over five thousand fallen women in the cities of New York,
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, New Or-
leans, Denver, and San Francisco. By far the larger per cent, graduate
into their degraded calling direct from home or from domestic service.
. IN NEW ORLEANS. 69
upon the baucr (peasant-class) ; but with that exception, there
are less distinctions among the middle classes than is the case
with us. An American shopkeeper lives in a fine house. He
walks about his "Emporium of Fashion" a little czar. If his
wife or daughter is ever seen there, it is when she drives up
in her carriage to get a silk dress or a check from papa. In
France and Germany the same class of shopmen live in rooms
over their shops. Even bankers live over their banks. The
shopman's wife, in all probability, helps him keep his books
and sell his goods. At night, when the house has been put to
rights, Gretcheu, the house-maid, will come into the family sit-
ting-room and listen to her employer read the papers or chat of
the day's events. She is not kept back in her room in the
attic, or thrown entirely on her own resources for amusement.
Hence the Germans and French do not experience that difficulty
in securing capable domestic help that American housewives
meet with. They bring their customs more or less to this
country, and in American cities the first to get good house-
servants and the last to lose them are not American but Ger-
man or French families.
The noted Louisiana Lottery has no little bearing on the
labor question in New Orleans. The seamstresses spoken of
as working from seven in the morning until eleven at night
may have for breakfast, dinner, and supper only a five-cent loaf
of bread, but they are apt to have lottery tickets in the pockets
of their threadbare dresses, or stowed away behind a cracked
mirror or picture-frame. A family on whom 1 tailed one
morning lived in abject poverty. The house contained only
two rooms and a closet, yet was the habitation of nine human
beings, or had been until recently the mother had just buried
the youngest of her eight children. She was direct from the
cemetery, and doubtless had not enough food in the cupboard
to furnish a meal to her living children, yet at the moment
of my call she was surrounded by them, eagerly scanning the
lottery bulletin that was just out announcing the numbers of
winning tickets. Her own number was apparently not on the
70 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
list, for she cast the sheet aside with a disappointed air, and
turned to answer ray questions and resume her sewing.
Tickets, or parts of tickets, for the daily drawing can be
bought for twenty-five cents. They are hung up on strings
in the windows of nearly every corner grocery. The sewing-
woman tramps from her dingy shanty in the Third District to
the factory, three miles distant, a mountain of " pants " and
coats on her back. She is paid two dollars or two dollars and
fifty cents for her week's work, and walks back to save car-fare.
But on the way the lottery tickets in the windows stare her in
the face. Perhaps she passes three or four windows and does
not stop ; but there are so many on her long walk, what can
she do? By each lot of tickets is a poster telling in big type
of the wonderful fortune won, perhaps, by some neighbor or
acquaintance. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
Why cannot she draw a fortune too ? The temptation is too
great. A ticket is bought, and until the result of the drawing
is announced that poor woman lives almost literally on hope.
Sometimes she will go herself to the hall of the lottery com-
pany on St. Charles Street, and watch the blindfolded boy as
he takes out the tickets from the wheel. How her heart beats !
"If he only draws my number! Ah, that was near it. It
is getting nearer; he may draw mine next;" and she unfolds
her crumpled ticket and reads again and again the number
printed thereon.
Servant-girls do not think it wrong to slightly curtail their
employer's food supply, that they may have a chance in the
wheel of fortune. Those women whom one sees in the lottery
building on St. Charles Street, with market-baskets on their
arms, waiting for the blindfolded boy to draw them a prize,
may be depended upon to show a shortage in their market
account by the price of at least one lottery ticket.
Almost on a par with the lottery are the numerous " benefit "
societies that abound in the Crescent City. Of the several hun-
dred families whom I personally visited, nearly two-thirds (sixty
per cent.) had members of the family belonging to one, and
IN NEW OELEANS. 71
sometimes to as many as four or five societies. The dues to
one society amount to seven dollars a year. One old lady, a
stitcher of shoe -uppers, was a member of four societies, and
paid yearly dues amounting to twenty-eight dollars nearly a
fourth of her earnings. There was no return for this outlay
that she had been making for years except in case of illness.
The old lady, I verily believe, would have welcomed some ail-
ment that would have enabled her to recoup some of the money
she had spent on benefit societies. In contrast to this excep-
tional liking for benefit societies is a marked weakness of the
trades-union idea. Only a small per cent, of New Orleans work-
ing-men are members of unions. Those who are members are
not as enthusiastic as union men in other cities.
" The negroes and Cubans crowd us out," said a cigar-maker.
" They work for anything they can get, so of course the unions
can't keep up wages. Cigar-makers make here at least two
dollars a thousand less than in Northern cities."
The cigar-maker who said this was part negro himself. His
father was white, his mother half African. The cigar-maker
was of a dark, swarthy hue. He had been educated by his fa-
ther in Paris, and up to the war played the role of gentleman.
After the war, being thrown upon his own resources, he learned
cigar-making not, however, with any great enthusiasm. His
former lazy life had spoiled him. At the time of my visit he
was lounging around his hovel, smoking a bad pipe, and occa-
sionally helping his wife sew buttons on jean "pants." I found
not a few slightly colored husbands who thus attempted, even
in the face of dire poverty, to play the gentleman. It puzzled
me to understand how they kept soul and body together.
This cigar-maker, though earning six or seven dollars a week
when at work, had been idle three months, so that the actual
income of the family was what the wife earned two dollars
and a half a week. One dollar of this went for the two wretch-
ed rooms they called home. On the remaining dollar and a
half husband, wife, and three small children had to clothe and
feed themselves.
72 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Statistics show that the number of remunerative occupations
open to women have a decided bearing on their morality. In
Birmingham, England, where women are employed to a great
extent, there is one degraded woman to every six hundred of
population ; in Chicago and Louisville there is one degraded
woman to every three hundred. The natural inference would
be that a class of female wage-earners so poorly paid as are
the seamstresses of New Orleans would largely recruit the ranks
of fallen women ; but inquiry shows that of the entire number
of fallen women in New Orleans only seven and a half per cent,
were formerly seamstresses. Bear in mind that sewing-women
are the poorest paid of any laboring class, and that they out-
number the women engaged in all other pursuits, domestic
service excepted,* and the fact certainly speaks well for the
virtue and industry of poor sewing-women. I came across an
unmarried seamstress, the mother of two children, who eked
out a bare support for herself ami for them by giving piano
lessons to a class for ten dollars a month. She was intelligent,
modest in manners, and hard-working. Such women do not
by any means forfeit their own or their neighbors' respect.
Cases of this kind are often met with, but, as stated, the per-
centage of those who abandon all shame and become degraded
women is astonishingly small.
The Spanish Fort and the West End are two very pleasant
resorts on Lake Pontchartrain, accessible from the city by a
narrow-gauge railway. The cost of the round trip is only fif-
teen cents, but even this small sum is beyond the reach of all
but the better and more well-to-do class of workmen. The
great majority live in shanties and courts, and spend their holi-
days, not on the cool shores of the lake, so near, yet so far, be-
cause separated by a fifteen-cent gulf, but on the grass beneath
the shade of the trees that are planted in the middle of New
Orleans's magnificently wide streets and avenues.
* See United States Census for 1880.
AMONG SOUTHERN FAKilEKS. 73
CHAPTER VI.
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS.
AN ANCIENT ACADEMY. TUSCULUM, NAMESAKE OF CICERO'S VILLA.
LIVING ON TWENTY CENTS A DAY. INDEPENDENCE OF THE
MOUNTAIN FARMERS. HOW COTTON IS RAISED ON SHARES.
SKETCHES OF FARM LIFE IN EAST TENNESSEE. A RELIGIOUS
MEETING WHERE THE WOMEN WASHED THE MEN'S FEET, AND
THE MEN SWAPPED HORSES.
AFTER a few weeks in and around Birmingham, Alabama,
and Chattanooga, Tennessee, studying the condition of South-
ern iron-workers, I prepared to go among the Southern farm-
ers, and with that view made my headquarters at a little village
called Tusculum, in East Tennessee. In selecting that name-
sake of the great Cicero's villa, I was determined by a circular
descriptive of the fine scenery and the splendid library of the
Tusculum College, the oldest seat of learning in the State of
Tennessee. The scenery was all there, but the splendid library
was a splendid sham. True, there were thousands of dusty,
moth-eaten school-books, thousands of old theological tomes ;
volumes and volumes, several centuries old, of learned but use-
less disputes over points which not even the most bigoted theo-
logians of the present day deem worth discussion ; volumes of
ancient sermons that had been brought over two hundred years
ago from England such was the library that the circular called
" splendid " not a single book in all the thousands that a live
man could read with either profit or interest.
The mountain boys come to this house of learning in wag-
ons, bringing bags of flour, skillets, coffee-pots, hams, po-
tatoes, apples, bed and bedding, as well as their wearing ap-
parel. In the grove, in a semicircle around the old brick col-
lege, are log-cabins. The boys bunk together in these cabins,
4
74 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
take turns in cooking their meals and washing their clothes
thus making a practical study of economy as well as of books.
It was an interesting sight to see the students when wash-day
came around. By the edge of the clear-watered creek that
flowed near by was a huge iron kettle. Under this a fire was
made. Then the boys of the various messes got down to their
work and washed away with a will, rinsing the clothes in the
clear, cold water of the creek. By this close economy some of
the students reduce their expenditures while at college to less
than a hundred dollars a year, a good part of which sum they
earn in vacation, ploughing in the fields or doing other farm-
work.
The expenses of our family while camping near Tusculum
fell short of thirty cents a day for each member. Chickens
cost eight or ten cents apiece ; eggs cost five cents a dozen ;
beef seven cents a pound ; buttermilk was fed to the hogs ;
fruit and vegetables corn, potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, melons
were to be had almost for the asking, fuel for the cutting
and hauling. These are interesting figures, but to the Penn-
sylvania iron manufacturer they are not pleasant, since the
Southern workmen, where living is so cheap, can afford to
work for less wages than the men of the North, where large
cities create large demands for food products, thus raising the
cost of living. The mill-owner in Chattanooga and Birming-
ham pays lower wages than Northern manufacturers, but work-
men in the South can afford to accept lower wages, because
living is cheaper. This is why the iron-men of the North and
West are becoming alarmed at Southern competition. Proba-
bly we shall soon hear them crying for a protective tariff
against " pauper " Southern labor.
My knowledge of cheap living, which had stood me in such
good service in Europe, was put in practice in our camp at
Tusculum. In the morning I would go to the cornfield and
pluck a dozen ears of corn ; we boiled this, or, when the corn
was matured, ground it into meal and converted it into corn-
bread on the back of a hoe. Wheat was cheap. We pounded
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS. 75
a pint or so of wheat grains with two smooth bowlders until
the kernels cracked. This, well boiled, and eaten with sugar
and cream, that cost little or nothing, made a breakfast nutri-
tious and wholesome. The cost for our family of five could
not have exceeded twenty cents.
Investigation showed that the women of East Tennessee spin
and weave their own and their husband's and children's cloth-
ing, also their blankets. In this they are widely unlike the
farmers of the level lands of the Gulf States. The mountain-
eers of East Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina are al-
most entirely self-supporting, purchasing from the outside
world only a few agricultural implements, and occasionally
small quantities of coffee and tea. They raise their own to-
bacco, rice, wheat, cotton, and wool ; spin and weave their own
cloth and distil their own whiskey ; in short, they are quite in-
dependent of the outside world. It must be something more
than a coincidence that this characteristic of independence is
so often found among mountainous people. As Buckle has
suggested, man is influenced by climate and physical geography.
Before the days of steam, mountains, on account of their
rough, rugged nature, were difficult of access : even now, with
roads climbing such giddy heights as Marshall Pass in the
Rocky Mountains, the homes of mountaineers are less easily
reached than the homes of other classes; hence the marked
degree of independence noted among the inhabitants of such
countries as Switzerland and East Tennessee. Money in East
Tennessee has not the same value it has in other parts of the
country. What little commerce exists is carried on mostly by
barter. A farm hand who hires out to the owner of a farm
does not receive his board and so much money fifteen or
eighteen dollars a month as he would receive on "level land"
farms : he gets his board and an order on the nearest store.
The farmer pays the merchant in butter, eggs, or other farm
produce, which the merchant ships off to distant markets.
Should the hired laborer have a house and family of his own,
he is paid in bacon, lard, or meal, and an order on the store.
76 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Farmers and planters in the Gulf States will often be found
buying from Northern merchants clothing, provisions, and even
their staple " hog and hominy." The cotton plantations are
conducted on what is called the "share" system. The land-
owner furnishes the mules and implements, and the hands buy
their own provisions. A white man overlooks and directs the
negroes, who agree, in the first place, to obey the manager in
every particular as to planting. Were this not done, the ne-
gro, by careless planting, might cause heavy loss to his land-
lord as well as to himself. The cost of producing a pound of
cotton on good land can be reduced to five cents. The negro
share-workers at this rate make a neat income.
" I have had as much as four thousand dollars to the credit
of big Henry Bolton," said a commission-merchant. "He is
a negro who can't read or write, but knows how to save. He
now owns a farm of three hundred acres, and rents it out like
a lord. There is no reason why negroes shouldn't make money.
In the picking season you can't punch a negro man on a planta-
tion without hearing the silver rattle. They get a cent a pound,
and an industrious man can pick a hundred and fifty pounds a
day. The trouble with most of them is, they are unable to
save money or to use it judiciously. Tobacco, whiskey, and
'craps' (a gambling game) are their weaknesses. Some make
as high as twenty bales a year. This season, Tom, an Arkan-
sas negro, cleared four hundred dollars. He came to town, got
drunk, played craps, and came into my office last week to get
me to advance him money enough to go home on."
The cabins on plantations are built of logs, and usually con-
sist of two rooms, eighteen by sixteen feet, and a porch. Such
a cabin costs four hundred dollars, and is used by two families.
On a plantation of 1750 acres that I visited there were seventy-
four such cabins. The planter furnishes all these and the im-
plements ; the negroes have only to buy their food and cloth-
ing. At the end of the year the crop is divided into two equal
parts. It is only by keeping a sharp lookout, and seeing that
the negroes do not idle or waste, that the planter makes a profit,
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS. 77
or even comes out without loss. It is seldom one finds negro
plantation-hands intelligent and thrifty.
The hospitality of the Southern mountaineers is open and
boundless, as I learned from personal experience. A dozen
travellers may stop at a farmer's cabin and stay several days,
and the whole twelve would be fed and cared for without
charge. Of this characteristic I became acquainted on a horse-
back trip into the interior among the farmers and lumber-cut-
ters. I had proceeded but a short distance from Tusculum,
when I overtook another horseman jogging slowly along the
road. He was a lean, lank fellow, dressed in homespun jeans, his
long hair hanging on his shoulders.
" Mornin', stranger," said the lank man as I rode up.
" Good-morning, sir."
" Fine day, fine day," said the lank man.
" Yes, it is."
"A good day, too, stranger. It's the Lord's Day, you
know."
I remembered it was Sunday. We rode on together, the
lean, lank man talking more or less on religion. Presently he
turned and said,
" Stranger, you'd better 'light, an' look at your saddle."
" What's the matter ? Girth loose ?"
I leaned over and felt the buckle to see if all was right.
The lean man looked gravely reproachful.
" I've asked you to git down an' look at your saddle," he re-
peated. " If you don't mean to do it, don't sit thar a-mockin'
of me."
At this moment another man, bareheaded, and also dressed
in a suit of homespun jeans, emerged from a thicket on the
road-side, nodded to my companion, looked at me, and said,
" Mornin', stranger. I reckon you'll 'light an' look at your
saddle i"
"I've jist asked him," put in my companion of the road.
" He mocked me. The devil is in him."
*' Slow, Brother Kite, slow," said the second man ; then, turn-
78 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ing to me, " Now, you uns air a stranger in these parts, I
reckon 3"
I admitted the fact.
" Well, we uns air a-holdin' meetin' heah to-day. Brother
Kite asked you to 'light an' fix your saddle, an' come in to
meetin'."
I accepted the invitation, and afterwards learned that the
saddle interlude was merely the East Tennessee way of inviting
one to church. The saddle-girths are strapped very tight to
keep the rider from sliding over his horse's tail in climbing
the steep mountains. It is usual, when not riding, to loosen
the girth to relieve the horse; hence the form of invitation to
get down from your horse and stop a " while " is " 'light and
look at your saddle."
In the little log meeting-house were assembled some thirty
or forty mountaineers.
The people of this country ought to be the healthiest in
the world. The air is pure and bracing, the water clear and
free from injurious deposits, food abundant and cheap. One
would expect fresh, rosy faces ; on the contrary, most of the
women and children are sallow, and the former wrinkled be-
fore their time. When I came to know how these people
ate and drank, I thought the premature wrinkles, decayed teeth,
and sallow skins not to be wondered at. Whiskey, tobacco,
and hog-meat constitute the principal part of their diet. Scrof-
ula often afflicts the children, while consumption carries off too
many of the adult inhabitants.
Brother Kite proved to be the preacher for whom the peo-
ple in the little log meeting-house were waiting. He mounted
the pulpit and preached the most remarkable sermon I ever
heard. It was a funeral sermon in memory of a sister who
had been dead two years, and whose husband, with a second
wife, was present.
" Bretheren and sisters," said Brother Kite, " all of you uns
who knowed Sister Betts knowed as she were a good an' faith-
ful Christian woman. No woman in these parts ever gin her
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS. 79
family better fried ham an' eggs, an' better coffee, than Sister
Betts. She alias had such good butter an' suck good milk.
But she's gone now. Sister Betts is gone from among us, an'
thar ain't many left as can ekal her in keepin' house."
At that time I was studying short-hand. Hauling out my
note-book and pencil, I began to note down Brother Kite's
sermon. A city clergyman is pleased to see stenographers jot-
ting down his eloquent utterances, but Brother Kite was not
accustomed to seeing writing going on during his most fervid
utterances. Pointing at me his long, lean forefinger, he said,
" Stranger !" Every eye turned on me. " Stranger, you air
in the Lord's house, an' this air his day."
I hurried my pencil and note-book out of sight, while Broth-
er Kite proceeded with his sermon. An hour's intermission
was given for dinner. The women filed out first, then the men.
As I was walking off to where my horse was hitched, Brother
Kite overtook me.
" You ain't agoin', air ye ?"
I said I thought it time to go.
" Meetin' ain't half over yit. You uns had better git dinner
with Sister Peggy, and stay to foot-washin'."
As I had never seen a religious foot-washing, I accepted the
invitation. Brother Kite took me up to Sister Peggy, who
was unloading her basket, and spreading the edibles out on the
white cloth at the root of a tree. ,.
" Come to buy land ?" said Sister Peggy, after making me
welcome to her fried pies, corn-bread, and cold ham.
I said I was only looking at the beautiful country, the mount-
ains and valleys.
" Well," said Sister Peggy, " the valley land can't be beat.
It raised the best corn last year I ever seed, but the mountains
ain't good for much. It would be a powerful sight better if
the mountains were all valleys."
Before we began eating, Sister Peggy went to her wagon and
brought back a small brown jug.
" It's your old favorite, Brother Kite."
80 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
"Let the stranger have the first pull, Sister Peggy," replied
the preacher, passing the jug to me. It was an opaque jug,
but I was not at a loss in guessing its contents. The red nose
of Sister Peggy led me to believe that she was not the woman
to carry around a jug of cold water.
Both Brother Kite and Sister Peggy were astonished when
I refused to drink. They seemed to think it as natural to
drink moonshine whiskey as to drink water.
" Why, stranger," said the preacher, " you ain't sick, air ye ?"
" Noj but I am afraid I would be if I sampled that jug."
After dinner the women set to work putting the things
back in the baskets ; the men gathered around in knots and
talked " hogs," the probable price of corn, and whether the
" craps " were going to be good. Some, to my astonishment,
forgetting that it was the Lord's' Day, began horse-trading.
.Even the preacher joined in this occupation.
" I hearn you'd swapped off your mare for Black Nance,"
he said, addressing one of a group of men, each one of whom
was chewing tobacco and whittling a stick with a jack-knife.
"Yes, I did."
" Git any boot ?"
" Reckon so. You didn't 'low as I'd gin Luce for Black
Nance 'thout boot ?"
" Well, I don't know," replied the preacher. " Black Nance's
a powerful good little mare."
" So was Luce worth two of Nance, if she's worth a cent."
There was a pause, in which the preacher pulled out his
knife and picked up a stick to whittle. When he had found
one to his satisfaction he spoke :
" How would you like to swap Black Nance fur my Joe ?"
Brother Hawkins gave the preacher a keen glance.
"D'ye mean it?"
" Sartin."
" Well, what'll you gimme to boot?"
" Boot ! Brother Hawkins, you must be a-funnin'. It's me
as ought to have boot. Leastwise, the swap orter be even,"
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS. 81
This dickering lasted five or ten minutes. Then they ad-
journed to where the horses were hitched to the limbs of a
tree, where Brother Kite pointed out the fine parts of Joe,
while Brother Hawkins descanted on the sterling qualities of
Black Nance. The end of it all was, the preacher took Black
Nance, giving in exchange his horse Joe and five dollars boot.
Brother Hawkins, I afterwards heard, was the best horse-trader
in the mountains. He went once to " meetin' " with an old
yellow cob, made several swaps, each time getting boot, and
finally rode home on the same old yellow cob, with thirty dol-
lars extra in his pocket. He had a knack of making men be-
lieve their horses were of no account at all, while his own had
every good quality known to the equine species.
When the horses were watered, the congregation filed back
into church to wash each other's feet. The two preachers sat
on the platform, gave out the hymn, shut their eyes, and joined
in the singing with great feeling. Buckets of water were
brought from a neighboring spring ; some ten or more of the
male portion of the congregation pulled off their shoes they
had no stockings to pull off and half a dozen women, of
whom Sister Peggy took the lead, fell on their knees before
one old fellow after another, washing each man's feet and wip-
ing them on a towel. The last recipients of this honor were
the two preachers, who seemed to derive much spiritual conso-
lation from the process. The ceremony concluded with a gen-
eral hand-shaking all around, amid the most fervid and sten-
torian singing.
Sister Peggy, who had invited me to spend the night at her
place in " Corn Cove," after some delay got her flock of tow-
headed children stowed away in the wagon, and we started off.
4*
82 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER VII.
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS Continued.
THE "KING OF CORN COVE." LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS. THE
'SPRISE DANCE AT SAMANTHA's. WHY BILL CALLED HIM A SNEAK.
MOUNTAIN ETIQUETTE.
CORN COVE, a valley hemmed in on both sides by steep
mountains, is famous for producing the tallest and largest
stalks of corn, with the greatest number of ears to the stalk, of
any land in the State. Old man Crownover, Sister Peggy's
husband, owned miles and miles of valley land, besides half a
dozen mountains. He was the richest man of that section, and
was called the " King of Corn Cove."
The Crownover house, the largest .1 had yet seen in the
mountains, was at the base of a high mountain, built of wood,
a wide hall in the middle, and rooms on both sides of the hall.
The rear end of the hall, used as a dining-room, was hung with
coon-skins, saddles, harness, rakes, scythes, and bags of garden-
seeds.
"Well, Peggy," said the white-headed patriarch, father of
three sets of children, " I reckon you've been a-rushin' religion
down at the meetin'-house."
" No more'n usual, Jim. Here's a city man, come to stay
all night an' look about the country."
" Welcome to what we've got, stranger. Come in an' sit
right down to supper. Reckon you must be powerful hungry
by this time."
Old man Crownover, the King of Corn Cove, was as fine a
specimen of untutored humanity as one would wish to see. At
the age of seventy he was tall and straight as an Indian, his
long hair white as snow. I learned afterwards that he had
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS CONTINUED. 83
walked from Georgia barefooted by the side of his first wife,
then a bride, who rode the only horse, and the only piece of
property he owned at that time. Now he was full of years,
blessed with abundance arid a numerous progeny. On the
steps of the front porch were a dozen or so great stalwart
men in their shirt-sleeves, chewing and spitting tobacco, and
talking over the horse-trades made that day.
" Are these all your sons, Mr. Crownover ?" I asked.
" Yes, all but that one thar," pointing to a young fellow at
his right. " They claim he's my son Tom's boy, but I don't
believe it."
" What does Tom's wife say ?"
" Wife ? Tom ain't got no wife. In course the boy's moth-
er says he's Tom's ; that's why I'm a-keepin' him. But I feel
powerful uncertain about it."
The youth whose paternity was thus questioned by his al-
leged grandsire paid not the slightest attention to these deli-
cate remarks.
In the Crownover household, as in most East Tennessee
households, women occupy back seats, and do not appear at
table until the men have been served. When the ten or dozen
of us who first sat down had finished supper, another relay of
men dropped in, composed of cousins and nephews and friends
and hired hands. When all these were through, and not be-
fore, Mrs. Crownover and her daughters sat down to supper.
In their home life I found the mountaineers of East Tennes-
see almost as primitive as I found the Italian and Hungarian
peasantry. After a day's tramp through a steady rain, I was
given, at Raciglione, Italy, a room in which were three other"
beds, all three occupied by stout Italian lassies. My bed was
used during the day as a table on which to spread out trays of
silk-worms. All night I fancied I could feel the worms crawl-
ing over me. In the room I slept in at old man Crownover's
were four beds, two of which in the daytime were run under
the two larger ones. One of these was occupied by two girls
who had waited on the supper-table ; the other three beds were
84 THE TBAMP AT HOME.
occupied by men. I was the last to retire, and the last to get
up in the morning. When I yawned and peeped out from the
billowy feather-bed in which I lay buried, the occupants of the
other beds were up and gone, excepting one girl, who stood
before the cracked little mirror combing her hair. The situ-
ation was embarrassing to me, notwithstanding the experience
I had had in Europe. The young lady, however, seemed quite
at ease.
" Had I better get up ?" I ventured.
" Just as you please," was the nonchalant reply.
" Of course. I mean, is it late ?"
" Tends on what you uns call late."
" Is everybody up ?"
" No, you uns ain't."
She was as sober as a judge. When quite through her toilet,
she condescended to tell me she hadn't milked yet, and that
breakfast would not be ready until she came back from milk-
ing. When she left, I jumped up, made a hasty toilet, and in
a few minutes was down in the cow-lot watching her milk the
cows. She kept two steady streams flowing into her bucket.
Her sleeves were rolled up, showing a pair of brown, sturdy
arms, her brown hair brushed smoothly back, not a friz, not
a bang ; tricks of fashion had not penetrated to these remote
parts. I waited until the last cow was milked, then walked
back with her to the house.
" Do you like the country better than the city ?"
" I wouldn't live in a city," was the emphatic reply.
" What city were you ever in ?"
" I've been in Tusculum twice don't like it a bit."
Tusculum is a " city " of eighty-three inhabitants !
After breakfast Mr. Crowuover invited me to ride with him
over his cornfields.
" If you've seed better corn than this, say so," he said, wav-
ing his hands at the tall stalks with proud satisfaction.
In the highest stalks the first ear was seven or eight feet
from the ground. My host shucked several ears to show how
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS CONTINUED. 85
free they were from worms, then we rode on. On his mount-
ain land he showed me coal-mines, the coal almost on the very
surface of the earth. The great value of these mountains is
yet unknown.
Returning, we met Sister Peggy, with a long sun-bonnet on
her head. This head -gear, so much affected by mountain
maids and matrons, is made of calico stiffened by narrow
strips of pasteboard. The bonnet sticks so far out over the
wearer's face that the face cannot be seen except by standing
directly in front.
"You uns ain't agoin' to ride any furder to-night?" she
asked.
" Yes, I am going to ride on to the Devil's Nose."
" Well, now, that's a pity. Thar's agoin' to be a dance up
to Sarnantha's to-night. You'd see some powerful party young
gals."
" The Devil's Nose will keep. I will go and see the pretty
girls."
We started, after an early supper, across the cove for Saman-
tha's dance. There were no swallow-tail coats for the men nor
frizzes for the ladies. The only preparation the Crownover
girls made was to wash their faces and to smooth their hair.
Sister Peggy went out to the flour-barrel, where, buried in the
flour, she kept her own particular bottle, and fortified herself
with a moderate-sized drink of whiskey. The Crownover men
went in the same clothes they had worn all day, probably all
the year.
" When did Mrs. Samantha send out her invitations to the
dance ?" I asked Miss Sally, the girl who milked the cows.
" She never sent no invitations."
" How do you know we are wanted, then ?"
" It's a s'prise dance. Samantha don't know nothin' 'bout it."
"And will she be ready to receive us?"
" If she ain't, she can git herself ready."
. When we had crossed the cove and dismounted before Sa-
mantha's cabin door all was darkness ; not a glimmer of light
86 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
was visible. There were in our party some eighteen or twenty
persons, nearly all the sons and daughters, or grandsons and
granddaughters, of Mr. Crownover. The old man did not come
with us. Besides these there were several hired hands, sons of
neighbors. All set up a howl in chorus loud enough to awake
the wolves on the mountain-tops. From the darkness within
the cabin came a woman's voice.
"Lors a-mussy, what air you uns a-doin' out thar?"
" Git up, Samantha ; the gals an' boys have come to storm
you. Whar's Jim an' the fiddle ? They want a dance."
Without further ceremony, Sister Peggy, followed by the
rest of us, pushed into the cabin. In the yawning fireplace
were logs of wood partially burned, and covered up with ashes
to keep the fire. Sister Peggy raked away the ashes, and soon
a bright blaze lighted up the scene. Samantha and her hus-
band were in bed in one corner of the room ; in a trundle-bed
near by were half a dozen tow-headed little children, ranging
from two to ten years of age, fast asleep.
" Brother Kite an' folks from Snake Trail '11 be along purty
soon," said Sister Peggy. " You'd better hustle up an' git
ready for the dance, Samantha."
Thus advised, Samantha reached over and picked up her
gown from the floor, slipped it over her head, and stood before
us arrayed in her festive robe. Jim used no more ceremony
about his toilet. While Jim was tuning his fiddle his wife got
a dozen tallow-candles and stuck them about the windows and
over the door. The coon-skins, saddles, harness, and other use-
ful things were banished to remoter parts, and by the time
Brother Kite and the Snake Trail crowd had arrived the fes-
tivities were well under way. A glass of strong toddy was
given Brother Kite to keep him warm, as he did not dance ;
those who did dance drank to keep cool. One of the Snake
Trail men, a big, gawky fellow who did not succeed in getting
a partner, gave vent to his feelings by throwing matches on
the floor. When the girls trod on them and made them pop,
the gawky man laughed loudly at their screams and jumps.
AMONG SOUTHERN FARMERS CONTINUED. 87
One of Crownover's strapping grandsons took exception to
this.
" I'll bet some sneak from Snake Trail throwed them match-
es," he said.
" You 'low a sneak done it ?"
" I do that !" said Bill, a fiery gleam in his eye.
" Well, I throwed 'em. Who dar' say I'm a sneak ?"
" You said it yourself," sneered Bill.
" I dar' you to say that outside," cried the match-thrower.
" I don't take a dar' from no man !" replied Bill, angrily.
The two went out into the dark; three or four who had
heard the dispute followed to see that there was fair play. In
a very short time the whole crowd returned, apparently satis-
fied. Bill's left eye was blackened, and the Snake Trail man's
upper lip was cut and swelled in a way that did not add to his
beauty, of which he had no great share to begin with.
After that the dance proceeded peaceably, the two comba-
tants joining in the same set seemingly as good friends as be-
fore their fisticuff affair. It was midnight before the dance
ended and we were again at the house of the King of Corn
Cove.
88 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER VIII.
LOST ON THE MOUNTAIN. MISTAKEN FOR A REVENUE - OFFICER.
IMPRISONED IN A CAVE. HOW I ESCAPED. A PIOUS MOON-
SHINER. I RIDE INTO NORTH CAROLINA.
NEXT morning ray horse was saddled, my blankets strapped
on, and everything made ready for ray departure to the Devil's
Nose.
" Whar's his grub, Peggy ?" asked my host of his wife.
" In the saddle-bags," said that good woman.
" An' he mout want a tickler, Peggy. It's a rough ride to
the Devil's Nose."
Thanking them heartily, and declining the " tickler," the
name given a flat bottle used for carrying whiskey, I started
off, following as closely as I could the directions which Mr.
Crownover had given me for finding the summit of the mount-
ain called the Devil's Nose, from its supposed similarity to that
feature of his Satanic majesty. The narrow trail wound up
the rugged side of a mountain. My horse, being mountain-
bred, was as surefooted as an Alpine goat, and cautiously
stepped from stone to stone up the almost precipitous height.
A misstep would have been fatal to us both. Every now and
then the trail passed around abrupt cliffs, from the top of
which the valley could be seen spread out like a green carpet
two thousand feet below. While scrambling up one part of
the steep slope, a large hole attracted my attention. Alight-
ing from my horse and dropping a stone down the hole, I
judged it to be about twenty feet deep. The dead trunk of
a small cedar-tree lay near by ; I dragged it to the hole and
lowered it in, and by this rude ladder scrambled down to the
A NIGHT ON THE DEVII/S NOSE. 89
bottom. A curious and beautiful scene rewarded me for my
trouble. From the base of the extempore ladder led a gently
sloping passage-way, which, with lighted candle in hand, I fol-
lowed to a large chamber, with a vaulted dome not unlike the
dome of a cathedral. There were many curious stalactite and
other geological formations in the large chamber. One was
shaped exactly like a horse's leg and hoof. Perhaps it was
the petrified remnant of some antediluvian steed.
When it came to getting out I found, at the expense of
bruised shins and torn clothing, that it is much easier to crawl
down than to climb up a pole. By the time I had accom-
plished the latter feat it was late in the afternoon. Pushing
forward as rapidly as I could, I was still unable to reach the
summit of the mountain before the set of sun. Mr. Crownover
had given explicit directions how to find a deserted cabin,
where I expected to spend the night. But somehow his direc-
tions seemed all wrong. An hour's brisk trotting did not
bring me to the cabin. The screaming of catamounts and
wild-cats brought to mind the stories I had lately heard of the
ferocity of these inhabitants of the mountain wilds. A hun-
gry wild-cat had a few days before walked into the telegraph-
office of a lonely station and sprung on the operator's back,
and might have killed him but for the timely arrival of assist-
ance. The fear that one might spring on me from the boughs
of a tree kept me on the ragged edge of anxiety.
It is sometimes a glorious thing to be alone ; nothing I like
more at times. To roam the pathless woods, or to stand on
a lofty peak on a bright, clear day is one thing ; it is quite
another to be lost on the top of a desolate mountain. It was
nine o'clock before I gave up, and made up my mind to sleep
out. I soon had a rousing fire. Its big blaze was not only
delightfully warm, but it gave a sense of security. Wolves
and wild-cats will not come up to fire. I picketed my horse
where the grass was highest, dealt out to myself a slice of corn-
bread and bacon, then rolled up in my blanket and lay down,
not to sleep but to keep watch,
90 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
Once, in the southern part of Russia, I went for two weeks
without seeing any but the rudest peasants, and without speak-
ing or understanding a word of the language about me. With
that exception, I do not think I ever experienced a greater
sense of loneliness than I felt that cold night on the summit
of the Devil's Nose.
However, in spite of myself I dropped to sleep. It was yet
dark when the whinnying and snorting of my horse wakened
me. I started up, and saw by the light of the fire a wild, un-
kempt-looking man with the muzzle of a rifle pointed direct
at my head. He stood a few yards off.
" Throw up your hands thar !" he commanded, in a stern
voice.
With arms entangled in the blankets, this was not so quickly
done.
" Come ! no foolin', throw 'em up !" repeated the fellow.
An ominous click of the rifle expedited me not a little in
obeying his command.
" Now," said the amiable stranger, " git up an' foller me.
Never min' your hoss. He'll keep."
I arose feeling, I must confess, weak about the knees. The
fact that my pockets were about as empty as his could be was
the only thing that reassured me. When he found I was not
worth robbing he would let me go. The fear that he might
play the Italian brigand and send to my friends a demand ac-
companied by my ear or nose never occurred to me. The whole
affair looks very absurd now, though at the time it was pain-
fully serious. There I was, my arms stretched above my head,
marching through the forest, as the mountaineers say, at the
" business " end of a rifle.
" Wouldn't you just as lief take what I've got here and let
me go ?" I asked the man behind me.
" That's jist what I'm a-doin'. I'm a-takin' you."
" Well, what in the deuce do you want with me ?"
" Hold them hands up an' git along," was his emphatic reply.
In a few minutes the glimmer of a light in a cabin became
A NIGHT ON THE DEVIL'S NOSE. 91
visible through the underbrush and trees. My guard and
guide immediately set up a whoop that would have done credit
to a Comanche.
"Come ahead, boys. I've got him."
We were by this time quite near the log-cabin where the
light glimmered, and five or six big-bearded men came out to
meet us.
" Whar did you find him, Bill ?"
" Over by Snake Trail. Take his guns, Jim ; I'm a-tired
a-keepin' this rifle on him."
James, gentle James, approached me, and went through my
pockets in the most approved highwayman-like style. The
result of his investigations seemed to surprise him.
" Why, Bill," in an injured tone, " the son of a gun ain't
got no gun."
" Sartin ?"
" Sartin."
Bill lowered his rifle, and I lowered my arms. It was
time. They were aching from their unnatural and forced
position.
In the hut was not even a chair or stool. Was this the
deserted cabin Mr. Crownover had spoken of? These men
seemed quite at home in it. A whispered consultation was
held about me, as I supposed from their looks and gestures.
Presently the man called Jim turned and spoke to me.
" Whar did you come from 2"
I told him.
"What air you a-doin' on this heah mounting?"
" Why, just now it looks as if I was answering questions."
The pleasantry was lost on James.
" You'll be a-fillin' a six-foot grave if you don't look out,"
he replied, grimly. " We uns don't want no spies about heah.
Humph !" he went on, rapidly, " you uns thought you played
us a sharp trick yestiddy mornin', but Mounting Jim ain't so
easy to ketch. Do you know what we uns air allowin' to do ?"
" Haven't the least idea,"
92 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
" We air agoin' to lay for your whole gang, an' you've got
to help us."
"I don't know what you are talking about. I have no
gang."
The man's face darkened.
" See heah," he said, " thar ain' no use a-foolin'. We uns
air agoin' to ketch your gang sure pop. Help us, an 7 we'll let
you go. If you don't " And he made a significant gesture.
The situation was getting more and more serious. I began
to lose patience.
" What can I tell you about any gang ?" I broke out, angrily.
" I've been in your mountains only a week."
Jim smiled sardonically.
" Mebbe you warn't down to Wood's Mill Saturday mornin' ?"
" Certainly not. I never heard of Wood's Mill."
"An' didn't track us over Snake Trail Sunday ?"
" I was at church all day Sunday at church, and at old
man Crownover's."
" What's the use o' lyin' ? We seed you a-climbin' the trail.
Bill seed you go down into the cave. I tell you, mister, the
Guvment ain't got no right to stop us; I tell you we ain't
agoin' to be stopped. We ain't agoin' to stand no spies a-dog-
gin' us."
" I am no spy. I am an agent of the Labor Department. I
am looking up labor statistics."
I pulled out my commission, signed by the Secretary of the
Interior. The men crowded around while Jim spelled out the
" whereases" and "herebys" of that official document. I saw
that the paper had a good effect.
" Mebbe we have got the wrong man," said one of the men,
doubtfully.
" No ; he's a-puttin' a job on us. What'd he be a-lookin' up
labor heah on this mounting ?"
I did all I could to explain my presence there ; and while
they were not entirely convinced, yet I could see their suspi-
cions were shaken.
A NIGHT ON THE DEVII/S NOSE. 93
" Well, boys," said the leader, after some discussion, " we
can wait, anyhow, till mornin'. Reynolds's gang'll never find
us heah. I reckon we mout as well git to work."
He fell on his knees, and prying a knife-blade between two
boards, lifted one of them out. A second and a third came
out; then he squeezed his body through, and disappeared into
a dark-looking hole below. We all followed him, and I real-
ized for the first time that I was face to face with some of the
noted Tennessee moonshiners. There were the copper boilers,
the pipes, and other paraphernalia of a rude distillery. The
boards in the floor were replaced, a fire was made, and the il-
licit distillery men set to work. Their stalwart forms cast gigan-
tic shadows on the walls of the cave. Cold chills ran up and
down me as I sat in one corner, wondering what they would do
with me. Even if I succeeded in convincing them that I was
not a revenue-officer, they would fear I might report them, and
so keep me, or do me some injury, for their own protection.
A little before day the work stopped. One of the men pre-
pared a meal of corn-bread and fried bacon. I was told to
pitch in.
" We don't starve spies, we shoot 'em," said Jim, with a
chunk of bread in his mouth.
Scarcely had they begun, when Mountain Jim was brought
to his feet by a tapping on the floor overhead. He listened a
moment.
" It's all right, boys," he said, and answered the knocks from
the underside. Upon this the planks were removed, and the
body of a man squeezed through the hole in the floor and
descended the ladder. To my astonishment, this man was
one of the brothers I had seen at the "feet-washing" on
Sunday.
" It's all right," he said, not seeing me at first. " Reynolds's
gang's done gin up the hunt an' gone back to Greeneville las'
night "
" Hi ! don't talk so much," interrupted Jim ; " we've got one
of 'em heah."
94
THE TRAMP AT SOME.
"You don't tell! Whar'd you ketch him? What! that
chap?"
All eyes turned on me.
"Him one o' Reynolds's gang? Well, Jim, you air a-gettin'
peart, you air, fur a fack. Whar'd you ketch this kid ?"
"Out by Snake Trail."
"MOONSHINER'S" CABIN ON THE DEVIL'S NOSE.
" Well, he don't no moah b'long to Reynolds's gang than
any you boys. He was up to meetin' Sunday with Brother
Kite an' Sister Peggy. He's one o' them special agints what's
a-writin' up all about labor folks."
" Well, I swar !" said Jim.
" What's to be did with the feller now ?" said another.
" He'll blow on us if we let him loose."
A NIGHT ON THE DEVIL'S NOSE. 95
" Let him blow !" cried Jim. " Blindfold him, and leave
him on the trail whar you found him."
" You mustn't hurt the kid," said Brother Hawkins, with
pious authority. " He ain't done us no harm, an' we mustn't
do him no harm. We ain't murderers an' robbers, ef the
Guvment do treat us that way."
This good advice was followed. Brother Hawkins himself
tied my handkerchief securely over my eyes, giving me, while
so doing, a serious warning.
" Young man," he said, " the boys hev made a mistake.
They warn't after you. They ain't got nothin' agin you. It's
the Guvment spies what gits up their dander. The Guvment's
got no bizness sendin' spies aroun' meddlin' with us mounting
fellers. We uns hev got jist as much right to make our own
licker outen our corn as we've got to make our own bread outen
it ; an' it nattally gits up our boys' dander to hev our liberties
took away from us by our own Guvment what we fought to
keep up agin the Secesh. Now, Jim, send one o' the boys to
set this chap on the trail ; an' min', my son, you keep mum
'bout this heah little job. It'll be better fur you."
I willingly promised to keep mum, then was put in charge
of the man who had found me asleep in the woods. When I
got to the surface I felt the fresh air on my face, but my eyes
were so tightly bandaged that I could not tell whether it was
day or night. After a tiresome tramp, I was put on a horse
whether my own or not I did not know at the time and was
led down the mountain. At last we came to a dead halt.
" I reckon I kin leave you now, mister ; but recolleck, if you
blow on us you're a gone coon, sure. The boys'll git onto you,
sartin, an' no mistake. You sit still fur five minits, an' then git."
He put the bridle in my hand. I sat still for what I judged
was five minutes, then removed my bandage and looked about.
The sun was up, and no moonshiner to be seen.
The trail descended the mountain rapidly. Half an hour
before reaching the valley a sudden turn brought me before a
log-cabin surrounded by a small patch of corn.
96 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" Hello I" I cried.
There was no answer. I called again. A third call brought
out a wrinkled old woman, with snuff smeared over her mouth
and chin.
" Can I get something to eat here ?"
" Yaas, I reckon. Git down an' look at your saddle."
Excepting the wrinkled woman, the hut seemed deserted;
but there was a quantity of boots, saddles, and men's clothing
strewn about. Evidently when her family was together it con-
sisted of men. The old woman eyed me suspiciously.
" Whar'd you come from, mister ?"
" From Corn Cove."
" Got up purty airly, I reckon ?"
" Why, yes. The fact is, I have been riding most all night."
The moonshiner's warning was still ringing in my ears, and
I was inclined to be cautious. This might be the home of an-
other gang, for all I knew. The mountains of East Tennessee
were, and still are ? often raided by revenue-officers, whom the
moonshiners consider their natural enemies, and no more hesi-
tate to shoot down than they hesitate to shoot robbers. I doubt
if it be possible to get into a moonshiner's head the idea that
it is wrong to make his own whiskey. Moonshiners have the
feeling that the Government is meddling with, that it is at-
tacking, their liberties, when it attempts to interfere with their
whiskey distilleries.
I ate the corn-bread and bacon which the old woman put
before me, and pushed on to Warm Springs, North Carolina,
where I stopped several days to rest and to recover from my
moonshine scare.
A NIGHT ON THE DEVIL*S NOSE. 97
CHAPTER IX.
IN TEXAS.
A GIFTED LIAR. HOW HE ASTONISHED LORD PALMERSTON AND THE
QUEEN. HOW HE FILLED GENERAL HANCOCK WITH WATERMELON
AND SAVED THE REBEL ARMY. TEXAS COWBOYS, THEIR WAGES
AND ROUGH LIFE. THE CATTLE KINGS OF THE PANHANDLE. A
TRIP INTO MEXICO. CONDITION OF LABOR IN THE MEXICAN RE-
PUBLIC. THE CUSTOMS-OFFICERS ON THE FRONTIER.
THERE were no moonshiners in Texas ; nevertheless, I found
travelling there almost as rough and full of adventure as in
East Tennessee. Some of the sheep-ranches in the western
part of the State were reached only by long buck-board rides.
It was still dark when the clerk of the National Hotel a
board shanty of four rooms called me, with the gruff remark
that the stage was waiting. I jumped up, half asleep, to pre-
pare for the journey. Disposing of some fried ham, greasy
biscuits, and dreggy coffee, the usual Western breakfast, I
walked to the door to look for the stage. A one-eyed man
with long hair and a sour face was lounging on the platform
in front of the board shanty called a hotel. Near him stood
two scrubby horses hitched to a vehicle consisting of a pair of
wheels connected by two long boards, with a seat in the mid-
dle three feet wide.
" When does the stage arrive ?" I asked, politely.
The long-haired man ejected a huge quid of tobacco from
his mouth as he answered,
" It is already arriv."
" Where is it?"
He gave me a glance of deep disgust.
" Young man, the stage is arriv, but she won't stay arriv.
5
98 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
She's agoin to vamoose this ranch poorty quick. Ef you
wanter go, you'd better hump. You hear me talk, doncher?"
Mounting the rickety concern above described, he shouted,
" All aboard," and I awoke to the fact that that was the stage,
and that the one-eyed, long-haired man was the driver.
The agent who sells the tickets speaks of the "stage" with
an air that leads one to think of the coaches the elder Weller
drove, and in which the famous Pickwick Club rode. The
agent, however, is the only one who uses or understands the
term. The vehicles are called by their drivers, and by the
public generally, " buck-board barouches " a euphonious term ;
but there praise must end. My memory does not recall a more
fatiguing experience than that ride through northern Texas,
sitting bolt upright night and day on the hard seat of the hard,
jolting buck-board barouche.
The first twenty miles were pleasant enough. The fields
were only slightly undulating; the road was smooth. We
moved along in a sea of grass. Then we crossed Red River ;
the roads became rough, the hard buck-board seat grew harder
and harder, and I inwardly anathematized the man who in-
vented buck-board barouches. For half a day the buck-board
jogged along in a narrow lane between two wire fences that
cost thirty thousand dollars. When the end of this long lane
was reached we emerged into the open prairie, and for hours
seemed scarcely to move. We were in the centre of a vast
yellow circle. As far as the eye could reach was a sea of yel-
low, waving grass.
The long-haired driver lighted his pipe and threw the burn-
ing match on the ground. The dry grass ignited. In a few
minutes there was a roaring fire behind us. The wind blew in
our faces, and so blew the fire farther and farther away. I
looked back after several hours, and could still see flames and
columns of smoke rising in the distance. Fires begun in this
accidental way sometimes burn for weeks, spreading over thou-
sands of acres of prairie.
The buck-board drivers rarely see strangers, yet seem as little
IX TEXAS. 99
inclined to converse as though surfeited with small-talk every
day. When we reached the first dugout, where the horses
were changed, a man with hair even longer than my driver's
emerged from a hole in the ground and began unhitching the
two scrubby ponies.
" Howdy do, Bill ?" said my driver.
" Howdy do ?" replied Bill.
There the conversation ended. The change of horses was
made, the driver cracked his whip. Bill looked at us a minute,
then retreated into his dugout, and we were alone again on the
yellow sea of grass.
The dugout, in which the hostlers of these Western buck-
board lines live, is a peculiar and primitive dwelling, made by
digging a hole in the ground, laying logs across this hole, and
heaping on top of the logs to a depth of three or four feet the
earth excavated from beneath. The door consists of a canvas
flap ; you lift this flap, duck your head until you are not more
than four feet tall, and enter the hostler's home. At one end
is a log bedstead with a mattress of straw. A hole in the
centre of the dirt floor serves as stove and fireplace; a stool
and a rough board table complete the furnishings.
The hostler at the second change, a gray-bearded man whom
my driver called " Uncle Jeff," had for years been living thus
in a hole in the ground, on a diet of bacon and bread, with no
society save that of his horses. These rude men of the West
burrow underground to escape cold and snow. In Lapland and
extreme northern Sweden peasants and fishermen, to escape
the same thing, resort to an exactly opposite plan. They build
what is called an "njalla" (a small hut), on three poles, often
only on one. The poles are planted firmly in the ground, leav-
ing the njalla ten or twelve feet in the air, accessible only by
means of a ladder. In this peculiar hut the Swedish peasant
keeps a store of dried fish, oil, and bread, and thither he resorts
during storms or when the snow is deep. A village of njallas
is almost as odd a sight as a village of prairie dugouts.
An interesting class of working-men in Texas is the cow-
100 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
boy. It is a wide step from the pale Massachusetts factory
operative to the free and festive Texas cowboy. The cow-
boy does not work in a " cooped-up," ill-smelling, ill-ventilated
room ; still he works, belongs to the rank of wage-earners,
and I made some inquiries into his general condition and
mode of life.
A cowboy does hard, rough work, and gets twenty-five or
thirty dollars a month. "Prudent" cowboys sometimes make
small fortunes in a few years. There is no human eye to see
what he does on those vast cattle-ranches in the Panhandle.
He can take a cow here and a calf there, put on them a brand
of his own, and thus lay the foundation of a flourishing cattle-
ranch and set up in business for himself. I saw a stockman
who had come to Texas seven years before without a cent, and
hired out as cowboy. When I saw him he was worth three
hundred thousand dollars. He began taking a cow here and
there, branding them with his own mark, and then starting out on
his own account. Cattle-men built up the town of Gainesville.
Though a place of only two or three thousand inhabitants, it
contains a number of "cattle kings" and a number of resi-
dences finer than are usually found in places three times the
size. I called at one residence that was quite palatial in its
furnishings. The grounds were handsomely laid off with beau-
tiful flower-beds, evergreens, and vines. The parlors were richly
carpeted. In a few minutes the darky by whom I had sent up
my card came down and said,
"Marse Jim says as he doan want none o' dem kyards."
" Your master Jim does not want what?"
" None o' dem kyards," repeated the darky, giving me back
the visiting card I had sent up by him.
I afterwards discovered that this cattle-king could not write
his name. When he drew checks on his bank (as he could do)
for thousands of dollars, he signed the checks with a cross-
mark. During my interview with him he sat chewing tobacco,
ever and anon spitting the juice of that disgusting weed on
the costly carpet that covered the floor.
IN TEXAS. 101
There is nothing some cowboys so dearly love as to pose
as dangerous desperadoes.
" They're a rough lot," said one to me. " They are all thieves
and liars. Not a mother's son of them knows bow to tell the
truth."
" Of course you except yourself ?" I said.
" No, I'll be hanged if I do !" he replied, with charming
candor. "Here, Bill, tell this city chap what you know of me."
" He's the biggest rascal I ever saw !" was Bill's prompt
reply.
The first cowboy looked as pleased as if a high compliment
had been paid him.
"Once, out in Leadville," he said, "a gang of us boys took
the town. Some on us had been shootin' at the decanters in a
saloon, and the police arrested my chum. This riled us. We
galloped down the main street firing right and left, dropping
every man we hit. We took the place by storm. Not a face
was to be seen. Five minutes after the fight begun we got
our man out, and struck for Texas. Five days and nights we
never touched ground. We ate our grub loping along at a
six-mile rate."
This cowboy was greatly pleased because I appeared to credit
his story. When I asked why he had left his native Kentucky,
he replied,
" It warn't because I didn't like old Kaintuck. Kaintuck's
hard to beat. I had good nuff 'pinion of her; but dern my
eyes, somehow she never had a good 'pinion of me."
In travelling about the big, open State of Texas, getting in-
formation concerning the cattle and sheep industries, I came
across odd Western characters. General Peers, a grave, digni-
fied, gray-bearded gentleman, the proprietor of The House of
Peers at Fort Worth, possessed an imagination commensurate
with the size of his State that is, vast, if not limitless.
" It is not generally known," said this gifted general, when
I stopped at his hotel, " that I am the best Greek scholar in
America ; such, though, is the case. On the occasion of my
102 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
first trip to England I was the recipient of distinguished hon-
ors. The London Times gave me a long editorial notice, and
a committee of Parliament, headed by Lord Palmerston, came
down to Liverpool to invite me to deliver my famous lecture
on the Greek compounds. I had fled from America to escape
the solicitations of various public men to lecture, and at first
declined to speak in England. An autograph letter from the
Queen, however, shook my resolution, and one night I stepped
on the stage in Regent's Hall before an audience of five thou-
sand people. To my right sat Queen Victoria; to my. left,
Lord Palmerston and the Parliamentary Committee. As I
stepped upon the rostrum grave, calm, and composed as I am
this moment, a low murmur ran through the immense throng.
I could hear whispered sneers here and there. ' A fraud !'
came from the right; 'An impostor!' came from the left;
'That cannot be the famous General Peers he is too young!'
said one before me. I heard with unruffled composure. I
knew how soon their hisses would change to applause. I lift-
ed my arm, and quiet was restored ; then I began pouring out
a stream of impassioned eloquence such as had never before
been heard in Regent's Hall. The first sentence, hot and burn-
ing, had scarcely fallen from my lips before Lord Palmerston
sprang to his feet, clapped his hands, and exclaimed, Mt is he!
It is the great Peers of America !' That lecture was the sen-
sation of all England. I was compelled to repeat it sixteen
consecutive nights."
" What was the subject, general ?" I inquired.
" * Chi, Phi, and Logos, 1 the three Greek compounds. It was
the same lecture I delivered in New York in 1846. Daniel
Webster pronounced it the finest thing he ever heard."
" Yours must have been a remarkable career," I said, after
the general had finished telling the above yarn with a perfectly
serious face.
"Yes," was the modest reply. "I have played a prominent
part in my day. In the summer of 1847 I had to my credit
in the bank at Philadelphia two million eight hundred thou-
IN TEXAS. 103
sand dollars. That year I gave half a million to help carry on
the war with Mexico."
" What has become of your wealth ?"
" Lost it in '63. Jeff Davis appointed me chief of the Con-
federate spies. It was I who prevented Lee's defeat at Gettys-
burg from being a complete rout. Towards the close of the
third day I saw Hancock preparing for a desperate charge. I
knew Lee was severely crippled, and determined, if possible, to
avert the danger. I happened to have a large ripe watermelon.
Just as Hancock was about to give his order, I galloped up,
and with a salute cried out, ' Stay, general, one moment ; there
is plenty of time. Come, eat this melon with me.' Hancock
hesitated, but yielded to my persuasions, and we went to a
grassy knoll to eat the melon. It was large and luscious. I plied
Hancock freely. When at last he attempted to rise, he was so
full he could not get up. * Peers,' he said, * I don't believe I can
make the charge to-night. We'll wait till morning.' During the
night Lee stole away. That is how I saved his army."
General Peers, as he stated to me and who can doubt his
word ? is of an old English stock, dating back to the time of
Julius Ca3sar; the upper house of the British Parliament, the
House of Peers, derives its name from an ancestor of his, a Gen-
eral Peers, who saved England from subjugation in the wars
with Spain !
If protectionists had to cross the Mexican frontier a few
times it might open their eyes to the folly of so-called protec-
tion. They would see men armed to the teeth patrolling both
sides of the Rio Grande, arresting men and women on the
slightest suspicion of smuggling. On the Texas side the cus-
toms-officer stays in a skiff near the ferry landing, closely watch-
ing every one who crosses. If your clothing bulges out a little,
if a woman wears a fashionable bustle, he or she is seized and
searched as a criminal.
While sitting with the customs-officer in his skiff at Laredo,
one day, an innocent-looking Mexican came ashore, and pro-
ceeded to climb up the hill to the town.
104 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" Take off your hat !" commanded the officer. The Mexican
obeyed ; the officer looked closely, and finding nothing dutia-
ble, let the man pass on. Presently another Mexican came
along. The officer halted him.
" Why do you suspect him 3" I asked.
" Wait and see," replied the customs-man, then ordered the
Mexican to take off his hat. I noticed then that this man
wore a larger hat than the first. The poor Mexican shook
with fear and confusion. Under the top hat was another hat.
" Come, take that off too !"
He did so, revealing still another hat. This also was taken
off, disclosing still another, and so on until in all five hats were
removed from the Mexican's head. They had been made to
fit the one so snugly over the other that an unpractised eye
would never have suspected the fraud. A Mexican hat is worth
all the way from twenty to fifty dollars, and the duty is fifty
per cent. ; the smuggler, therefore, lost a good round sum by
being detected in his little operation. The only way a Mexi-
can in Texas can get one of his beloved sombreros without
paying duty is to cross the river bareheaded. Then, when he
recrosses with only one hat on his head, he is suffered to go his
way in peace.
To take a fancy fan into Mexico costs $2.20, without regard
to its actual value, as long as it comes under the head of a
"fancy" fan. A wagon worth $65 in the United States costs
in Mexico $145. The tariff on each wheel is $20. It is per-
haps only through an oversight that the fifth wheel is not also
taxed.
Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side of the river, is a wretch-
ed little town of seven thousand people, the scum of both
Mexico and the United States. The streets and houses are
dirty and squalid. The post-office does not do as much busi-
ness as an American post-office in a cross-roads village. The
reason is this: in Mexico internal postage costs twenty-five
cents. The Nuevo Laredo merchant crosses the river, buys an
American five-cent stamp, and sends his letter back to Mexico
IN TEXAS. 105
from the United States, thus saving twenty cents. It is cheaper
to send a letter ten thousand miles to Africa or Europe, than
to send it ten miles from one point to another in Mexico. To
send a postal card from Monterey to Nuevo Laredo costs twen-
ty-five cents; to send it a mile farther across the river costs
only three cents. You don't ask for letters at the post-office.
Every day a list is made of all letters received. You look over
this list. If your name does not appear on it you know there
are no letters for you. The amount of mail is so small, and
the people have so much time at their disposal, this method
seems to give perfect satisfaction.
The average Mexican of to-day is about as far advanced as
our grandfathers were in the days before steam and electricity.
Modern civilization, however, is overtaking them at last. The
Mexican Central Railroad is the entering wedge that is causing
our Southern neighbor to awake from his long siesta. The line
runs from El Paso to the City of Mexico. For seven hundred
miles there are level plains, then one hundred and fifty miles
of mountains, followed by a cultivated valley two hundred
miles in length, thickly settled, and blooming like a garden.
Another one hundred and twenty miles winding around hills,
through fertile valleys and picturesque landscapes, brings the
traveller into the capital of the Mexican republic, 7400 feet
above the sea. No especially difficult engineering feats present-
ed themselves in the entire length of the road, though trouble
was encountered in the valley of Mexico, a broad, flat plain, in-
tersected by numerous irrigating canals and ditches. The irri-
gating canals are artificial structures, raised above the general
level so that the water can be drawn out upon the fields. These
raised canals necessitated the railroad's building an extraordi-
nary number of bridges, with heavy abutments and culverts to
support the track.
Labor in Mexico is miserably paid. For a claco (one and
an eighth cents) a boy will run on an errand half a day. For
a real (about thirteen cents) a man can be hired for a day.
The soldiers of the republic receive $9 a month, out of which
5*
106 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
they must feed and clothe themselves. In the old Bishop's
Palace, on a lofty eminence just outside of Monterey, are
quartered a detachment of soldiers. They sleep on the rough
cobble pavement of the court in their ragged linen uniforms.
A large part of the army is composed of condemned criminals,
who are not intrusted with ammunition except when actually
facing an enemy. Then, it is said, their bravery is quite equal
to that of the "free" soldiers, who are not degraded. When
Monterey capitulated, in 1846, the American officers made their
headquarters where are now quartered the squalid Mexican sol-
diers. Jefferson Davis slept beneath the palace roof, and his
name, as well as that of General Taylor, may still be seen
where they were scratched on the wall of the dome forty years
ago.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 107
CHAPTER X.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS.
THEIR EDUCATIONAL EFFECT. GREAT INTEREST TAKEN BY WORK-
ING-PEOPLE IN ECONOMIC QUESTIONS. FALLACIES. MR. POW-
DERLY AND THE BEER BOTTLES. THE HILLS AND HOLLOWS OF
KANSAS CITY. AVHY "TREATING" FOSTERS DRUNKENNESS AND
RUINS WORKING-MEN. INTERVIEWS WITH ST. LOUIS LABORERS.
" POOLED capital and syndicate capital," says the New York
Herald, " are hornets' stings, where labor strikes are only flea-
bites."
Millionaire employers combine to keep up the prices of their
wares, and to keep down the wages of working-men. It is nat-
ural that working-men should combine, and attempt by strikes
to keep up wages. Do labor combinations effect this? An
investigation of the strikes of the past five years leads me to
the conclusion that although the first, the superficial, effect of
strikes is often harmful, often disastrous to the strikers, still,
the laboring class, as a class, is benefited. No matter how
much the strikers may suffer, the evil result is not all evil.
In his autobiography, written before the flash of lightning
from the clash of swords during the war melted the manacles
from the slave negroes, Fred Douglass said that if every slave
would resist every attempt to flog him would, at the first sight
of the whip, fight, fight, fight, and never tamely submit to blows,
masters would think twice before attempting to flog. Men will
more often punish the submissive than the resisting. Douglass
himself acted on this principle ; and although for resisting
he was at the time more severely punished, his masters were
less ready to punish, and the last years of his slave life were
free from floggings.
The same principle will apply to wage-workers. The em-
108 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ployer who is put to great loss and inconvenience by strikes
will hesitate before provoking them by a reduction of wages or
a refusal of reasonable demands. All history proves that it is
human nature to oppress the tamely submissive; all history
proves that every freedom men possess has been forcibly wrest-
ed from rulers, whether moneyed, political, or religious. His-
tory affords no instance of any ruling class voluntarily loosen-
ing its grip on any class it controls. For the last sixty years
we have been educating the laboring class. They are corning
to know their power, their strength. A deep dissatisfaction
pervades their breasts ; they have come to know that they are
the very underlying supporters of civilization, the very pillars
on which the body politic rests. Lawyers, preachers, doctors,
artists, journalists, all might go, and families would still live,
homes would exist, houses be built, food grown from the soil,
the race carried on ; but should what is called the laboring
classes cease their labors, the world would collapse, and the
general fabric of society fall to pieces.
The strike in B's factory may be directly a failure ; the
strikers may be forced to yield to the reduction, or to give up
their demands ; nevertheless, there is a loss to B which A sees,
and to escape a similar loss A will think twice before refusing
reasonable requests. Employers will hesitate to oppress when
oppression is followed by heavy loss. It must be said, on the
other hand, that strikes cause serious indirect damage to work-
ing-men. For instance, the great strike on the Western rail-
ways was investigated, with this result: cause, the alleged un-
just discharge of an employe ; effect, ten thousand men made
idle, and three million dollars lost in wages.
Such were the facts as they lay on the surface ; in reality"
they tell less than half the tale. A large percentage of the
strikes and shut-downs occurring in the West at that time
originated, either directly or indirectly, in the railroad strikes.
A knitting factory in St. Louis, with a pay-roll of $200 a day,
was closed because the roads could not carry its goods. A
shoe factory employing one hundred and fifty girls shut down
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 109
from the same cause. In country towns shops could not get
goods, and so had to close, or cut down the number of their
employes. It would not be extravagant to estimate the indi-
rect damage thus effected at three or four times the direct
amount that was reported.
The case of a railroad strike may be considered exceptional.
Possibly it is in degree, but it is not in kind. The public have
closer relations with railroads than with individuals ; still, they
are connected with the latter. A St. Louis or New York mer-
chant has interests in the farthest corners of the earth. He
feels the effects of a failure in Hong-Kong; a failure in St.
Louis or New York is often tantamount to a failure of his own
interests. Thus the builders' strike in Chicago, while it directly
affected only a few thousand carpenters and bricklayers, indi-
rectly affected thousands of others. Small shopkeepers, sup-
ported wholly or in part by the trade of the stone-masons, lost
that trade, and were compelled to discharge employes. Owners
of houses, seeing building at a stand-still, recalled orders for
household goods; thus rendering furniture-makers, stove-deal-
ers, etc., idle. Teamsters had no brick to haul. In a hundred
branches of industry, people seemingly not in the least con-
nected with carpenters and bricklayers were affected and in-
jured by that strike. A friend of mine who had quite deter-
mined to build a home changed his mind and took a trip to
Europe instead. He thought it would not do to begin a house
which might at any moment be left half finished by reason of
a strike, and so be a large if not total loss. Of course the
men who would have been employed building that house, had
not the purpose of building been given up on account of the
unsettled condition of labor, lost as much as though they had
struck themselves.
Laboring men see all this. They see that in a number of
cases the effects are indirectly as well as directly injurious.
They suffer hunger, cold, every privation, for the principle of
unity, the principle embodied in the motto of the Knights of
Labor, " The concern of one is the concern of all." And it can
110 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
hardly be doubted that working-men, by. unions, strikes, and
agitations, have somewhat bettered their condition. Forty years
ago twelve hours was a day's work. A day's work has been re-
duced to ten hours. The agitation to further reduce it to eight
may not succeed at once, but who can say it will not eventually?
It is not too much to say that every lodge of the Knights of
Labor is an educational school, in which every question of
Governmental policy, of political economy, is discussed. Agi-
tation leads to progress ; debates pro and con quicken thought,
and let in light on the human brain. In all matters of politi-
cal economy and public affairs the rough tradesmen of to-day
take more interest and give more thought than the well-dressed
merchants, clerks, or even the average lawyers, preachers, and
doctors. I have heard day laborers who could not write a
grammatical sentence discuss social and political questions, and
I have seen their hearers of the same class listen with the deep-
est interest. This is going on now in every city of the Union,
while the so-called better classes are content to attend society
hops, operas, theatres, and clubs. Take the average society man,
the average clerk, book-keeper, or merchant, and I venture to say
that his understanding of the tariff question, of Henry George's
land theory, and other important economical subjects, will not
equal the understanding which the better informed of the
laboring class have attained on those subjects. The former are
content with existing customs and institutions. The latter are
deeply discontented. Discontent leads to agitation ; agitation
and discussion, like strokes on the^ anvil, elicit sparks of light.
It is too much the custom of those who look at only the present
evil resulting from working-men's unions to decry and discour-
age such unions. Humanitarians, who look deeper and further,
will the rather endeavor to lend all the aid they can to these
educational movements, to supply them with the most enlight-
ened and broad-minded speakers. Such leaders are needed ;
for while many of their present speakers are able, thoughtful
men, others are yet deeply ignorant of economic questions, as
well as of the true business of government.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. Ill
I was once waited on in an Indiana town by a committee of
working-men, who desired rne to lay before Congress a bill to
prohibit skilled labor, when on a strike, from doing unskilled
labor. Fifty-two skilled men had struck for an advance from
five dollars to six dollars a day, and during the strike had
planted telegraph poles for a dollar and a quarter a day. This
brought them into competition with the regular unskilled labor
of the town, who, being deeply ignorant of the proper functions
of government, made the extraordinary proposition noted above.
The head of the Knights of Labor, Mr. Powderly, told an
audience that people should break their soda-bottles after once
using them, in order that bottle-makers might be kept busy.
Carry this destructive idea a little further, and men might cut
up their furniture to encourage the furniture trade, or smash
the glass in their windows to help glaziers, or burn barns to
help carpenters, and so on. Mr. Powderly is a man of great
intelligence, but he and his followers certainly need education
on economic questions. The tariff lords and monopolists have
imbued them with their fallacies, and Mr. Powderly, like Henry
Clay, is blinding and befogging the minds of his followers.
Another example of the ignorance of some working-men on
economic questions occurred in Kansas City, where I was grave-
ly assured that the hills and hollows were the making of the
place. Immense capital had to be expended in cutting down
the hills and in filling up the hollows. This gave employment
to teamsters and diggers, who, in turn, supported butchers and
bakers, thus building up the city. I suggested that had there
been no holes the capital expended in overcoming natural ob-
stacles would have been free to put up, for instance, a shoe fac-
tory, with a result of supporting just as many laborers, and, in
addition, producing a million pair of shoes.
" Prove to us," said the working-men, " that the capitalist
would build a shoe factory, that he would not keep his money
in a stocking. The hills are here ; they must be cut down, and
so are obliged to give us work. Therefore the hills are at the
bottom of our prosperity."
112 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
I suggested that they might go farther west on top of a
mountain and start a city; that the work of blasting out a
mountain would be much greater than cutting down hills,
and that therefore the city on the mountain ought to be much
more prosperous, as it would require more labor and more
laborers.*
At a labor meeting where a speaker railed an hour at the
injustice, the crime, of interest, I ventured to ask whether, if I
should make a reaper to cut my grain, a stranger could reason-
ably expect me to give up cutting my grain and lend him the
reaper to cut his grain. The orator answered no, that the stran-
ger could not expect that. Then I asked whether if I loaned,
not the reaper, but money with which to buy a reaper, I was
not still entitled to expect something interest in return for
my self-denial. The orator could not see this point at all, but
insisted that it was robbery to lend a thousand dollars, and
demand at the end of a year a cent more than the original
one thousand dollars.
Many California working-men are opposed to immigration.
In "pioneer" times laborers earned ten dollars a day. Immi-
gration brought competition, and now wages are only three or
four dollars a day. Why wish more population, and so, of
course, more competition and further lowering of wages? I
pointed out that in pioneer times a night's lodging cost five
dollars ; that a pair of shoes cost ten dollars ; that, in short,
ten dollars in pioneer times could not buy as much as four
dollars can buy now. I also suggested that if immigrants came,
and converted into orchards and wheat-fields what are now
sand-hills, employment would be given to men to transport
* It is but justice to the Kansas City working-men to state that they are
not alone in holding this absurd notion that their city's prosperity is partly
due to the hills that have to be dug away, Two of the most prominent
lawyers in Kansas City, when I mentioned the subject, declared that the
working-men were right that the city would not be half so populous and
prosperous but for the natural obstacles that required hosts of men to
overcome.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 113
crops from those orchards and fields. More roads would be
built, miners would be employed digging iron ore and foun-
dery-men would be employed making tools and rails to build
those roads ; in short, society at large would be enriched and
benefited. Truth makes slow advancement among those taught
the false and foolish doctrine that smashing bottles, breaking
furniture, and the like, are beneficial to working-men, because
more bottles and more furniture must be made. Large num-
bers of men in California are still befogged by these errors, and
have actually formed a political party pledged to oppose the
further transformation of sand-hills into gardens, or, as they
express it, to keep out further immigration. Of course this
party retards the prosperity of the State and of society just
in proportion as its efforts are successful.*
Another sentiment widely prevalent among laboring men is
the belief that the Government is entirely run by and for the
wealthy, not the working, class. They point to the fact that
only rich men, or the friends of rich men, get high Govern-
ment places; that millionaires fill the Senate; that the great
body of working-people receive no consideration from high
officials. In the by-laws of a labor union containing several
thousand members occur these sentences :
" The Government, which should interfere to protect the poor, has been
grabbed by the wealthy monopolist, and is used simply as a machine to
still further steal the earnings of labor. Under these circumstances,
workers have no resource except to combine and make a fight to the bit-
ter end. Stick to your unions through thick and thin."
* In one sense a very narrow one the California working-men are
right. As long as the greater portion of the land of the Golden State is
monopolized and held at exorbitant speculative figures, immigrants will
not convert sand-fields into orchards, but will crowd into the towns and
cities, where already exists keen competition. But instead of forming po-
litical parties to keep immigrants out, the working-men of California
should do away with the land-grabbers, and make it possible for new-
comers to become wealth-producing farmers instead of city loafers. See
Chapter XV. for an expansion of this idea,
114 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
The idea here contained is that Government is something
separate and apart from working men and women. They for-
get that if Government is run by wealthy monopolists the fault
lies with the great body of the people. Water cannot rise
above its source, neither can Government. When a man can
stand on the floor of a State Senate, as a man did in California,
and boldly declare that his constituents are the railroads, that he
is there to serve the interests of the railroads, not the people
when a man can do this, and not be ostracized and politically
damned, it indicates either intense indolence or dense igno-
rance on the part of the great body of the people. On the gal-
lery of the Hotel del Monte, in Monterey, California, I over-
heard a conversation between a lady and a gentleman.
" I have married since you knew me," said the lady.
" Who is your husband 2"
" You know him," was the reply. " Who was the biggest
thief in the Star Route trials ?"
" Surely you are not Mrs. ?" exclaimed the gentleman.
" Oh no," replied the lady, " I made a mistake. I meant
who was next to the biggest thief."
"Ah!" responded the gentleman, "your husband must be
Mr. ."
" Right," said the lady, and serenely continued the conver-
sation.
A state of things that allows a wife to thus complacently
refer to her husband as a thief is very nearly as corrupt as the
corrupt period in English history when women were proud to
be known as the King's mistresses, and women's male relatives
were not ashamed to profit by mothers', wives', and sisters'
dishonor.
The obligation taken by the members of some unions reads
thus:
"I pledge my honor as a man that I will be faithful to the union until
death, and that I will obey ALL orders of the union. I promise that I will
never reveal the proceedings of the union. If I break this promise I ask
every brother here to treat me as a rascal, so help me God."
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 115
In the book of by-laws of a San Francisco union occurs this :
"A working-man who refuses to join the union is a veritable rascal.
It taints honest men to be seen even speaking to him."
The sentiment contained in the above paragraphs a senti-
ment which I regard as foreign to the true spirit of labor
unions exercises a most despotic force. It not only tends to
destroy all individuality, all personal freedom, but actually
tends to promote dishonesty and untruth. Men pledged to
"obey all orders" of a union are irresponsible and unreliable,
and men who think that those who do not believe as they do
and join their unions are " veritable rascals with whom it is a
disgrace to speak," are intolerant bigots. I have investigated
many strikes where the men had promised their employers that
they would not strike without twenty-four hours' notice, and yet,
without a minute's warning, when their union ordered them,
they struck, bringing to their employers great loss, and in some
cases absolute ruin. The cooks and waiters in the San Fran-
cisco restaurants had no fault to find with their employers ;
they were perfectly satisfied; but when the bakers' men struck
the cooks and waiters walked out without a moment's notice,
in order, as they said, to cause the restaurant owners to use
their influence with the bakers to settle the claims of the
bakers' men. When asked why they did not give the twenty-
four hours' warning they had promised,' the cooks and waiters
had nothing to say except that they had to obey orders from
the union.
The condition of working-men is indeed perplexing. Wiser
and more cultured people in the same position would hardly
be able to steer safely through the narrow straits they are
called on to cross. They are hounded and hooted at as traitors
to their fellows, and called by the disgraceful name of " scabs,"
if they refuse to join the union ; and after joining, and taking
the iron-clad oath to " obey all orders," they are virtually driven
to deception by employers who refuse to give them work if
known to be union men, One important fact, however, labor-
116 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ing men must consider : if it once becomes thoroughly estab-
lished that a " union " man does not regard the sacredness of
a contract, or that he feels that he may break a contract with
honor if ordered by his union, the union idea will receive a
severer blow than could be given it in any other way. In the
instance referred to, the union of cooks and waiters on the
Pacific coast was destroyed by the action of the men in the
San Francisco strike. The restaurant employers very justly
declared that they would no longer employ men who, however
liberally and kindly treated, were yet liable at any moment to
strike, and cause loss and perhaps ruin.
A witness who admitted to the commission inquiring into
the condition of labor that he did try to persuade " scabs " to
join his union, in answer to the question whether his per-
suasion was with a club, made no reply. None was necessary ;
there was another witness in the room at the very same time
whose arm was broken and eye gouged out by an enthusiastic
union man who believed that a " man who refused to join the
union was a veritable rascal."
Not infrequently I came across men who chafed at the strict
rule of their unions. Said a member of a typographical union,
" Talk of the despotism of the Czar ! it is not a circumstance
to that of our unions. Do you know, I dare not go where I
please. I dare not ride on certain street-cars, or read certain
papers."
" What is to prevent you ?"
" The union. If I were to disobey a boycott, I would get a
brick in my hat and a black eye."
" If you are not satisfied, why do you stay in the union ?"
" Because otherwise I would be boycotted myself. To illus-
trate : My friend Jim, who does not stand as well with the
union as I, got to the office ahead of me this morning, but he
didn't get the work ; the foreman saved it for me. AVhen any-
body is idle it is always Jim. He complained to the walking
delegate. The matter was looked into, and it was decided that
he was discriminated against. Did that help Jim ? Not at all.
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS.
The foreman agreed to rectify the matter. He gave Jim copy,
but at the same time passed the word around that Jim was not
to be spoken to. I always liked Jim, but what can I do ? If
I don't stop going with him I will be told that work is dull
' no copy to-day ;' and I would be given ample leisure to study
and decide that Jim was not the man to associate with. One
of the union rules is that in every office employing three or
more printers a 'chairman' shall be elected, whose business it
is to settle all disputes. In our office there are forty men.
Each has to pay five cents a week to the chairman. He draws
his two dollars from us, and in return, when a man gets in bad
odor with the union, he uses his position to keep the offending
member from getting work. Our chairman, who is not content
with the extra two dollars a week he draws from us, runs a
kind of second-rate bar, which we are expected to patronize.
He gets a large bucket of beer at noon, and at dinner-time sells
us beer at five cents a glass. At first I did not drink any.
Then one day the chairman said,
" ' What's the matter you don't patronize the bar?'
" ' I don't care for beer.'
" ' You don't care for beer ! Well you ought to that's all
I've got to say.'
" I noticed after that that copy on my hook was scarce. My
wages fell to five dollars a week. I patronize the 'bar' now,
and make, as before, my eighteen and nineteen dollars a week.
The workman who will not join any union is hooted and de-
rided as a 'scab.' In the unions he has no more individuality
than a private soldier in a large army. He is absolutely at the
mercy of walking delegates, grand master-workmen, and the
like."
The enemy to working-men even more dangerous than dis-
honest politicians, more debasing than obedience to. arbitrary
unions, is strong drink. I do not mean to say that working-
men drink more than the wealthier classes, but that working-
men are more impoverished by drink. European working-men
drink perhaps more universally than American laborers, but not
118 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
as much, owing to two causes: first, because the "treating 1 *
custom does not prevail in Europe; secondly, because on the
continent of Europe wages are too small to permit copious
drinking.
The system of treating fosters and feeds the habit of drink-
ing. One man treats, the treat must be returned, and so it
goes until the largest part of the working-man's wages is left
with the saloon-men. With the exception of German student
kneipers, a man in Germany will no more think of offering to
" treat " his companion to beer than he would to a loaf of
bread. In all rny pedestrian tour over Italy and Germany I
saw few men staggering or dead-drunk. In America, where
treating is the universal custom, we see cases of staggering
drunkenness every day.
In East St. Louis I called on Mr. D. C. M , a bar mill
roller in the Tudor Iron-works. Mr. M earns $8.13 a day,
the highest wages paid in the mills. Guide mill rollers make
$6.50 a day.
"Notwithstanding their high wages," said Mr. M , "it is
an exception to find any of these men who save enough to own
their own homes. They fancy they cannot get along without
strong drink. I know guide mill rollers who spend as much as
ten dollars a week in saloons. They get to treating, and the
money flies. This is bad ; but the worst part is that these
drinking -men soon become unable to stand the hard work.
The temperance men last much longer. It is a bad delusion
for an iron-worker to fancy that drink strengthens him. The
work is hard, but neither beer nor whiskey makes it any easier."
Mr. M , who practised the temperance he preached, owned
a comfortable double tenement -house, one side of which he
rented out for $1 7 a month ; the other side he occupied with
his family. The parlor was nicely carpeted and furnished ; the
dining-room was heated with a handsome self-feeding stove.
When I called, Mrs. M , a motherly looking woman, was
knitting.
" I like to keep busy," she said, " even if Dave does make
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 121
enough without rny working. Too many women I know try
to be too fine ladies to do anything. I don't believe in that.
I like to help on all I can. We run along comfortably and
home-like, and when anything good turns up, Dave and I take
the children out and have a nice time. We took all our fam-
ily to the Centennial."
In the Tudor Iron-works are three hundred and thirty men.
One bar mill roller makes $8.13 a day; three guide mill roll-
ers make $6.50 ; four bar mill heaters make $7 ; six guide mill
heaters make $5.25 ; six puddlers get $4.66, and ten puddler-
helpers $2.50. Thirty skilled, iron -workers average $4.66 a
day. The other three hundred employes, or ninety per cent,
of the entire force, earn $1.75 a day. The average for the
whole, therefore, is $2.01-^.
" One thing to be remembered," said Mr. M , " is that
though our wages are high they are not steady. For a long
time four months a year was considered a good average. Even
now the average does not exceed six months in the year. This
is because with the least degree of prosperity so many rush into
the business, and wages fall."
That is, the protection system causes business to flow in ar-
tificial channels, which sooner or later overflow, hurting the
very persons supposed to be benefited. An examination of the
books of the Tudor Iron-works showed there had been a steady
decrease in wages since 1873. The figures quoted above are
for 1882, since which a further decrease of ten per cent, has
been made. In 1882, when iron was worth two cents a pound,
puddlers received $5.50 for puddling a ton of 2240 pounds,
one-third of which they paid to their helpers. At the present
time, when iron is at two cents a pound, the pay for puddling
a ton is only $5, half a dollar less than the schedule price in
1882. A good puddler can puddle three thousand pounds a
day $6.69 ; deduct one-third ($2.23) for the helper, and the
net wages of the puddler when at work is $4.46. With the
increase in the price of iron, wages also increase, going up as
high as $7 when iron is quoted at three cents a pound.
6
122 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Moulders (another class of iron-workers) are not paid as well
as bar mill rollers. Previous to 1883, moulders averaged $3
a day. In that year there was a reduction in most of the
founderies to $2.50. The men struck. The manufacturers sent
to Pittsburg*, Cincinnati, and other cities in the East, engaged
new men, paid their railroad fare to the West, and set them to
work. The old hands jumped on the imported hands, beat
them, and then paid their fare back East. For three months
this war continued; then the strikers gave up the fight, and
since the summer of 1883 have worked for $2.50 a day. To
learn the trade of iron-moulding requires at least nine months,
and a good head in the bargain. As a rule, iron-moulders live
in neat, comfortable homes.
" There are four in our family," said Mr. Peters, a moulder
in Kansas City. " A house like this rents for twenty-five dol-
lars a month. I manage to support my family very well. The
women folks do all the house-work. My greatest expense is
for clothing, moulding is so hard on the clothes. The next
heavy item is for coal. We use five tons of soft coal (three
dollars a ton) and two tons of hard coal (ten dollars a ton)
during the winter. Meat is cheap in Kansas City. Good beef
can be had for eight cents a pound, tenderloin steak for thir-
teen cents. Ten pounds of the best granulated sugar costs one
dollar. Good brown sugar costs eight cents a pound. My en-
tire grocery bill amounts to from five to six dollars a week."
These figures, tabulated, appear about thus:
Earnings, 300 days, at $2 60 a day $750 00
Expenses :
Two work suits $30 00
One Sunday suit 25 00
Other clothing 20 00
Total clothing for husband '. $75 00
Clothing for mother 50 00
" " wife 50 00
" " sister, a young lady in society 100 00
Total yearly cost of clothing for family of four . . $275 00
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 123
Brought forward $275 00
Groceries 260 00
Meats, salt and fresh 62 00
Doctor's bills 50 00
Incidentals of all kinds, including taxes 60 00
Total yearly cost of living for four persons in Kansas City, $697 00
The balance of $53 forms the net savings of a thrifty iron-
moulder who works steadily, without losing time by idleness
or sickness. He had saved enough to buy his home and furnish
it. In one corner of the parlor stood an upright piano, which
the young lady sister played as well as the average society belle.
Speaking of strikes, the moulder said,
"Ah, I'm down on 'em. They're no good. I'm down
on 'em."
He said this because he thought I was opposed to them.
I said,
" Some strikes may be harmful, but is not good accomplish-
ed by others ? The street-car drivers, for instance, who worked
fourteen hours for a dollar and a half don't you think they
ought to have struck ?"
After a little talk of this kind, Mr. Peters came around and
warmly espoused the principle of strikes. Working-men have
so long been accustomed to be frowned upon by the so-called
"upper" classes when they attempt to better their condition,
that they are cautious and timid about showing their true
feelings.
The Southern Bagging Company in St. Louis worked their
employes twelve hours a day as late as May, 1886. In that
month the tired, overworked girls struck for a reduction to
sixty hours a week. They succeeded in getting sixty-one. I
called on Matilda Rose, one of the strikers. She lived in the
rear of a small tenement-house. A narrow and not over-clean
alley led to the court, whence a pair of rickety stairs conduct-
ed me to the first of the two rooms Miss Rose calls home. The
room was poorly furnished. In a corner was a kitchen stove.
124 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
In addition were a table and three chairs. On a table I noticed
a German magazine and a Bible.
" My mother and I pay seven dollars a month rent," said
Miss Rose. " Our grocery and butcher bills run up as high as
thirty dollars a month. We do our own cooking, or rather
mother does it. I have to be at the mill until six. It is seven
by the time I get home. Then I am so tired that I can hardly
eat supper, much less cook it. We are paid so much per cut
of sixty-six yards. The price ranges from thirteen to seven-
teen cents per cut, according to quality. I make on the aver-
age fifty cuts a week, or about six dollars."
Mrs. Mary M'Ghee, another of the bagging-girls, was even
less happily situated than Miss Rose. With her father and
mother and little boy she occupied two closet-like rooms in the
rear of a cheap dwelling-house. The two rooms were a de-
tached shanty several feet below the level of the street. They
were damp and unhealthy. Mrs. M'Ghee said she knew not
whether her husband were dead or alive. He had enlisted in
the army eleven years ago. Being a " winder," she made less
than Miss Rose, who was a weaver. Her wages averaged $4.50
a week. Her father earned $6. On this income ($10.50 a
week) the four persons lived. Rent was $5 a month ; gro-
ceries, $2.25 a week ; meat, $2. On the remaining $4.88 the
four clothed themselves, bought fuel, and all the other neces-
saries of life. Even with health and steady work they find it
difficult to live at such rates. A month's sickness or loss of
employment means starvation. No wonder hard-working peo-
ple like these despair when they see that, with all their industry
and close economy, they are unable to provide against sickness,
old age, or other emergency.
The tobacco factories of St. Louis employ more girls and pay
a higher average of wages than the bagging factories, but for
several reasons, principally on the score of health, they are not
as popular with the working-women. My lady assistant, who
spent a week in the various tobacco -works questioning the
girls, was completely prostrated by the work. In one factory
LABOR STRIKES AND UNIONS. 125
as many as four hundred girls were working in a single hall.
The temperature is always kept to a high point in these halls.
The sudden change from the cold, pure atmosphere to the
heated, tobacco-impregnated air of the factory was what made
my agent sick. The employes usually discard ceremony, and
work in the factory dress, or rather undress, to suit the occa-
sion. One unaccustomed to such sights is apt to be a little
surprised on first entering a tobacco-stripping room, where are
several hundred women and girls seated on the floor or stand-
ing at benches, with dresses unbuttoned, or opened in an ex-
ceedingly neglige way. For this hard work and exposure to
the poisonous tobacco atmosphere a large number of girls re-
ceive as much as $5 a week, while a few get $10 and $11.
126 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW NAILS ARE MADE.
A BIG STRIKE. COAL-MINERS. THEIR GLOOMY LIFE. A MAN WHO
BELIEVED IN INSULATION. WHY THE POLAR-BEAR FROZE. THE
LADY COOK. LIVING BY ABSORPTION. A NIGHT ON PIKE'S PEAK.
A MORMON PEDESTRIAN.
THE nailer's occupation is, apparently, a good one. When
work is brisk a nailer can make $5 a day. " When brisk !"
there is the rub. How much time can the nailer average ? Not
more than six months in the year. Another drawback is the
injurious nature of the work. The knives used to cut the dies
that form the nails are ground on huge grindstones. The dust
thrown off sifts into the lungs, frequently causing consumption
and early death. One reason why the nailers can make as
much as $5 a day is because they control the labor market in
their branch.
" I had an intelligent man whom I wanted to become a
nailer," said Mr. Powell, of the Western Nail Mills. " I took
him into the mills to one of the nailers. Said the nailer, ' I
cannot teach him ; we do not open our trade to every one. It
would ruin us.' I was unable to have the man taught in my
own mill."
The feeder is employed by the nailer. He sits perched up
on a three-legged stool manipulating the sheet of iron from
which the nails are made. The strip of iron is fastened to a
round stick the size of a broom-handle. By a continuous and
rapid twist of the wrist the feeder inserts the bar of iron be-
tween the teeth of the machine. The teeth bite off at each
turn a small piece of iron, which small piece, in some mysteri-
ous way, drops into a receptacle underneath a fully developed
HOW NAILS ARE MADE. 127
nail. A good feeder who sits steadily on his stool ten hours
can in that time manage to shove through ten kegs of ten-
penny nails. The self-feeding machine that is being introduced
in nail-mills will do away with the feeder employed by the
nailers. With the new machine only a small boy is required
to occasionally insert a fresh bar, which the machine, of its own
accord, begins, as soon as it is in place, to cut up into nails.
This boy works for seventy-five cents a day. The feeders were
paid by the nailers $1.50. The self-feeding machine has the
advantage in still another way it turns out fifteen kegs of
nails to ten kegs the old way. The manufacturers prefer the
self-feeding machine because it cannot strike.
A peculiar feature of the great strike of 1885, when nearly
every nail-mill in the country was closed for more than a year,
was the action of the feeders. These men struck solely to
sustain the nailers, who had gone out to resist a reduction in
wages. After many months of loss and suffering, the nailers
decided to give up the strike and go back to work. What was
their surprise to find that the fight was no longer theirs ! The
feeders refused to go back. They insisted that the nailers
should not accept lower wages. There was no talk of reducing
the pay of the feeders. What they did was entirely disinter-
ested, and they actually kept the nailers from working long
after they saw that the battle was lost. This action of the feed-
ers led to the rapid introduction of the self-feeding machines.
A nailer whom I visited at Belleville, Illinois, fifteen miles
from St. Louis, had three sons. The sons and father earned
together from $6000 to $7000 a year, yet never laid by a cent.
They lived on a more costly scale than the majority of pro-
fessional men, who usually save up a little for a rainy day.
High wages seemed to make them reckless. Except as typical
of a class, this would not be worth mentioning; unfortunately,
only a small number of those earning high wages are thrifty
and save. They are making such good wages that they do not
think of " rainy days." By-and-by the rain pours in the shape
of a strike, and then the nailer who has been making $6 a
128 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
day is as hard up, and suffers fully as much as does unskilled
labor when out of work. In another family I visited were two
nailers who made during the busy season six months in the
year from $6 to $7 a day apiece. The income of the father,
grown son, and mother was $2028 for the six months. Said
the mother,
"Formerly, before the reduction in wages, Will made one
hundred dollars a week. Sixty dollars he paid his feeders, leav-
ing forty clear for himself. This was his average the year
around. Now he makes only forty-two dollars to fifty-two dol-
lars a week during only six months, which is really as if he
were making only twenty-one dollars and twenty-six cents a
week."
In sharp contrast to the nailers are the coal-miners next door.
Indeed, leaving the Western Nail Mills in Belleville, one need
not even go next door to find coal-mines ; there are mines un-
der the mills themselves. Just at the end of the engine-room
is a shaft, down which I descended into the very bowels of the
earth. The miners, black with coal-dust, were on their knees
picking away at the great solid mass of coal. The greasy
lamps fastened to their caps dimly lighted the fantastic scene.
The men enter the mines at half-past six in the morning, and
do not leave until half-past five in the evening. Their dinner,
which they bring down with them, consists mainly of bread
spread with butter, sausage, and coffee. For their hard and
disagreeable work they earn from $1 to $1.70 a day. They
are paid one and a half cents a bushel. Said a miner,
" Taking it the year through, I am not able to earn more
than a dollar for each working-day six dollars a week. It
takes one week's work (one-fourth of my wages) to pay the
rent of a house 31 by 18 feet, cut into two rooms. On the
balance, eighteen dollars, I must clothe and feed myself and
family. Do my wife and daughters ever work in the mines?
I guess not ! Once two women started to work in these mines,
but we would not stand it. It was taking bread and meat out
of our mouths. Women always make wages low. My wife
COAL-MIXERS GOING TO WORK.
HOW NAILS ARE MADE. 131
takes in washing, and helps me out that way. Women work-
ing in the mines? Well, I should say not!"
He scouted the idea, not because such work is debasing to
the sex, but because women, when they take up a thing, "al-
ways lower wages." Remembering the young girls in German
and Belgian mines whom I had seen at this hard and coarsen-
ing work, I was glad they opposed women working in the mines,
no matter what the grounds of their opposition.
Miners live so hidden from the rest of the world that they
grow shy. At first they were unwilling to talk to me. When
the shyness wore off, they crowded around as I reclined on a
coal-bank wrapped in a rubber ulster. I questioned them about
their work, and told them of the mines I had seen in England
and Europe. They talked freely, and when I understood their
situation, I was forced to the sad conclusion that their lot is but
little better than that of the mules they drive. These patient
animals, when they enter a mine, never leave it until they leave
it to die. They have a stable deep under the earth, and after
years of subterranean life become so accustomed to their new
condition that they lose, so it is said, the power of sight, and
if brought to the upper world are almost, if not entirely, blind.
One who studies the condition of coal-miners in America will
feel as if he has descended a ladder the lowest rung of which
is in the east and the highest in the west. The coal-miner of
Pennsylvania is a very different creature from the coal-miner of
Illinois, Missouri, and Colorado. In Pennsylvania, coal syndi-
cates* and coal trusts combine together to control the market
and crush the laborer. The owners are protected by a high
tariff on coal ; when the poor miners try to protect themselves
by combinations and strikes, they are crushed to the earth by
the importation of cheap labor from Hungary and Italy. The
millionaire employers bring these men over in gangs to take the
places of American working-men, starving the latter into sub-
mitting to reductions in wages. These employers are willing
enough to have free-trade in human labor, but on all the nec-
essaries of life they want the highest tariff. The hard-working
132 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Pennsylvania miners get from eighty to ninety cents a day,
which does not enable them to buy enough of the coal they
themselves dig out of the bowels of the earth to keep warm.
The miners of Missouri and Illinois fare better. There is
comparatively an abundance of land. The Western miners can
afford small gardens, and raise their own chickens and vegeta-
bles. The coal-miners of Colorado have an abundance of land,
but they do not have gardens, owing to the lack of rain, and
irrigation is too expensive. Rents in Denver are not very dear.
A nice four-room cottage can be had for from $12 to $14 a
month. Beefsteak costs fifteen cents a pound, eggs eighteen
cents a dozen, milk seven cents a quart, a miner's boots cost $5,
his duck suit $2.50.
It is easier to learn what a workman spends than what he
earns. The half a dozen coal-mine owners around Denver
unite in saying that their men earn an average of $3 a day.
The men are equally as unanimous in declaring that they earn
barely half that sum $45 a month. They probably would
earn the sum stated by their employers were the work steady.
Blockaded shafts and other mishaps cause the miners, through
no fault of their own, to lose nearly half time. Coal-
mining is far from pleasant work; it requires both strength
and skill ; yet it is poorly paid in comparison with unskilled
labor neither so hard nor disagreeable. A day laborer or team-
ster in Denver gets $1.50 a day; carpenters and bricklayers
earn two or three times as much.
Denver is a cold place in winter. On one of the very cold-
est days of the season, when the mercury registered below zero,
and a seven-inch snow lay on the ground, a card was brought
up to my room in the Windsor. Following the card was a
little man pinched and blue with cold, his nose red, his ears
half frozen. He said he had heard I was a special labor agent.
He wanted to lay before me a discovery that would be of ines-
timable benefit to the working-classes.
" People don't understand the power of electricity," said this
gentleman. " They insulate themselves from the earth, cut
HOW NAILS ARE MADE. 133
themselves off from the electrical currents, thereby inviting dis-
ease and early death. I have studied this subject. The earth
is our mother; she will supply us with electricity if we only
stop insulating ourselves. You see my shoes? The soles are
very thin. If you wore such shoes you would catch your
death. I never get cold. Why?" Jerking off one of his
dilapidated shoes, he pointed to a copper tack in the sole.
" That's what prevents me from being cold. The copper tack
keeps up the electricity ; prevents me from being insulated.
Children of the poor, who go barefooted, are healthier than
the children of the rich, who constantly insulate themselves by
wearing shoes. Put an animal on the ground and he will keep
warm ; raise him a few feet onto a board floor and he will
freeze. In Lynchburg, Virginia, a polar bear froze to death
because he was kept in a cage insulated from the electrical cur-
rents of the earth. In Montana animals remaining in the open
air with their feet on the ground do not suffer. The few that
are housed cannot stand the severe winters, and die of cold. In
your intercourse with the working-classes you can spread this
discovery, and save them the expense of thick shoes and socks.
It will be a great thing for them."
This well-meaning man reminded me of a wealthy but eccen-
tric Kentucky gentleman who held the theory that humanity
can live by absorption, and tried to prove it by getting into
hogsheads filled with mush. He stood in the mush up to his
chin for several days, when his servants took him out by main
force and made him absorb a little food in the natural way.
On further reflection, he concluded that walking shortened life.
For two years he lay on his back on a mattress, making his
servants carry him and the mattress out to a wagon, in which
he was hauled about the country to visit his neighbors, stretched
at full length. This plan did not prove a brilliant success;
the poor old man gave up the ghost not long afterwards.
As special labor agent I met many such eccentric persons.
One day a woman called on me at my office in San Francisco,
and stated that she wished me to investigate her case.
134 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
" Who are yon, madam, and what is your case ?"
" I am a lady cook, and my case is one of the most malig-
nant persecution."
She then went on to tell how she was persecuted by the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company. She was a "lady" cook in
a wealthy private family, and the Pacific Mail Steamship Com-
pany was doing everything in its power to make her lose her
place. It was sending spies to watch her, to dog her footsteps,
to make noises under her window at night.
" What object can the company have in persecuting you so ?"
"Pure devilishness," replied the lady cook. "They have
been treating me this way for the last four years. I can't keep
a situation long, they dog me so ;" and she burst into tears.
I saw the poor woman was slightly insane, and attempted to
get rid of her by telling her that the case was out of my juris-
diction, that she would have to get a lawyer. At this she flew
into a rage.
" I'd like to know what the Government is paying you for
if it isn't to look into just such cases as mine? Here I am,
persecuted and hunted by a rich company, and you won't do
anything for me."
The lady cook refused to leave until I promised to investi-
gate her case. I did make some inquiries, and learned that she
had been boring the Chief of Police, the State Commissioner
of Labor, and other officials with the story of her imaginary
persecutions. She never called again, and I suppose is by this
time in a lunatic asylum.
Denver is the centre of the tourist's operations in Colorado.
It has a number of tolerably good hotels. The traveller, after
each trip to this or that canon or gorge, returns to Denver to
rest and recuperate from the effects of greasy Western diet.
Near Manitou, eighty miles from Denver, I went to the Garden
of the Gods, a natural enclosure, with walls made of natural
rifts of rock two or three hundred feet high. There are only
two gate-ways through which entrance or exit can be made.
Within this curious place are formations resembling birds, ani-
HOW NAILS ARE MADE. 135
mals, men carved out of the solid rocks, or cast up in some
convulsion by Nature herself. On the top of one of the gate-
posts, a straight, upright rock near the entrance, three hundred
and eighty feet high, I saw a small flag waving.
" How was that flag put there 2"
" A tourist put it there on the Fourth of July," answered
the guide. " He cut those holes you see there on the sloping
side of the rock. It was slow work going up, but he made up
for it coming down."
"How?"
" By falling," was the laconic reply.
The tourist succeeded in the foolhardy feat of climbing up
that steep rock; when on top, his foot slipped or his head
became dizzy, and he fell to the ground, a mass of pulpy flesh
and broken bones.
The ascent of Pike's Peak, begun from Manitou, is usually
made on mule-back. I made it on foot. The month was July.
It was a hot day when I started, but the heat was soon passed.
As hour after hour of hard climbing went by, village and valley
were seen through a haze, growing dimmer and dimmer to the
sight. I drew my coat close around me, shivering with cold.
In places the trail is not two feet wide ; on one side a massive
wall of granite, on the other a yawning precipice. A single
misstep would be fatal. The ascent led me up to a barren
world of snow and ice, and a solitude of unbroken silence.
The world of life and sunshine, of green trees and flowers, of
beasts and men, lay in the distance, indistinct, undefined. Not
even the eagle, said to love lofty flights, is fond of this frozen
region. The pedestrian climbing up those rough rocks, cov-
ered with eternal snow, feels as if he were in a dead world ; as
if all life, save his own, were stricken from earth.
Two miles from the summit I encountered a blinding snow-
storm. Fast and furious fell the white flakes, and bitter was
the cold that July day. I could not see the trail. It was
completely covered by snow. To follow it hap-hazard was dan-
gerous. The slightest misstep might send me head-over-heels
136 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
a thousand feet in to' some awful and unexplored chasm. How-
ever, there were those blessed representatives of human civiliza-
tion telegraph poles. I followed them. Imagine a narrow
path-way set on end at a sharp angle and paved with jagged
stones. This was the road to be got over, with only a row of
telegraph poles as a guide. Some of the bowlders were so big
and steep that my feet slipped back in the deep snow, as it
seemed, faster than they went upward. Gusts of wind blew the
stinging flakes in my face and eyes ; when at last, after three
hours' climbing up that rugged mountain-side, the dark outline
of the signal-station faintly appeared, I gave a cry of joy. The
signal-officer was standing in the door surveying the great
white sea of whirling snow.
The United States Signal Service Station on the top of Pike's
Peak is a low, gloomy-looking structure a prison, the jailer
of which is the inexorable winter that reigns from year's end
to year's end. This low, flat prison is made of granite, and
anchored and bolted to the granite bowlders. The wind whis-
tles and howls around it day and night in one eternal winter.
No trees, no leaves, no birds, no beasts, no life except the one
lone man whom the Government employs to do the signal serv-
ice. Mr. Litzel, a young man of about thirty, had charge of the
station. He had a good, intelligent face, with that care-worn,
depressed expression which comes from unbroken solitude.
" You don't often see snow in July ?" he said, after I had
thawed out before a blazing fire.
" Not often. You don't yourself, do you ?"
"In summer, two or three times a week; in winter, all the
time. Snow is my only water supply. That boiler there,"
pointing to the stove, " is full of melting snow. Even in the
heart of summer there is always enough snow at my door to
furnish all the water needed."
" Does not life become weary and desolate up here on this
lonely peak, so far from the busy world ?"
" So much so, I sometimes fear it will drive me crazy. My
official duties are light ; they require only an occasional inspec-
HOW NAILS ARE MADE.
137
tion of the instruments. The rest of the time I have nothing
to do but read. Too much reading becomes wearisome. Some-
times I stand at the window with my telescope ; the wind
without is keen, and cutting as a knife. I can see the houses
of Colorado Springs, twenty miles away, see the visitors sitting
in their shirt-sleeves sipping iced drinks to keep cool, and the
THE SIGNAL-STATION ON PIKE'S PEAK.
ladies walking about in white summer robes. Then I lower
the glass the summer scene is gone ; green trees and animal
life, men and women, fade away like creatures in a dream, and
I am the only living thing in a world of eternal ice and snow
and silence."
The criminal slmt up in a penitentiary to expiate his crime
138 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
is more pleasantly situated than this prisoner on top of Pike's
Peak. He is banished from the world, and to serve what good
purpose ?
" Except to gain knowledge of Pike's Peak," said the signal-
officer, " there is no use for this station. Pike's Peak is alto-
gether too much out of the world to afford much useful knowl-
edge regarding parts of the world where men dwell. The wind
may be blowing from the north up here, when below it is blow-
ing from the south. It may be cold here, and warm and dry
in the valley. Moreover, my reports are too old to be of use
in making weather predictions. The telegraph line is not op-
erated. In summer I send down reports every two weeks. In
winter I send none ; for during the winter there is no commu-
nication with the world. No human being can come up to me,
and it is almost impossible for me to go down to the world, so
deep is the trail covered with snow and ice."
There is about an acre of rough, jagged bowlders on the
summit of the peak. The sides of the peak tumble steeply
down to the valley below. The house of the observer is set
near the edge, looking down into what is called the " Devil's
Punch-bowl." One winter night the storm blew the observer's
wood- pile into this black ar\d fearful bowl, and tore off a part
of the roof. The snow came down. The cold was intense. It
was certain death to remain without fuel. To attempt a de-
scent in the storm was a fearful alternative. The officer, how-
ever, made the endeavor, and looked upon his safe descent as
almost a miracle.
As the sun sinks in the west the shadows of the peak grad-
ually reach out to the east, a huge black mantle that finally
enshrouds the valley in darkness. The sunrise is even a grand-
er sight. Mr. Litzel called me at four o'clock in the morning.
All was yet dark. The Devil's Punch-bowl looked black as
midnight, but far in the east a faint dawn heralded the day.
Soon a narrow rim of fire pushed up ; the rim grew larger and
larger, until it shone a huge red orb, which slowly and majes-
tically rose in the sky, lighting up the lofty peaks while the
HOW NAILS ARE MADE. 139
valleys were still wrapped in darkness. It was full five min-
utes after the sun fell on us before its light kindled the valleys
below.
It costs the Government twenty dollars a cord to transport
wood to the top of Pike's Peak. The signal-officer charged a
dollar for a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
The journey west from Pike's Peak is through rugged gorges
three thousand feet deep. Originally these gorges were only
fissures cut out by the mountain torrent, the walls of granite
rising on either side three to five thousand feet high. Mules
and men were let down from the summit of the mountains by
stout ropes. A path-way along the side of the bubbling stream
was hewn and blasted away, and now trains of palace-cars fly
through those once inaccessible canons.
After scaling Marshall Pass, twelve thousand feet above the
level of the sea, the train descends into the great Desert of
Utah. Two hundred miles before reaching Salt Lake City an
accident occurred. A bridge fell in, and the engine and several
cars tumbled into the water. The engineer and fireman were
drowned, some of the passengers were injured, and all badly
scared. For two days we remained there on the open plain,
with nothing to eat except crackers and tea, which the railroad
company supplied from the nearest section-house. The immi-
grants were loaded with huge bundles of bedding, pots, kettles,
pans, and other kitchen effects. They also had food supplies,
and were not a little envied by the first-class passengers, who
for the time being had to live on crackers and weak tea. Had
such an accident happened to me on my tramp trip in Europe,
I would have suffered little inconvenience. I constantly car-
ried in my knapsack a coil of bologna-sausage and a stock of
black bread. This, with grapes and figs bought on the way,
formed my sole diet on a tramp from Buda-Pesth to Constan-
tinople. After two days of weak tea and crackers on the burn-
ing desert of Utah, we started across a temporary foot-bridge to
board the train that had been sent from Salt Lake City to meet
us. A dapper young man undertook to show the ladies across.
140 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
"There's no danger no danger at all!" the dapper young
man jauntily declared as he briskly started to trip over the
rickety foot-path to encourage the more timid ladies. Unfort-
unately for his good intentions, his foot slipped, and he tum-
bled into the water. When they fished him out he made no
more offers to show the ladies how to cross.
In Salt Lake City I saw the sights usually shown tourists.
I also saw the champion pedestrian of the world, as he called
himself. I had gone out to look at the grave of Brigham
Young, and on the way fell in with a Mormon pedestrian. It
came about that I told him of my tramp over Europe.
" Pshaw!" said the Mormon, " that's nothing. I have walked
over every continent on the globe. Fifty thousand miles would
fall short of the distance of my tramps around the world."
" How did you happen to walk so much ?"
" Had to," was the reply. " During the war a shell wounded
me in the leg, giving me creeping paralysis. I consulted the
best physicians, and all agreed that my only chance was to
walk it off. ' Walk,' they said, ' and you may keep the paralysis
down. Stop walking, the paralysis will begin to creep up until
it catches your heart, then death.' You may depend upon
it," continued the Mormon pedestrian, with an oath, u that I
walked that paralysis right down to the tips of my toes, and
it hasn't had the strength to crawl up since."
I heard of one case in Salt Lake City where a young girl
was courted by an already " severally " married man. The
young lady liked her suitor, but did not wish to leave her
mother. To settle the matter, the lover married both mother
and daughter. Thus we see polygamy overcomes difficulties
insurmountable to the monogamist. By marrying both mother
and daughter the Mormon solves the mother-in-law problem,
which for some men seems to hold such terrors.
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. 141
CHAPTER XII.
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY.
BY BUCK-BOARD, BOAT, AND STAGE. GOVERNMENT "REQUESTS."
A CONDUCTOR WHO WANTED TO EJECT ME. THE CHINESE GAR-
DENS IN PORTLAND. UP THE COLUMBIA. LOGGING IN WASH-
INGTON TERRITORY. A FOREST FIRE. WE HA YE TO CLEAR THE
WAY. THE INLETS OF PUGET SOUND. A FLOATING PHOTOG-
RAPHER.
IN travelling through the Pacific coast States, I was often
obliged to conceal the fact that I was a Government agent,
in order to escape swindling and overcharging. In one town
where I desired to examine some court records, the county
clerk demanded payment for permission to look at the papers
a right which all citizens have, but which this clerk thought
a Government agent ought to pay for. The hotel-keepers
often grumbled when they learned of my position after they
had fixed the rate of board.
" Why didn't you say you were working for the Govern-
ment ? I would have charged a dollar a day more."
" Why? Does a special agent eat more than any one else?"
" Of course not, but the Government is able to pay more,
and it ought to."
They were right as to the ability of the Government to pay
more ; at the same time, I did not like to pay more than other
travellers, so, when possible, travelled incognito.
Officers of the Government, when travelling on roads that
have been subsidized by lands or bonds, use what are called
Government requests. I had a book of these requests, signed
by the Secretary of the Interior.
When I wished to go to any point on the Northern Pacific,
the Central Pacific, Southern Pacific, or any of the subsidized
142 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
roads, all I had to do was to fill out my " request " and hand
it to the ticket-agent, who gave me, in return, a ticket to the
point named in the request. There was never any difficulty
in large towns, but occasionally I came across small and re-
mote stations, where the agent had never seen a Government
request. In such places there was trouble. At one little town
in Washington Territory the agent, after looking at the request
and turning it over and over, said he " couldn't give no ticket
on that piece of paper."
" Why not ? It is issued in regular form."
" Never seed one of 'em before."
So I got on the train without a ticket. The conductor,
when he looked at the written request, frowned.
" We don't take anything but tickets or money on the
train."
" I have neither."
" I'll have to put you off, then."
I knew that if I paid the fare the Government would not
refund, so told the conductor to go ahead.
" Now see here," said he, " there's no use in your making a
fuss. That ain't no ticket. You've got to pay your fare."
" You are the one making the fuss," I said. " Your road has
no right to demand cash fares from Government officers. I
shall not pay."
"I'll attend to you in a minute, young man," he said, in
high dudgeon.
"Any time will suit me," I answered.
He went off, but did not come back in a minute. An hour
or two after, he stopped as he passed my seat, and said he had
telegraphed the superintendent, who had instructed him to
accept the request as if it were a ticket.
The most north-western town in Washington Territory, as
well as of the whole United States, is Semiahmoo. From
Cape Disappointment, where I found myself one morning, the
miserable hamlet of Semiahmoo, stuck away off in the Strait of
Georgia, on a point of land barely south of latitude 49, on
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. 143
the very outer edge of the United States, is most easily reached
by ship on the Pacific Ocean along the west coast of Washing-
ton Territory, and through the Strait of San Juan de Fuca.
But I did not go that way. I went around the three other
sides of the square, thus rivalling the ass in Euclid who trav-
elled two sides of a triangle instead of one to reach his bale
of hay. My route was not the shortest, but it was the most
interesting. Glimpses of wild life, of rugged mountains, fron-
tier towns, painted Indians, islands, rivers, and lakes well re-
paid rne for that circuitous route over the North-west Terri-
tory.
The sail up the Columbia from Cape Disappointment was
broken at Portland, where I went to see the Chinese Gardens,
the name given to some eight or ten acres of low, swampy
land rented by five Chinamen, and converted into a beautiful
and productive garden. Each vegetable is planted in a sepa-
rate bed; even the steep sides of the hollow are terraced, and
green with rows of various vegetables. White men would scorn
to live in such a place ; the five Chinese tenants and their em-
ployes, who have turned this swampy hole into a fruitful gar-
den, not only live, but thrive and make money by supplying
the city of Portland with early and choice vegetables.
" This velly good place," said one of the almond-eyed men.
" In China me velly poor, me only make five cent one day.
Here me eat heap rice, heap nice garden. Velly good place."
My pigtail friend led the way across the drain ditches to
his house, a tumble-down shanty, filled with all sorts of odds
and ends tin cans, baskets, and the ever-present opium outfit
of pipe and glass lamp. While I observed how Ah Foo saved
the dollar a white man would spend by putting a handle on an
old oil-can, making that serve as a bucket, the heathen softly
smiled and said,
"You no live here?"
" No, I come from New York."
New York is the only Eastern place Chinamen on the Pacific
coast have heard of ; with him New York is all the East. An
144 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
Easterner, to give a Chinaman any idea of his native place,
must say he is from New York.
" How did you know I did not live here ?"
" Melican man live here, he no come see gardens. Melican
man from New York, he likee see 'em. Why don't you come
live Oregon City ?"
Oregon City is a village ten miles from Portland.
" Why should I live in Oregon City ?"
" Oh, Oregon City velly nice town. You bring your mother
from New York, and live in Oregon City."
On a second visit, Ah Foo again suggested the advisability
of my bringing my mother from New York and settling in
Oregon City. I wonder if the wily heathen had real estate
there to sell ?
A peculiar feature of Portland are the piles of wood that
encumber the otherwise pretty streets. At every turn may be
seen a winter's supply of wood stacked ten or twelve feet high
in front of the houses. The inhabitants must imagine wood-
piles ornamental, for there is no lack of backyard space, where
they could be placed quite as well as on the streets.
The North-west country is noted for fog and rain. In Neah
Bay the annual rainfall is one hundred and twenty-three inches
more than ten feet. As our boat started up the Columbia
from Portland, from the way the rain came down I feared the
annual supply of rain was to be condensed into that one day.
Fortunately the rain ceased in a few hours, and disclosed to
view the grandest river scenery in the world, not excepting even
the famous Kazan defile on the Lower Danube. The rocky
bluffs rise almost perpendicularly a thousand feet high ; then,
with only a slight angle, they slope gradually into the clouds,
where their snow-capped summits become entirely lost to view.
Mount Hood, which can be seen hours before it is reached,
looks like a huge cone of snow. On the steep side of one
mountain is a wonderful likeness of a human hand, as if in
the early days, when the earth was young, and produced mon-
sters in size, some monstrous man, while climbing up the height,
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TEERITORY. 145
had left his hand clutching the granite bluff, probably cut off
by a foe, leaving the body to tumble down to death.
Breaks in these granite walls are utilized by loggers for lum-
ber-shoots, some of which have slides several thousand feet long.
One that I saw led into the water from the very summit of the
mountain at an angle of almost sixty degrees. The great logs
come rushing down tjiis fearful shoot with the noise of thun-
der. Once a workman was making some repairs in the shoot.
This was not known in the camp above. A huge tree was sent
crashing down. The unfortunate man was never seen again.
Having passed the grandest part of the Columbia scenery, I
took a buck-board barouche at a small pass in the mountains,
and started overland for the British frontier. A long, winding
road brought us to the summit of the high bluffs overlooking
the river. In an hour more we reached a quiet little village
two thousand feet above the sea no whiskey, the people being
prohibitionists, and little water, the town being on an arid
plain. The people here seemed to take life easy ; they walked
about with their hands in their pockets, apparently with noth-
ing to do. Between Spokane Falls and the frontier the buck-
board barouche took us through a valley ranging in width from
one to five miles, hemmed in on both sides by tall mountains.
The average traveller of to-day, accustomed to Pullman
sleepers, can hardly conceive what fatigue and discomfort are
comprised in a buck-board trip of only a few hundred miles.
To go in a Pullman sleeper from New York to San Francisco,
three thousand miles, really amounts to no more than shutting
yourself up in a hotel for a week. On the other hand, bouncing
up and down over a hundred miles of Western roads on a buck-
board barouche is an experience I would not recommend a
seeker after pleasure to try. The first day, you stand it pretty
well ; the second day, you begin to feel as if you had been
ground and pounded into sausage-meat. I was glad when my
duties in the North were concluded, and buck-board-riding gave
way to boating. One small hamlet which I had to visit was
reached by boat up a so-called river about thirty yards wide.
7
146 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
The stream empties into Puget Sound, and at low tide is not
navigable. Once a day the miserable little boat stuck in the
mud, where it remained fast until the tide rose and floated it
off. The shaggy limbs of tall spruce-tre^s almost met over our
heads, forming, with their festoons of that funereal-looking
moss which hangs on the trees of Louisiana, a green and shady
bower. Where the forest had been exterminated are waving
fields of tule-grass. The general appearance of this section is
not unlike Holland. The whole country has to be diked to
avoid inundation by the sea at high tide. So far little has
been reclaimed. There are some squatters, however, who have
located claims, and set themselves to the herculean task of
walling out the mighty ocean and uprooting the dense forest.
This indomitable energy and patience, if applied in more civil-
ized and productive fields, would bring a far greater return than
is possible in this wilderness ; but, fortunately for society, there
is a pioneer spirit which pushes on and on, disdainful of hard-
ships and dangers.
On the boat, which ploughed its way up the creek under the
bower of moss and spruce-limbs, was the wife of one of the
pioneer class, a plain, elderly woman, who had not been on a
steamboat for years. At the first landing she turned in great
alarm, and asked if the boat had not struck a snag.
"No," I replied.
" But why has it stopped in the middle of the river ?"
When I called her attention to the fact that she happened to
be looking from the wrong side of the boat, that on the other
side we were snugly tied to the shore, she was relieved ; the
relief, however, was only temporary. At every turn, at every
blowing of the whistle, she started, and wanted to know if we
hadn't struck a snag. Yet this woman had bravely met and
endured the dangers and hardships of a pioneer life.
The following bit of conversation shows that the spirit of in-
quiry is active even in the outposts of civilization. The hardy
pioneers of the North-west Territory do not let their minds be-
come rusty.
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. 147
First Snohomish Passenger. " I left Snohomish a day before
you. What's the news ?"
Second Snohomish Passenger. " I don't know."
First S. P. " Well, something has happened, I'll be bound,
if we only had the paper, and knew."
Second S. P. "Yes, I guess so. Something's always hap-
pening in Snohomish."
Something happened there on the night of my arrival. In
the centre of the rough log-village was a man mounted on a
wagon. Suspended from a pole was a blazing kerosene light.
The man had on a plug hat and a clawhammer coat, and was
surrounded by a crowd of fifty or sixty rude backwoodsmen.
" Come right this way, ladies and gentlemen," cried the man.
" Step right up ; come up with your aching teeth ; bring up
your old grinders. I'll pull 'em out free gratis for nothing;
won't charge you a cent. No pain ; pull 'em out soft and
sweet. Come right along."
Numbers clambered up into the wagon, seemingly actuated
by no other motive than to test the speaker's ability to pull
teeth without charge and without pain. A man in the crowd
with whom I was talking suddenly declared that he believed he
would have a tooth pulled. After it was out I asked if it had
ached.
" No ; it hadn't hurt yet, but it mont have hurt soon. We
don't git a chance like this every day."
After the dentist had pulled a tooth for nearly every inhab-
itant in the village, he proceeded to fill his pockets with the
proceeds of the sale of a wonderful medicine, that was guaran-
teed to stop the aching of the jaws he had operated upon. A
brilliant scheme ! First he induced people to have their teeth
pulled " free gratis for nothing," then he sold stuff at a dollar
a bottle warranted to stop the pain of aching jaws.
Next morning, before leaving Snohomish, I discovered that
our boat was tied to a sort of floating photograph gallery. I
climbed over into it, and had a chat with the proprietor.
" An easy life," he said. " I raise my sail and go where I
148 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
please. The rivers and Puget Sound together offer a coast-line
of more than a thousand miles. I have been along it all."
" Does it pay ?"
" Of course it does ; why else should I keep it up ? It is
the only chance these backwoods people have of getting photo-
graphs. They come from the logging- camps, from the Indian
reservations, from, in short, every section of the country where
I land. See here !" and he showed me great numbers of pho-
tographs of miners and loggers, Indian braves, squaws, and
babies in all their war-paint and savage trappings.
When a point was reached where the river was too shallow
to float our little boat even at high tide, I went ashore and set
out on horseback for the logging-camp, still some miles distant.
The trail led through two walls of tall ferns, the boughs of the
trees meeting overhead making a tunnel arched over by green
leaves. It is said this region is not now visited by hurricanes.
It has not always been exempt. In one place the forest looked
as if it had been the scene of a battle of giants. Huge trees ten
feet in diameter, torn up by the roots, lay prostrate upon the
earth, or piled one upon the other in wild confusion. Wind-
storms producing this terrible result, however, are rare. A more
frequent, and therefore greater, danger is fire. During the sum-
mer and early fall, all Washington Territory is overhung by the
smoke arising from the forest fires which, once begun, continue
weeks and months burning so fiercely that it seems impossible to
check them. The flames leap across clear spaces of half a mile
and more in width, set fire to the timber on the farther side
of the clearing, and rage on furiously. A logger, who was flee-
ing from the flames as fast as his horse could carry him, had
a box of matches in his pocket. The intense heat of the air
ignited the matches, his clothing caught fire, and the poor log-
ger was burned to death.
A logger-camp is necessarily on the very outskirts of civil-
ization. A path ten feet wide is blazed through the forest to
the banks of the nearest stream. In this path are put, at inter-
vals of five or ten feet, logs like the sleepers of a railroad-bed.
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY.
149
These rude sleepers are well greased. Trees are then cut, and
the trunks dragged by oxen over the greased sleepers to the
water, where they remain until the winter rains fill the stream
enough to float the trees to market. It is quite a sight to see
LOGGERS IN WINTER.
twelve or sixteen oxen pulling a huge tree ten feet thick by one
hundred feet long over the greased sleepers. To get a single log
into the water sometimes requires several days. Once there,
it is worth, if one of the long, straight kinds used for ship-
masts, anywhere from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty
dollars. The average logger hiring out to the owner of a tim-
150 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ber claim is paid from sixty to a hundred dollars a month.
This is less per day than the Mississippi River loggers earn,
though it is more per year. The Mississippi logger earns three
dollars and a half a day during only seven or eight months a
year. Even part of that period is so cold that the unfortunate
logger, wading about in ice-water after Jogs, generally catches
rheumatism as well as logs. In the remote logging-camps of
Washington Territory the men can work, if they wish, the year
round. This, however, is seldom done. Life in the backwoods,
with no amusements or neighbors, becomes painfully monoto-
nous. The average logger goes to town at least twice a year,
where he too often gets drunk, and foolishly spends the results
of his hard labor in the primeval forests.
A somewhat surprising fact noted is that even the smallest
and most remote towns of Washington Territory have a free
library and reading-room not, of course, on a large scale, but
enough to indicate the spirit of the people, which is apparently
more liberal than in the " effete East." In a log church on an
island in Puget Sound I heard a preacher discourse to his flock
upon the propriety of enacting a Sunday law then being agi-
tated.
" To require by law an observance of Sunday would be un-
just," the preacher said. " You may be a Jew, and wish to
observe Saturday ; or a Mohammedan, and wish to make Friday
your Sabbath ; or an Atheist, and wish to keep no day at all.
Wherefore, brethren, I think the law should leave this matter
with each man's conscience, with each man's individual under-
standing of the Word of God."
Where in the East can a preacher be found promulgating so
liberal a doctrine as this ?
Puget Sound is like a chain of Lake Genevas, only more
grand, more beautiful. It has not only the steep mountain-
sides of Lake Geneva, but is studded with islands, some of which
shoot up into mountain-peaks direct from the water. A race
of Brobdingnags might build here a noble Venice. The canals
wind in and about a hundred isles just as the Venetian canals,
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. 151
only in Pnget Sound they are on a grander scale. The islands
are larger, and instead of being adorned with Italian palaces,
are grand with rocky bluffs and precipitous heights. These ca-
nals, instead of being ten or fifteen feet wide, are (the narrow-
est) a hundred yards wide. Life on these grand canals is, in its
way, as interesting as that which the gay Venetians see in their
gondolas with tinkling guitars. I saw an Indian dugout, made
from a huge log one hundred feet long and ten feet wide. Sev-
enty-five Indians were in it, on their way from Alaska to the
hop-fields of Washington Territory, where they earn during the
season (September and October) $1 or $1.25 a day picking hops.
The chain of islands for a thousand miles along the coast of
North-west America almost entirely shuts out the ocean. At
the end of the hop season the Indian paddles his own canoe
back to Alaska as safely and easily as if on an inland creek.
The work which the Indians obtain in the hop-fields has pro-
duced a marked effect upon them. Many who come from the
reservation merely to work a few weeks in September grow ac-
customed to work and fond of the profits of labor, and engage
in steady occupations, voluntarily giving up the support on the
reservations tendered them by the Government. On the streets
of Seattle it is no uncommon thing to see an Indian walking
along in a gaudy jacket and a ping hat; and his wife no
longer his squaw wears a blanket and a bustle. The effect of
mixing civilized follies with savage simplicity is funny enough.
Starting south from Semiahmoo, a queer little town built
out into the sea on piles, I was landed at ten o'clock at night
on a lonely island, there to await the chance of a fisherman's
boat to carry me to Victoria, British Columbia. A walk of
four miles through a dense forest brought me to the west side
of the island ; there I lay down, thinking of Robinson Crusoe
and wondering if he felt any more lonely than I then did on
that desert island in Puget Sound. No sign of humanity was
visible, only high bluffs and snow-capped mountains, and a
dark, dense forest. Next morning, strolling along the beach, I
came across the ruins of a fisher's hut on a sand-hill a few
152 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
yards above high tide. The roof was fallen in ; on the rotten
floor lay a lot of fishing-tackle nets, old rubber boots, and
half-decayed clothing. Back of the tumble-down hut was a
lonely grave. It was not a cheerful place ; I was glad when a
fisherman's boat carried me over to Victoria. The entrance to
that sleepy and thoroughly English town is through a narrow
gate-way in the sea. Our little fishing-smack passed along at
the base of high cliffs that hid all view of the town lying so
snugly hid in the valley beyond. A sudden turn of the rudder
brings the boat into a gap in the high cliffs, and we are in the
harbor of British Columbia's capital.
Down the centre of the principal street of Victoria is strung
a line of hansom cabs, just as they are strung out in the centre
of High Holborn in London. An American whom I met on
the dock was astonished at the difference between the people of
Victoria and the people of American towns so near. We saw
some men at work on the dock making repairs.
" By gosh !" exclaimed the American, " they commenced
building that dock when I was here six years ago, and dash
me if they've finished her yet."
In Olympia, a hundred-and-fifty-mile stage journey lay before
me.
" What sort of a stage have you ?" I asked.
" Why, a thorough-brace, of course," replied the agent.
" Oh, if it's a thorough-brace I'm all right," I said, and re-
turned to the hotel. I had not the slightest idea what a thor-
ough-brace was, and trusted to luck to come out alive from that
perilous journey.
The road was over high hills and mountains. Only one
stretch of level country was passed ; this was marked by a pe-
culiar formation of mounds, whether natural or built by Ind-
ians I do not know. These mounds are ten or fifteen feet
high, and about fifty feet in diameter at the base. For miles
and miles they are close together on either side of the road.
When we entered the forest again, after passing the mound
country, our progress was stopped by the huge trunk of a half-
THROUGH THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. 153
burned tree that lay stretched across the road. The thick
growth of underbrush and trees on both sides of the road
made it as difficult to make a detour around the fallen trunk
as it was to get over it. Luckily, the driver had an axe. To
work we went chop, chop, chop. By midnight that big tree
was cut through ; then several hours' more hard work was spent
with stout oak poles rolling the log out of the road. It was
daybreak before we moved on. On the second day we emerged
from the forest, and thence for forty miles our way lay along
a smooth beach. The ocean roared in our ears, the surf broke
under our wheels. Thousands of sea-gulls swarmed on that
lonely beach. At the approach of the stage they rose in a
cloud, flew ahead a quarter of a mile, where they lighted on
the sand a moment, to rise again like a cloud over our heads
as soon as the stage rattled up. I saw an eagle swoop down
on a wild-duck and carry it up out of sight. The sea-gulls are
not afraid of eagles; they permit them to approach without
showing the slightest uneasiness. Sea-gull meat is so tough
that eagles and hawks do not like it ; hence the gulls' lack of
fear at the approach of the king of birds.
I had been told that the town whither I was going was a
small place; yet when the stage drove up, it was with difficulty
that we made a way through the crowd that thronged the street.
I went at once to the Court-house. Court had adjourned.
" Where is the judge ?"
" Gone to the circus."
I went to the Post-office ; it was closed. A slate on the door
informed me that the postmaster would not be back until after
the circus. A small branch railroad had just been completed
to this town. It was the first circus that had ever been there,
and the people flocked in for a hundred miles around. A mot-
ley crew of backwoodsmen stared at the glaring posters.
"What do you call them things?" said one, pointing to the
picture of a panther.
" That's a Bengal tiger a royal Bengal tiger," replied a rug-
ged old logger.
7*
154 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
" Are you not mistaken ?" I said. " That is a panther."
The logger looked at me fiercely.
"A panther, is it? I say it's a Bengal tiger, an' I think I
orter know. I've seed enough of 'em in Bengal."
I thought it wise to let it be a "Bengal."
Big tree-choppers lounged about, drinking red lemonade and
playing with toy balloons like so many children. The whole
town and country around was in a state of excitement. I had
to wait until the show left before I was able to obtain an au-
dience with the court officials.
The following " personal " items are clipped from the Kitsap
County Pioneer of September 10, 1887. They are specimens
of Washington Territory journalistic society notes.
" Sachman Bros. & wives, & Johnny Sigo, took in the circus Monday."
" The Mason Journal had a man shingling its roof yesterday. He fell
from the scaffolding onto a stump & hurt himself."
" G. Schultz has gone to Edison to chop for Gutherie's logging-camp.
He will not be gone long, we hope."
" John Blakely has gone to the Samish to work for Mr. Gutherie. Home
is the best place, John."
This last item shows the fatherly kindness of Western jour-
nalism. What Eastern paper would say in that paternal tone,
"Home is the best place, John?" How much good the New
York Sun, World, Herald, and other influential journals might
do for the hoodlum element if they would only feel a fatherly
interest, and persuade the boys that home is the best place !
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 155
CHAPTER XIII.
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA.
A RED BEARDED MAN WHO DEMANDED AN EXPLANATION. CLOTH
AND PAPER HOTELS. ROUTED BY ROACHES. RUINOUS INTEREST
PAID BY WESTERN FARMERS. A HARDWARE DRUMMER DISCOM-
FITED. A HOLE IN THE GROUND TWO THOUSAND FEET DEEP.
AN ENGLISHMAN WHO HAD BIRD ON THE BRAIN. WESTERN STAGE-
COACH DRIVERS.
A GOVERNMENT special agent is often called on to do pecul-
iar work. Congress having passed a special act directing the
Labor Department to gather statistics concerning marriages
and divorces, I temporarily abandoned my labor investigations
and began looking up divorce records, and the causes of marital
infelicity in the North-western States and Territories. On the
way from Portland to Idaho, the train stopped at Legrand for
breakfast. The train porter had distributed to the passengers
circulars describing the beauties of the " Cottage " restaurant.
While standing on the platform debating whether I should go
to the Cottage, another man stepped up and said,
" Don't go to the Cottage ; it's the worst place this side of
Jerusalem. The restaurant on the other side of the platform
is only twenty-five cents, and is the best, into the bargain."
He had no sooner spoken than another fellow from behind
cried,
" What in thunder do you know about the Cottage ? You've
never been there ;" and he proceeded to wipe the station plat-
form with the rival restaurant-man. Seeing he was the better
fighter, I thought his eating-house might also be the better.
If it was, heaven save me from the worse one ! The breakfast
was horrible even for that part of the country. I was sick for
two hours after eating it.
156 THE TRA.MP AT HOME.
Neither the train nor Pullman conductor had the slightest
idea at what station one should get off to take the stage for
Boise City, the capital of Idaho. I questioned a number of
the passengers ; the majority advised Kuna, a miserable little
hamlet of four inhabitants the railroad agent, the hotel-keep-
er, the store-keeper, and the stage-driver. It was nearly mid-
night when I was put off at Kuna, which is in the midst of an
alkali desert. Six passengers also wanted to go to Boise City.
The stage had seats for only five. We drew lots to see who
should stay behind. I was one of the fortunate five. In com-
pany with a sheep-rancher, a school-teacher, and a couple of
cowboys, I started off in the night across the weary wastes of
alkali desert It was pitch-dark; we could not see the dust,
but we felt and tasted it. The school-teacher wore a rubber
coat to keep the dust out. He said he had lived in Idaho for
years, and had always to wear rubber to keep the dust from
ruining his clothing. For some hours we rode on in silence ;
then it was broken by the cowboy. I felt something in the
dark pawing in the neighborhood of my nose.
" What is that ?" I asked.
" My tickler ; take a swig ;" said the generous cowboy, who
seemed to be as much astonished when I told him I never
drank whiskey, as if I had said I never ate bread and meat. He
pawed around in the dark until he found the hands of the
school-teacher. The latter drank, as I could tell by the gurgle ;
then the sheep-man took a pull.
" I say, pard, don't I hear water a-gurgling in there ?"
"Guess you do," responded the cowboy, cheerfully.
" Well, why doncher pass her this way ?" continued the driver.
The tickler was passed up, and the gurgling indicated a
liberal quantity swallowed. This operation was repeated so
often that I began to have fears as to our safety. The road
in many places wound along steep bluffs, heights above and
precipices below. Steady nerves and a clear brain were desir-
able in a driver on that road. However, there was no accident,
and at three o'clock in the morning the stage rattled across
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 157
the bridge over the Boise River into the Territory's capital a
busy, live Western town of three thousand inhabitants. The
Government buildings, as the United States Assay House, the
Capitol, Court-house, etc., are handsome edifices, made of stone
and brick. The surrounding hills are bleak and bare. No
trees or grass. The beautiful little capital, with its running
streams of water in the streets, its trees and green grass, is like
an oasis in the desert. On a green plot between the Capitol
building and the Town School is a large equestrian statue of
Washington. The statue, which was carved out of a huge
piece of wood by a carpenter, is gilded, and presents a very
striking appearance.
One of the divorce cases in Boise City was that of Judge
X , whose wife had run away with another man. There
were a number of sensational episodes connected with the case,
and the judge was told by some practical joker that I intended
using it on that account and reporting it in full. I was aston-
ished next morning to see a large, red-bearded man walk into
my room at the hotel without so much as knocking, and in-
form me, with a resolute air, that he meant to have an expla-
nation.
" What is there to explain?"
" What in thunderation has the public to do with my di-
vorce ?"
" Nothing, that I am aware of."
"Why, then, are you going to publish a report of it?"
" I am not."
When I explained that the investigation took no account
of names, but was purely statistical, the red-bearded man was
mollified, and extended a cordial invitation to " licker."
Placerville, a small village forty-five miles from Boise City,
is in the midst of the mining district. The hills around this
town are rich with gold. The precious metal is washed from
the very surface of the earth. The miners live for months at
a time in miserable cabins, eat bacon and beans, and once a
year go to Placerville, where they pay up old debts, then do
158 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
what is called " blow in " the rest of their year's income at
poker. A game which was begun the night of my arrival
(Friday) did not end until Monday morning. For sixty hours
the players sat around the table, their meals being brought to
them, and played until they were too exhausted to sit up
longer.
Going from Boise City to Silver City in a hired team, we
passed a saloon that apparently expected to draw on coyotes
alone for patronage. There was no human life near : this
pioneer dram-shop was set down in the midst of the desert.
Our driver was about to pass by without stopping, when a
seedy-looking man emerged from the saloon and said,
"Air you gentlemen goin' to Silver?"
" We are."
" Then I must tax you half a dollar."
" Tax us for what ?"
" For the toll."
" Is this a toll-gate ?"
"No, but the gate is np the road a piece. I came down
here to get a drink. You can pay me here."
I asked the driver his opinion. He had never been over the
road, and did not know whether there was a toll-gate or not.
As the seedy man insisted, however, I paid his tax of fifty
cents rather than have trouble. When we had gone some five
miles without coming to a toll-gate, I set the man down as a
fraud; but he was not. Six miles from the saloon we came
to a small shanty that had a pole reaching out from one end
across the road. It was deserted ; but as we had paid the toll,
we did not scruple to pass on. The driver got down, pulled
the pole aside, and on we drove. The rest of the ride to Silver
City was over rough hills and mountains. AVe passed pack-
trains of donkeys loaded with ore from the mines, scaled the
Owyhee Mountains, and at last reached Silver City.
The most conspicuous object in this place, as in most of the
" cities " of Idaho, is the cemetery a bare plot of ground
almost in the heart of the town.
ADVENTUEES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 159
" Why are the cemeteries placed so near town ?"
"So as to be handy -like," answered a red- nosed inhab-
itant.
After coming this long journey, I found only eleven divorce
cases. To get the information concerning those eleven cases
cost the Government nearly thirty dollars. There was no
Court-house proper. The papers were in an old assay office.
The District Court clerk, who was also the Wells Fargo agent,
gave me the keys to the office. I went up to the deserted
room, and rummaged around in the dust until I found the
papers of the eleven couples who could not live happily
together. Some time previous to my visit the Court-house
had been set on fire by a man condemned to death, and burned
to the ground. The murderer did not escape. He and a
Chinaman were roasted alive.
The one hotel in Silver City is what is called a " cloth and
paper " house. The partitions are made of rough boards cov-
ered with cheap cloth and then papered. When I lighted the
candle in my room, which was a mere closet, a. swarm of big
black roaches scampered out from their hundred holes and
seemed inclined to dispute possession. I set a newspaper on
fire and tried to smoke them out. The smoke hurt the roaches
less than it did me, and I was compelled to share my room
with them.
During the night four inches of snow fell. The month was
August. Our cloth and paper house did not keep out the
cold. Not prepared for cloth and paper houses and snow, I
almost froze that August day. It was snowing when we took
the stage for Weiser City. The passengers, in summer cloth-
ing and linen dusters, shivered and shrunk up with cold. We
were a dismal-looking set. The stage stopped at Kuna. Four
cowboys slept in the room where I slept. Their snoring dur-
ing the whole night was worse than the buzzing of a saw-mill.
The next night, at Weiser City, we had a different sort of
entertainment. A travelling dentist was operating on his
patients. Their groans and grunts came to me through the
160 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
thin board partition. The last person operated upon was the
hotel chamber-maid. While filing and filling the chamber-
maid's teeth, the sympathizing dentist tried to alleviate the
pain of his patient by talking love. Tap, tap, tap went the
dentist's hammer, and between the dental taps the dentist's
voice threw in words of love which no doubt made the opera-
tion less painful.
A man at the hotel, an agent of a Boston loan company, was
travelling about looking at the farms, to see if they were good
security. He said that the farmers pay as high interest as
eighteen per cent., and that the lowest they pay is fifteen per
cent. On this subject an editorial in the St. Louis Republican
says,
" There is not a single one of the twenty-nine agricultural
States that is not, to a greater or less extent, under mortgage
to the money-lending creditor States. These mortgages on
farms and railroads represent an enormous aggregate. In Kan-
sas it is estimated that one-half of the entire wealth of the
State is mortgaged to the industrial States; and even the older
Western States Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, and Indi-
ana are mortgaged to the extent of twenty to thirty-three per
cent, of their farms and their railroads. It is stated that the in-
surance companies of Hartford, Connecticut, hold $70,000,000
in Western farm mortgages ; that the loan companies hold one
thousand mortgages, representing $76,000,000 ; and in the lit-
tle State of New Hampshire Western farm mortgages to the
amount of $35,000,000 are held. If the whole debt claimed
by the manufacturing States on the farms and railroads of the
agricultural States could be ascertained, it would probably be
not less than $3,000,000,000, bearing an annual interest of
$180,000,000. ... It is no wonder the manufacturing States
have grown enormously rich under the Federal policy of the
last twenty-six years. They have shaped that policy in its two
most practical features revenue and finance and shaped it
with such effect as to make themselves owners of one-half of
the entire wealth of the country, and to force the agricnlt-
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 161
ural States to pay them $180,000,000 a year in interest
alone."*
New England, with its twelve votes in the Senate to the
two votes of any other State (New England is, to all intents
and purposes, one State one in interest, in feeling), has long
enjoyed a monopoly of power in shaping the policy of the
Government, and, as we see, has exerted that power to impose
robbing tariff laws on the people, under the specious plea of
protecting them.
There was only one divorce case in Asotin, Washington Ter-
ritory. Asotin is a remote place, difficult of access, but the
Government wanted that divorce reported. Accordingly, I took
the train to Riparia, thence took a boat up Snake River to
Lewiston, and there took a team for Asotin, which has one hun-
dred and twenty-five inhabitants, and had one divorce case.
The office of the court clerk is a shanty set in the centre of a
watermelon-patch. I went to the shanty office, dined on water-
melon, then started for the Court-house. The North-west is so
vast, and the people are so migratory, that great distances are
not considered. Sheriffs think nothing of bringing jurors and
witnesses fifty or a hundred miles : a mile or two deserves no
notice. Court-houses are sometimes set upon high places diffi-
cult of access. The Court-house in Asotin is on the top of a
mountain six or seven hundred feet high. I was three-quar-
ters of an hour reaching it.
" It's good to take the wind out of the lawyers," said the
district clerk, when I asked why the Court-house was built on
the top of that lonely hill.
Snake River, in some places, is lined on both sides by bluffs
of basalt rock a thousand feet high ; in other places it has mud-
banks about as picturesque as the banks of the Mississippi. It
was in one of these mud-bank districts that I saw a hardware
* According to the Michigan Labor Commissioner, February, 1888, the
mortgages on farms in the single State of Michigan amount to $64,000,000,
paying an annual interest of $5,000,000.
162 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
drummer put to flight by a rough backwoodsman. A ware-
house in Lewiston had been set afloat in the flood during a
big rise in Snake River the preceding spring. The warehouse
drifted eight miles down the river to a village called Alpowa.
There, running against a rock, it was demolished, and the two
heavy iron safes sank in deep water. No effort was made to
get the safes out until the flood subsided ; then it was discov-
ered that an enterprising ferry-man had already hauled them
out, and refused to let the owner have them until he was paid
salvage. When our steamboat ran her nose into the mud-bank,
and the purser went ashore for the safe, the old ferry-man was
firm. He stood by, shot-gun in hand, ready to shoot any man
who attempted to touch " them safes." Then it was that the
hardware drummer, who had been boring the passengers with
his efforts at wit, came to the fore.
"I say, old man," he called out, complacently, "let him have
the safes. Don't you know the company is going to give you
a Christmas present of a hundred dollars ?"
" I knowed you belonged to the donkey tribe," said the
ferry-man, grimly, as he slowly raised his gun to his shoulder;
then he added, " Git off that deck, or I'll give you a good hun-
dred shot, as sure's my name's Bill Plover. Git !"
The way that hardware drummer dodged out of sight was
funny. We all laughed, although any of us would have trotted
off as fast as the drummer, had two gun-barrels stared us in
the face, and two eyes glared at us as they did at that facetious
gentleman.
Lewiston was formerly the capital of Idaho, but the people
of Boise City made a raid on the town one day, took the rec-
ords by main force, and removed them to Boise City; since
which bold move the latter town has been the Territory's cap-
ital.
Mr. O. K. Ben, who drives the stage from Lewiston to Mount
Idaho, a distance of seventy miles, is noted for fast driving. I
saw along the road-side the skeletons of the poor horses he
had driven to death. At Craig Mountain, where the second
ADVENTURES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 163
change of horses was made, a young fellow about eighteen years
old, wearing a slouched hat, the broad brim of which drooped
down over his back, eyed me suspiciously. Presently he drawl-
ed out,
" Air you the gentleman what dri\ 7 es the Dayton stage ?"
" No, I am not."
A sigh of relief came from under the slouched hat, and the
young man continued, in a more friendly way,
" Well, it's darned lucky you ain't."
I asked him to explain, but he refused to say anything fur-
ther. When we were on the way again, the driver told us that
the boy in the slouched hat was sunk up to its brim in love with
Miss Selina Smith. The Dayton driver had once driven Miss
Smith across the mountains, and the lovelorn youth, imagining
that the driver was trying to cut him out, became madly jeal-
ous, and had been on the lookout for his supposed rival ever
since.
" If you'd told him you was the Dayton feller," said our
driver, "he'd have popped away at yon sure as shootin'. He
keeps a six-shooter ready for that Dayton man !"
I made up my mind that I would never aspire to the affec-
tions of Miss Selina Smith, and under no circumstances would
I ever escort Miss Smith across the mountains.
At 7 P.M. we reached Mount Idaho, a very pretty little
place at the base of a high mountain. The hotel in Mount
Idaho was about the worst I ever saw. The room was a little
box. The dust on the pillow was so thick that it choked me
as my head fell on it. There were no sheets, only dirty-look-
ing blankets. The prospect of staying there three days was
not inspiriting; so I resolved, if possible, to examine the court
papers that night, and leave by the stage at four o'clock in the
morning. After disposing of a sloppy supper, I went to the
house of the district clerk. He had just gone to his ranch,
fifteen miles away. If I could not do the work that night and
take the stage next morning, I would be obliged to stay three
days. There would be no stage until then. I went to the
164 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
auditor, and told him that I must get into the Court-house that
night. The auditor hunted up a crowbar and a chisel. By
nine o'clock the door was forced open, and the record of divorces
lay before me. I often felt that it is ghoulish work at best
to dig up the records of marital misery ; it seemed particularly
ghoulish and gloomy there in that silent and dimly lighted
court-room. I just did get through in time to take the stage
when it rattled up to the door.
Walla Walla is a pretty town of over five thousand inhabi-
tants, yet has only one hotel, and a bad one at that. The
night before my arrival the Court-house had almost fallen
down. It was a three-story building. The jail was on the
ground-floor, and the county officials had their offices on the
second. The court-room was on the third floor. The crack
in the wall began in the rear near the roof. The floors of
all the offices were sagging badly, and there was no knowing
when the rear wall would spring out farther and fall in a heap.
I hunted up the clerk, and asked him what was to be done.
"You can't get at the papers," said the county clerk, em-
phatically ; " the whole thing may collapse at any moment."
" But I must see the papers. I can't stay here indefinitely."
" If you get into our graveyard I guess you'll stay here a
pretty good while, and I don't know of a better way to get
there than to go into the Court-house and let the roof fall on
you."
I idled around the town a day or two waiting for something
to turn up; but nothing turned up, neither did anything tum-
ble down. Not a man went near the Court-house. It was
completely abandoned. On the third day I went to the clerk,
and told him I believed I would risk it. He said he didn't
know of any law to keep a man from killing himself if he
wanted to do so, and gave me the keys. I walked up the steps
as softly as possible, and entered the office over the jail. The
floor was slanting in an alarming way ; the crack in the ceiling
overhead made me weak in the knees. I worked like a steam-
engine until dark, and when safely outside felt like saying
ADVENTUEES IN IDAHO AND NEVADA. 165
prayers of thankfulness. Next day I tried it again, and by
hard work finished all the papers by noon.
In Virginia City the court papers were formerly kept in a
cave blasted out of the rock under the Court-house. The Court-
house itself was a frame shanty, and the papers were lowered
into the cave every night to keep them safe. One night a fire
burned down the shanty Court-house. The papers in the cave
were all safe and sound, except that they got covered with soot
and ashes. After working over them, I looked like a chimney-
sweep or a coal-heaver.
The earth under Virginia City is honey-combed with silver-
mines, some of them thousands of feet deep. The miners
make $4 a day, and can work on Sundays if they choose.
Many of the miners whom I saw were educated gentlemen, who
preferred this work to book-keeping or clerical employments
that are more confining and less remunerative than silver-min-
ing. The men work in eight-hour shifts. They are allowed to
go to the cooling chamber at frequent intervals. No one im-
mediately overlooks or commands them. When they come out
of the mines they dress like gentlemen, and have a good time.
The ex-lawyers whom I saw two thousand feet under the city,
naked to the waist, digging silver, said they liked that better
than waiting for briefs that never came.
The Western stage-driver lives on the box seat of his stage,
wears coarse clothing, eats bad food, smokes bad tobacco, and
drinks worse whiskey. Were his wages three times what they
are, he would wear no better clothing, eat no better food, smoke
no better tobacco, drink no better whiskey. He is silent when
not drunk, and is happy only when holding the reins of six or
eight horses. He keeps at his feet a bag of small pebbles,
from which ever and anon he calmly abstracts one and, with-
out removing his pipe from his mouth, shies it at the head of
one of his leading-horses. If he wants to turn to the right,
he hits the left horse on the left ear; if to the left, the right
horse on the right ear. The nervous Easterner, who thinks that
a mishit might cause a horse to start the wrong way and dash
166 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
the stage down some dizzy height, holds his breath at the ap-
parently careless way in which the driver throws stones at his
horses' heads. I never but once saw one of these Jehus startled
from his stolid composure. He was sitting, as usual, in sol-
emn silence on his box. The passengers were dozing, when,
suddenly, all were aroused by an exclamation from a cockney
tourist who was " doing" the West, and evidently expected to
find wonders every minute.
" Look, Jack !" cried the Englishman to his companion.
" Look at that enormous bird !"
Every head was thrust out, every eye, even the driver's,
scanned the scene to get a sight of the " enormous bird."
The "bird" proved to be the head of a poor old horse
poked up above the grass some yards distant. A few miles
farther on a large jack-rabbit jumped across the road. Again
the Englishman came to the fore.
" See, Jack, that hopping bird J Curious birds in this coun-
try, aren't they ?' r
The driver maintained his solemn silence, but I saw a shadow
on his broad face. Even when the short-sighted cockney mis-
took a squirrel for a parrot, he did not relax his dignity ; but
when the sight-seeing Englishman saw a skunk with a bushy
tail ambling along the road just ahead of us, and nudged his
friend excitedly, and cried,
" Look, Jack ! Look at that lame magpie on the road !" the
driver, turning his eyes solemnly on the Englishman, said,
" It takes a tarnation fool to git bird on the brain, an' you've
got it !"
Our innocent cockney subsided for a minute or two. How-
ever, about dusk, when we overtook a gang of Chinamen, he
called Jack's attention to that " band of Indians !"
CALIFORNIA. 167
CHAPTER XIV.
CALIFORNIA.
THE "LABOR QUESTION" ON THE PACIFIC COAST. UNSETTLED
CONDITIONS. MILLIONAIRES, PAUPERS, AND DISCONTENT.
GREEK SCHOLARS AT WORK SIDE BY SIDE WITH CHINAMEN.
A WAITER WHO DOES NOT PEEL POTATOES. CHINESE LABOR
UNIONS. THEIR STRIKES AND BOYCOTTS. PHOTOGRAPHING UN-
DERGROUND DENS BY AID OF ELECTRIC LIGHTS. FRIGHTENED
MONGOLIANS. AT A CHINESE FUNERAL. BAKED PIG AND BIRDS'
NESTS. MUST THE CHINESE GO?
EVERY one knows that the conditions of labor are alike in
no two European States. German wages and German life dif-
fer from Italian wages and Italian life ; the Italian differs from
the French, and so on. The difference in the wages and man-
ner of living between the Eastern and the Western States of
the American Union is as strongly marked as the difference
found in European kingdoms.
I have spoken of sales-women in Eastern cities seeking in
vain work at $3.50 a week of seventy -two hours. In San
Francisco a sales-girl will turn up her nose at the proposition
to work seventy -two hours for $3.50. Seven or eight dollars a
week, with plenty of time for dinner, will come nearer to her
demands. The house-servant who in New York earns $16 a
month earns $20 or $25 in San Francisco. Young women in
San Francisco upholstery establishments are paid $2 a day.
When they work overtime, from 8 to 10 P.M., they receive $1
extra. Many in busy seasons earn $18 a week at work that is
neat and not laborious. In woollen-mills, shoe factories, and
other places where women are employed, as high or higher
wages are paid than are paid in large Eastern cities.
Of half a thousand working-girls taken at random from vari-
ous establishments in San Francisco, nearly eighty per cent, said
168
THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CALIFORNIA GIRLS PEELING PEACHES.
that they did not have to work ; that they worked merely for
pin-money, or to wear finer clothes. A compositor on whom I
called in San Jose lived in a handsome cottage, surrounded by
a lawn and a fruit orchard. The parlor was prettily furnished ;
a piano was in one corner; on the walls were mirrors and
paintings. The father of the young lady is a well-to-do
CALIFORNIA. 169
physician, able to support his daughter. She, however, chooses
to work and be independent. Every morning, she goes down
to a newspaper office, sets type all day, then in the evening
receives callers, or goes to the theatre along with the rest of
the society belles of the town. This, which is not an isolated
case on the Pacific coast, can scarcely be paralleled in any East-
ern city. I do not think women compositors can be found in
any Eastern town of thirty thousand inhabitants who live in
the style and mingle in the so-called fashionable society that
this girl type-setter in San Jose does.
In the fruit canneries, which give employment to thousands
of women and girls in California, I have frequently come across
young women of family and education who were working
temporarily in the canneries to make enough money to finish
their education and fit themselves for school-teaching. Others
were already school-teachers who were working during the
vacation to make a little pin-money.
The cost of living in San Francisco is quite as cheap, if not
cheaper, than in New York. Clothing is almost the only item
that is more expensive, and that is becoming less so every day.
A San Francisco working-man's cottage of four rooms, each
ten by fourteen feet, may be had for $12 a month, water-
rent free. In a restaurant he can get a passably good din-
ner for fifteen cents. I recall from the bill of fare of a certain
working-man's restaurant the items of two eggs five cents, a
mutton or lamb chop five cents, coffee and bread five cents.
There were no plate-glass mirrors, and no waiters in swallow-
tailed coats ; but the food, reasonably well cooked, was such as
a man of small means could well afford to live on. The San
Francisco working-man has also the advantage of Eastern
working-men in the matter of amusements. In the Tivoli he
can listen, for twenty-five cents, to standard plays and operas,
put on in the same style for which in other cities a dollar is
charged. But the great advantage of California is its climate.*
* In one respect the peculiar climate of San Francisco is anything but
8
170 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
San Francisco knows no extremes of either heat or cold. In
winter, when workmen in Eastern cities spend a large part of
their earnings for fuel, and yet are half frozen, workmen in San
Francisco are enjoying a temperature just cold enough to brace
up the system. In summer the New York workman wilts from
heat, succumbs to sunstrokes, while the San Francisco work-
an advantage to working-men or to any other class of citizens ; for the
climate undoubtedly has a great deal to do with the extraordinary num-
ber of divorces granted in the San Francisco courts. Coal costs from
fifteen to twenty dollars a ton. As it is not very cold, economical house-
keepers seldom deem it worth while to keep fires in their sitting-rooms.
The mistress of the house, having household duties to perform, is stirring
about, consequently can bear the cold of the room. The husband, just in
from his day's work, wants to sit down and rest ; but he feels chilly, and
after supper takes a walk to get warm. In Eastern cities men sit on their
front steps of summer evenings and chat with their families. It is too
hot to go about. In winter it is too cold, and they are glad to get home
and sit with the family around a bright fire. There is nothing of this in
San Francisco. The husband, as soon as dinner is over, puts on his hat
and takes a walk. His wife, when the house is put to rights, also goes
somewhere to keep from becoming numb from cold. From 7 to 10 P. M.
on almost every night in the year, Market and Kearney streets are so dense-
ly thronged that pedestrians are frequently compelled to walk in the streets
and gutters. It is like Broadway at mid-day. A stranger seeing these
crowds for the first time thinks that some unusual celebration is on hand.
This constant, and in a manner necessary, gadding about is a serious blow
to home life and happiness, and helps greatly to keep the divorce "mill"
going. 4920 divorces have been granted in San Francisco in the twenty-
one years ending with 1887 an average of 234 and a fraction per year.
In the same period there were 49,277 marriages ; thus one out of every ten
marriages in San Francisco is dissolved by divorce. If the estimate be
made for the last eight years only, it will be found that the number of
marriages dissolved by divorce is nearly one in six. Who can say that
the effect of the climate, as noted above, is not in part responsible for this
abnormally large proportion ? In Ohio there is but one divorce to twenty-
six marriages, in Massachusetts one to twenty-one, in Rhode Island one
to twelve. In France a Paris paper is alarmed because one out of two
hundred and fifty French marriages is dissolved by divorce. What would
the French editor say to one divorce to every six marriages, as in San
Francisco ?
CALIFORNIA. 171
man has to continue in motion to keep warm even in July
and August. Why, then, is not San Francisco the paradise of
working-men ? Why is there full as much discontent on the
Pacific as on the Atlantic coast ?
It is the unsettled condition of affairs. In the East, every
boy is told that he may become President, and live in the
White House at a salary of $50,000 a year and perquisites.
He is told how Jay Gould went to New York to peddle mouse-
traps, and from mouse-traps went for larger game and became
a millionaire. The Eastern boy hears of these things as he
hears of Aladdin and his lamp ; but when he quits school he
settles down to his trade or profession, and, generally speaking
follows that trade or profession for the remainder of his life,
satisfied if he makes a decent support for himself and family.
On the Pacific coast it is different. It is not school-boys
only who dream of becoming presidents and millionaires, it is
men. This dream becomes an agitating force which drives
men on by day and night. Sudden fortunes are made and
lost. Men do not aim at competence, but at wealth. In the
Eastern States, if a man becomes a street-car driver he expects
to remain in the business. In San Francisco the street-car
driver of to-day may to-morrow loom out as a lawyer; the day
after, a real-estate speculator or a doctor. It not infrequently
happens that men educated in the East for the learned profes-
sions, on coming to San Francisco are forced to daily labor for
a support. A few years ago, at a fashionable ball, one of the
guests was obliged to leave before the dancing ceased. He was
required to be on the street-car which he drove at five o'clock
every morning. In the East this street-car driver had been a
lawyer of promising ability. I do not know his subsequent his-
tory ; but it would not be rash to surmise that he made a
fortune in mines or stocks, or that he died a pauper, perhaps a
suicide, such are the extremes of life on the Pacific coast. In
a public gathering in San Francisco you may sit between
two men, one of whom may have been a restaurant waiter, but
has now an income of a million a year ; the other may have
172 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
been wealthy, but now lays bricks for a living. Another ten
years may see their positions again reversed. The present
bricklayer may be the rich man, the millionaire may resume
his apron and wait on customers in a restaurant.
A seventeen-year resident of San Francisco, who has made
and lost several fortunes, said he could count on the fingers of
one hand the men who are rich now who were also rich when
he came to California in 1867. The master- carpenter who
superintended the construction of his house turned up six
months later as a book-agent, and offered to sell " ' A Complete
History of the World ' for the small sum of two dollars." A few
months later the ex-carpenter and ex-book agent turned up as
a fruit-tree nurseryman. In that capacity he chanced to make
a hit ; and having married the cook of the rich man for whom
he built the dwelling, he and his wife now drive in their own
carriage, and give entertainments that are attended by the elite
of society.
On trips in the interior of California I have come across men
who could read Virgil and Homer in the original, and solve
problems in conic sections, working as farm-hands for $1.50 a
day. One man, a graduate of Yale College, and once a well-
to-do lawyer, was ploughing in the same field with Chinamen.
The remarks concerning the unsettled condition of labor
apply even more closely to working-women than to working-
men. The latter are beginning to realize that all cannot be-
come presidents and millionaires, and are therefore beginning
to learn trades with some view to permanency. As long as
a woman is young, she hopes to marry well. Of several hun-
dred working-women personally interviewed, few said they
were working from necessity, and still fewer seemed to have
any intention of making a life business of their trade. Many
of these young women live in their parents' houses, and work
to get spending-money, looking forward to marriage as their
ultimate fate, and expecting their husbands to do the wage-earn-
ing. The average time which a girl in San Francisco works as a
shoe-fitter is only three years, then she either marries and gives
CALIFORNIA. 173
up work, or changes from the shoe to some other business,
going probably to a woollen-mill or a canning-factory, or any
place, so that it is a change. These remarks must be understood
to refer to American girls. The Italian and other foreign work-
ing-people who have only recently come to the Pacific coast
work as steadily as they did in their European homes. Their
necessities force them to work ; but their children slack off,
and soon catch California ways and California independence.
Many labor leaders seem to believe that there is usually a
glut in the labor market. Such does not seem to me to be the
case in California. When I arrived in the Santa Clara valley
I found that the public schools were closed to let the children
help pick and preserve the fruit, which otherwise would have
rotted on the ground for lack of labor to gather it. Chinese
hands in fruit canneries earn $1 a day; white labor, being pre-
ferred, can earn $1 50. From close observation, it appears to
me that much of the discontent of California laborers results
from the fact that in " pioneer " times wages were very high
from $10 to $12 a day. Of course this could not last. Chi-
nese being the first to pour in and reduce labor to something
like its natural level,. white men raised the cry of "Chinese
cheap labor." Had Irish, German, Italian, or negro laborers
come instead of the Chinese, the effect would have been the
same ; that is, wages would have fallen. But, instead of the
intense animosity felt against the Chinaman for bringing about
the reduction, the change would have been received as natural.
The independence of labor in California is illustrated by an in-
cident which I observed at the table of a first-class hotel.
Guest to Waiter. " Peel these potatoes for me, waiter."
Waiter. " I don't peel potatoes."
Guest (looking up surprised). "Take them to the cook, then."
Waiter. " The cook don't peel potatoes either."
Guest (angrily). " Well, take them away."
Waiter (urbanely). " All right, sir ; we take potatoes away."
On another occasion I heard a guest at the hotel ask the
waiter to open his eggs.
174 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" That's something I'll do for no man," replied the knight of
the napkin, and the guest had to open his own eggs.
Any description of the Pacific coast industrial situation with-
out calling attention to the Chinese question would be incom-
plete. The main outcry against the Chinaman is that he works
too cheaply. If that were a fact, it would be ground for com-
plaint from the Chinaman's stand-point ; but it is hard to see
how it can be from the white man's point of view. Were it
conceivable, through some extraordinary change in nature, that
shoes, for instance, should grow on bushes, and be as plentiful
and cheap as peanuts, does any one think that mankind would
be injured thereby ? There would be a displacement of labor ;
shoemakers would be compelled to do something else ; but the
energy now spent in shoeing the world would be released, and
made free to be directed into productive paths. Mankind would
have the shoes from the bushes and the product of the new la-
bor besides. The net gain to the world would be enormous.
In the same way, if shoes do not grow on bushes for nothing,
but do grow out of the hands of Chinamen at a cost of next to
nothing, the benefit to society at large would be proportion-
ately great.
However logical this reasoning is, it does not apply to Chi-
nese labor; for, as a matter of fact, Chinese labor is not cheap,
and never has been, in California, whatever it might become
should the State be flooded with Mongolians. Chinese day
laborers on farms earn $1.50 a day. In the Eastern States the
farm laborer makes only sixty-six cents. A New York house-
keeper pays $16 a month for a German girl who can cook and
do the washing besides. In San Francisco, a Chinese cook for
a small family is paid as high as $35 a month. A seventeen-
year-old boy of moderate capacity earns as house-servant $5 a
week, and does no washing or house-work, only the cooking.
In the house of an acquaintance, a well-known San Francisco
physician, I saw a Japanese servant who, when not cooking
the family's meals, reads metaphysical works or English history.
This Jap told me that in Japan his father was a well-to-do man-
CALIFORNIA.
175
ufacturer of table sauces. He had educated his sons in the best
Japanese universities, and now they were taking a practical
and economical way of seeing the world and learning foreign
languages. Mewah stipulated precisely what his duties were
to be, and beyond the stipulation he does not go an inch. It
LOTTERY SHOP.
is not in the contract for him to answer the door-bell ; accord-
ingly, when callers come Mewah calmly continues his study
of metaphysics, and lets his mistress or the maid go to the
door.
The Chinese have their unions, their strikes, their boycotts,
just as white men have. The rules which govern them are more
strict. It is said that a Chinaman who disregards an order of
his union is very severely punished. This keeps other mem-
bers in good subjection and true to their unions. A cigar man-
ufacturer who gave an order forbidding his employes from
taking for their own use the finest cigars, found himself next
morning without a single Chinese employe. The white em-
ployes were at work as usual. The Chinese would not return
until a promise to exempt them from the rule was made. The
176 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
anomaly was thus presented of a white employer giving his
Chinese operatives privileges not enjoyed by the whites. In
the same way, in a certain fruit cannery, where an order was
given requiring the employes to stand while at work, there was
a strike for stools. The white women failed ; not so with the
Chinese. They gained their point, and were allowed to sit
while the rest stood up. The Chinese can do this because their
organization is so perfect, and because of the " highbinders,"
who hold every member to rigid obedience to orders.
The " Hong Tuck Tong " (Cigar-makers' Union), of which
the Honorable Mak Yan Lang is the leading spirit and di-
rector, numbers two thousand members. Each member pays
an initiation fee of $1.50. The Tong does not attempt to reg-
ulate the hours of labor, but no member is permitted to work
for less than the union rate, nor to work with any one who
works for less. In a recent case forty Chinese struck because
ten new hands offered to work below the union rate. The
strike lasted four days, at the end of which time the employer
gave in. The ten men were forced to join the union, and to
pay a fine of $5 each. The hall of the " Hong Tuck Tong,"
where meetings are held to fix the wages for which members
may work, is handsomely furnished. The walls are hung with
labor mottoes in the Chinese language. The seats, unlike the
rough benches one would find in a "white" hall, are of pol-
ished ebony-wood, ornamented with carving. At the end of
the hall is a raised platform, covered with straw matting and
provided with a complete opium outfit. Reclining here, with
pipe in hand, the dignified Mak Yau Lang presides over the
meeting and shapes the policy of his Tong (union). Yau Lang
spoke freely of the union, and gave me permission to make a
sketch of the club-room, but politely declined to sit for his own
picture. He also objected to the artist's sketching the club's
Joss, which was in a separate room adjoining the hall. In re-
ply to my remark that the big Joss, the public Joss, had fre-
quently been photographed, Yau Lang smiled serenely and
shook his head,
CALIFORNIA. 177
"Joss no likee. Big Joss take care himself. Little Joss
no likee."
There are few Chinese who do " likee." Bribes, entreaties,
strategies, are alike vain. " Chinaman no likee picture," that
is all that is to be got from them. When the photographer
sets up his camera, or the artist pulls out his note-book and pen-
cil, the Chinese vanish. In a Chinese overalls factory my pho-
tographer held sole possession for two hours, while the hun-
dred operators skulked around the alleys and streets at a loss
of $25 or $30, rather than have their photographs taken. Per-
haps they fear that if the police authorities have their portraits
they will not so readily escape identification in times of trouble
as they now do.
The Kam Yee Tong (Clothing-makers' Union) numbers eight
hundred and fifty members. A white manufacturer of overalls
who employs members of the Kam Yee once succeeded in get-
ting his men to work for ten cents a dozen less than the Tong
allowed. He kept a false set of books, showing an ostensible
payment of regular rates. The scheme prospered for a while,
then it was discovered ; the renegade members of the Kam Yee
were fined and expelled, and the manufacturer was black-listed ;
that is, he was not furnished with more men by the union, but
was left to the uncertain resource of "scab" Chinamen and
white labor. Said this manufacturer to me,
" It has been a great blow to our company. We cannot get
along without Chinamen. Since our fuss with the Kam Yee
we have had to rely entirely on white labor, which often fails
us. When a Chinese boss says that he will have fifty dozen
coats by a certain time, we can rely on getting them at the speci-
fied time. White labor is not so reliable. If there is no strike,
we may get the coats a week after they are promised ; if there
is a strike, we don't get them at all. The Chinese strike if the
strict letter of the contract is not carried out ; our white em-
ployes sometimes strike even though the very letter of the
contract be complied with. Our white employes may be or-
dered to strike by other employes who have some real or fan-
8*
178 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
cied grievance to remedy. This is the reason we prefer Chi-
nese. A manufacturer who wants coats made, or a farmer who
wants a field ploughed, prefers laborers who are not under the
government of other laborers, other unions whose orders, with-
out a minute's notice, may annul our contracts and stop all
work."
I do not believe that this employer really believed Chinese
operatives superior to Americans. Strikes interfering with his
white hands had irritated him.
The Chinese gold and silver workers have a union called the
Hang Wo Tong, which is more exclusive than the other Tongs.
To belong to this Tong an initiation fee of $10 must be paid,
and the applicant must have served an apprenticeship of six
years. AVhen he has done this, he hires himself out by the
year at the rate of $1.50 for each working-day. There are
only fifteen Chinese holidays in the Chinese year, so that, un-
less sick or voluntarily idle, the Chinese gold and silver workers
make $525 a year. The hours of labor are from 10 A.M. to
12 M. (half an hour for eating), from 12.30 P.M. to 4.30 P.M.
(half an hour for dinner), from 5 P.M. to 6 P.M., and again from
8 P.M. until 11 P.M. ten hours' actual work per day.
A Tong of more importance than any yet mentioned is the
Chi Kung, of which Ah Fook is general manager. Members
of the Chi Kung claim that their society corresponds to the
white society of Masons ; but those familiar with its secret
workings say that the Chi Kungs, or " highbinders," as they
are commonly called, are a set of thugs and black-mailers. Ah
Fook levies a tribute of $5 a week on each gambling establish-
ment in Chinatown. If a Chinaman is to be got rid of, the
highbinders, for a consideration, will undertake the task of "re-
moving" him. An officer of the secret police, from whom I
obtained much information concerning the Chi Kungs, was him-
self black-listed, and a reward of $800 set upon his head. Being
a cool man, a good shot, and always well armed, he has thus far
escaped, although two or three night attacks and broken bones
have resulted in the attempt of the highbinders to remove their
CALIFOENIA. 179
enemy. A member of a Chinese union who disobeys orders is
black-listed. If he makes himself specially obnoxious, his name
is handed to the Chi Kungs ; then that Chinaman disappears.
Nobody knows what has become of him. Perhaps he has re-
turned to China or gone to the Eastern States, or perhaps he
is dead. People do not know and do not care ; thus it is
that the Chinese unions are enabled to enforce implicit obe-
dience to their every mandate. White unions attempt some-
thing of the kind ; the only difference is that they do not carry
it to such an extent. The white scab is not blotted off the
face of the earth, as is the Chinese scab, but he is " shanghaied,"
boycotted, and perhaps beaten and badly bruised, until he comes
to his senses and joins the union.
A careful study of the situation in California will not induce
a logical mind to object to the Chinese on economic grounds.
No reasoning person can refuse to use shoes or blankets be-
cause they cost little or nothing, because they are made by
cheap labor or improved machinery, or by any methods which
would give them to the people for small sums of money ; but
there are other and deeper objections which underlie Cauca-
sian antagonism to the Chinese objections which every white
man can appreciate and sympathize with. The Chinese Em-
pire has four hundred millions of people. Suppose that ten,
twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty millions pour into our country
and virtually bring China over to America, what would be the
result ? These people are, and always will be, foreigners they
have no assimilative power. Chinatown, in San Francisco,
is felt to be a thorn sticking in the side of the body politic,
keeping up a chronic irritation, creating, as it were, an incura-
ble ulcer which every individual of the Caucasian race cordially
condemns and despises. The race prejudice felt towards the
Chinese in San Francisco is something which persons from the
East wonder at. It is even more bitter, more intolerant than
the race prejudice of the Southern whites against the negro.
Why is this? To an impartial observer the pure-blooded
African, with woolly hair, ebony skin, thick lips, flat nose, and
180 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ill-shaped feet would seem more repulsive than the straight-
haired, yellow-skinned Mongolian, who has small hands and
feet, and usually an appearance of neatness. The Mongolian,
also, has the advantage of having a civilized ancestry and a
great government to back him ; the negro has only savage an-
cestry and savage tribes at his back. The Chinaman comes of
a people who have a literature of their own, also arts and sci-
ences ; the negro cornes of a people who have not yet invented
letters, who have no written laws or language, of a people ut-
terly ignorant of the arts and sciences. Yet the Californian
feels kindly towards the negro, while seeming hardly to look
upon the Chinaman as human, with an immortal soul. I heard
a man from Connecticut who had lived fifteen years in San
Francisco, who ardently sympathized with the abolitionists, who
believed in giving the negro freedom and the ballot I heard
this man declare that every Chinaman in California ought to
be sold into slavery, that each should have a master, and be
made to work under a master's lash. An ex-Indiana man said
that any American who employed a Chinaman should be burned
at a stake. Is this bitterness because the Chinaman has a for-
eign religion, and no powers of adaptation no inclination to
imitate his Caucasian superiors ?
The gambling dens, the opium dens, the dens of prostitution,
the slavery of women all these seem independent of the law
and of the State. These conditions seem to stir and keep alive
the animosity of the white against the yellow race. In a lodg-
ing-room* sixteen by ten by seven feet, reached by an un-
derground passage-way fifty feet long, I found two rows of
bunks, one above the other, on each side of the room, separated
by a narrow aisle. The first tier of bunks was one foot from
the floor, the second two feet above the first, the smoke-be-
grimed ceiling three feet above the second. Here in this black
hole in the ground were twenty-four human beings stretched
on the bunks, either smoking opium or stupidly asleep from
* See Frontispiece.
CALIFOENIA. 181
the poisonous smoke. The den rents for $6 a month, making
the price for lodging for each person the small sum of five-
sixths of a cent a night. For the hovels in Naples Italian
working-men pay only $1, or, at most, $1.50 a month. But
with all their crowding and packed way of living, the Italians
cannot compete with the Chinese in the matter of cheap,
crowded, and foul lodgings. There was not even a hole in this
den to let in the pure air from without, or to let out the foul
air from within. There was one grated window, which looked
into the dark, dirty underground passage-way ; and this was all
there was to supply air to the twenty -four living men. I
was told that many Chinese die of consumption. No wonder.
Consumption is essentially a disease caused by foul air. When
an Italian family crowd into one room, it is because absolute
poverty forces them. Not so with the Chinese. Many who
lodge in low, dirty dens underground are cooks and servants in
families, earning $20 or $30 a month. Rather than sleep in a
neat room in his employer's house, the Chinaman will take lodg-
ings in an ill-ventilated subterranean den and sleep on a bunk,
and become steeped with the fumes of opium.
I had two balloons constructed, the one for oxygen, the
other for hydrogen gas. A powerful lime-light was prepared,
the gas being conducted through long rubber pipes to the cel-
lars and subcellars in which the Chinese sleep and smoke and
cook their food. It was the first time that a bright light had ever
been thrown on those dark dens, whose inhabitants burn only
the small lamps by which they cook opium before smoking it,
and by which they light their pipes after it is cooked. The
blinded, dazzled, half-stupefied inmates, thinking that their dens
were to be blown up, scampered out as fast as they could,
like scared rats. Officers were stationed at every exit which
led to the surface of the earth. The photographer turned his
camera upon the squalid scene, and by the aid of the powerful
lime-light took the first views that were ever taken of under-
ground Chinatown. When we emerged from the den, a crowd
of several hundred infuriated Chinamen surged around us. We
182 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
had been an hour or two below, and word had been passed
among the inhabitants of Chinatown that the police were mak-
ing a wholesale and extraordinary raid with burning lights and
balloons. It was with difficulty that the officers cleared the
way and afforded us safe retreat.
A Chinese working-man's trousers and blouse cost $1.50;
his shoes, $1.40. The outlay for clothing often does not ex-
ceed $5 a year. Lodging costs another $5. Here is the table
of earnings and expenses of a Chinese broom-maker :
Condition. Earns ninety cents a day, $315 a year. Lives twenty feet
under level of street, in a cellar room six feet high, ten long, and seven
wide. Six men sleep in the room, the six paying $1 a month rent.
Diet. Breakfast at 9 A.M. : Rice and pork. Dinner at 4 P.M. : Rice
and pork. The broom-maker eats during the day two pounds of rice, ten
cents ; pork, five cents ; oil, vinegar, etc., two cents.
Cost of Living :
Lodging, half a cent a day, equals, per year $1 82
Clothing 5 00
Food at twenty cents a day equals, per year 73 00
Two queues at seventy cents each 1 50
Shaving head twice a month, per year 3 60
Total yearly cost of living, for necessaries $84 92
Total earnings 315 00
Xet savings, per year $231 08
But to this actual cost of necessaries must be added the out-
lay for opium, a sum about equal to that spent for food.
What is then left of his wages the economical broom-maker
hoards until he has some hundred dollars, when he returns to
China to pose as a wealthy man. The place where this broom-
maker works is called the Quong Sang Lang Co-operative
Broom Factory. The Chinese idea of co-operation, however,
does not, I think, extend beyond the sign on the door. The
men are hired and paid so much a hundred brooms, just as in
any other broom factory.
No. 8 Bartlett Alley is a typical Chinese tenement rookery.
Bartlett Alley is about the width of a boulevard in Naples;
ALLEY IN CHINATOWN.
CALIFORNIA. 185
that is, about fifteen feet wide. No. 8 is entered by a passage-
way three feet wide. Seven feet up the narrow rickety steps
a sliding panel opens into the first small room, fitted up with
bunks, and occupied by a family of eight persons. Continue
up the steps to the top, and a court is entered, nine by eigh-
teen feet. Eight rooms, containing, on an average, seven per-
sons, open on this court. Ascend another narrow flight of
stairs, and more layers of cramped, box-like rooms are found,
each crowded with yellow-skinned Mongolians. A hole five
feet square, in the centre of the court, lets light down into the
cellar, thirty feet below. Here, deep in the earth, is a cellar,
divided into a number of cells six feet high, seven feet wide,
and ten feet long. In each of these cells, never reached by the
sun's rays, without ventilation, sleep six human beings. Each
cell rents for a dollar a month, so that lodging for one person
costs per day five-ninths of a cent.
In the centre of the cellar, under the square hole, are long
ovens of brick, with as many holes as there are cells. The
tenants of each cell have the exclusive use of one hole in the
oven. On that hole they set their kettle, build a fire under-
neath, boil their rice, and fry or stew their meat. The fumes
from this underground kitchen have no escape ; consequently,
they hang around and permeate every sleeping -hole in the
building. Chinese business places are on the same small scale.
A shoe store, half a block from the lodging-house just de-
scribed, is six feet deep, seven feet high, and two and a half
feet wide. A ladder which is set out on the pavement during
the day enables the two shoe merchants at night to climb up
to their bunk over the shop. There, amid a pile of old shoes,
rolls of sole-leather, pots, and kettles, they sleep apparently as
contentedly as if in the Palace Hotel. Before climbing to their
nest at night, pious Chinamen light a bunch of "punk," to
keep the devil away while they are asleep. Punk, which burns
very slowly, is an important adjunct to every Chinese work-
man's bench. If he has an imaginative mind, and sees spooks
during the day, all he has to do is to reach over, light his punk,
186 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
and the troublesome spook at once retires. This punk, which
is supposed to have so good an effect in exorcising evil spirits,
is made of camel's dung, and is imported in great quantities
from China.
The bakery of Ngiw Ngwi Tai is in a cellar eight feet deep
by thirteen feet wide. In the farther end of this dark cellar is
a brick oven, where the dough is placed, and cooked by a char-
coal fire, not under, but over, the oven, in a swinging iron bas-
ket. The dough is kneaded with a big bamboo cane. When
Ngwi Tai has finished his day's labor he retires to a box in his
bakery ; his workmen sleep in adjoining boxes, and often on
the work -benches, which are quite as comfortable, I should
think, as the regular Chinese bed, that consists only of rough
planks covered with straw matting, usually lumbered with
opium outfits and other household effects. Nailed to the top
of a Chinese bunk or bed is a stout sheet. In that sheet, three
feet above his nose, the Chinaman stows away his extra clothes,
shoes, pipes, and other articles. The roof of a well-to-do work-
man's bunk is often thus filled to a thickness of six or eight
inches.
On one visit to Chinatown I saw a Chinaman come out of
his door and hobble after another of his race. Just as the first
came up, the second turned around, and there they stood facing.
I thought there was to be a fight, but I was mistaken. The
first Chinaman dropped on his knees before the second one,
made some curious motions with his hands, then arose and
went off. I inquired of Ah Sing, a neighboring merchant in
" rats, skins, ants, and pomade," as the sign on the door read,
what the first man meant by such conduct. Ah Sing said that
Chinaman No. 2 was of rank in the Joss-house, and the kneel-
ing of No. 1 was a supplication for favor for a deceased friend.
I had observed Chinaman No. 2 give his kneeling countryman
a handful of narrow strips of paper. Nothing was written on
these strips of paper, but they were punched with an instru-
ment making peculiar little holes ; these holes doubtless con-
veyed some secret message to the divine Joss.
CALIFORNIA.
187
CHINESE MERCHANTS.
The funeral of the dead Chinaman took place shortly after,
and the man who had knelt on the street climbed up and sat
on the hearse by the driver. As the hearse was driven along
the streets, the Chinaman scattered the punched slips of paper
right and left on each side of the road. In the hearse by the
coffin was a large basket containing a roast pig, some vegeta-
bles, and a lot of cooked birds'-nests. These edibles are laid
188 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
on the grave for the benefit of the deceased during the time
the Joss is considering the question* of admitting him to the
fields of the blessed. This is the idea of the Chinese ; but, as
a matter .of fact, the edibles are usually for the benefit of San
Francisco hoodlums, who like to hang around Celestial funerals
and steal roast pigs from Celestial graves.
The number of Chinese in Chinatown is said to be not less
than forty thousand, and, despite the Restriction Act, the num-
ber is increasing. Chinatown in San Francisco is as much a
Chinese city as if in China ; the merchants, doctors, restaurants,
theatres, are all Chinese. There is not a Caucasian in the quar-
ter excepting policemen and tourists. There are several the-
atres, the Po Wah Ying (the Grand Theatre) being the prin-
cipal. The stage has no wings or curtains; the actors, supes,
and orchestra are all on the stage together. The property-man
walks about during the most thrilling parts of a scene, looking
at the audience, or giving a finishing touch to the arrangement
of the furniture. When an actor is killed in the play, he lies
on the floor a moment to illustrate death ; then gets up and,
in full view of the audience, watches the other actors.
A white man pays fifty cents to enter the Po Wah Ying ; a
Chinaman pays according to the length of time he purposes
to stay. For ten cents he can stay so long ; for fifteen cents, a
little longer; for twenty-five cents, he can remain all night.
The play usually begins at five o'clock, and well-to-do China-
men pay a quarter, and stay from that hour until midnight.
Yuen Sing, manager of the Po Wah Ying, was an actor of
note in China. He was a female impersonator, and received
the, for China, large sum of $6000 a year. The salary of an
ordinary actor is only $350. The leader of the orchestra gets
several hundred dollars a year more than the actors ; and he de-
serves it, for he has to listen to his own music, evolved from a
sort of fiddle with two strings an infliction which would kill
a Caucasian before the year was half through.
On the night of my visit to the Chinese theatre, I was sur-
prised to see among the few Caucasian spectators Mr. Arnold
CALIFORNIA,
189
Strotliotte ("Maurice Arnold"), whom I had last seen in Tur-
key, on the shores of the Bosporus. Readers of my " Tramp
Trip" will recall the Dervish melodies which Mr. Strothotte
furnished me (pages 192 and 193). At my request the tal-
ented young composer took out his note-book and jotted down
the music played by the Chinese orchestra from their stand on
the stage. The following air was played by Mr. Fong Fang on
an instrument not unlike a zither :
^EJEB
~ ._^i_^i_'^jL_g_i_'J: _j_j g __
t-tX^-gt
&
190
THE TRAMP AT HOME.
etc.
The principal refrain of the orchestra a refrain played again
and again, on wheezing Chinese fiddles amid the clash of
cymbals and gongs, ran thus :
ts 12 times.
The next air noted by Mr. Strothotte was that sung by the
actors the only air that is not calculated to drive a Caucasian
musician wild :
-A ' , tc-
CALIFORNIA.
191
It seems difficult for the Chinese to understand English,
though they sometimes feign to be more ignorant than they
really are. When breakfasting with a family one day, the
Chinese cook came in while we were at table.
" Boss, me want money ; me go," he said, excitedly.
" What is the matter, John ?" asked the gentleman.
" Mellycan woman talkee too much ; she too sassy."
The " sassy " lady had gently requested her cook to be care-
ful and not burn the bread. The feelings of Celestial cooks
are delicate. They fly up at a moment's notice, demand their
money, walk over to Chinatown, and live on a few grains of
rice until they find another situation.
Such, in brief, is an outline of the social and industrial con-
dition of the Chinese in San Francisco. Without dwelling on
the woman slave-trade, on the " Six Companies," who import
labor under contract, and enforce their laws and regulations by
192 THE TRAMP AT HOME,
courts and tribunals of their own, enough has already been said
to prove the truth of the assertion that the Chinese do not as-
similate with the Caucasians, and that their presence among us
is the presence of a foreign substance in the side of society,
with an effect injurious just in proportion as the number of
Chinese is large. One hundred thousand, or even half a mill-
ion, Chinese may not be felt, but let five, ten, or a hundred
millions settle in America, and our civilization will be Mongo-
lian, not Caucasian. Europeans who come to this country do
not remain Europeans. They adopt our ideas, and their chil-
dren forget that their parents ever lived in the kingdoms of
Europe. They become Americans in language, customs, relig-
ion, but the Chinese cannot, or do not, change. When they
come to America they bring China with them bring the most
odious features of their superannuated civilization polygamy,
the slavery of women, obedience to Chinese laws, and the opium
habit.
The fear that large numbers will come, if permitted, is not
absurd. When the first ship-load of negroes were brought from
Africa and landed on New England soil, who fancied, or feared,
that they would come to have the majority in number in some of
the fairest States of this Union ? Who imagined that they would
become a political factor, causing fierce battles and the expendi-
ture of billions of money, as well as the shedding of rivers of
blood? Who then dreamed that the time would come when
the negroes would outnumber the whites five to one, as in
counties in Mississippi, and cause many of the whites to aban-
don the country ?
As the negro has retarded development in the South by dis-
couraging the immigration of the more intelligent peasantry of
Europe, so the Chinese, if not restricted, will in all probability
injure the Pacific coast, and ultimately the whole country, by
keeping away intelligent and skilled white men and women.
CALIFORNIACONTINUED. 193
CHAPTER XV.
CALIFOENIA continued.
THE MYTHICAL CITIES OF THE GOLDEN STATE. HOW LAND IS
MONOPOLIZED, AND WHY WAGES IN THE FAB WEST ARE GROW-
ING SMALLER. A PACK-MULE TRIP OVER THE COAST RANGE
MOUNTAINS. A FRONTIERSMAN RIDING COW-BACK. LOCATING
A TIMBER CLAIM. REAL -ESTATE SPECULATIONS ON THE SANDY
PLAINS OF SAN DIEGO. CALIFORNIA HOSPITALITY. HYDRAULIC
MINING. HUNTING BEAR WITH SIBERIAN BLOOD-HOUNDS.
TRAVELLERS are accustomed to a certain kind of hospitality
in all American cities, both large and small. The moment you
arrive in a town you find a dozen men willing, eager, to have you
accept of their hospitality, to have you ride in their carriages,
sleep in their hotels, and eat at their tables. To this kind of
hospitality a costly kind to the recipient I had long been
accustomed in my travels through Europe and America ; but
I was unprepared for a kind of hospitality which greeted me
in most of the California towns that I visited. On returning
from the Court-house in San Diego one morning, where I had
been looking up the divorce records, I was approached by a
flashily dressed man, who took me by the hand as cordially as
if we had been life-long friends.
" Mr. Meriwether ?" he said, jovially.
I admitted my identity.
" From Washington, I see."
" How do you see ?"
" From the hotel register, of course. My name is Harring-
ton. We are always glad to see Easterners out here. Like to
see 'em have a nice time. Going to stay long in town ?"
" No, not very."
There was nothing in this reply calculated to encourage con-
9
194 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
versation, but Mr. Harrington did not need encouragement.
He started off again as volubly as if I had begged him to
continue.
" I have a nice team outside," he said. " Wouldn't you like
to take a spin ? Nice country, fine roads."
There was something flattering in the idea of making such
an impression on the natives as to induce them on five minutes'
acquaintance to take me driving. I got into Mr. Harrington's
buggy, and soon was bowling along a dusty road, drawn by
two ponies. They were scrubby ponies, but they travelled
fast, and seemed accustomed to the lash of Mr. Harrington's
whip and the chatter of his tongue. In San Diego the signs
on every side pointed to boom and prosperity. New houses
were going up, men were digging sewers and laying pipes and
pavements. It seemed as if a lot of people had been disem-
barked there in the morning, and all were in a hurry to get a
roof over their heads before night.
This bustle and life, however, was soon left behind, and we
were on a houseless and treeless desert. San Diego has no
suburbs. Mr. Harrington did not seem to be aware of this
fact. He showed me rows of stakes planted in the sand, and
talked eloquently of the beauties of the site and the climate,
of the rapidity with which San Diego was growing.
" Why, sir," he said, in a burst of enthusiasm, " in five years
the heart of the city will be where we are now. Stately build-
ings will rise like magic on these sand-fields. It is a great
chance to make a fortune."
" And to lose one."
Mr. Harrington observed me with a pitying look.
"Lose a fortune? Well, of course you don't understand;
you haven't been here long enough. There was a man who
came here from Washington last week. He meant to stay
only a day, and laughed when I told him he ought to make a
little investment before going back East. But when he had
been here two days he saw that it was not a laughing matter.
I showed him a good chance. Yesterday he sold the lots I got
CALIFORNIA CONTINUED. ] 95
for him, and he made fifteen hundred dollars by the specula-
tion."
During the rest of our ride I looked at sand-hills, and lis-
tened to Mr. Harrington's tales of the fortunes made by tour-
ists who merely stopped off, as it were, en route to San Fran-
cisco, and made a few thousand dollars in the course of a day
or so, to pay the expenses of their trip from the East.
" You had better try your hand," said Mr. Harrington, after
we had driven back to the hotel. " I know of several nice
bargains, and wouldn't in the least mind putting you onto
them. You needn't do anything more than pay a deposit.
That secures the land ; in a week you can sell for an advance
of forty or fifty per cent. There's no easier way to get the
expenses of your trip from Washington paid."
" No easier way except one," said I ; " that is, to have Uncle
Sam pay them."
Mr. Harrington's face showed disappointment at this reply,
which became more marked when, in answer to further argu-
ments, I positively declined to accept his kindly proffered
pointers in purchasing real estate.
Shortly after, in San Bernardino, the capital of Kern, the
adjoining county, I was approached by another stranger in the
same manner as that in which Mr. Harrington had made him-
self known to me. In many other towns I had similar experi-
ences with showy, vivacious men who had teams, with which they
were anxious to take me driving. It is hardly necessary to say
that these men were real -estate agents. They "spof' every
stranger from the East, and try to sell real estate composed of
ten parts of land and ninety parts sand, climate, and " boom."
- The country for miles around Los Angeles is staked off into
twenty-five-foot lots. Around San Diego and other cities in
Southern California the land is appropriated, and held at the
price which speculators think increasing population will soon
make it worth. In Northern California, land enough to sup-
port ten millions of people is withheld from occupation by
speculators awaiting increased population. I saw a " city " in
196 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
Col usa County that did not contain a single Louse or inhabi-
tant ; but in the real-estate circulars immigrants were told that
the " city " of Fruto was a flourishing place, with hotels, ex-
press offices, telegraph offices, and banks. There was, in reality,
only a stubble-field staked off into town lots. Farmers of
small means go to California. They find city-lot prices asked
for grain-fields, as in the case of Fruto ; and being, of course,
unable to pay any such prices, they crowd into San Francisco
and the large towns. Thus it is that, even in California, the
land of plenty, of vast territory and fertile soil, there are pov-
erty and misery, and strikes against low wages.
This withholding of the land from occupation, both by
speculators and by large ranch-owners, has so direct a con-
nection with the " labor question " on the Pacific coast that I
gave the matter particular attention. I went to a real-estate
office in San Francisco and told the agent I was looking for
investments.
" There are two kinds of investments that will pay big profits,"
said the agent. " Put your money in land or timber."
I had already seen enough of the way in which land was
bought up and withheld from actual settlers; I now asked
about the timber appropriations.
" The red-wood of Humboldt and Mendocino counties is very
valuable. It takes a splendid polish, won't burn (it actually is
an almost fire-proof wood), will make fine furniture, and is the
only wood in California fit for building purposes. Locate a
claim, and you will be a rich man in five years. You won't
have to do a stroke of work. Simply wait until people are
obliged to have your timber, then charge what you like."
The agent said that his charge for revealing the location of
Government timber land was one hundred and fifty dollars a
mere bagatelle in comparison to the hundred or hundred and
fifty thousand dollars that my claim would be worth in five
years. I did not care to invest with the agent. The better
plan seemed to me to go to the timber regions, see the settlers,
and get their views on the question. I got a guide, a pack-
CALIFORNIA CONTINUED. 197
mule loaded with hams, bacon, pans, pots, and a general assort-
ment of provisions, and blankets, and made my start from a
small rail road -station two hundred miles north of San Fran-
cisco. For an entire day the way lay through a vast wheat-field.
We reached the foot-hills of the Coast Range early in the after-
noon of the second day, and by the same night were on the
summit. It was a welcome change from the intense heat of the
valley. Ten hours before, we were baked in an atmosphere heat-
ed to the temperature of a Turkish bath ; now we had to build a
fire and wrap ourselves in blankets to keep from freezing. The
first night on that peak of the Coast Range Mountains was a
lonely one. A hundred miles to the east we could see the snow-
capped summit of the Sierras. Above and around us was only
a vast solitude. For a long time after I had wrapped myself in
blankets and lain on the ground, I gazed up at the stars, going
back in fancy to those days, the very infancy of the world,
when Chaldean shepherds slept out under the stars, and made
the first rude observations that in future ages were to develop
into the grand science of astronomy.
On the next day we came across a cabin in the very heart of
the mountains. The owner was a mechanic, as was shown by
the ingenious way he raised his water from a spring several
hundred feet below his cabin. A wire ran from the cabin to
the bottom of the ravine. By drawing a bucket up and down
this wire, tiresome trips up and down the hill were saved.
When we first encountered the owner of this lonesome hut he
was riding a cow ; by his side rode a boy on a two-year-old
calf. The man had a saddle, the boy was riding bareback.
" A new kind of horse," I said, pleasantly, as we drew up.
" 'Tain't a horse, it's a cow," replied the mountaineer, with
the utmost seriousness.
"Huntin' baar?" he continued.
" No ; we are looking for timber."
The man on the cow whistled and stared at us.
"Huntin' timber? Well, you're in the wrong deestrict for
timber. Timber land don't begin for fifty mile north o' here."
198 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
In the afternoon we passed an Indian " rancherie." A dozen
Digger Indians, who were squatting on the floor of the low
tepee, sat perfectly motionless as we approached. The Digger
Indians are inferior to 'the Comanches and Arapahoes. They
have a more dejected, cowed look. One old fellow was sitting
on the ground in his bark hut, his head sunk on his breast, his
energy and curiosity so small that he did not even look up
when I entered. The only members of the community who
appeared to have any life were the women. It must have been
" bake day," for every woman was down at the creek making
" penola," a kind of bread made of acorns. A fire is first made
to heat the ground, then a basin of sand is built, into which is
poured a mixture of pulverized acorns and water. This mixture
is cooked to the consistency of thick mush by means of hot
stones placed around the sides of the sand basin and in the
mixture itself. The old hags whom we saw engaged at this
work were evidently proud of their culinary skill. Every few
minutes they thrust their hands into the paste, then withdrew
them, and sucked off the paste and smacked their lips.
With the exception of these Digger Indians and a few trap-
pers, I found the timber district the home only of bears and
other wild beasts. There are few or no bona-fide settlers. The
timber claims are made by speculators; many even evade the
law by employing "dummies," who take up the land from the
Government ostensibly for their own use, but in reality for the
syndicate or capitalist employing them. In every instance where
a genuine settler was seen an attempt was made to deceive me.
Until I explained that I did not mean to locate a claim, that I
was merely on a tour of investigation, I invariably found my-
self in the wrong "deestrict" for timber. The hardy frontiers-
men who clear away forests and war with Indians and wild
beasts feel a natural antipathy for the speculators who step in
and, with the power of money, appropriate vast territories.
They deceive whenever they can. Had I listened to them
alone, I should have left California with the impression that it
had no timber land at all,
CALIFORNIA CONTINUED. 199
The line of investigation indicated in this chapter was fol-
lowed with some hardships, though, I must confess, with some
interesting experiences and adventures also, and resulted in a
table showing the effect on wages of the enormous land appro-
priations in California. As it is not meant to burden this book
with statistics, the table will not be given. I shall simply state
that a careful observation of conditions in all parts of the Gold-
en State reveals a close connection between the question of wages
and the question of land monopoly. Study the wages paid in
California at different times, and in different portions of the
State, study also the manner and extent of the land appropria-
tions, and it will be seen that the one is a reflex of the other.
Given the extent of land monopoly through large holdings and
speculative syndicate purchases, and the condition of California
labor can be told without further data.
Within the memory of men still considered young, laborers
in California commanded from $5 to $10 a day. But those
were days when there were no "cities" like Fruto; when there
were no fifty -five-thousand-acre ranches ; when every man was
free to command his living from the boundless territory around
him.
The owner of a ship on the ocean can make men work at
what wages he will. What if they are not content ? Men can-
not live on the water, so they are compelled to stick to the ship,
be the wages big or little. And so ashore, if syndicates and
capitalists are permitted to monopolize the land, laborers, since
they cannot live in the air, will be forced to crowd into cities,
and work for wages fixed by the keenest sort of competition.
The most casual observer in California can see practical il-
lustrations of this principle. He may go to the depot in San
Francisco, and see every day immigrants from Europe, and
from the Eastern States of the Union. These immigrants will
tell him that they did not come to California expecting to live
in a city ; but they were unable to pay speculative prices for
farm land, and thus had no other alternative than to crowd
into San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the smaller towns, adding
200 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
in that way to the already keen competition existing in those
places.
In returning from my pack-mule trip to the red-wood tim-
ber lands, I passed through what was formerly the richest part
of California. From one red sandy hill pointed out to me was
once taken in four days $108,000 in gold-dust. Millions of
dollars' worth of gold-dust still remains in these sand-hills, but
no one can legally mine it. The reason of this is because the
only method by which the fine dust can be obtained is the hy-
draulic method. That method washes down such immense
masses of debris that the valleys and rivers become choked.
Some years ago the town of Marysville stood on a bank twenty
feet above the Sacramento River. Now the river has become
so choked with mining debris that its bed is higher than its
surface formerly was, and Marysville is saved from destruction
only by a high dike, or levee. For a long time the inland
towns suffered from inundations. The dikes around Marys-
ville broke once, and the muddy waters of the Sacramento
flooded the town to a depth of ten or twelve feet. Finally,
the Bay of San Francisco itself showed indications of filling up
and becoming unfit for navigation. This aroused enough op-
position to the hydraulic mining process .to procure the en-
actment of a law forbidding that process under penalty of heavy
fine and imprisonment. Since the enactment of that law there
has, of course, been less hydraulic mining ; but where such
large interests are at stake perfect enforcement of the law is
difficult, if not impossible. I saw big iron pipes forcing water
to the tops of high hills. When I asked why water was con-
veyed to the tops of such barren-looking hills, miners laughed,
and said it was for " irrigation." A bitter warfare is waged
between the valley people, to whom hydraulic mining means
drowning, and the miners, to whom it means thousands of dol-
lars in gold-dust.
One night, on my return trip from the timber land expedi-
tion, as I was going along at a pretty sharp gait, looking for a
CALIFORNIA CONTINUED. 201
suitable place to camp for the night, I heard a roaring noise
that came from the side of a hill half a mile away. Red lights
flickered on the hill, and through curiosity I turned my horse's
head and rode over to ascertain the cause of the noise and the
meaning of the lights. It was a weird scene. A dozen grim,
determined-looking miners were directing a stream of water a
foot thick against the side of the hill. On my approach they
shut off the water, and one of them shouted to me to hold up
my hands. I had heard of the reception given " valley " spies
by men engaged in hydraulic mining; but as I was not a spy,
I felt no alarm when confronted with the command to hold up
my arms. One of the grizzly-bearded fellows disarmed me,
then demanded who I was, and what I was doing in the mount-
ains. I told him. He was dubious at first, but my letters
and credentials compelled his belief.
" It's dern lucky for you that you ain't a spy !" he said.
"Them valley fellers have been a-spyin' aroun' a leetle bit too
much. We ain't agoin' to let all this gold go to rot, an' if
we ketch any spies we're agoin' to let daylight through 'em !"
I had been warned not to go where men were mining against
the law, lest I should be taken for a spy. Several men had
lost their lives shortly before, and the Marysville jail was full
of miners guilty of using the hydraulic process, and of maim-
ing or killing men sent to watch them.
Sportsmen may like to know that the Coast Range of mount-
ains abound in game, both large and small. During part of
my trip I was accompanied by an old frontiersman, who had
three Siberian blood-hounds. These savage animals were splen-
did bear-hunters. Two were kept chained together ; the third
roamed about until he found a bear-trail. We waited until his
yelping told that a bear was scented, then unchained the two
hounds, and set out on the chase. The old woodsman said
that Plato never gave a false alarm. When he gave a loud,
long yelp there was sure to be a bear within a mile or two. It
was wonderful to see the savage dog nosing about, crossing and
recrossing his tracks, following every step of the bear until at
9*
202 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
last be came into the presence of Bruin himself. The woods-
man endeavored always to be present when the bear was treed,
for Plato would not hesitate to attack the ugliest grizzly ; even
a Siberian blood -hound is no match for a thousand -pound
California bear. With Plato and the two other hounds we
managed to get a bear and several deer in one day.
Sportsmen desirous of capturing good game, and of having
an enjoyable camp-out, should try the Coast Range. Take the
cars from San Francisco to Cloverdale, thence by stage to
Ukiah. From Ukiah the trip into the mountains must be
made on horseback, with pack-mule and camping outfit.
SAILORS' WOES. 203
CHAPTER XVI.
RAILROADS VERSUS PEOPLE. TWO OPPOSITE VIEWS. ORIGIN OP
THE LABOR BUREAU. CARROLL D. WRIGHT, COMMISSIONER AND
STATISTICIAN. THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE. HOW POOR JACK IS
TREATED. EXTRACTS FROM TESTIMONY GIVEN IN THE OFFICIAL
INVESTIGATION.
I CALLED, one Sunday, on two prominent California lawyers,
one a railroad lawyer, the other an anti-railroad lawyer.
" The people," said the railroad lawyer, " forget the great
benefits the railroads confer. They forget stage-coach days,
when fares were twenty-five cents a mile ; above all, they for-
get that a road over a sandy desert cannot be operated as
cheaply as the New York Central, with millions of population
along the line. The Central and Southern Pacific railroads
traverse, for the most part, barren, desert country. The South-
ern Pacific crosses the entire length of the Arizona Desert.
Can two-cents-a-mile fares be expected in such a country ? In
1883 the total number of passengers carried by the lines I have
mentioned was nearly nine millions. The total mileage for
one person would have been 291,109,508 miles. The travel-
ler of this distance could have gone to the sun and back, then
taken a trip to the moon, returned, and travelled half a dozen
times around the globe, and gone half-way back to the sun
again. How impossible would this statement have been twen-
ty years ago, before these roads were built ! They have opened
the country, made the desert bloom, and added millions to the
wealth of the people."
"'Added millions to the wealth of the people!'" said the
other lawyer. "What about the millions added to the wealth
of the railroad kings ? Such men are dangerous to the State.
204 THE TBAMP AT HOME.
They ought to be banished, as the Romans banished men who
were declared public enemies. If any one of these railroad
kings wanted to put you or me in prison, he could do it, and no
power could save us. Grand-juries would indict, petit-juries
would convict, and judges would sentence. When a man makes
himself dangerous to the railroad kings they first try to buy
him out, and they generally succeed. But should they fail in
that, he is got out of the way in a far more disagreeable man-
ner. Dennis Kearney made himself dangerous to the railroads.
He spoke to the people boldly told them how they were
being crushed under the heels of monopoly. There was dan-
ger that if the people were awakened they would pass laws to
compel the roads to pay their taxes, and make just return for
valuable franchises and rights. The railroads found it neces-
sary to put Kearney out of the way. He was offered two alter-
natives either to retire on a pension, or to retire within the
walls of the State-prison. Not being made of the stuff of
which martyrs are made, he accepted the former. A dozen
indictments were hanging over his head. He knew that the
power behind the throne would convict, justly or unjustly.
He took the money of the roads and was silent. Legislators
pledged to make the roads pay their taxes have been elected.
One man made a bitter speech on the floor of the House de-
nouncing the conduct of the roads. At the conclusion of his
speech he was called into one of the anterooms by a well-
known railroad agent. He was gone twenty minutes. Some
powerful argument must have been brought to bear, for when
he entered the House he voted against his own bill. Some day
the judges and legislators will be strung up with ropes around
their necks. I hardly expect any genuine improvement in the
situation until some heroic measure of that kind has been
adopted."
Many persons, when I apply for information, ask what the
" Labor Bureau " is, what results it expects to accomplish, and
what is done with the facts collected. A word or two by way
of answer to these questions may not be amiss.
SAILORS' WOES. 205
The province of a labor bureau is to gather all statistics re-
lating to the subject of labor the cost of production, the cost
of living, the causes of strikes, of boycotts; the results effected,
whether good or bad, by working-men's organizations, etc.
This information, when gathered, is laid before law-makers to
use as a basis on which to construct legislation. The first
State to establish such a bureau was Massachusetts. Shortly
after, Col. Carroll D. Wright, who in the State Senate had
shown a liking and a capacity for framing measures looking
towards the welfare of the working-classes, was appointed by
the Governor of Massachusetts to the post of Chief of the Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics. In this post Colonel Wright displayed
much ability. His reports on the condition of factory labor,
on the education of working-children, on working-women, and
on other phases of the " labor question," were thorough and ex-
haustive, and attracted the attention of national as well as State
legislators. He was deputed by the Government at Washing-
ton to visit Europe as a special agent to report upon the fac-
tory system there; and in 1885, Congress having established a
National Bureau of Labor Statistics, the President appointed
Colonel Wright chief of that bureau. Three voluminous re-
ports have already been issued one on Industrial Depressions,
another on Convict Labor, and a third on Strikes from 1881
to 1886. Following these will come reports on the Cost of
Production, the Distribution of Necessaries of Life, the Con-
ditions surrounding Railroad Labor, and the Social, Moral,
and Industrial Status of Working-women in Cities. It is not
unreasonable to surmise that State Legislatures and Congress
will be able to evolve better legislation on these subjects, with
the mass of data thus submitted, than they could do without
such data. The law under which the bureau is organized is a
broad one, and with the consent of the Secretary of the Interior
almost any question affecting the economic, social, and moral
welfare of the people may be made the subject of investiga-
tion. The present commissioner is one of the most able stat-
isticians in the Union ; his reports furnish Congressmen with a
206 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
good man} 7 of the facts which from time to time they throw out
to the country in speeches on the floors of the Senate and House.
Since the above was written, Congress has passed an act es-
tablishing a Department of Labor. By this change from a
Bureau to a Department the commissioner, instead of the Sec-
retary of the Interior, is made chief, and his reports are made
direct to Congress and the President. According to the act
establishing the Department of Labor, its general designs and
duties " shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of
the United States useful information on subjects connected
with labor, in the most general and comprehensive sense of
that word, especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of
labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means
of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral pros-
perity."
Another section of the act specially charges the Commis-
sioner of Labor "to ascertain, at as early a date as possible,
and whenever industrial changes shall make it essential, the
cost of producing articles at the time dutiable in the United
States in leading countries where such articles are produced,
by fully specified units of production, and under a classifica-
tion showing the different elements of cost, or approximate
cost, of such articles of production, including the wages paid
in such industries per day, week, month, or year, or by the
piece ; hours employed per day, and the profits of the manu-
facturers and producers of such articles, and the comparative
cost of living, and the kind of living. He shall ascertain what
articles are controlled by trusts, or other combinations of capi-
tal, business operations, or labor, and what effect said trusts, or
other combinations of capital, business operations, or labor,
have on production and prices."
In discussing the features of this bill, which from the above
extract the reader will see are very broad and comprehensive,
Commissioner Wright said :
" The old idea of securing information has passed away, and the im-
portance of exact knowledge relative to industrial matters is clearly rec-
207
ognized. Labor leaders formerly felt it incumbent upon themselves to
advance doctrines, reforms, and various schemes for the amelioration of
industrial conditions. To-day these men recognize the fact that the work-
ing-men are best served by a study of all the facts relative to production.
When bureaus of statistics of labor were first organized twenty years ago,
the idea prevailed that their province was to discuss principles, and to
adopt methods of reform, and to urge the same, not only upon public at-
tention, but upon the minds of legislators. The difficulties which arose
from this view did much to destroy the value of the work of such bureaus,
because each man, or body of men, had its views, and an official bureau,
if it adopted any one view, was bound to antagonize all others. Since the
first half-decade of these bureaus, the line of action has been different;
they have, almost without exception, directed their attention, not as for-
merly, to advocating pet theories for reform, but to the collection and
classification of facts surrounding production.
" The recent long tariff debate developed the actual want of a higher
grade of facts facts not in the power of the bureau heretofore to secure.
This want, stimulated by the requests of labor organizations, carried
through Congress the bill creating the Department of Labor. It is one
of the broadest scientific movements which Congress has approved of in
many sessions. It is an immense step in the interest of statistical sci-
ence. One of the chief functions of statistics is to remove apprehension
from the public mind. Fear takes place when interested parties begin to
cry down prices ; industrial depression is feared, and all begin to work on
the basis of restricted means. This leads to artificial industrial depres-
sion, which could not exist were the public clearly informed relative to the
progress of the industries of the country. The act provides that the com-
missioner shall establish a system by which the progress can be indicated
at intervals of not less than two years. The manufacturers will readily
co-operate with the Department, and the result will be, that at short inter-
vals the public can be intelligently informed of the progress our industries
are making; or if they are losing ground, this information can also go to
the public, and all govern themselves accordingly. The commissioner can,
whenever an inter-State strike occurs, detail three or four of his most ex-
pert special agents to investigate such strikes. The moral effect of the
immediate announcement of the cause and result of a great strike will be
valuable. Altogether, I think the greater scope of the bureau will prove
of no little benefit to working-men in particular, and to the country in
general."
The efforts of labor bureaus have also, I am glad to say, di-
rect as well as indirect effects. The good they accomplish is
208 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
not alone in affording law-makers data on which to base laws,
but oppressive evils have also often been discovered and killed
by the light thrown upon them. Numerous cases could be
mentioned where the impositions practised by unscrupulous
employers upon defenceless employes have been exposed and
stopped ; but I shall pass these by to mention one case in which
a whole class of labor received at least partial aid from the
publicity given to their wrongs by a State bureau through its
agents.*
The sailors of the Pacific coast, in the summer of 1887, sent
a communication to the California Labor Commissioner, and to
me, as the Special Agent of the United States Bureau, request-
ing that an investigation be held into the methods of shipping
and treating sailors. The investigation was held ; witnesses
were subpoenaed from both sides, employers and employes,
from all along the coast from Washington Territory to the
southern point of California. From the mass of testimony
taken, a most pernicious state of things was shown to exist.
It was proved that a sailor, in order to obtain a berth, had to
go through a routine that invariably robbed him of almost all
his possessions save the clothing on his back. Witnesses testi-
fied that they had walked the wharves for weeks seeking places
from captains who wanted men, but who refused to take them
except through the regular channels ; that is, through a board-
ing-house master. These boarding-house masters undertake to
supply captains with men. They get sailors into their houses,
make them drunk, charge them for goods never received, and
when squeezed of all they have, bundle them off on a vessel,
first taking care to collect and pocket the advance-money, for
which they have extorted from their victims written orders.
The printed report of the testimony taken in this investigation,
and the publicity given to it by the press of California, threw
* It is proper to state here that my connection with the Pacific coast
sailors' investigation was entirely at the request of the California Labor
Commissioner, and apart from my proper duties as Special Agent of the
National Labor Department,
209
consternation into the ranks of the boarding-house and ship-
ping men, and resulted in the formation of a shipping-office in
San Francisco, where sailors could apply with some hope of not
having to go through the boarding-house or "shanghaing"
process. That the reader may understand what is meant by
shanghaing, that he may understand the treatment sailors
had to endure, I will quote a few passages from the sworn tes-
timony given during the seamen's investigation in 1887.
From the testimony of David McDonald :
QUESTION. What are the hours of labor at sea ?
ANSWER. That is hard to tell. Probably ten hours, probably twenty
hours, maybe forty hours. Last trip they worked sixty-eight hours, with
seven hours' sleep.
Q. In what port were men obliged to work more than, say, twenty-five
hours?
A. On Puget Sound.
Q. Why were they obliged to work so many hours ?
A. When a ship comes to Victoria, we work all night there, then come
right across to Port Townsend in one or two hours. Work is going on
all the time when inside the Sound. We can't take any rest to speak of.
We are obliged to keep on deck all the time.
Q. We would like to collect evidence as to the sanitary condition of
sailors. State the size of room in which men are put.
A. In some boats there is a room six feet wide by ten long, accommo-
dating ten or eleven men.
From the testimony of Joseph Kelly :
Q. How are you treated ?
A. Sometimes very unjustly. If you have a grievance on board ship,
and you attempt to have it corrected, and go to your superior officer, you
are invariably told to go about your business and do as you are told.
Q. What as to the places in which the men sleep ?
A. It is something terrible in some instances ; and if I may be permit-
ted, I would like for you and Mr. Meriwether to go with me and visit the
places where the men sleep, and see for yourself. In some cases twenty
men are crowded into a space of eight by ten feet and four feet wide.
Twelve or thirteen men are obliged to sleep in there, with hardly any ven-
tilation. There is no light at all in some of them ; in others there is a
side-light, but at sea it has to be closed. Hot pipes running through it
make it almost unbearable,
210 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Another sailor, Charles Lewis, testifying as to the accommo-
dations in the forecastle, said :
" Take the George W. Elder, for example. There are twelve men in a
room. The bunks are about six feet long. If two men turn out in the
morning, nobody else can turn out to dress. You can't carry your valise
to sea; you have to put it into the 'morning call.' There are twenty
men that sleep in the ' glory hole ' of the Queen of the Pacific. She is only
about thirty-four feet beam amidships. When you come to her stern,
why, of course, she narrows in. There are twenty men to sleep down
there. The only ventilation has to come through a door that opens on
the stern. In opens onto what is called the ' fantail,' which is where the
propeller is. There are three or four steam-pipes down there belonging
to her steering-gear ; of course that makes it warmer than it otherwise
would be. On the Queen of tJie Pacific, and three-quarters more of the
steamships on this coast, the men have to stand up and eat. You know
perfectly well that men running backward and forward on vessels would
like to get a place to sit down and eat their meals. Another thing I
would like to call your attention to is this : a couple of trips ago I worked
a day and a half on the Queen of the Pacific. I asked for the day-and-a-
half's pay. It was not much, of course, only a dollar and a quarter. The
purser referred me to the main office on Market Street. I went there,
and the cashier said, ' You can go down and get your time-check.' I went
to the time-steward, Mr. J. Council, and he said he would not give any of
the men that left the ship their time unless he was compelled to do so by
law."
Q. What reason did he give for doing that?
A. Because we quit at one o'clock on the day of sailing.
Q. Was there anything in the Articles calling for a forfeiture of wages
in case you left ?
A. No. We merely sign an agreement that we cannot claim more than
twenty-five dollars a month. If a man works eight days and a half, he
gets paid for eight days only. If he calls and complains to the Company,
he is told, "If you don't like it, you can leave."
From the testimony of John Victor Peterson :
Q. Tell us how you were shipped.
A. I went into a boarding-house, McGaffany's, on Clark Street, a little
street near Jackson and Pacific, to get a ship. McGaffany got me a ship.
Q. Did you pay him ?
A. Yes; I paid him some wages in advance. I got sixty dollars ad-
vance from the ship, and McGaffany got forty-seven dollars out of that.
SAILORS' WOES. 211
Q. How long bad you been in his boarding-house?
A. Two days, and shipped the third day. I got two pair of overalls,
two shirts one of cotton and one of flannel one pair of oil-skin pants,
one pair of boots, four pair of cotton stockings, and four pounds of to-
bacco.
Q. How much do you think the clothes you got were worth ?
A. About ten dollars. The board was not worth more than three
dollars.
Q. How much was the tobacco worth ?
A. Three dollars.
Q. How much did the boarding-house master get that he was not en-
titled to ?
A. Fully twenty-five dollars. He said the clothes were worth that. I
didn't want to take them.
Q. Why, then, did you take them ?
A. I said, "I don't want anything." He said, "I'll go and buy them
for you."
Q. But if you refused to take them ?
A. Then I would have lost my job.
From the testimony of James Jackson :
Q. What is the manner of shipping men ?
A. My experience is, that unless a man stops at a boarding-house he
cannot get a ship.
Q. If you applied direct to a captain, what would he say ?
A. His first question would be, " Where do you stop ?"
Q. Why is it captains take men only from a boarding-house ?
A. I think because they get a commission. I shipped here on a vessel
called The Tacoma, of Bath, Maine. I went down to Mr. Roeben, and
asked him if he -had a chance. He said he could put me on. I had been
around shore for some time, but couldn't get a chance, although they
wanted men all the time ; but they didn't want me because I wasn't stop-
ping at the right house. Mr. Roeben told me I had to pay two dollars
and a half ; if I didn't pay, I couldn't go.
Q. Have you ever shipped direct without the intervention of any board-
ing-house master ?
A. No ; I do not think it could be done except in very small vessels.
From the testimony of John Lafferty :
Q. How are sailors shipped ?
A. Well, going to a boarding-house. When you go there, if you've got
five or tea dollars in your pocket, the master will keep you there. If you
212 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
have no money, he will trust you for ten or twenty dollars in his house for
board and drink until he can get a vessel and ship you. When you go
to a boarding-house on the Pacific coast, and have money, the boarding-
house master is in no hurry to let you go. He will keep you until you
have spent it all and run up a bill, and then let you ship. The vessels
notify the boarding-house master that they want so many men. The mas-
ter pays the captain so much money for the privilege of shipping those
men, and makes the men take their clothes and outfit from him. The
captain can ship no man except from that master.
From the testimony of Anders Fureseth :
" In the seven years I have been here, I stayed four years at a
boarding-house. In that time I had no trouble in getting a berth. But
since I left my boarding-house, it has been next to impossible to get a
chance. In 1885 I walked this beach six weeks. I turned out at half-
past five, and walked from the sea-wall out to Fourth Street looking for a
ship. Now, the answer I always got was either ' It is too early,' or, ' It is
too late' this as soon as I told where I was stopping. When I said I
was living private, they would say, ' Well, Clausen gets men for me,' or
Curtin, or any other boarding-house master. Sometimes it was a clothier;
anyhow, it was always somebody else than the captain. One day I saw a
captain who knew me. He said, ' I would like to have you, but you had
better see Kane.' "
Q. Who was Kane ?
A. A boarding-house master.
Q. What are the usual charges made by a boarding-house master ?
A. It is five dollars for taking a sailor ashore, five dollars a week for
board whether you stay the full week or not, five dollars for getting the
sailor a ship, and five dollars for cashing notes, advance-money orders,
etc. By the time I have been in his house three days, I have some tobac-
co, a tin plate, a pot, a straw bed, and some worthless clothing, and my
fifty or sixty dollars advance-money is gone. One boarding-house master
goes to a captain, and says, " Here is fifty dollars, if you let me ship your
men." Another boarding-house master offers sixty, another perhaps
eighty. The highest bidder, of course, gets the chance to ship.
Q. Is that paid to the captain ?
A. Yes, to the captain. I know a hundred captains who take money
in this way.
Q. How does the boarding-house master get his money back ?
A. Say a vessel carries fourteen sailors. All of them fourteen sailors
have been in the boarding-house master's house one week, two weeks,
three weeks, maybe a month or two months. All of them sailors has
213
some board-bill to pay. Some has drinks with their mates, and they are
put down for four when they had one. Another night they get drunk;
they borrow one dollar cash ; it is put down five dollars. Count that up.
There will soon be the sixty or eighty dollars the master pays the captain
for the privilege of shipping his men. A few years ago I entered in a book
every item I got, just to see what the boarding-house master would try to
do. My account was two dollars and a half, and he wanted to make it
out twenty-two dollars and a half.
Mr. Y. Hoffmeyer, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, in
summing up the case of the Pacific Coast seamen, said :
" The bill for his the sailor's stay in the boarding-house, or for the
miserable rags he has got, follows him everywhere, and is -always large
enough to cover his earnings from the trip for which he has signed. In
this way the large majority of sailors on this coast are virtually slaves of
the boarding-house masters, sent out to make money for them, and obliged
to give up their earnings on account of the combination which exists be-
tween the captains, owners, clothing merchants, and boarding-house mas-
ters. All the clothiers testify that they have agreements with the captains
to supply them with men. Why should the captains go to the clothiers ?
It is clear there must be some inducement, and that can be none other
than a consideration of money or goods. The evidence shows that the
goods sold to seamen are charged at double or triple rates. John Munroe
testifies directly, and bills produced have proven, that promissory notes
are accepted, and that, in addition to the profits on the goods, usurious
interest is charged for cashing the notes. We have further seen that the
sailor is charged for the chance of shipping. The evidence shows that
some captains pay off the men in some store. Why should this be so,
were the captains not anxious to exercise a pressure on the men to pay
the usurious charges of the merchants ?
"It matters not where Jack goes, he is robbed everywhere. It is his
money which makes the boarding-house and the clothing business so prof-
itable, that in spite of a fabulous amount of bad bills, a large number are
prospering in it and getting rich. It would be impossible to get all this
out of Jack were he not kept in a position where he cannot defend him-
self. The sailors demand from the National Legislature an act which
shall cover the following points :
" A law to prevent the giving of any advance-money.
"A law to make it possible for the sailor to ship himself, without the
intervention of any boarding-house master or other person, by forbidding
any one to appear with him before the shipping commissioner when he is
engaged by the captain and signs the Articles.
214 THE TKAHP AT HOME.
"A law which makes it possible for the sailor to draw the full amount
of wages due him in any port of discharge.
" A law providing that all cases for the recovery of seamen's wages in
the United States courts must be given preference over all other cases,
whether on trial or not, and be tried and disposed of within forty-eight
hours subsequent to the filing of the libel, provided the seaman shows
reasonable diligence in prosecuting the same.
" And now, Mr. Commissioner, we have presented our case for your con-
sideration. In closing, permit me, in the name of our organization, to
thank you for the hearty co-operation which you have given us through-
out the whole investigation, and to express the hope that the efforts of
the National and State Labor Bureaus will be made to assist the struggles
of a craft on whose exertions the commerce of the world, and thereby the
happiness of all human beings, mainly depends.
" With great respect,
" Y. HOFFMEYER,
" Chairman Advisory Committee Coast Seamen's Union."
To supplement this dry testimony, I will give in the next
chapter the story of an educated man, who, I believe, is thor-
oughly trustworthy. I met this gentleman, now a prosperous
lawyer, on the island of Maui, in the Pacific Ocean. His ex-
perience is only the counterpart of that of many of the tars
who ship from San Francisco after enjoying the hospitality of
boarding-house masters.
215
CHAPTER XVII.
CRUEL TREATMENT AFLOAT AND ASHORE. BEATEN WITH A BELAY-
ING - PIN AND LOCKED IN THE DARK - HOLE. HOW MEN ARE
SHIPPED.
" WHEN I left college," said the lawyer at Maui, " I found
myself dead broke not a dime in my pocket. I had ambition
and thought of law. An uncle of mine gave me enough money
to go West, thinking I could pick up a living while waiting for
clients. I found picking up a living in 'Frisco wasn't an easy
job. No clients rushed in on me, and it was not long before I
became desperate, and went down to the water, not to drown
myself, but to ship as a sailor. I had heard that sailors got
thirty or forty dollars a month big money to a hungry man
out of work ! Going aboard the first ship I saw, I asked if
men were wanted.
" ' Yes,' said the captain, ' the right sort of men. Any ex-
perience ?'
" ' No, but I can get experience. 1
" ' What's your boarding-house ?'
" It seemed to me that this was an irrelevant question ; but
as the captain looked sane, I politely informed him that I
lodged on Jones Street and got my meals where I could. The
captain glanced at me carelessly, whistled softly, and said that
he didn't believe I would do.
"I went to another ship, and,"to my astonishment, the sec-
ond captain asked me about my boarding-house. When I
mentioned Jones Street, he also suddenly remembered that he
did not need anybody just then.
" Going to a third ship, the same thing happened. I couldn't
216 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
understand it. Finally, when the fourth captain asked about
my boarding-house, I thought it was time for me to ask ques-
tions.
" ' Please tell me what my boarding-house has to do with
this business ?'
" ' If you ain't at the right boarding-house I don't want you,
that's all,' said the morose old tar, turning on his heel.
"An old sailor who overheard this followed me a few steps.
Rolling his quid to one corner of his cheek, he said, ' I say,
mate, you ain't onto this 'ere boardin'-house racket, air ye ?'
"I confessed that I was not. * Perhaps they do not need
any men,' I said.
"'No, it ain't that,' said the old tar, grinning; 'they're
payin' big blood-money, an' a-findin' it hard to git 'em at that.'
" ' Blood-money ! What's that ?'
" ' You go to Sheeny Isaacs,' said the old fellow ; ' he'll set
you up, an' you'll catch onto blood-money soon enough. You
needn't look for a berth long as you board on Jones Street.'
"This seemed odd, but I was determined to get through.
Sheeny Isaacs's establishment was a rickety two-story old wood-
en house, with windows looking out on a narrow alley. The
first floor was used as a saloon. Behind the bar stood a stout
man with a bulby, crooked nose and a mean-looking eye. I
stated my business to this man.
"'Ever been to sea?'
" 'No, but I think '
" ' Oh, dot's all right,' interrupted the crooked-nosed man ;
' I get you a place. Where your tings ?'
" I was almost afraid to say Jones Street, lest it might prove
a stumbling-block here, as well as heretofore. But Mr. Isaacs
was not unpleasantly affected, as the captains had been, by the
name. He went to the door, and calling ' Reuben !' a shabby-
looking youth, with a flat, freckled face and sandy hair, put in
an appearance, and was told to go and bring my belongings
from Jones Street. They came, and I was installed in a room
in which were four cots. I counted myself fortunate that only
A SAILOR'S STOKY. 217
two of these were occupied. The worst thing about poverty is
its dirt ; if poor places could only be kept clean, one wouldn't
so much mind. We might get on very well with crusts and
plain mush, but when it comes to rooming with unwashed men
and sleeping in dirty beds, one's very soul revolts. My break-
fast was dirty water for coffee, fried steak, and gutta-percha
bread. A day passed two days, three days and still I heard
nothing of my berth. I spoke to Sheeny Isaacs, reminding
him of my necessities. He eyed me with a curious smile, and
asked me if I thought he was running his house for charity.
'"Certainly not; that is why I'm in a hurry to. get work.
I don't like to run up a board bill when I can't pay.'
" * Oh, dot's all right,' said Mr. Isaacs, with a grin ; * I gets
my money all right. Take a drink?' laying his hand on a
bottle.
" ' No, I don't drink.'
" ' Well,' he said, pouring out two glasses of whiskey, ' this
is a goot time to learn.'
" He swallowed the contents of one himself, and as I wouldn't
take the other, he poured it on the sawdust on the floor.
" ' Dot's all right,' he said. ' Drink or no drink, all de same.'
"Then he opened his account-book and made a charge. I
wondered if he charged himself with his own drinks, but after-
wards understood the case better. Another and another day
passed, and still no berth. I had another talk with Isaacs.
He was very irritable ; his oily smoothness was gone. A vil-
lanous gleam was in his eye.
" ' You're a devilish fool !' he grumbled. ' You tink I start
a ship off just to accommodate you ?'
" * Then I must try something else. I can wait no longer.'
" * You can't go until you pay dot bill.'
" ' How much is it ?'
" ' Fifty dollars and forty cents,' was the reply. Had he said
fifty thousand dollars I would not have been more surprised.
I could have boarded at the Palace Hotel for less money. I
demanded ths items. Without hesitation he produced them
10
218 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
board one week, $5; drinks, $7.50; two pairs of boots, $12;
oil-skin coat, $6. Underclothing, pipes, tobacco, and a variety
of other articles brought the amount up to the sum he had
mentioned $50.40.
"'I have had none of these things,' I said, 'except the
board.'
'"Dot's all right. You tell me you want to ship; I buys
dem dings for you. Dot's de way beezness goes here.'
" * It's the way robbery goes, and you know it, you old
scoundrel !' I cried, losing my temper. ' I'll see you in Halifax
before I pay it.'
" The old villain called Reuben. From the door behind the
bar Reuben came. He seemed to understand what was wanted.
It was late at night ; there was no one in the saloon. Reuben's
first move was to lock the front door.
" ' What's that for?' I demanded.
" ' You don't go until I gets mine money.'
" ' You mean to keep me prisoner?'
" ' I means to get mine money,' he said, doggedly.
"The three of us stood still a minute. I did some mighty
fast thinking in that minute. I had to deal with a brute who
would scruple at nothing. Reuben was standing with his back
against the locked door; the other scoundrel stood behind the
bar. To rush at the door, hurl Reuben to one side and out,
seemed my only chance. I made the venture, leaped forward,
seized Reuben, hurled him aside, and that was the last I knew
for some time. When I came to my senses it was pitch-dark.
I thought it was dead of night, and lay still until morning
should dawn. My head was swollen and sore, and matted with/
a sticky substance which I readily surmised was blood when I
recalled the scene in the bar-room. Groping about the walls
and floor, I found that I was in a cellar, with a rough board floor
and brick walls ; the door was heavy, and studded with nails.
A dead stillness pervaded the darkness. I began to think that
the villains intended to starve me. While lying on the floor,
thinking over my unlucky condition, the door opened.
219
" * Dinner !' called a husky voice, which I took to be that of
the red-headed Reuben.
" Springing up, I made a rush for the door, but it was closed
and locked before I was half way. I greedily devoured the
food and drank the water, and after that slept soundly. Twice
every day after that came the cries, * Breakfast,' and ' Dinner.'
No matter how watchful I was, I did not succeed in catching
my jailer. On the third day, as I afterwards learned, the door
was opened a foot or so, and Isaacs, for this time it was he,
proposed a parley.
" ' Pay dot bill, and I let you out,' he said.
" ' I haven't got it ; I couldn't pay it to save my life.'
" ' You no got money ?' said Isaacs, softly.
" ' Search me ; take everything I have.'
" ' Veil, I won't be hard on you,' he replied, and went on to
say that the bark Viela was to sail for Melbourne on Monday,
and that if I would sign an advance-money order on the cap-
tain, he would open the door on Monday morning, and let me
out. I signed the paper.
"'Now,' said Isaacs, 'since you've sobered up and know
what you're about, I'll send your trunk down to the Viela and
to-morrow you'll go before the commissioner and sign the Arti-
cles, and go aboard. You've been on a big drunk, mine frent,
and just got your legs on again.'
" All this was simply stunning. I resolved to say nothing
until I was before the commissioner, and then I would' de-
nounce and expose this man's villany, and prosecute him to the
extent of the law. Next day he and Reuben and another fel-
low whom I had seen quite frequently loafing about the bar
went with me to the commissioner's. A gang of men were
there before us. It took some time for them to get through,
awkward as they were in the use of the pen, At last it came
to my turn.
" ' Sign here,' said the commissioner.
"I hesitated a moment. 'What's the matter?' asked the
commissioner, impatiently.
220 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" ' Mr. Commissioner, I denounce that man as a robber and
a would-be murderer.'
"The commissioner looked annoyed, as well as impatient.
The half-dozen other persons in the room only stared at me.
As to the villains who had come with me, they all three grinned
as if at a good joke.
"'That man,' I said, trembling a little for exposure in
Isaacs's cellar had somewhat weakened me * that man knocked
me down, robbed me, and kept me locked in a blackhole.'
" * What do you say to this T the commissioner asked.
" Sheeny Isaacs grinned.
" * The fellow's just out of a three days' drunk,' he said.
' These men can testify that he owes me a board and drink bill,
and wants to dodge paying. Look at this,' showing the ad-
vance-money order I had been forced to sign.
" ' Is this your signature ?' asked the commissioner, looking
at the order.
" ' I was forced he had me locked in a cellar. His bill
against me is a fraud and a swindle. I only owed him for
board '
" ' He ain't sobered up yet,' said Isaacs, gloating over the
confusion I could not help feeling.
"'Isaacs,' said the commissioner, 'you mustn't bring your
men here drunk again. I've no time for such rows.'
"'He's the worst case I've had in ten years,' replied the
boarding-house master. ' I don't think he can keep sober as
long as he's ashore.'
" ' Will you sign or not ?' said the commissioner. ' I can't
wait any longer.'
" ' Set your fist down and sail with me,' said a voice I rec-
ognized as that of the old tar.
" Up to that instant I had determined to fight it out ; then I
thought that the best thing I could do under the circumstances
was to sign, and get out of the way. The rascals had me.
There were no witnesses to my mistreatment. I had no money.
I signed, and went out with the old tar into an anteroom,
221
where there were ten or a dozen rough-looking men. A stout,
weather-beaten fellow came in.
" ' All here ?' he said, gruffly. ' Get aboard, then.'
" We were hustled into a wagon and driven down to the
dock, where a small boat took us aboard the Viela.
" The ' A. B. S.' (able-bodied seamen) were separated from
those who shipped as '0. S.' (ordinary seamen). These latter
are questioned by the captain. 'Ever been to sea?' If the
answer is yes, the next query is, ' Get sea-sick?' The 'yes' or
the * no ' did not seem to make any difference. We were all
turned over to the mate, and expected to obey orders which
only an old sailor could possibly understand. Some were set
to holy-stoning the deck, others to greasing spars and splicing
ropes.
" ' And you fellows,' said the mate to me and two others
who were together, ' lay aloft and bend the top-sail.'
"I hadn't the slightest idea what was meant by bending a
sail, and hesitated what to do.
" ' Why don't you lay aloft and bend that sail ?' roared the
mate. ' Lay aloft with that landlubber and make him bend
the top-s'l.'
" * Come along, mate ; it'll be the best for you,' whispered
one of the sailors ; and I followed him as well as I could up the
rigging to the top-sail. The Viela was now being towed out to
sea, and the foot-rope on which we were standing swayed so
that I expected every moment to be dashed to the deck, nine-
ty feet below. I did little more than cling to the yard-arm
while the two sailors stretched and fastened the sail.
" ' It's all in knowing how,' said Jack. I dare say he saw
death in my face, for I was deathly sick ; the sea rolled horri-
bly. I groaned, my fingers relaxed their hold ; I would have
fallen and ended all, had not the strong arms of the old sailor
caught me and borne me safely to the deck. The first thing I
heard was the mate demanding, * What in thunder I was doing
on deck?'
'"The landlubber's sea-sick,' said the old tar,
222 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" ' Sick !' giving me a kick.
"Somehow, the sudden and fierce resentment which this indig-
nity stirred in me dispelled my sea-sickness. Rage gave strength
for the minute. I sprang to my feet and leaped on the mate
like a tiger. I was not in my senses, or I would have known
that such an act would only result in my being subjected to
worse indignities. I was knocked down with a belaying-pin.
" ' Trice the cutthroat up !' roared the mate. Two great
brawny men seized me. I was powerless in their grasp. My
arms were stretched above my head, and fastened to the mast
by a cord around my thumbs. First I rested the weight of
my body on my toes. A minute of that made me feel as if
I weighed a ton ; then I hung for a moment by my thumbs, and
this was even worse. In ten minutes, as I afterwards learned,
I fainted from the intense torture, and hung, limp and sense-
less, sustained by the cord around my thumbs.
" ' Baptize him !' ordered the mate, who stood by looking on.
A bucket of water brought me back to life and agony. This
was repeated several times, each faint lasting longer and longer,
until it took four buckets to bring me to. When this point
was reached, the mate ordered me cut down and carried to my
bunk in the forecastle. When I came to my senses, I heard
the sailors talking in a low voice.
" ' He'll make a good sailor,' said one. ' He's got the grit.'
" * But didn't he maul the mate, though !' said another. 'He
might 'a' got pistoled as well as not.'
" ' Wonder the mate didn't shoot. Seen him do it for less,'
said another.
" * He knowed the poor boy warn't in his senses for sea-
sickness,' said a voice which I recognized as the old tar's. I
opened my eyes and looked at him.
" ' How are you now, mate ?' he asked, in a friendly way.
* You'll be all right in a day or two. Sailors don't knock un-
der for trifles, I tell you.'
" I was so stiff and sore that I could hardly move. My feet
and hands pained dreadfully. The old sailor, when it was quite
A SAILOR'S STORY. 223
dark, brought me a bucket of salt-water to bathe them in, which
gave me some relief. On the third day the mate came in.
" * Come to your senses ?' he said, sharply.
" I made no reply.
" ' You've laid up long enough. Get up ; look about spry.
You ain't a passenger !'
" I did not feel as if I could get up and look about spry ; but
when, shortly after, the stern command came, 'All hands aft!
set the rnain-s'l !' I was forced to get up and work with the
others. I did my utmost to * look spry ' and jump about, as if
expecting the mate's lash every minute. The way in which sail-
ors move under the sharp eyes of stern officers always seemed
to me to come of fear of personal punishment. I felt that the
mate was lying in wait to pounce on me. This feeling kept me
iu constant anxiety when in his presence. I had come to fully
realize my utter helplessness to resist indignities, however cru-
el. The men were ready to obey all orders, even to murdering,
or ' executing,' mutineers, as the captains prefer to call it. I
thought of all this, and made up my mind to endure all, and
give the mate no chance to punish again."
224 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SAILOR'S STOKY continued.
PICKLING A CHINAMAN. THE CREW MUTINY. ESCAPE TO A TROP-
ICAL ISLAND. WORK SECURED ON A SUGAR PLANTATION. THE
SAILOR BECOMES A LAWYER AND WINS A WIFE.
"AN incident that made me forget my resolution occurred
on the thirteenth day out. Ki Song Fat, the Chinese cook, in
an unlucky moment was struck by the swinging boom and
killed. A Christian seaman, when dead, is cast into the sea
with scant ceremony ; but the bones of a Celestial pagan are
too sacred to be consigned to the deep they must be returned
to Celestial soil. A ship's captain who respects this sacredness
and brings into port the remains of a Chinaman receives from
the Chinese companies a considerable bounty. So, when Ki
Song Fat died, the captain ordered Chips (the carpenter) to
preserve him. Chips's ideas about embalming were crude. He
got a barrel of salt-water, and made a strong pickle with lime,
assafoetida, and I don't know what not. Then poor Ki Song
Fat was doubled up and jammed into the barrel. Press as hard
as he could, Chips could not get the head clear in, and at last
he had to cut a square hole in the top and nail on a piece of
tin, curving it so as to let the skull stick up two or three inch-
es above the level of the barrel-top, making, as it were, a small
round tin dome.
" The captain ordered the cask placed in the forecastle. The
sailors sullenly obeyed. Sailors are always superstitious. They
fear and hate to have a corpse on board, but they feared the
captain more, and put up with the dead pagan until the pickle
began to leak out of the cask and drip down on the men in
their bunks, This was more than they could stand. They got
A SAILOR'S STORY CONTINUED. 225
together and held a secret conference, and decided that it was
of no use to remonstrate with the captain ; he was eager to get
the bounty on the Chinese bones. They resolved to act for
themselves. Four men were elected to do the job, and the oth-
ers agreed to stand by them. The old tar was one of the four.
In the middle watch the four men stole softly on deck. One
had a pot of grease in his hand, with which he greased the
pulley so that it would not squeak. A rope was made fast
around the cask ; it was hoisted slowly from the deck, above
the bulwarks, and then shoved out from the ship over the
water.
" ' Let her go !' whispered Jack.
" There was a loud splash, and Ki Song Fat was gone for-
ever. Unfortunately the mate, who was always turning up to
see what the men were about, heard the splash, and ran for-
ward, shouting, * What's that?' When he found that Ki Song
Fat, cask and all, was in the sea, he told the captain, who be-
came furious. Early next day all hands were called on deck.
The captain wanted to know who had disobeyed his orders and
thrown the cask overboard. Not a sailor spoke. The captain
stormed, and swore he'd punish every man if the criminals
were not given up. The men remained silent.
" ' Jack Grady, who threw that Chinaman over ?' the captain
then demanded, singling out the old sailor who had so often
befriended me.
"Jack said it wasn't fair to force a seaman to blab on his
mates. That wasn't what the Articles he had signed said he
must do.
" ' Then by !' swore the captain, turning purple with
rage, ' I'll make you sign Articles to that effect before I'm done
with you ; see if I don't. I give you five minutes to obey ray
orders and split on the rascals. I'll show you who is captain
of this ship !'
" He took out his watch and counted the minutes. Jack
turned as pale as a weather-beaten tar could, and so did all of
us. I am sure that I did, for I hardly expected the poor fellow
10*
226 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
to hold out and take the punishment alone for what we all had
agreed to do. Five minutes passed in breathless silence ; then,
with an oath, the captain ordered the first mate and the cook
to trice him up. The cook was not in the scrape, and the cap-
tain thought he would have no trouble in obeying his orders ;
and he didn't. Jack made no resistance great, strong, manly
fellow as he looked to be. Such is the habit of slavery. There
was a whispered conference between the captain and the first
mate. From the glance of the former's eyes, I knew they were
talking of me.
" ' Disobedience to orders is mutiny,' said the captain, ' and
shall be punished as mutiny. Fetch the cat-o'-nine-tails !'
"When the mate brought the devilish whip, the captain
looked at me, and with an oath ordered me to lay it on Jack's
back. I was struck dumb at this order. To be whipped is
about the worst indignity a man can endure ; the next worst is
to have to put this indignity on a fellow-creature, especially a
fellow-creature who has been kind to you. I resolved to die
before I would lay the lash on Jack's back. The poor fellow
looked at me. I shall never forget the expression of his eyes.
If ever eyes spoke, his spoke then of pity for me, not for
himself. Seeing me shake and turn pale, the captain thought
I was too frightened to obey his orders; so he ripped out
more oaths, and told me to hurry if I didn't want to catch it
myself.
" ' Lay on, my lad,' said Jack, gently ' lay on ; it'll soon be
over.'
" ' I'll die first !' I blurted out, bracing myself to endure
whatever might come.
" ' Clap him in irons !' roared the captain, * and feed the
lubber on hard -tack and bilge -water till he comes to his
senses !'
" The men looked at one another, but no one moved. The
captain fairly foamed at the mouth.
" ( One word, captain,' said one of the men. ' We are all in
this. None of us wanted that pickled Chinaman above us.
A SAILOR'S STORY CONTINUED. 227
The brine leaked through on us all alike. We all wanted him
overboard. Shall we iron our mates for that ?'
" * You'll iron 'em for anything I like 1' cried the captain,
reaching for his pistols.
" One who has never been in a scrimmage such as I am now
describing might suppose that the captain was taking small
chances. The crew were desperate; they were a unit; yet, op-
posed to the captain, they were powerless. The cook and the
two mates were with the captain. The four stood facing the
crew with drawn pistols.
" ' Put that man in irons,' repeated the captain.
" The men looked down the pistol-barrels that stared them
in the face. There was no chance to resist.
" ' We have to do it, mate,' they muttered.
" I quietly permitted the cook and two of the men to put
me in irons and take me down into the hold. Three days' con-
finement, fed on hard-tack and cold water, was pretty rough,
but I endured it. I would have endured it months rather than
lay the lash on Jack's shoulders. How much longer I might
have been kept in the hold I do not know. Rough weather
came on ; a gale blew so continuously that my services were
needed in handling the bark the more so as one of the ablest
seamen we had was laid up with a badly sprained ankle.
" The cabin-boy, Mark Tillman, told me that the captain in-
tended running into Kaola, one of the small islands in the mid-
Pacific, for water. The life on the ship was so intolerable that I
could think of nothing, dream of nothing, but escape. Mark,
the cabin-boy, and I were of one way of feeling on the matter,
and often talked it over. We knew that Kaola was in the tropics
we would not be frozen to death. But was it inhabited ?
Would we find food ? I resolved to sound Jack, and see
whether he would not join us in our attempt to escape. I
thought it more than likely that Jack would be ordered ashore
to seek for water. Strange as it may seem, he was unwilling to
venture, and tried to persuade me from it. He said that even
if I succeeded I would lose my wages. He thought that money
228 THE TEAMP AT HOME.
was what I wanted. Besides that, I might starve to death on
the island ; and, worse than all, if I made the attempt and failed,
the captain would torture me every hour of the voyage. The
only answer to this was that he was already torturing me. Jack
pooh-poohed the idea of my deserting in such a place, and said
that a sailor's life was never made better by desertion ; that I
would soon get used to it ; that by the time I had made two
or three voyages I wouldn't mind the mate's oaths or the cap-
tain's tantrums. I. saw that poor Jack had so long lived the
life of a sailor-slave that he had come to think that there was
no use in trying to do better. In this conversation I did not be-
tray my little cabin-boy, and Jack left me with the comfortable
idea that as he would not go with me I would give up the plan.
" The air was soft and balmy, the water smooth as glass, as
the Viela glided lazily along towards the green mountains and
the cliffs that rose majestically above the sea. The sides of
these cliffs were soft and green, except where some water-fall,
like a silver ribbon, trickled gently down the moss-covered rock,
losing itself in the vast bosom of the ocean below. At first
sight there seemed to be no harbor, but as the bark drew nearer,
an opening in the rock leading into a ravine which extended to
the top of a mountain became visible. Within a few hundred
yards of this narrow valley or ravine the Viela anchored, and the
captain gave the order to lower the long-boat. A cask was put in
it, and the second mate, Jack, and Mark Tillman were sent ashore
to look for water. I had a word with Mark before he started.
It was agreed between us that he was to escape from the oth-
ers and hide until I came. I knew that the captain did not
mean to set sail until morning, and I determined to slip over-
board and swim ashore in the night. I watched the boat start
off with a wildly beating heart. A heavy surf was rolling, and
it was not easy to land ; so, when near the beach, they got the
boat broadside on to the sea. There the water beat over her
sides upon the men until, a heavy swell coming, the mate, by a
dexterous turn of the rudder, headed her for the shore and rode
in on top of the surf, landing high up on the beach. It was quite
229
dark before we heard the returning boat. I was feverish with
excitement, and stood by eagerly listening.
" ' The boy Mark is lost,' the mate said to the captain.
" ' What do you mean ?' asked the captain, harshly.
" * He started off with others to find water, and never turned
up again. We waited for him an hour, and yelled ourselves
hoarse/
" The captain was very angry with all concerned for letting
the boy get out of sight. Jack said that he thought the boy
had fallen to the bottom of a ravine. The captain swore sav-
agely, and threatened to put the men in irons; he even went
so far as to say that he believed some of the infernal scoundrels
had killed the boy, and come to him with that fool-yarn about
tumbling down a ravine. I heard no more. This was my
chance. While swearing and blowing about the boy's loss, and
while the men were getting the water-casks on deck, I quietly
slipped down the ship's side into the water and struck out for
shore. It was not a great distance off, and I made it without
trouble. The moon came up soon after, and shed a bright
light on the solitary scene. How to find Mark was the next
question. As soon as I thought it safe, I set up such a series
of yells and whoops as that island had never before heard.
Much to my delight, Mark's answering yell soon came. We
were glad enough to get together. We fell asleep, with a glo-
rious feeling of freedom. No man can know what that feeling
is, unless he has first been subjected to the painful and shame-
ful tyranny of a master. When we awoke it was broad day-
light. The scenery was enchanting, the air soft and balmy.
Verdure and flowers were all around us. Birds sang and twit-
tered in the boughs and circled overhead. The sky was blue
and cloudless. All this was nice, but it was not long before we
discovered that we could not live on beautiful scenery. We
set about exploring the woods for wild fruits and nuts. We
found a tree bearing large green balls resembling our mock-
orange. Mark climbed the tree and threw down half a dozen
of the balls, but we made no use of them. The skin had an un-
230 . THE TKAMP AT HOME.
pleasant, acrid taste. .This was the bread-tree fruit, of which I
had often heard, but of which I knew nothing by experience.
Had we cut through the green rind and known how to prepare
the fruit inside, we would have had a nourishing meal. On fur-
ther search we came across a banana-tree. This satisfied our
hunger. We spent several days exploring before we. saw any
sign of human habitation. All the time, we subsisted on ba-
nanas and cocoanuts. At length, from the top of a hill, we
saw a cleared space some ten or fifteen miles down the coast.
We made our way towards this space. On reaching it, we saw
a cluster of small white cabins. A dark, rather piratical-look-
ing man stood in the door of one of the cabins. He stared at
us as we approached.
" * We are lost ; we are unfortunate sailors,' we said. * Can
you give us something to eat give us work and shelter?'
" The dark-skinned man stared all the harder at this address.
I repeated my request. The man called, in an unknown tongue,
to some one inside of the cabin. Another dark-skinned fellow,
with a black beard and a red handkerchief around his head,
came to the door. Then both men stared, and jabbered in the
unknown tongue, which we afterwards knew was Portuguese.
Presently the second man, motioning us to follow him, led the
way to the last cabin in the row. Before this cabin stood a
w'hite man, talking to another white man sitting on a horse.
The piratical-looking fellow who had piloted us jabbered some-
thing to the white man, who turned and eyed us keenly. I
tried my English on them, and was delighted to be answered
in my mother-tongue.
" ' Where are you from ?' asked the white man on the horse,
" ' We are Americans, from San Francisco.'
" ' What do you want ?'
" ' We want work; anything to earn our bread.'
" ' You can work in the field ; we have nothing else.'
" We accepted ; there was no alternative. For weeks and
weeks we worked, side by side, with Chinamen and Portuguese.
Our * home ' consisted of two bunks in a small hut already
A SAILOR'S STORY CONTINUED. 231
occupied by five Portuguese. The hard life was wearing even
on me, strong man that I was ; for poor Mark it meant death.
One morning, when he attempted to get up, he found his back
stiff and aching. He could not stand.
"'It's no use,' he murmured. 'I'm done for. I'll never
stand it.'
"This was cruel. I could not bear the thought of losing the
poor boy. I thought that if I could only get the manager to
make him a ' luna ' he might stand the fierce heat. A luna on
a sugar plantation has a room to himself ; he has a horse, and
his work consists in seeing that the gangs of Chinese and Port-
uguese under him obey orders. Wearing a striped 'jumper'
and a broad-brimmed hat, the luna rides about the field, di-
recting the men by signs. A luna seldom understands the
language of the field laborers. In the old time, in Virginia, I
would have thought a luna's work hard ; now I thought that if
I could only get promoted to a lunaship, our lives and happi-
ness would be assured. We would have a cabin to ourselves on
the beach, with the surf breaking at our very door; we would
have better food and more leisure. I determined to see the
proprietor ; in the worst event he could only refuse, and there
was a chance that something might be gained. Colonel
Thornton's residence was several miles from the sugar-mills.
The road thither was beautiful. The tall ferns almost met
overhead, forming a living tunnel of green, through which I
caught now and then glimpses of the sea and of the white surf
breaking on the rocks at the base of the cliff. Walking through
the grove surrounding the owner's house, as I came up to it
I saw a gentleman reclining on a cane couch on the veranda,
smoking a cigar. A lady was sitting near him before a small
easel, apparently at work on a picture. The lady was the first
to see me, and I declare, as she bent her eyes upon me I felt
hot flames run all over me. I felt a burning shame at being
seen by so beautiful a creature in such a state as I then was,
wearing the common field-hand's striped jumper, my hair long
and unkempt and hanging over my shoulders for the wind to
232 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
blow about ; my skin burned black as a negro's, while she was
fair as an angel, with golden hair. While I stood struck dumb,
hat in hand, she spoke.
"'Father,' she said, softly, 'here's one of the Portuguese.'
"The father looked at me lazily. I had picked up a smat-
tering of Portuguese, and held it a happy thought to pass as
one, so I said,
'"Bons dias, senhor' (Good-morning, sir).
" ' Oh, father,' cried the angel, in an excited whisper, ' he
looks exactly like a corsair a dreadful, wicked, handsome
corsair. I want to sketch him, papa. Make him stand still,
please.'
"'Sketch away, pet,' said the amiable papa; ' can you do it
while I talk to him ?'
" ' Oh yes ; talking won't matter, only make him stand still.'
" I stood stone-still ; the fact was, I couldn't move. I was
rooted to the spot in a dazed state of mind, while her lovely
eyes glanced first at me, then at the paper, as her white fingers
flew about with the pencil. I tried to muster up the few words
of Portuguese I had learned, so as to say what I had come to
say ; but somehow they fled. I could recall but two or three,
and those I repeated over and over.
" ' Sim, senhor sim, senhor ; Muito seu criado ' (Yes, sir
yes, sir ; your most humble servant).
"'Mo tenha vm medo ! Que quer?' (Well, well, don't be
afraid ! What do you want ?) said the colonel, impatiently.
" ' Sim, senhor sim, senhor.'
" 'Just keep him still, papa; don't let him go. It'll be too
lovely for anything. I'll hang it in the seminary library.'
"'Que quer? Que tern Vm ?' (What x do you want, my
man ? what is the matter with you ?) said the colonel, in just
about as bad Portuguese as mine. However, bad as it was, it
had the effect of bringing me to my senses. I told the colonel
in the words which I succeeded in mustering how poor Mark had
fainted in the field, and how it would kill him if he were not
given easier work. The colonel said that he would see about it;
233
to send the boy to him. I turned to go ; the girl entreated her
father to make me stay.
" ' Stand still, my man,' he ordered, just as if I were a slave,
though not unkindly. I stood still until she said I might go.
The colonel took a silver dollar from his pocket and threw it
at me. It fell at my feet, but I did not pick it up, and heard
her say as I walked off,
" * Oh, papa, he would not have the money ; he's too proud/
" ' Pooh ! such as he aren't proud that way,' laughed the
colonel.
" Mark went up to see the colonel, and was given some work
about the house. Two weeks from that he brought me a mes-
sage from Colonel Thornton that I was wanted at the house.
I went. The colonel was in his office.
" ' Mark tells me that you are an American ?'
" ' I am.'
" ' A Virginian ?'
" ' Yes.'
"'Your name is B ?'
" ' It is.'
" ' I knew a lawyer of that name in Virginia. He fought by
my side in the Confederate army, and fell in one of the battles
before Richmond. Was he a relation of yours ?'
" * My father was a lawyer, and was mortally wounded before
Richmond, and was buried in the trenches.'
" * He was my friend and comrade. Why did you affect to
be a Portuguese when here last ?'
" ' Was I fit to appear as a gentleman before a lady ?'
" After that, fortune smiled on me. When the colonel
learned that I had studied law, he used his influence with a
lawyer in Honolulu to take me into his office. I began to make
my way in the world, and two years afterwards, when I visited
the island of Kaola, I was properly introduced to Miss Thorn-
ton, just returned from Mills Seminary in California. She is
now my wife, and the corsair sketch hangs in our'library, in-
stead of in the library of the California seminary."
234 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XIX.
A TROPICAL TRIP.
INCIDENTS OP THE VOYAGE. A BUKIAL AT SEA. THE PASSENGER
WHO WAS "A BIT PUT ABOUT, "AND THE TALL MISSIONARY. CU-
RIOUS SCENE OFF THE SAMOAN ISLANDS. LABOR ON THE SAND-
WICH ISLANDS. EFFECTS OF THE CONTRACT SYSTEM. ILLUSTRA-
TION OF GEORGE'S LAND THEORY. LIFE AND LABOR ON SUGAR
PLANTATIONS.
IN pursuing the investigation into the treatment and condi-
tion of sailors, I resolved to take a voyage, and by personal
observation corroborate or disprove, as the case might be, the
testimony given before the Commission. The publicity attend-
ing the inquiries of the Commission had made me too well
known among captains and ship-men to hope to escape obser-
vation on any vessel sailing direct from San Francisco ; accord-
ingly, I decided to go to some other port and take passage on
a sailing-vessel with a captain who would not be likely to know
my name and mission. I elected to make the start from some
Sandwich Island port, and so one afternoon I boarded the Aus-
tralian steamer for Honolulu.
The Australian steamers that sail from San Francisco are
built especially for the passenger service. They afford even
more comfort than those floating palaces between New York
and Liverpool. The Mariposa, which crosses the equator twelve
times a year, is provided with large port-holes and one long,
unbroken promenade, extending from stem to stern. To run
this three-thousand-ton vessel from San Francisco to Sydney
and return, a distance of 15,000 miles, costs $50,000. When
the distance run per day does not exceed 325 miles, fifty tons of
coal are consumed in twenty-four hours. By burning seventy
tons, the Mariposa can make 393 miles a day. As coal in San
Francisco costs $12 a ton, the extra cost of running full speed
A TROPICAL TRIP. 235
would amount to $240 a day, or about $12,000 for the round
trip. The Atlantic steamers make faster time, and burn more
coal. A 6000-ton Cunarder makes 450 miles, and consumes
350 tons of coal a day. The captain of one of these big steam-
ers is paid $200 and more a month. The stokers, who do the
hardest work done on sea or land, get $40 a month. These
poor men are in the bottom of the ship, where never a breath
of fresh air can penetrate, and where the heat, especially in
passing through the tropics, is intense. Not long ago a stoker
was overcome by the heat, and fell dead while in the act of
wheeling coal to the furnaces.
On my " tramp trip," when at sea, I usually travelled third
class. It was then my belief that the cabin could not be so in-
teresting as the steerage. I have learned, however, that the
tramp traveller does not have all the sights to himself.
There were many interesting people in the saloon of the
Mariposa. As we were leaving the San Francisco wharf, a
young man leaned over the railing and wared his handkerchief
excitedly.
" Don't you feel a bit put about ?" he said, seeing that I was
watching him.
" No, not at all."
" What ! are you glad to be leaving your friends ?"
" No, but I came aboard of my own free-will. Didn't you
do the same ?"
" Oh yes ; still, I can't help feeling a bit put about, you
know ;" and he waved his handkerchief again as the tears came
into his big, weak, blue eyes. He explained afterwards that it
was the first time that he had ever left home, and so, of course,
he could not help feeling " a bit put about." We lay at anchor
in the Golden Gate twelve hours waiting for the English mails,
then set forth at night with the electric lights on San Francis-
co's steep hills beaming us a bright good-by. The second day
out, the violent lurching of the vessel threw an old lady against
the steps and killed her. I told the young man of this, but
he did not seem at all " put about/*
236 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
" Oh, she was a steerage passenger, wasn't she ?"
It made all the difference in the world to him when I said no,
that she was in the cabin. He took great interest in the case
from that moment, and was promptly on hand at the funeral.
A missionary read services for the dead as the body lay wrapped
in a blue shroud. A cannon-ball was tied to the feet, and the
corpse was ready to be plunged into the boundless Pacific. It
was a sad ceremony to all of us ; to the son, who was obliged
to stand there and see his mother cast into the ocean, it was
heart-rending. Twenty years before, he lost his father at sea.
The mother had expressed a wish to follow her husband, and
the son ever after had a dread of the ocean. He tried to per-
suade his mother not to take the voyage, but in vain. The old
lady, as she mounted the Mariposa's gangway, said that she be-
lieved she was going to follow her husband. She did on the
next day.
The tall missionary who read the services had a son twelve
years old who told most interesting stories of life among sav-
ages.
" Your boy has a great future ahead of him," I said to the
missionary. " He will be the Dickens of the Pacific !"
I imagined this a compliment, but the missionary looked at
me as solemnly and reproachfully as though I had said that his
son would become a thief.
" I have a higher ambition for Hiram," he said, solemnly. " It
is my hope that he may become a missionary to the heathen."
After that I observed that Hiram was not allowed to asso-
ciate with a person who not only read Dickens, but prophesied
for him the same ungodly career. This good man had been
all his life in remote and savage parts of the world. His read-
ing while on the voyage was of other missionaries, their lives
and deeds. His mind was in a rut, in a groove that shut out
from his sight the good done by such great and humane writ-
ers as Charles Dickens.*
* Some months after my return to America, I learned that my thought-
A TROPICAL TRIP. 237
While sitting in my state-room one day playing my flute, a
stout, paunchy man entered, and taking off his hat, made a pro-
found bow.
"Kennen sie mich?" (Do you know me?) he said.
" No, sir, I do not."
" Was ! sie kennen mich nicht ?" (What ! you do not know
me ?) " I am Gutberg, the composer." He threw back his
head, folded his arms, and gazed at me with a look that seemed
to say, "Behold and admire !" " Come, you know my music,"
he went on ; " listen to this." Whereupon he began humming
a tune, and marking time with wonderful flourishes of his
arms. " Ah, I see you know that. That is my last composi-
sition. I composed that in Mailand."
When I said that I had never heard his Mailand composition
before, he left me in disgust, and never wasted another word on
me during the rest of the voyage.
My cabin-mate, a Scotch parson thirty-five years old, was as
unsophisticated as a boy. The inclination to *' bamboozle "
verdant travellers is often irresistible. At night, as we lay in
our bunks, the Scotch parson innocently swallowed any marvel-
lous stories I told about America, and at the climax would
stick his semi-bald head through the curtains and peer up at
me in the bunk above with such childish confidence that I
less compliment to the missionary's son had borne unfortunate fruit. His
parents one morning found, instead of their son, a note telling them that
they were not to worry about him, that " he had left on the ship for Liv-
erpool, where he intended to follow the profession of newsboy, and after-
wards of journalist." " You will not find it difficult," wrote my inform-
ant, rather reproachfully, " to follow the various steps in this little fellow's
move; how the young man, longing for the literary profession, and re-
membering the sublime dignity with which his father repelled your at-
tempted compliment in predicting for his son as brilliant a future as Dick-
ens, saw his path beset with difficulties, and concluded to break away from
the paternal roof and restraint, and make the venture for himself. Hiram
thought that, to reach the position at twenty-four which you enjoy, he
could not begin too early ; hence this move that has caused his parents
such trouble and grief."
238 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
was always tempted to go on. I told him of the deadly antip-
athy borne by the people of Nevada towards stove-pipe hats.
" When they see a stiff hat they shoot at it. Of course it
often happens that the bullet goes through your head instead
of your hat."
" No, now, really ? Why are such savage laws allowed ?"
said the parson, horrified.
"Oh, it isn't the law; only the custom."
" Do they shoot at the hats of passengers on the cars ?"
" Not if they remain on the cars."
" How fortunate I did not get out !"
" You were, indeed," I replied. " A New York gentleman
who was shot through the head instead of the hat was taken
back to New York to be buried. All the epitaph put over
him was, ' He wore a plug hat in Nevada.' So well known is
the Nevada custom of shooting stiff hats that that was suf-
ficient."
This story, and others like it, the Scotch parson received in
good faith, as I saw from his notes, which he submitted to me
for correction. The people of a certain small village in Scot-
land will hear some astonishing stories when their pastor re-
turns from his trip to Australia.
The waiter at our table was a poor young man working his
way to Sydney. Naturally, he was not very efficient, and
there was much grumbling. The gentleman who sat next to
me was the only one who made no complaint. After three
or four days, I said to him,
"How is it that you say nothing? Is it possible that you
like long waits and cold food?"
" I will tell you," replied the gentleman. " Three weeks ago
I was on the Germania, from Liverpool. There was one weak-
headed youth on the ship. He did his best, but that was very
bad. All of the passengers were continually scolding him.
One morning he came to my berth before I was up, and said,
'You ordered a bath at seven o'clock?' 'I did.' * Well, sir,
I am sorry, I am very sorry, but it isn't ready.' ' Why, what
A TROPICAL TRIP. 239
is the matter ?' 'Another gent is taking a bath,' he answered.
I told him not to mind, and he went away. A few minutes
afterwards I heard him going through the same story with the
occupant of the next state-room. By this time he was crying.
The man in the next room was a little cross. ' Get away with
your whining,' I heard him say. The weak-headed waiter left
the room, went to the side of the ship, and began climbing up
the rigging. I looked out at him from my window, and won-
dered what he meant to do. Before any one had the slightest
idea of his purpose, he reached the top, and, with a cry> leaped
into the ocean. The boats were lowered. With our glasses
we could see his head bobbing about, but the sailors in the
small boat could not see him, although only a few yards away,
so heavy was the swell that it hid him from their view. They
rowed all around him, and might have saved him a dozen times
could they have seen him. I shall never forget the poor fel-
low's agonized look as he saw the men in the boat rowing
around, and at last away from him, and realized that he was lost.
I would rather put up with temporary inconvenience than grum-
ble, and possibly cause another simpleton to drown himself."
After this there was less grumbling at our tyro waiter.
One of the Mariposats passengers, a London guano-mer-
chant, spends his life in sailing about the Pacific Ocean looking
for guano islands. One night he favored us with a story of
his wanderings.
" It gives one a queer feeling," he' said, "to step on an island
that no human foot has ever trod before. Next to that in
interest is an island full of strange, wild-looking savages. On
one of the Samoan group I once saw several thousand copper-
colored natives assembled to catch the palolo. This singular
sea-worm, the size and shape of Italian vermicelli, appears only
on two days of the year. I was called away from my ship at
three o'clock in the morning, and rowed to the reef, half a
mile from the shore. There, wading about in water three feet
deep, were thousands of natives, with lanterns made of dried
pandanus-leaves, scooping up the wriggling palolo and dump-
240 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
ing them into their canoes. At the first peep of the sun the
worms disappear ; the next day, at precisely the same hour,
they swarm on the reef again ; then they return to the unknown
regions whence they come, not to reappear for a whole year.
The Samoans eat the palolo, and declare that they are as good
as any fish. I did not try them. They looked too much like
long worms."
Of my cruise on a sailing-vessel from Honolulu little need
be said. While I witnessed no instances of particular cruelty
or mistreatment, yet observation and frequent talks with sail-
ors both went to prove the general truth of the testimony given
before the Commission, a part of which the reader has seen in
a preceding chapter. Upon my return to Honolulu, I made
a tour of the Sandwich Islands. This trip afforded me a view
of labor under conditions entirely new to me.
The rapid decline of the native Hawaiian race has made the
labor question on the Sandwich Islands particularly pressing.
Once there were half a million natives; now there are less than
fifty thousand. After a preamble reciting the decrease of
population and the scarcity of labor, the Government issued a
decree forbidding natives from emigrating " to California or
other foreign lands, unless by some urgent necessity which
must be shown to the Governor." Females living on other
islands are not even allowed to visit Honolulu without a pass,
which is issued only upon " showing reasonable cause for the
desire to proceed to Oahu, together with the cause and proba-
ble duration of such visit." Any female living on another
island and found on the island of Oahu without a permit is
liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars.
In 1852 the experiment of importing labor was tried for the
first time. Chinese coolies were engaged for five years, at
$3 a month, in addition to passage, food, and clothing. Since
that time the rate has risen to $16 a month. The Govern-
ment undertakes to provide planters with labor. A planter goes
to the Minister of the Interior and says that he wants so many
field laborers. The Minister imports from China or Japan, or
A TROPICAL TRIP. 241
some of the South Pacific islands, the desired number of hands.
The Hawaiian Government pays their passage, and guarantees
three years' work at certain stipulated wages, generally from
$15 to not above $18 a month. The Japanese Government
takes an equally paternal interest in its subjects. It will not
permit a subject to leave until he has received a three years'
contract guaranteeing wages of not less than $15 a month
of twenty-six days, ten hours to the day, and $1 a month
for each child to the number of two, and $10 a month to the
wife if there be one. This contract, which must be signed
in triplicate, one copy being given to the laborer, one to the
Hawaiian Government, and one left with the " Chiji of Kana-
gawa," further provides that fifteen per cent, of the laborer's
wages must be paid to the Japanese consul, by him to be
placed in the Imperial Treasury at Tokio, where it is kept at
five per cent, interest, and returned to the laborer at the expira-
tion of his three years' contract.
The sugar-planter pays the Hawaiian Government $30 on
the arrival of each laborer; in thirty days an additional $25
is paid. The passage-money of women is not refunded to the
Government. The planter refunds to himself .the money which
he pays the Government by deducting $3 a month from the
laborer's wages until the whole amount is paid. The law en-
forces labor contracts the same as it does other contracts. A
field laborer or mechanic who contracts to work for a certain
length of time cannot, as with us, break his contract and quit
when he likes. If he leaves, his employer can call upon an
officer to arrest him, and compel him to return to work. In
theory this may not be bad, but I think it is bad in practice.
It is not in human nature for an employer to be as just or so-
licitous for the welfare of his workmen when they are com-
pelled to stay with him, as when they have the ability to leave
when mistreated.
The principal diet of the native Hawaiian laborers is " poi,"
a substance that looks and tastes like editors' paste after it be-
comes sour. It is. cheap, costing as little as a cent and a quar-
11
242 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
ter a pound, and never more than two cents and a half. The
average cost may be put at two cents. One native eats a
"pai-ai" (bundle) of forty pounds in seven days. He eats, be-
sides, fish, pork, goat's -meat, and other food, costing in all
about a dollar. Not much bread is consumed, poi acting as a
substitute. Neither tea nor coffee is used, as a rule, though
the natives are fond of both, and will work two or three hours
extra for a cup of tea or coffee. In some districts, as in the
Puna, on the island of Hawaii, the cost of living is practically
nothing. Bread-fruit, bananas, cocoanuts, and sweet-potatoes
grow wild. The native dives in the water, catches his fish,
then goes into the woods and gatbers his bread-fruit and veg-
etables. Nature supplies everything. Once a year the tax-col-
lector comes around for the school and road tax, amounting to $5.
A week's work loading a vessel pays that, whereupon the Kanaka
retires to the woods again to enjoy his otium cum dignitate.
Compare their condition with that of the miserable peasantry
of Europe, who, though living under the most advanced forms
of civilization, yet are not as well provided with creature-com-
forts as the meanest inhabitant of Hawaii. In the Campagna
around Rome shepherds work for seven cents a day. On this
pittance they barely exist. They work hard, and receive a lit-
tle bread and oil, and a hovel in which to rest the few hours
when not at work. The Hawaiian does not toil, neither does he
spin, yet he lives on a diet which an epicure might envy. These
conditions, however, are changing. Fifty years ago mission-
aries came to Hilo, hung a bell in a bread-fruit tree, and gath-
ered the natives around to worship. Since that time they have
been undergoing a gradual process of civilization. The first
missionaries, in 1820, had a hard time. It took six months to
come around the Horn, and, once on the island, it was perhaps
years before they would hear from the world. The mail was
sent in whaling-vessels from New Bedford. The whalers went
on their voyages in the north seas before touching at the Sand-
wich Islands. A missionary of that time, writing home, said,
u There are two beds in a room twenty feet square to accommo-
A TROPICAL TRIP. 243
date thirteen people. Yesterday the natives brought us thirty
hats, one hundred tapas (a kind of cloth made by pounding to
pieces the bark of a tree), one hundred cocoanuts, and a quan-
tity of calabashes. This is our supply of furniture. The house
is of grass, and a sharp rain may wash the whole away any mo-
ment." (The rainfall in Hilo is 144 inches a year.)
Circumstances have changed since that day ; now it is not
the missionary, but the native, who has the hard time. He is
being civilized into poverty. Why is this? Why does the
sum of creature -comforts decrease just in proportion as the
sum of civilization increases ? Certainly the answer to this, at
any rate as far as the Sandwich Islands are concerned, is to be
found in Mr. George's " Progress and Poverty." I doubt if
there is any other country on the globe that affords so striking
an instance of the effects of private appropriations of land.
Within the memory of men still living, the Sandwich Islands
had no civilized government; the land was practically free to
all the people. Then, with a population of four hundred thou-
sand, every one had at least a sufficiency. Now, with a popu-
lation of only forty thousand, but with the civilized method of
land appropriation, want and poverty are beginning to be felt.
As late as twenty years ago there was no land appropriated by
speculators on the island of Maui; then came a stranger from
a foreign land, who, by means with which I am not acquainted,
succeeded in appropriating twenty-eight thousand acres to his
own use and profit. Necessarily, the opportunities of the na-
tives were restricted by this appropriation. Henceforward, it is
true, they could work in sugar mills and fields, but such work
would be for this stranger, not for themselves, and they would
be obliged to accept a part of their production instead of the
whole. Just in proportion as the island is appropriated by
land-grabbers does the condition of the people become harder
and more poverty-stricken. In Hawaii a much smaller propor-
tion of the land has been appropriated, and in Hawaii we find
the condition of the natives proportionately more prosperous
than in Maui.
244 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
A rich Portuguese in Hilo, Hawaii, has built ten cottages of
three rooms each, with a veranda, which he rents for $6 a month.
These cottages are occupied by Portuguese laborers, who earn
$1 a day loading and unloading vessels. In Honolulu the
same cottage would cost $10 a month. Good beef costs in
Honolulu 10 to 12 cents a pound; flour, $6 to $7 a barrel.
Everything, even sugar, comes from California a great change
since 1848, when California imported from Honolulu all her
food supplies, including grain for cattle and horses. The only
article California now imports is raw sugar, and possibly she
may soon cease to import that, as Mr. Spreckels's project for
beet-sugar culture in California seems likely to prove successful.
On the Mariposa I became acquainted with a wealthy Maui
sugar -planter, and accepted his invitation to visit his planta-
tions. The purser called us at two o'clock in the morning.
Hastily dressing, we slid down the rope into the small boat,
which four strong oarsmen pulled for the shore. The moon
shone brightly ; ahead of us rose the majestic crater of old
Haleakala, the largest volcano in the world, ten thousand feet
above the sea, and with a crater thirty miles in circumference.
On a spur of the huge mountain rested a bright light, the
morning-star. It seemed to rise up gradually into space. A
coral reef almost enclosed the bay. The dark Kanakas rowed
for the narrow channel, and entered it, with the foaming break-
ers dashing against the reef so near us on either side that the
spray of the waves fell on us like heavy rain. Mr. Cornwall,
the sugar-planter whom I was accompanying home on a visit,
had been absent two months. He was received with an almost
royal welcome. His carriage was waiting on the beach ; we
jumped in, and were soon spinning along, enjoying the cool
night air, and the superb beauty of the sea and the mountains
bathed with silvery moonlight. Passing a clump of white cab-
ins, a turn in the road revealed a strange scene a low, spacious
house, with broad verandas, lighted up with festoons of colored
lanterns ; a grove of richest tropical shrubbery, also hung with
Chinese lanterns; and around a bonfire a dozen dusky men,
A TROPICAL TEIP. 247
with musical instruments in their hands. Our carriage whirled
up. Bomb ! went a small cannon, rockets darted up into the sky ;
the dusky men put their instruments to their lips, and the weird
sounds of the Hawaiian national hymn greeted our ears. These
men had sat up three nights, expecting their master. His
coming was made a jubilee. They sang and played until five
o'clock, when the first streaks of the morning sun appeared
over Haleakala's lofty crest, and they retired to their cabins,
laid aside their instruments, and prepared for their day's work.
The regard which these simple laborers seemed to bear for their
employer reminded me of the stories of Louisiana plantation
homes of ante bellum days. They crowded around and pressed
his hand, and beamed all over when he spoke to them and
showed an interest in their welfare by kindly questions and
smiles.
The Khedive of Egypt has a plantation that yields five
thousand tons of sugar a year a big plantation, yet small
compared with that of Glaus Spreckels, which in one exception-
ally good year yielded fourteen thousand tons, and which yields,
on the average, from six to eight thousand tons.
How many who drop a lump of sugar into their coffee or
tea in the morning know anything of the strange life, the
strange world, that produces that lump ! To the million or
so New Yorkers who rush along Broadway, New York is the
world ; yet the little lump of sugar they eat in the morning
comes from another world, and, could it speak, would tell an
interesting story.
Imagine a vast tract of twenty-eight thousand acres between
two mountains the one mountain covered with greenest verd-
ure, the other a dead volcano, bleak, bare, and desolate. From
springs in these mountains water is conducted forty miles to
the cane-fields, converting into blooming plantations what a
few years ago were arid wastes. Forty miles of railroad track
traverse the fields, and four locomotives, with long trains of
cars, transport the cane to the mills. In addition to the regu-
lar lines of railroad, sections of portable track are thrown in
248
THE TRAMP AT HOME.
different directions as needed. A gang of Chinamen can quick-
ly-throw a mile or two of this track in any desired direction,
thus enabling the cane to be brought by rail from even the
more remote parts of the plantation. On the southern islands
of the group, where water is more abundant, the cane is floated
to the mills in flumes. These methods of transportation save
THE WATER-FLUME.
at least three or four dollars a ton over the old way of hauling
by ox-teams. When a car-load of sugar reaches the mill, it is
unloaded directly into the roller-machines. They grind the cane,
expressing 65 per cent, into juice. A second set of powerful
rollers take the partially denuded cane, and express an addi-
tional 12 per cent., making a total of 77 per cent. The actual
per cent, of juice contained in the cane is 88 ; but all over 77
per cent., or at most 78 per cent., is lost, the most powerful
rollers being unable to squeeze the cane perfectly dry. Nine-
teen per cent of the 77 per cent, of juice is sugar; thus, 1000
pounds of cane yields 770 pounds of juice, which in turn yields
A TROPICAL TEIP. 249
147 pounds of sugar. In polarizing the crude into pure sugar,
there is a further loss of about 3 per cent., so that the 1000
pounds of cane finally yields 142 pounds of pure sugar. This
is packed into sacks and loaded into sailing-vessels that lie at
anchor half a mile from the mills, ready to sail for San Fran-
cisco.
The Spreckels plantation is a world within itself. Almost
every sort of labor is required to conduct its multiplicity of
affairs. Civil engineers are needed to construct railroads and
build bridges ; carpenters to make houses ; wheelwrights, ma-
chinists, sugar-boilers, and a dozen other kinds of mechanics, to
ply their various trades. Of all the laborers, the most peculiar
were those I saw from a locomotive as I was gayly riding
through the fields. They were galloping up and down in
one of the ditches that bring water from the mountains. The
women had their gowns tucked up, and were riding astride like
the men. One had a tin can in her hand, from which she was
feeding a puppy as she galloped along, splashing the water right
and left. These Kanakas were having a jolly time, doing noth-
ing but riding about, and earning therefor a dollar a day. They
are employed to ride in the irrigating canals, in order to knead,
as it were, the bottom of the ditch, and prevent the water from
leaking away. Of the fourteen hundred men on the plantation,
only one hundred are Caucasians, employed as lunas (foremen),
mechanics, and sugar-boilers; the rest are Japanese, Chinese,
and natives. The head engineer of the steam-ploughs receives
$175 per month, together with board and a pleasant cottage.
Each of his two assistants receives $125 per month and board.
The steam-ploughs, the wheels of which have tires three feet
wide, go bowling over the ground in a most astonishing manner.
They weigh twenty tons, and go through the fields in pairs
four hundred yards apart. On each plough is a revolving
drum, around which is coiled four hundred yards of wire
cable. The ploughing-machine is drawn from one engine to
the other by means of the cables. Five furrows are made;
then the engines move forward a little, the five ploughs are
11*
250 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
drawn back again, making five more furrows. In one day two
of these engines can plough twelve acres of the hardest land.
All white labor on plantations receives board and lodging, in
addition to a salary. Carpenters, for flume-building, get $60
per month ; head-carpenters get $120. In the mills, sugar-boil-
ers are paid from $60 to $125 per month. The Chinese and
Japanese, who actually produce the sugar, who plant the cane
and gather it, who place it on the cars and bring it to the mills
ready for the skilled labor to transform it into the sugar as we
know it these men do the hardest work, and receive the least
pay. They earn $19 per month, and fuel estimated at two cents
a day. The sleeping quarters of the Asiatics consist of the
usual straw matting, spread on hard boards, arranged in bunks,
about a dozen men sleeping in a room twelve feet square. Ex-
cepting this tendency to herd together, they appear cleanly in
their habits. In riding about, I noticed numbers of Chinamen
standing naked in the field, bathing in water obtained from a
neighboring canal. The Japanese have no confidence in Euro-
pean doctors, and will not go to a plantation that does not
provide a medical man of their own kind. The Japanese M.D.
at Mr. Spreckels's is paid a salary of $100 per month. The
foremen, or lunas, as they are called in Hawaii, live in cabins
near the camps of the men whom they oversee. Each cabin con-
sists of two rooms, one luna to a room. When a luna marries
he is allowed an entire cabin, and $25 a month extra in lieu of
board. The food furnished is better than might be expected.
At a quarter to six, breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, bread, and
beefsteak is served. At twelve o'clock, dinner of soup, roast
potatoes, pie or pudding. Supper, at half - past five, usually
consists of tea, bread, butter, and cold meat left over from din-
ner. Mr. Spreckels remarked that his men were more fastidi-
ous than he. They once refused to eat unrefined molasses,
which he had been obliged to eat for two years when at school.
The native Hawaiians are tremendous eaters. After disposing
of a large calabash of poi, they come in and eat a white man's
dinner with as much relish as though they had been fasting for
A TROPICAL TEIP. 251
days. They spend little for clothing 75 cents for a blouse,
$1.50 for a pair of breeches, and perhaps $2 for shoes to wear
on Sunday.
Mr. John D. Spreckels, the manager of his father's vast in-
terests, though a young man, has much ability, and has come
out of several trying positions with flying colors. Those famil-
iar with labor troubles will easily understand that the manager
of a great plantation, and of steam and sailing vessels that
traverse the ocean almost from pole to pole, has no easy task.
On the docks in San Francisco Mr. Spreckels was once attacked
by an infuriated mob, whom he kept at bay with a revolver
until the police came to his rescue. Even on the tropical island
of Maui the strike fever once broke out, and Mr. Spreckels,
being present, was called on to adjust matters. There were
fourteen hundred men, whose places, should they quit in a
body, it would be impossible to fill in time to save the cane.
The men knew this, knew that their employer was unwilling to
let $300,000 worth of cane go to waste, so they made the most
exorbitant demands. Mr. Spreckels was equal to the emer-
gency. He harangued them, and while talking his managers
were busy executing his orders to lock up all the provision
supplies. When this was done, Mr. Spreckels concluded his
speech by offering the men the alternatives of going to work on
the old terms or of leaving that day. The men now learned that
if they had Mr. Spreckels, he also had them. Fourteen hun-
dred people could not find provisions on a lonely island as easily
as they might in New York. The lunas were well armed, and
there was no chance of storming the storehouses. When din-
ner-time came around, the situation impressed itself on the
hands, and they went back to work.
One morning, after an hour's delicious swim in the cool surf,
I rode a few miles down the beach from the Spreckels planta-
tion, to visit some native grass houses. One house that I vis-
ited was not quite six feet high. I was obliged to stoop when
in it. The floor consisted of straw matting spread on the bare
earth. A coarse grass hammock swung from the low ceiling.
252 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
Under the hammock was a mattress. Cocoanuts, gourds, and
ragged clothing lay scattered about. The gourds were filled
with poi.
" Do you eat this ?" I said, pointing to the pasty compound.
The Kanaka did not understand. He pointed to his ear, and
looked solemn. I rarely saw a Kanaka who was not solemn.
I answered him by signs. Taking him by the arm, I led him
to a calabash of poi, and putting my finger to my mouth,
went through the motion of eating. He comprehended, and
solemnly stuck his finger into the poi, then thrust the poi-cov-
ered finger into his mouth. All this he did with as much
solemnity as though it were a funeral rite. I alighted at a
cocoanut-grove not far away, and beckoned to a boy who was
lying on the grass to climb up the tree and gather some nuts.
To my surprise, as the boy drew near, I recognized in him a
fellow-passenger from the island of Tahiti. He was in the
steerage of the ship with an old woman, and when I first saw
him was dressed in a shirt and breeches. At the cocoanut-
grove he was attired simply and wholly in Nature's garb. He
understood my signs, and with a bound started up the slim,
smooth trunk of the cocoanut-tree, reaching the tuft of foliage
fifty feet above the ground in almost the same time that a white
boy would have gone fifty feet on the ground. The cocoanut,
which was so soft that it had to be eaten with a spoon, was not
as palatable to my taste as the stale cocoanuts in America. Per-
haps this is because of my perverted taste. However that may
be, certain it is that the nut fresh from the tree seemed insipid
on the same principle, I suppose, that fresh eggs taste insipid
to Chinamen, who are accustomed to eggs ancient and strong.
TWO VOLCANOES. 253
CHAPTER XX.
TWO VOLCANOES.
A NIGHT ON THE VERGE OP SHEOL. THE AWFUL FIRES OF KI-
LAUEA. IN THE IAO VALLEY. THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. WE
BECOME LOST IN THE CRATER OF A VOLCANO.
TWELVE of the longest hours I ever experienced always
excepting a night I was kept in an Italian jail at Portici were
those spent in ascending the great volcano of Haleakala (House
of the Sun). My guide, Haunali, and I set forth at three in
the afternoon. The first two miles lay through fields of sugar-
cane and across stretches' of sandy desert. A fierce tropical
sun beat upon us, while, to increase the unpleasantness of the
situation, the trade-wind blowing in from the sea swept dirt
and sand into our faces. Haunali was a fluent linguist. He
had learned one word of English. That word he could speak
with admirable facility and distinctness.
" How far is it to the cave ?" I asked.
Haunali waved his hand, looked solemn, and answered,
"Spreckels."
" Will we reach the cave before night ?"
" Spreckels," replied Haunali, waving his hand at the green
fields. We met a rude ox-cart, in which were heaped a
woman, a child, half a dozen dogs, and some chickens.
" Are these people moving ?"
" Spreckels," returned Haunali, gravely. This innocent na-
tive had Spreckels on the brain. I learned afterwards that he
had once worked for the noted sugar-king. The advantage of
having an intelligent guide who gives information like Hau-
nali cannot be over-estimated. The Hawaiian language is so
largely composed of vowel sounds that I thought it possible
254 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
that Haunali might understand something of Italian, which
also is a vowel language. So I said,
" Parlate Italiano ?"
" Parlate Italiano," repeated Haunali, with excellent accent.
" Si "
" Si."
He was a perfect parrot. Everything that I said he repeated
with solemn gravity. The next traveller who secures the serv-
ices of this intelligent guide will imagine that he was once a
railroad car-porter. After creeping along through the sand,
we at last came to a solid stretch. Spurring my horse, I cried,
"All aboard!" and started off at a gallop. "All aboard!"
shouted Haunali, and followed after. The expression caught
his fancy, and every half-hour after that he cried out, " All
aboard !" and started off at a gallop. We reached the base of
the volcano about dark, and after eating of the lunch which
we had brought, we began the long and wearisome ascent.
The conversation with Haunali was of too profound a nature
to be kept up under such circumstances, so we climbed on in
silence, clinging tightly to our horses as they scrambled over
the rough stones and lava. The shadows grew darker and
darker. As we ascended higher, the clouds thickened ; they
seemed to rest on the side of the mountain in layers. We
passed through a drenching mist ; then came a short period of
dry cold, then another drenching mist.
The cave, which we reached at midnight, is merely a small
hole in the side of the bluff, protected overhead by a roof of
lava as though the molten mass, in its course down the mount-
ain, had suddenly stopped short and froze in the air. Hau-
nali gathered a meagre handful of brushwood, and we huddled
up in our blankets and overcoats by a miserable little fire until
it was time to start for the summit, still a thousand feet above
us. At that height nine thousand feet above the sea the air
is thin and cold; and I was glad when four o'clock in the
morning came, when we set out for the summit. We were at
least w#rm while walking. Two hours were consumed in mak-
TWO VOLCANOES. 255
ing that last one thousand feet ; then we stood on the brink of
the largest crater in the world.
" Haleakala !" exclaimed Haunali, and then laid himself flat
on his face and went to sleep. A less intelligent guide might
have begun an argument on the tariff, or an untimely theolog-
ical discussion, but Haunali did nothing so absurd ; he simply
informed me that I was on Haleakala, lest I might fancy that
it was Vesuvius or JEtna. Then he subsided, leaving me alone
to survey the wonderful scene.
The clouds were far below ; the moon shone clear and soft
on the vast world of desolation which lay beneath it. Before
rne was the brink of the huge crater, two thousand feet deep
and thirty miles in circumference. In this dreadful pit a dozen
cones loom up, with black mouths, whence once issued streams
of lava and fire. Scientists predict a more violent state of action
for this volcano. Whoever witnesses the fierce eruption when
it comes will see a sight of unparalleled grandeur.
While I was gazing on the crater with the black cones and
deep pits a rosy glow began to appear in the east, then
a tip of fire. As this tip rose up, the round, red sun shed a
fiery glow over the bottom of the crater, and over the sullen,
burned-out cones. Darkness kindled into light, and the whole
of the vast pit to its deepest bottom was red and alive once
more. When the sun was up in all his glory, volumes of clouds
began to roll in from the sea, covering the cones and frozen
lava-streams as with billows of snow. The clouds heaped them-
selves up in white, rolling hills. At one moment it seemed as
if I were standing on the brink of the Arctic Ocean ; at an-
other, a rift in the clouds presented a view resembling a Swiss
avalanche, with a wall of snow five thousand feet high. On this
snowy mountain my six-foot body cast a gigantic shadow. I
raised my hand ; the hand of the gigantic shadow stretched
across the thirty miles of the crater. It is these marvellous
cloud effects that make it worth while climbing Haleakala in
the night. When the sun is an hour high the clouds dissolve,
leaving nothing to be seen save the valley and ocean on one
256 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
side, and the dead cones and crater on the other. From that
height of ten thousand feet, the great plantation of Spreckels,
with its long rows of cabins and stables, appeared to be a mere
patch.
It was my intention to descend into the crater, traverse the
vast fields of frozen lava, and look down into the bottomless,
once fiery, depths of the cones; but an untoward accident com-
pelled me to give up this idea. I told Haunali to bring the
lunch.
" Haleakala," was the guide's pertinent reply. Then I point-
ed to my mouth, and repeated my command by signs. Haunali
understood. He went off, returning in a few minutes, however,
empty-handed as he went. After much sign-talking, he made
me understand that the lunch was lost. I straightway felt
twice as ravenous as I had felt before. The Kanaka had set
the basket on the edge of the precipice ; a strong wind blew it
over, and our provisions were at that very moment scattered
two thousand feet below us, at the bottom of the crater. One
cannot enjoy hard climbing on an empty stomach. Half-way
down the mountain we came across some ohela berries. These
berries are like the huckleberry in size and taste. Before mis-
sionary days they were held sacred to the goddess Pele, and in
those days no Kanaka dared to eat ohelas without first throw-
ing a quantity into the volcano as an offering to Pele. Hau-
nali and I were too famished to think of poor Pele. We de-
voured the berries eagerly, and found them delicious.
Some years ago, a writer, remarking upon the hospitality of
the Sandwich Islanders, said that visitors took advantage of it
to such an extent that planters fled from their homes to avoid
unwelcome strangers. Since then, most travellers, when they en-
ter a planter's house, begin by saying that they hope " they will
not cause their host to flee." I wish to caution people against
making this remark. It has been so often made that only by
an effort can the planter refrain from " ringing his chestnut-
bell" when he hears it. When I reached Mr. Cornwell's house
I found no reason to apologize. Although a perfect stranger,
TWO VOLCANOES. 257
I was received with open hospitality, and invited to remain un-
til I had seen all the sights of the neighborhood.
Nothing could afford a greater contrast to the Haleakala trip
than that made from Mr. Cornwall's plantation to the lao valley.
Haleakala is huge, sublime, desolate. The mountains which pen
in the lao valley tower thousands of feet almost perpendicularly ;
but they are picturesque rather than grand, for the wonderful
green that covers even the steepest cliffs softens and beautifies
the effect. The walls of the gorge lift themselves on either
side as you climb the table-land overlooking the valley walls
so green that the eye never tires of resting on them. One rock
which stands alone, its green head two thousand feet up in the
clouds, is called the Needle. The natives say that when the
great Hawaiian chief Kamehameha invaded the island he drove
the Mauian army upon this cliff, from which, rather than be
made prisoners, they hurled themselves into the abyss below.
A great many bones were found at the base of the Needle,
which the present king had removed to a cave farther up the
ravine.
While we were reclining on a bed of ferns, gazing up at
the great green walls, and at the silvery bands of water that
trickled from the clouds down the sides of the cliffs, the servants
were preparing our lunch. They first went on a foraging trip,
returning with armfuls of flowers, guavas, bananas, and other
delicious fruit, that grew wild in the neighborhood. The flowers
were converted into "leis" (wreaths), and before we sat down
each one of the party was encircled with fragrant roses. Even
the horses and dogs were ornamented in the same flowery
fashion. We were all a gay-looking set, as we ate our lunch
that day in the lao Valley by the side of a swift brook. The
servants were South Sea Islanders. Ten years ago they were
savages ; now, except for the great holes punched in their ears,
they presented little to remind one of the savage. They are
powerful - looking fellows, with a dark, copper - colored skin
which shines like polished bronze. I asked one of them how
he liked the Sandwich Islands. "Good," he replied. "In my
258 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
island, plenty to eat, but no work; only climb cocoanut-trees.
Here, plenty eat and plenty work." It is unusual to hear of
objections because of no work. While we were eating lunch
it rained on top of the mountains. This swelled the numerous
torrents, and made our descent difficult. The ladies from the
plantations were compelled to mount the men's saddles, it be-
ing dangerous, if not impossible, to cross on side-saddles. So
heavy and rapid is the fall of rain in these parts, that one half-
hour suffices to convert a rivulet into a torrent. People have
been known to be thus caught in the lao Valley, and unable to
return for several days.
The voyage from the island of Maui, or Oahu, to Hawaii is
extremely rough, but the sea-sick traveller is relieved by fre-
quent stoppages at island way-ports. You are violently sick for
a few hours; then the steamer stops, and you at once go ashore
and eat a lunch of the fruit offered by the natives ; then go on
board and lose the aforesaid lunch, and become miserable again.
The places where we landed seemed most forlorn. The people
sat about on the rocky ground, or on straw mats in their grass
houses, apparently with nothing at all to do. Some naked men
were swimming in the ocean catching fish, some were pounding
poi. With these exceptions, I saw none who did not resem-
ble Othello in the matter of their occupation being gone that
is, if they ever had an occupation to go.
For some hours the Kinau glided along on a smooth sea,
near the base of perpendicular cliffs, that are a deep green, ex-
cept where a silver thread of water trickles down here and
there into the ocean. Off an opening in the huge wall the lit-
tle steamer anchored, and landed those passengers bound for
the volcano of Kilauea. To one accustomed to piers and still
bays the landing of the volcano passengers will appear a sim-
ple matter, but it is far from a simple matter to make a land-
ing on the rocky coast of Hawaii. The surf dashes high on
the rocks. It seems impossible to land. It would be impossi-
ble for any one but a Sandwich Islander. Those amphibious
beings, never daunted by heavy swells, pulled lustily towards
TWO VOLCANOES. 259
the shore. When within twenty yards they turned their boat
broadside to the sea. I thought they would be swamped ; but
not so. Just as a huge wave came rolling towards us, our
dusky boatman at the stern gave a twist to the steering-oar
and brought the boat sharp against the roll, and we were car-
ried on the crest of the wave high and dry on the rocks. .
Fourteen miles, partly across lava-fields, partly through for-
ests bewilderingly rank with tropical vegetation, brought us to
the Volcano House, situated on the brink of the largest active
volcano in the world. We descended into a vast pit five hun-
dred feet deep, traversed three miles of lava, descended several
hundred feet into a second pit, and at last stood on the brink
of a lake of fire, the veritable hell of the theologians. It was
grand by day ; by night it was awful. The surface of the lake
cools, forming a black scum. This grows until the greater part
is covered ; then there is a mighty upheaval. The black scum
cracks, huge floes swim for a moment, then rise and plunge down
into the seething mass, to be melted again. It is something
similar to the breaking of the ice on the Mississippi, where
huge blocks are thrown up, crackling against each other, and
then are swallowed up under the water; only here the blocks
are not ice, but congealed lava ; and after grinding with horri-
ble noise, the lava-blocks roll over, and are swallowed up with
loud gurgles, not in water, but in hissing, red-hot fluid, whether
lava or iron, or sulphur such as Sheol is said to have, I do not
know.
At one end of the lake is a subterranean passage, towards
which the molten mass tends with considerable current. The
waves dash against the sides with wild fury, in their eagerness
to pass on to the awful depths below. The flames fly high in
the air ; the surf is one blaze of melted lava. At the same
time, in various parts of the lake, as if impatient of restraint,
angry and urgent to rush through the subterranean passage,
great waves of lava burst into the air, high fountains of fire,
making, all in all, the most awful spectacle our earth has ever
presented to man.
260 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
While we sat on the edge of the cliff looking down on the
dreadful scene, there broke on our ears a sudden crash and
roar, and we saw a frightful commotion in the boiling lake.
About an acre of hardened lava on the opposite side of the
crater had fallen in. We had walked over that lava not twenty
minutes before. If that side cracked and tumbled in, why not
the side we were on ? I felt my hair jump up on end ; and the
way we scampered away from that Sheol was a sight to see.
The return to the hotel across the miles of lava and up the
steep sides of the crater was a journey of great fatigue. One
of the party broke down, and the guide remained behind to
assist ,him, while the rest of us pushed on. We were seven.
With our long rubber ulsters, our lanterns and staves and pallid
faces, we might have been mistaken for escaped devils from the
burning lake. Some one discovered that we were off the trail.
Each of us started off to find it again. It was not easily done.
Seven lanterns went bobbing about ; seven voices every few
minutes cried out, " Here it is !" only to find out that they
were mistaken. The situation was at once alarming and ridic-
ulous. To see seven persons poking about with lanterns and
staves was ridiculous ; it was alarming when we thought of the
fact that any moment might find us on lava insufficiently cooled,
through which we might slide down into some horrible subter-
ranean furnace. Dense darkness reigned all around us. The
rain fell so fast and so thick that even the fierce glow of the
volcano, two miles distant, was barely visible. We called a
council of war, and decided to search no farther. It was a
miserable prospect, that of camping-out on the lava all night in
a drenching rain, but it was safer than roaming about running
such chances of instant and awful death. We sat down, a clus-
ter of the sorriest, most dejected beings I ever saw. I do not-
know how long we were actually there it seemed many hours ;
then a speck of light passed down a few yards away. We
yelled in chorus. There was an answer, and in a moment the
guide and the invalid of the party were with us. We had been
all the while within ten yards of the trail. This time we did
TWO VOLCANOES.
261
not try to go it alone. We stuck close by the guide, and by
midnight had surmounted the lofty walls of the crater, and
were once more beneath the friendly roof of the Volcano House.
The loneliest grave I ever saw was that of a tourist who died
in the crater in 1871. He fell dead of heart disease just at
CRATER OF KILAUEA,
the close of the fatiguing journey. He lies buried in the crater,
with a low white cross to mark the place, only a short distance
from the ever-rumbling fires of Kilauea. Ever-rumbling ? That
is a mistake. On the 6th of March, 1886, Mr. Maby, who keeps
the Volcano House, saw no fire in the lake. Investigation
showed that the lake had disappeared. It did not reappear
262 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
until the first of the following June. With such unimportant
exceptions, old Kilauea's fires are everlasting.
Since the erection of the Volcano House, twenty odd years
ago, a register of visitors has been kept. I made an estimate
that not above five thousand persons, excluding residents of the
island, have seen the great volcano since it has been known to
the civilized world. Visitors are requested to record any re-
markable feature of the lake that they may observe. Here are
two specimens of the way in which this request is complied
with, showing of how much value is the record of twenty years.
On page 191, vol. i., dated July 19, 1887, Rev. Chas. Nugent,
A.M., writes his name, followed by these words: "Formerly
of Bridgeport, Ohio. My home is commonly located in San
Jose, California ; though as to residence, though not a Method-
ist, I am somewhat like the man who thought he had no native
place because his father was a Methodist preacher. For the
past year, I have resided at Poauhau, Hawaii."
How thrilling is this entry ! how replete with scientific in-
formation concerning the volcano ! My second extract is by
Miss Bird, who wrote a book about the Sandwich Islands :
" Isabella Lucy Bird, daughter of the Rev. Edward Bird, Rec-
tor of Wighton, Huntingdonshire, and Canon of Chester Cathe-
dral. Last from Auckland, New Zealand, and arrived yesterday
from Hilo, after a ride of eleven and a half hours."
If any one has written anything interesting or valuable in
these registers, I failed to find it. The above two specimens
are fair samples of the whole. The writers of all the others
that I saw, like these two, used the opportunity to give their
personal histories as if strangers care to know the hour of
their arrival, their pedigree, etc.
An Englishman of our party, possibly a little jealous for the
fame of Old England that it was not blessed with a volcano to
rival this, declared that he had seen better fireworks in Lon-
don, " don't you know !" This reminded me of the Scotchman
from the village of Peebles who said, " London is a fine toon,
and Paris is a great city, but for pure pleasure give me Pee-
TWO VOLCANOES. 263
bles !" Mr. Maby, the manager of the Volcano House, is a re-
markably fine-looking man. He was once a circus acrobat;
then he married a Kanaka woman, and settled down on one of
the loneliest and grandest spots on the earth. Two hundred
yards from his house steam and sulphur fumes come hissing
through cracks in the mountain. A sweat-bath is erected over
one of these fissures. I sat in this bath, and was steamed with
sulphur fumes direct from the very bowels of the earth.
Kilauea is entirely different from Vesuvius. The latter, I
think, realizes the idea that most school-boys have of mount-
ains a cone running up into a sharp peak. Vesuvius rises
four thousand feet above the Bay of Naples. The summit is
not above fifty yards in diameter. I once passed the night
there, catching occasional glimpses of the boiling lava in the
crater. Blocks of stone are discharged, and thrown up to a
great height, every few moments at Vesuvius. At Kilauea
there is no danger from this source. There are no loud dis-
charges, no blocks of red-hot lava flying through the air. There
is only a stormy lake, with dashing waves that can be viewed
from points of comparative safety. On the return voyage from
Hawaii, the place is passed where, in January, 1886, streams of
lava gushed over the green cliffs into the sea. The crater of
the volcano Manna Loa, after a long period of quiescence, had
broken out suddenly, and the streams of lava that poured down
the sides of the mountain fell over the bluffs in such a mass
that the water of the ocean for a considerable distance around
became almost boiling hot. Hundreds of people came from
Honolulu to witness the sublime spectacle.
264 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XXI.
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS.
WRETCHES BANISHED FROM THE WORLD ; THEY DIG THEIR OWN
GRAVES, AND GIVE ' ' COFFIN SOCIABLES " TO RAISE FUNDS WHERE-
WITH TO PURCHASE COFFINS. FIGHT WITH A SHARK. AH FOO'S
EXPANSIVE FAMILY.
THE steerage of the Kinau reminded me of the steerage of
a vessel in which I once travelled from the coast of Asia Minor
to Odessa, Russia. The natives sat, or rather squatted, on the
deck for hours at a time ; a civilized man could not sit in such
a position thirty minutes. The Kanakas spread their coarse
mats on the deck and slept, when they were not smoking or
playing the taro-patch fiddle the national instrument of Ha-
waii. I spoke to a girl decorated with a leis of plumerias ; she
looked very handsome, with her flashing eyes. " I like the
hula dance," she said, " because it is our dance. But it is not
like your waltz. You would call it vulgar." I shall speak of
the "hula" presently; the reader may decide whether or not it
is " vulgar." Whenever the steamer stopped, the natives in the
steerage stood at the railing to catch " alalauwa," a fish much
liked, and eaten raw. As fast as the lines were dropped into
the water the fish bit. In ten minutes a bucketful were caught,
which forthwith the dark-skinned fishermen opened and ate raw.
At Hilo, Ululani, the Governess of Hawaii, got aboard, ac-
companied by her body-guard, consisting of one dapper little
policeman dressed in uniform of white duck. The Governess,
a great fat, coarse woman, dowdily dressed in a cheap cotton
gown, was formerly one of King Kalakaua's household. When
his Majesty tired of her, he appointed her Governess of
Hawaii, with a snug salary of $2000 a year.
At Mahukona the Kinau stopped for a day, and a party of
AN ISLAND OF LEPEKS. 265
us took the narrow-gauge road for a ride along the cliffs over-
looking the ocean. The Hawaiian Government subsidized the
road, paying so much a mile, and the builders, taking example
from the builders of the Union Pacific Railway, made the road as
long as they could, so as to get all the subsidy possible. They
will doubtless straighten the road out after a while, as did the
Union Pacific people when the Government was squeezed of all
its subsidy. At the end of the line, twenty miles from Mahu-
kona, we took horses for a plantation five miles distant. On
the way was passed first a roller-skating rink, then a statue of
the great Kamehameha, the Hawaiian chief who conquered the
neighboring islands and founded the present dynasty. This
statue, made in Munich, was sunk off the Falkland Islands, on
its way from Europe. For a long time it lay at the bottom of
the ocean ; then it was fished up and brought to this spot
overlooking the place whence the savage chief started for
Maui on his voyage of conquest. Within a short distance of
the statue is a temple where Kamehameha offered sacrifices of
warriors before starting. This temple consists of a circular
wall ten feet high. It is said to have been built in one day, a
line of men several miles long passing the stones from one
to another from the hills where the stones lay to the site of
the temple. It is quite a change from human sacrifices seventy
years ago to the railroads and skating-rinks of to-day.
The coffee plantation that. we visited was like the generality
of Hawaiian plantations a small strip of land that extended
up the side of a mountain, affording a soil that is neither too
wet nor too dry. The strips are usually owned by natives.
They pick the berry, in size and color like a red cherry, carry
it to their grass huts, and there, with a hammer or club, pound
off the outer husk, and lay the berry on their mats as we see
it, to dry in the sun. Half a million pounds of coffee are pro-
duced by the natives every year on these narrow strips of land.
On arriving at Honolulu, I rode to the celebrated Pali preci-
pice. The way thither leads first through the beautiful suburbs
of Honolulu, then winds up a high mountain, and through
266 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
brushwood so tangled and interwoven that the light hardly
penetrates it. As the road winds upward, the mountains be-
come steeper and steeper, their sides a deeper and richer green,
except here and there where silver lines of water trickle down
the soft moss-covered precipices ribbons of water which seern
to drop out of the clouds that always hang over the mountain
of the Pali. The view from the summit of the Pali bursts
upon one suddenly, disclosing, two thousand feet below, the
greenest valley on earth ; beyond are the sea and the coral
reefs and foaming breakers. A steep and dizzy trail winds
from the summit to the enchanting valley. My eyes followed
a long train of pack-mules, as they toiled up, laden with huge
burdens of rice. It is near this giddy height, overlooking the
ocean, that the old Hawaiian chiefs were formerly buried. The
chiefs wished the place of their graves unknown. It was the
custom to let a man over the precipice by a rope. When he
had found a resting-place for the chief's bones, and had safely
stowed them away, the rope was cut, dropping the miserable
man into the ocean hundreds of feet below, where he could
never tell the evil spirits of the whereabouts of his chiefs last
resting-place. Hawaii has improved since those days. Return-
ing from the Pali, you pass the royal mausoleum, a solid struct-
ure of stone which holds the bodies of all the kings and mem-
bers of the royal family who have died since the practice of
concealing royal graves in the savage manner alluded to was
abandoned.
Of the many picturesque and beautiful residences passed on
the return from the Pali, the driver singled out one and said,
"That is the home of a Chinaman."
This added to its interest, and I looked again at the broad
verandas, the bright-colored cupolas, the cocoanut and palm
trees, and the rich array of flowers.
" He is rich in more ways than one," continued the driver.
" He has seven daughters."
When I returned to the hotel I told Smith, a fellow-guest,
of my trip to the Pali.
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS. 267
"Ah," said Smith, "then you must have passed the house
of Ah Foo. A wonderful Chinaman has eleven daughters."
A few minutes later I saw the hotel clerk.
"Been out to the Pali, eh? Did you see Ah Foo's house?
The richest Chinaman in the islands ; a wonderful big family,
too ; has fourteen daughters."
Ah Foo's family seemed to be increasing with alarming
rapidity. To the next acquaintance I met I said nothing of
my Pali trip, and so doubtless spared the unlucky heathen an-
other addition to his already overgrowing family.
The amphibiousness of the Sandwich Islanders is well known.
I saw an old Kanaka with no arms.
" Shark bit 'em off," he said. " I lost my knife, so, when
he came after me, I dived under, hitting him a blow on the
snout as I dived. They are very tender on the nose. The
blow stunned him, and I swam on a few yards ; then he came
at me again, and again I dove under and hit him on the nose.
I kept this up until, by an unlucky miss, my fist ran into his
mouth instead of against his nose, and off went my arm. The
other arm went off just as the surf rolled me on the shore.
My brother came running down to the beach. Seeing what
had happened, he put his knife between his teeth and plunged
into the surf. In an hour he came back with the head of the
shark, and laid it at my feet. You want to see a shark ? My
boy Paluhi is going to take into the water an old horse that
died this morning of pink-eye. You go with him, and you will
see plenty shark."
The coral reef runs within an eighth of a mile of the shore.
Paluhi got ready his canoe, which had a curious contrivance to
prevent it from capsizing. The trees in Hawaii are small ;
consequently, the canoes are rarely more than a foot wide. At
each end of the canoe is a curved stick, standing out at right
angles from the canoe. To these two sticks is fastened a long
pole parallel with the canoe, and about three feet from its side,
which serves to balance the craft. We paddled across the reef,
and there floated about for some minutes without seeing a shark.
268 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
" No sharks are here," I said.
Paluhi grinned. " You wait."
Stooping over the stern of the canoe, he cut the throat of
the dead horse ; the water around crimsoned, and almost im-
mediately I saw scudding towards us the fin of a shark. In the
clear, blue sea I could see the monster as he swam under us,
and as he turned on his back ready to bite his prey. Just as
he was making a lunge for one of the horse's hind-legs, Pa-
luhi, who was ready for him, hurled his harpoon. A struggle
ensued. But for our balancing-pole we should certainly have
been overturned, and most likely eaten by the huge and angry
beast. The harpoon, a sharp iron barb a foot long, was buried
deep in his body. His struggles grew rapidly fainter, and in
a few minutes the Kanaka was able to draw him up and stab
him with his sharp knife. By this time half a dozen sharks
were swimming about, fighting over the dead horse. Paluhi
cut the rope that held the horse, and letting him drift to sea,
we plunged through the breakers across the reef, towing the
dead shark, and followed by several small fellows who were
anxious to make a meal on their deceased brother. A Kanaka
armed with a good knife has no fear of a shark. Within the
reef Paluhi gave a thrilling exhibition of Kanaka skill.
" Hi, hi !" he yelled, and sprang into the water. A monster,
who was on the point of biting at the dead shark, seeing a foe
was after him, turned on Paluhi. The slim, brown body of
the boy and the huge body of the shark were plainly visible
under the water. I shuddered at the uneven contest, the beast
looked so much more powerful than the man, a youth of only
eighteen. Paluhi waited until the shark turned, then coolly
dived under, and with a dexterous lunge ripped open the belly
of his foe. In another instant he was on the surface again,
grinning, and holding aloft his bloody knife.
Thirty years ago there was one case of leprosy in the Ha-,
waiian Islands ; now about two per cent, of the native popu-
lation are afflicted with this terrible disease. In Honolulu I
learned that
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS. 269
1, Leprosy is hereditary; 2, that it is not hereditary; 3, that
it is contagious ; 4, that it is not contagious ; 5, that it is cura-
ble ; 6, that it is not curable. And last, but not least, I learned
that no one knows anything about it except that, whereas forty
years ago it was unknown on the islands, it is now the scourge
of the nation.
I procured a letter marked, " On His Majesty's service," per-
mitting me to go through the Lepers' Hospital, where, in small
white cottages, surrounded by green gardens overlooking the
sea, the most miserable of humankind wait their death. I saw
one poor girl who had been brought in only the day before.
She lay on a pallet weeping. The nun in charge told her not
to cry, but the unhappy creature could not be consoled. She
was a comely, intelligent girl, apparently in a healthy condition.
A slight swelling of the fingers showed the presence of the
dreadful disease. She was an outcast from her home and
friends. In a few years her fingers will taper down to the
bone, and finally drop off. Her head will swell to bursting.
She will suffer a thousand deaths.
Another pitiable case was that of a mother in whom taints
were just discovered. I saw her parting from her husband and
child. A close grating divided them. She could not even
touch her child, though longing to press it to her heart before
bidding it an eternal farewell. Other miserable wretches were
also at the grating, bidding their friends good-by before being
taken to the island of Molokai, to remain until death. One of
these was a Philadelphian, a young man who seemed to me to be
in excellent health ; but the practised eye of the physician de-
tected the taints upon him, And signed his sentence of banish-
ment. Molokai, where he will pass the balance of his miserable
existence, is an island, selected twenty years ago as the most
suitable place to which to banish the unfortunates who com-
mit no crime, yet are more dangerous to society than the worst
criminals. The island is divided into two parts by a precip-
itous bluff two thousand feet high. This high rampart cannot
be scaled. The sea girts the settlement on all other sides. The
270 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
lepers can see a dim outline of Honolulu, but tliat is all. Once
sent to Molokai, they remain until death. Each leper is fur-
nished with seven pounds of fresh or salt meat per week, twen-
ty-one pounds of bread or poi or rice, as may be preferred, and
one pound of sugar. Five pounds of salt and a bar of soap are
allowed once a month. When the Queen visited the island a
year ago, one of the lepers, acting as spokesman for himself
and his brethren, said,
"Of the seven pounds of beef, five are often made up of
bone. This is enough for one person for only three days. The
rest of the week he goes without meat. Some have to travel
five miles for their rations. Those who are feeble and half-
decomposed cannot go so far, or are too wearied to prepare
the food after they have packed it across the rough roads and
gulches to their huts."
The main body of the lepers live in huts provided by them-
selves. In a hut ten by eight feet, four lepers were living. This
hut was made of pandanus-leaves, and covered with a thatch of
ferns and sugar-cane blades. While the King draws a large sal-
ary and plays poker, the poor creatures on Molokai drag out a
horrible and half-starved existence. They drop into the grave
by degrees ; first a finger, then a hand, then an arm, and so on.
When the end of this disintegrating process is near at hand,
the patient is required to dig his own grave. If any leper re-
fuses to dig his grave when called on to do that duty, he is
refused his weekly rations. Nothing is more pitiable than to
see a man with only stumps of arms engaged in digging his
own grave in a hard, rocky soil.
It seemed to me that the complaints of the lepers on this
score were not unreasonable. They object, also, to paying for
their own coffins. Their objections, however, have so far been
without avail ; and occasionally they give, as is shown by the
register of the hospital, " coffin feasts," or sociables, to raise
money to buy coffins, which the Government will furnish only
upon the payment of two dollars each.
In 1866, Father Damien, a Belgian priest, voluntarily exiled
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS. 271
himself upon Molokai to minister to the wants, spiritual and
physical, of the patients there. He, of course, caught the dis-
ease, and is still living with them, though in an advanced stage
of leprosy. There are many instances where wives and hus-
bands accompany their afflicted spouses, thus consigning them-
selves to living death. That of Kaaukau, mentioned in an of-
ficial report, shows the devotedness of some of this affectionate
race. She was perfectly healthy, her husband was a leper. He
was condemned by the Board of Health to exile on the island of
Molokai. For four years the devoted wife put every particle of
his food into his mouth. He begged her to leave his wretched
carcass, and to return to the world and to her friends. She re-
fused, and remained with him until he literally rotted away.
Many of the patients prefer living in grass huts by the sea,
where they can eke out their scanty rations by fishing.
Some years ago a medical expert was sent by the Hawaiian
Government on a tour of investigation around the world. He
visited places in China and other countries afflicted with leprosy.
" The Chinese," says this expert, " believing leprosy conta-
gious, have an unspeakable horror of it, and act with the ut-
most inhumanity towards those afflicted with the disease. Par-
ents consign their children, and children their parents, to walled
villages, which are the usual appendages of cities in southern
China. These dreadful places of misery are so horrible that
many commit suicide to avoid entering them. The disorder is
first manifested by a red spot appearing sometimes on the leg,
but usually on the face. This spreads to a round patch or in
irregular streaks. The skin begins to thicken, and looks as if
stretched ; sometimes it is smooth and shiny. The lobes of the
ear become small. As the disease advances, the hair and eye-
brows fall off, the tendons of the hands and feet contract ; final-
ly slow ulceration sets in, destroying the flesh and bones of
the fingers and toes, leaving nothing but the stumps. A leper
settlement two miles from the suburbs of Canton, on a slight
eminence, in the midst of cultivated fields, accommodates five
hundred lepers, with their children, born in the asylum. All
272 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
persons recognized as lepers are sent to these asylums, of which
there are three in the suburbs of Canton. Neither husband,
wife, nor children are allowed to accompany the leper to the
asylum, but they are allowed to choose for themselves new con-
jugal mates from among the inmates of the same. The chil-
dren born of these unions remain in the village. The village
forms a rectangle, surrounded by a brick wall twelve feet high,
with a gate, which is closed at night. Within the wall a street
fourteen feet wide wider than a street in Canton leads to
the temple, or joss-house. From this street branch out narrow
lanes three and a half feet wide. Each two lanes are separated
by one low building, which is partitioned by a wall along its
whole length, and divided into twenty-four apartments. In
these small holes that entire mass of population is stowed
away every night. During the day the gate is opened, and
the lepers roam about at liberty to beg through the streets of
Canton. They receive, besides, a small daily allowance from
the Government, and the monopoly of the trade of coir-rope
making."
From this extract from the report of the Hawaiian special
agent, it will be seen that the Chinese do not regard the dis-
ease as very contagious. On the Sandwich Islands opinions
differ ; still, the contagious idea prevails, and lepers are ban-
ished to the lonely and horrible island of Molokai as soon as
they are known .to be afflicted. At the beginning of every
school term a physician examines all the scholars. If any are
lepers, they are immediately banished. If only suspected, they
are sent to the Kapiolani Home. I saw in that place of pro-
bation a score of children who seemed as sound and healthy as
any one, but they were " suspects," and will remain in deten-
tion until it is certain that they are not lepers. As this may
take years to determine, it may be imagined how unpleasant it
is to be even suspected of having the disease. In the hospital
adjoining the Kapiolani Home are one hundred and four lep-
ers awaiting transportation to Molokai. The visitor must be
careful to brush away mosquitoes and flies when in this place.
AN ISLAND OF LEPERS. 2*73
A mosquito, by stinging your hand just after biting a leper,
could communicate the malady. If this point be carefully at-
tended to, there is little risk in making a tour of inspection.
Those patients just arrived, and those in the incipient stages,
seem to feel their unhappy positions very keenly. One of two
women sitting side by side was only twenty years old, but
looked eighty. Her face was bloated, and horrible with ulcers.
The other woman was young, and apparently in excellent health.
This woman was in the depths of despair ; her bloated com-
panion was talkative and jolly, and wanted to know how the
King's birthday celebration was progressing.
Nothing is more heart-rending than the scene which occurs
when the boat starts for Molokai. The friends assemble to
take a last look, and to say a last good-by. Tears stream down
the faces of the exiles, and of the mothers and children left
behind ; the boat pushes off amid weeping and wailing and
cries of despair, carrying the poor wretches to their living isl-
and-tomb. On the day of my visit, two lepers had managed to
hide themselves. The officers looked high and low. At last
they were discovered secreted under the house, whence they
were punched out with long poles and sent off with the rest.
A law makes it permissible to offer condemned criminals the
choice of immediate death, or inoculation with leprosy, for the
purpose of affording medical observations. I heard of but one
case where the latter alternative was accepted. The unhappy
man was inoculated with the dread disease, and thus subjected
to a hundred deaths instead of one. He was carefully attend-
ed and studied by the physicians as he gradually dropped to
pieces, becoming first a mere stump, and finally a corpse.
12*
THE TEAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XXII.
BANQUETING WITH A KING.
ROYALTY'S HULA-HULA GIRLS AND THEIR VOLUPTUOUS DANCES.
TROPICAL ORGIES. A PIG STUFFED WITH THREE HUNDRED THOU-
SAND SILVER DIMES. WHY THE CAUCASIANS REVOLTED. TRAV-
ELLERS NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE KINGDOM UNTIL THEIR
DEBTS ARE PAID.
HONOLULU is well supplied with newspapers. There are
three dailies printed in the English language, three in the Ha-
waiian, two English weeklies, one Portuguese weekly, and
three monthly magazines. There was formerly a weekly story-
paper on the plan of the New York Ledger, printed in Ha-
waiian ; but that is not now published. The Pae Aina, one of
the Hawaiian dailies, has a weekly circulation of four thousand
six hundred copies. The natives are fond of reading. Most
of them can write as well as read. The Government schools
are free, and well attended. Most of the papers just mentioned
are published by one company, which also publishes books. A
work just out from their press at the time of my visit was a
book by the Prime-minister on the volcanoes of the islands.
The Hawaiian Minister advances the theory that the crust of
the earth is about twenty miles thick, and that within the huge
ball is nothing but a vast mass of gas, vapor, and molten lava.
That t;he earth is a hollow ball does not seem improbable ; but
I do not understand how the Premier determines the thickness
of the crust with such precision. Twenty miles is rather a thin
crust for so large a ball as this globe of ours.
It was in Honolulu that I first had the pleasure of seeing,
and dining with, a king. I had become acquainted with two
intimate friends of the King, and one afternoon we all three
jumped into a carriage, and were driven to the outskirts of the
BANQUETING WITH A KING. 277
town to a house a couple of hundred yards out on the sea, built
on piles. As we drew nearer, a sentinel eyed our party close-
ly; but recognizing my companions, permitted us to pass in.
We ascended a narrow stair-way, and entered a large hall, the
windows at both ends of which look out over the sea. Stand-
ing in this hall, we .saw a large, fat, mulatto man, with kinky
hair, and dressed in a suit of white flannel, receiving visitors.
" Your Majesty, permit me to introduce to you Mr. Meri-
wether," said my. friend, the sugar-planter.
His Majesty graciously shook my hand, and then began to
chat in a friendly way with the two sugar-planters. Visitors
entered, among them the officers of an American war-vessel
then in the harbor. On the walls were portraits of all the
crowned heads of Europe, brother kings to our kinky-headed
Hawaiian King. There were several tables in the hall, at which
some of the guests seated themselves, first being adorned with
the leis around the neck by attendants. Little piles of red and
blue chips were stacked on the tables, and the gentlemen be-
gan to play, not forgetting, whenever they addressed the fat
mulatto, to " Sire " him and " Your Majesty " him in the most
approved courtly style.
While this free-and-easy game of poker was going on in the
presence of Majesty, a curious show began. A troupe of men
with guitars came in from an adjoining room, followed by sever-
al small boys, and by a bevy of young girls wearing short white
skirts. The men seated themselves on one side, and began to
play and sing a slow, melancholy ode. The girls in white
robes some of them quite pretty advanced to within a few
yards of the poker-tables and began to dance to the melody of
the murmuring guitars. This was the hula-hula dance, once
the national dance of the natives, but now forbidden by law,
and only indulged in by the King, who here, as in most king-
doms, is above the law. I sat apart, by turns watching the
hula-hula girls and the poker-players. The latter were too deep-
ly interested to give more than a momentary attention to the
dancers. At first the motions of the dancers were rhythmic
278 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
and pleasing, but as they proceeded the character became more
and more voluptuous, until the bounds of decency were passed.
The coarse, fat King showed his appreciation and pleasure in
the exhibition. His ugly eyes dilated. Thrusting his hands
into his pockets, he pulled out a roll of silver dollars and threw
them, with a clatter, at the dancers' feet. The little boy at-
tendants hopped about picking up the dollars. Now and then
the players turned a moment from their play to look at the
hula- hula girls and throw them silver coin. Attendants in
white uniforms stood around, to wait on the King and his
guests. After four hours spent in this way, all retired from
the gaming-tables, to participate in a banquet that was like or-
dinary banquets, except that a live king sat at the head of the
board. By each plate was a bowl, made of a cocoanut, filled
with poi, a national dish for which I had no relish. After an
hour's feasting, his mulatto Majesty and guests went back to
the gaming-tables, and the hula-hula girls reappeared.
While this figure-head king plays poker and throws silver
dollars at dancing-girls' feet, a few Americans and Englishmen
administer the government of the country. The ministers are
paid $3000 or $4000 a year; the King gets $25,000, besides a
palace to live in, and other perquisites. King Kalakaua, when in
Europe, was received as a brother by the crowned heads. Mr.
Thurston, or Mr. Green, or any of the other men who actually
carry on the government, would not be admitted through the
back door of European monarchs. The revolutionists of last
July carefully considered the question of deposing the king
and establishing a republic. A long debate resulted in re-
taining Kalakaua as a figure-head, it being argued that the ex-
pense of the figure-head would be offset by the respect which
European potentates would show a people who enjoyed the
blessing of a king. The King still costs the Hawaiian people
a pretty figure, though nothing like the cost prior to the rev-
olution. When the last member of the royal family died, the
funeral cost the tax-payers $17,000. One of the items was
"817 suits of clothes for men, and 900 dresses for women."
BANQUETING WITH A KING. 279
The immediate cause of the revolution was Kalakaua's rascality
in what was called the " opium bribe." A law had been passed
to permit the sale of opium upon payment of a $30,000 license.
Several persons competed for the license, and the price was
run up to $70,000. At last a Chinaman, T. Aki, offered the
King $71,000 if he would give him the license. The King
accepted the offer, and then coolly turned round and resold the
license to another man for $80,000. Here is the touching
way in which Aki conveyed the bribe :
" Lord of Heaven ! here is a small offering, a small pig for breakfast.
It would be a good thing if my royal master would be pleased to accept
this. And here is something small which will be laid beside you, a few
ten-cent pieces $30,000 as your servant has remembered and sent it,
and may you be so gracious and kind to me. And as to those things that
your servant spoke to your Majesty, his master, about, they will be faith-
fully carried out, because I am forever your servant ; and may the bones
of your servant be constantly revived by his high and royal master.
" T. AKI."
On the seventh day from this the guileless Aki sent his
Majesty another pig, with the trifling sum of $31,000 in ten-
cent pieces. But he did not get the license, nor would Kalakaua
return the pigs.* This created a great deal of comment. Peo-
ple talked, and the more they talked the more grievances they
found they had. The foreign residents formed themselves
into a league, armed and drilled themselves, and on one hot
July day made demands which the King found he was unable
to refuse. He yielded all that was asked, and for the first time
in her history the little ocean kingdom became fairly and hon-
estly governed ; how long it will continue so is uncertain. Al-
ready the reform party is splitting into factions. One faction
demands the dissolution of the military company, because the
* Recently October, 1888 the supreme court of the kingdom has
decided that the King must refund the two pigs stuffed with $71,000.
Poor T. Aki died of a broken heart over the loss of his fortune. The
King, however, will pay over the money to Aki's heirs.
280 THE TilAMP AT HOME.
members refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Hawaiian
Government. They will not take the oath because many are
Americans, and so would lose their American citizenship, which
they are desirous of retaining, intending to return to the United
States at some future time. The other faction desires the mil-
itary league to continue in existence, with or without the oath,
fearing that otherwise the King will regain his old despotic
power.
The Hawaiian women's costume, when they wear any cos-
tume at all, seems to be a loose "Mother Hubbard." The
trade-winds blow over the Sandwich Islands, and the result of
the combination is interesting. A dusky damsel who wishes
to shop or visit a friend slips a Mother Hubbard over her head,
ties a leis of flowers around her neck, and sallies forth. In
two minutes a gust of wind comes along. The Mother Hub-
bard fills with air, and expands in an astonishing manner. Then
it is that the traveller realizes how economical are Hawaiian
women in the matter of underwear. I have seen women gal-
loping along on horseback, riding astride, a guitar in their
hands, and their gowns streaming in the wind like a banner.
"You like this better than the side-saddle?" I asked a maid
who understood a little English.
"Yes; for by-and-by horse get scared, and side-saddle no
good."
" Why, then, don't you wear bloomers?"
Her English did not extend that far, so she smiled, and gal-
loped on.
There was a prize-fight one night in the public plaza oppo-
site the King's palace. The plaza was filled with a howling
mob. The better to view their dark, strange-looking faces, I
retreated a short distance up a narrow lane, and mounted a
post that I found there planted against the wall of the King's
garden. Scarcely had I gained this excellent point of observa-
tion than I heard some one bawling at me in a barbarous tongue.
I did not understand, and calmly continued on the post, leaning
against the King's garden wall, looking at the crowd.
BANQUETING WITH A KING.
281
" Hi, hi!" shouted the voice. Looking around, I saw a black
soldier in a white linen uniform charging for me with fixed
bayonet. As Mark Twain says, I did not run, but I sidled
away with some celerity, and made good my escape by plunging
into the crowd an escape, as it afterwards appeared, from no
little danger. The president of the Honolulu Young Men's
Christian Association, who on the same night heard a noise in
HAWAIIAN FEMALE. COSTUMES.
the King's garden, and climbed the post to peep over and see
what the noise was, had a rifle-bullet whistle about his ears,
and was arrested by one of the King's guard and ignomini-
ously thrown into prison. He was liberated the next morning,
though not without a sharp reprimand to curb his curiosity,
and pry no more over his Majesty's garden wall.
AYhen one first arrives in the Sandwich Islands, the long
282 THE TBAMP AT HOME.
string of vowels which one hears is quite as appalling as are
the consonants in Russia. After a short stay, however, the
rules of pronunciation are learned ; then nothing is more en-
joyable than to roll out strings of vowels to new-comers. This
makes you feel very wise and superior, and quite charmed with
the Kanaka language. An Australian whom I met on Oahu
asked me if I spoke the language. I replied,
" Oahu Honolulu Pali Mahukona Waikiki lao Haleakala."
The Australian did not know that I was merely repeating
the names of places that I had visited. He went on his way,
doubtless crediting me with being a proficient scholar in the
Hawaiian tongue.
On the morning the Australian steamer was due I climbed
to the summit of " Punch-bowl," an eminence back of Hono-
lulu that was formerly the crater of a volcano. From this
peak I looked down on the shady streets of the pretty Ha-
waiian capital, on the green valley and mountains, and at the
black speck on the ocean, that slowly grew larger and larger,
and finally developed into the great mail-steamer from Australia.
Business in Honolulu stops on steamer-day. The whole town
pours itself down to the dock, and when at last the steamer is
anchored, what kissing and crying and laughing and howdy-
doing take place! Among the two thousand people that
swarmed about I noticed a young bridal couple descend the
gangway. The bride was coming to her future home for the
first time. A look of distrust came over her face as she saw
the strange, dark-looking beings about her, but a glance at her
young husband restored her. These young people were going
to live on the island of Maui, where they must needs be very
much wrapped up in each other, as there is nobody else there
for them to be "wrapped" in. It is one of the loneliest spots
I ever saw.
Descending from Punch-bowl, I passed a hut, from which
emerged an old negro, black as ink, but with a snow-white
fringe of wool on his head and under his chin. There was no
Kanaka blood in him. He was unmistakably an American darky.
BANQUETING WITH A KING. 283
"Lors a-mussey, honey," was his greeting as I approached,
"you's growed so I doan know you. You was'n mor'n dis
high when I seed you las'," putting his hand three feet from
the ground.
" You know we all grow, uncle," I said, apologetically, for
having grown out of his recollection.
"Dat's de trufe ; dat's de Gory Mighty's trufe. But dis ole
nig, he doan grow no mo'. I'se de olest man in de worl'. I
kum to dis yer islan' a hunderd year ago. Two year ago I wuz
mu'dered by a good-fur-nuffin Kanaka."
"Murdered?"
" Dat's jes hit mu'dered ; dun dead fur f oah long hours ;
den I kum ter life agin. Good-by, sah good-by."
I was told that this old negro was ninety-seven years old.
He came to the islands with the first missionaries, in 1820.
Before entering the Hawaiian kingdom, a tax of two dollars
is collected from the traveller; to get away from the kingdom,
he has to pay only one dollar. A receipt for this latter tax,
however, will not be given if the applicant is in debt to any
resident or native of the kingdom, nor will any vessel accept
him for passage without a tax receipt ; he is virtually, there-
fore, kept a prisoner until he has paid his debts. Fortunately
for me, my accounts were all paid, and I had no difficulty in
obtaining passage on the mail-steamer and returning to San
Francisco.
284 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
LABOR BUREAUS SHOW, BUT WHO WILL IMPROVE, THE CONDITION OP
LABOR ? THE FIVE METHODS COMMONLY URGED FOR BENEFITING
WORKING-MEN ONLY MAKESHIFTS. THE REAL REMEDY.
SOCIOLOGISTS and statisticians, I hear the reader say, may
show the crowded condition of the poor in cities may show
the low wages and high cost of living of working-men may
show how sewing and sales women work fourteen and sixteen
hours a day for pittances scarcely sufficient to support life;
they may show all this, and more ; but, after all is said, what
is to be done about it? How are these bad conditions to be
bettered ?
The province of labor bureaus is merely to discover and lay
before legislators existing facts. Officially, I have no remedies
to offer; but, personally, my studies of the "labor question,"
and my travels among the laboring classes, have caused me to
consider several methods for bettering the present, in many re-
spects unhappy, state of affairs. The two principal remedies
which recommend themselves to me, and which will presently
be stated for the reader's consideration, are not expected to be
a panacea for all poverty and distress; for as long as all the
world is not wise and strong, there must be some who will
have more than their share of the ills of life. I do think, how-
ever, that were these two remedies adopted, the division of the
products of labor would be fairer, and each citizen would come
nearer to obtaining happiness in proportion to deserts than is
possible under the present system.
Working-men are accustomed to being told to do a number
of things in order to be prosperous and happy. The five things
CONCLUSION. 285
most often impressed upon them are : 1. Organization ; they
must organize into Unions. 2. Co-operation ; they must cease
giving the greater share of their earnings to " middle-men."
3. Education ; they must educate themselves, improve their in-
telligence and skill, in order to command good wages. 4. Tem-
perance ; they must make the wages they do get go further by
spending them on necessaries, not on whiskey. 5. Economy and
industry ; they must work hard and save, if they wish to have
enough to keep the wolf from the door, and so be happy.
These five propositions, I believe, embrace the principal
methods that are usually advanced as calculated to make work-
ing-men happy and prosperous. To none of the five have I
any objection per se. In itself each is good, each is desirable ;
but working-men cannot learn too soon that each and all of
the five methods mentioned are mere makeshifts. Not one of
the five, nor all of the five combined, do more than attempt
to remedy evils already created ; they do not go to the bottom
of the matter and seek to prevent the evil.
I will briefly review the five methods commonly urged by
reformers and working-men.
1. Organization. As a temporary expedient, organization
undoubtedly protects the laborer, and lightens the load he has
to bear. His unions are schools where he learns to think, to
speak, and to act. That, in my opinion, is the main good ac-
complished by labor organizations. If they succeed in raising
wages, the .rise, in the nature of things, can be only tempo-
rary, for wages, like water, cannot rise above their level. Let
any particular line of labor organize and raise wages above the
general level ; in a short time men are attracted into that line
by the superior wages ; great numbers flock into it, and so in-
evitably pull the rate of pay down to the general level again.
Only in the very skilled trades, as bar mill rolling, nail-making,
etc., is organization able to exact its full due, fearless of threats
of outside competition. These are exceptions, however, and
exceptions only to a limited extent; for even in the most skilled
trades working-men may find themselves brought to grief by
286 THE TBAMP AT HOME.
outsiders, as witness the nailers in the troubles of 1885. Ob-
stinate capitalists kept their mills closed all over the country
for more than a year, in which time numbers of raw men were
taught the art of making nails ; and when the mills reopened,
the old nailers found that, even with their strong organiza-
tion and skill-protected trade, they were unable to raise wages
above the general level, since there were plenty of idle men
whom capitalists were willing to employ and keep, as was
proved, fourteen months to learn the trade.
2. Co-operation. This, as a plan for general relief, seems so
inadequate that it hardly requires mention. Its benefits are,
necessarily, limited. Unrestricted competition may be relied
upon to furnish buyers with goods at prices that allow only
reasonable charges for middle-men. The majority of people
buy in small quantities; there must be a retailer to supply
those small quantities, and of course that retailer must be paid.
If consumers co-operate, and employ some one to direct the
distribution of their goods, they will probably have to pay that
director quite as much as independent retail merchants, with
reasonable competition, charge for their services and risk.
3. Education. Another temporary expedient. Let one be
better educated than another, and he will command better
wages. But how does this help all? If all are equally well
educated, then none will have the advantage, and competition
will prevent any from securing advanced wages. Ten years
ago, in Japan, an English-speaking Jap commanded much bet-
ter pay than one ignorant of the English language. Now, so
numerous are Japs who speak English that that acquirement
is of little or no service in commanding high wages. I do not
wish to be understood as opposed to education, far from it ;
let every one acquire knowledge, and promote his happiness by
that method just as far as he can. What I wish to point out
is, that the advantages resulting from education are generally
to be found only when the word "superior" is prefixed. The
amount of knowledge you possess must not be simply great, it
must also be greater than, that of somebody else. As any per-
CONCLUSION. 287
feet scheme of improvement must include not only you, but
also that some one else, the plea for more education as a means
of ultimate benefit to all falls through.
4. Temperance, and, 5. Economy and Industry, I consider
together. That every working-man who practises temperance,
industry, and economy will be better off than if he does not
practise those qualities is a self-evident proposition. Unfort-
unately, it is not at all self-evident that every workman who
is temperate, industrious, and economical will be well off. I
know hundreds, and have seen thousands, of working-men who
combine all of those three qualities without being in the least
degree prosperous. Witness this extract from a report of the
Massachusetts Bureau of -Labor :*
" In Boston a large proportion [of working-girls] are workers in shops.
We will take one trade, that of tailoresses and cloak-makers. They go to
their work at seven, almost always without any warm breakfast; they
work until ten, and then have perhaps a few minutes' rest, when a little
teapot is set on the range and a lunch of dry food eaten ; but in most of
the establishments the girls do not stop work until twelve, when they are
allowed from thirty to sixty minutes for dinner. Work ends at 5 P.M.,
and many of the girls take work home with them, work not ceasing till
midnight. Room-rent costs not less than two to three dollars a month
each, with often two or more double beds in the room. In good shops,
and with brisk work, they can earn a dollar a day. Some machine-girls
receive more ; but the work is very wearying, and induces spinal disease.
One of our largest, as well as kindest, merchant tailors testifies to a com-
mittee of inquiry that few ' machine-girls ' could work over two years be-
fore becoming so broken down that they were ever after unfit for labor.
In slop-work shops girls can seldom earn more than their room-rent, except
by over-time work. In slack times their sufferings are extreme, girls
having been known to work for weeks with only water and bread or
crackers for food, and fortunate if able to procure an ounce of tea. In
dull times many have lived for weeks on five cents' worth of stale bread
per week while seeking work. Those women who take work home from
the slop-shops, Provident, Aid, and other charitable societies, receive as
follows : Shirts, four to seven cents ; pants, fifteen cents, twenty cents,
and thirty-seven cents ; coats, fifty cents. Of the thirty thousand women
* No. 1, 1870, p. 360.
288 THE TKAMP AT HOME.
in and about Boston who live by sewing, very few earn over $12 a week ;
the average wages do not exceed $2.75. Paper-box makers average about
$3 a week. Very few working-women of any class ever have a good bed
with sufficient bed-covering. Their wages will not allow them to purchase
warm flannel undergarments, or serviceable shoes, water-proofs, etc. Few
are ever exempt from disease caused by scanty clothing, innutritious food,
and long-continued labor in deleterious conditions."
Here are thirty thousand wage-workers who doubtless, as a
rule, possess at least four of the five so-called requisites for
prosperity; yet who among the thirty thousand, member though
she be of labor organizations, industrious, temperate, economi-
cal, can be considered actually prosperous? When women
work from seven in the morning until ten at night, when they
are sober, intelligent, and economical, and still actually hunger
for bread, the plea that education, temperance, and economy
are the methods by which labor is to become prosperous must
also fall to the ground. What, then, will be an ultimate, as
well as a present, benefit to working-men ?
In answering that question, I will first ask one. Why will
sewing-women, cloak-makers, and so on, work for $3 a week?
Is it not because of the over-supply of 'labor ? Is it not because
our cities are teeming with unemployed laborers, each grasping
after work at almost any price, as a drowning man grasps at
straws? If that is so and the most casual observer must see
that it is will not the principal way of benefiting labor be by
reducing the amount of competition? The problem resolves
itself, primarily, into that of counteracting and preventing
abnormal concentration of population in cities. Sociologists
who devise means for the better housing and care of masses
already concentrated in cities do well ; but he will do infinitely
more good who will devise a means of preventing the masses
from ever becoming congested in the cities. In 1780 less than
a thirtieth of our population lived in cities of eight thousand
and over. A hundred years later, in 1880, nearly one-fourth
of the population lived in cities of eight thousand and over.
What is the cause of this abnormal congestion of population
CONCLUSION. 289
into cities ? I lay the greater part of the blame at the door of
the protective tariff system. The Federal Government has
said to the farmer during the greater part of our national
existence, fciteCTOt
" Manufacturing is not profitable ; fanning pays wel
will take part of your profits to make up the manufacturer's
deficit."
This, of course, is putting a premium on manufacturing
(going to towns and cities), and imposing a penalty on remain-
ing in the country on farms. Under this system farming has
become so unprofitable, farmers pay so much for their goods
and get so little for their products, that they are quitting their
farms to go to the cities; thus overcrowding the latter, and
lowering wages by excessive competition. If the farmer were
allowed to buy his ploughs, harrows, threshers, lumber, shoes,
blankets, and a thousand other necessaries without paying a
heavy bounty on each article, farming might at least be fairly
profitable, and the rush to cities would be checked. The sew-
ing-women in Boston, whose wages, according to the Massachu-
setts Labor Bureau, " will not allow them to buy warm flannel
under-garments," or a " good bed with sufficient bed-covering,"
will be benefited in two important ways : they will not have
to suffer such sharp and unnatural competition, and " warm
flannel underwear " and blankets, free from all tariff taxes, will
be cheap enough for even their meagre purses. The great labor
troubles of 1877 were a blessing in disguise. The artificial
stimulus afforded manufacturing interests by the tariff had been
in operation during a long period. For years the farming class,
unable to make a living on farms, and attracted into the manu-
facturing business by Government bounties, had been crowding
into the cities.* This created excessive competition. A crash
* The Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 4, page 416, says,
"That the sons and daughters of New England farmers are unwilling
to stay at home and follow the fortunes of their fathers and mothers, that
the farms are being more rapidly sold than the public observes these
13
290 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
was inevitable ; it came, and thousands of tramps flooded the
country. Manufacturing, for the time being, did not pay, and
men went back to farming. A large percentage of the army
of tramps settled in the wheat-fields of Nebraska and Kansas,
and other parts of the West, and there was temporary relief.
But the unwise tariffs are continued. The cotton-planter, who
receives a minimum for his cotton in Liverpool, but pays a
maximum for his cotton ties and a thousand other articles to
American manufacturers, still finds farming unprofitable, and
still continues to flee to the city. The wheat-grower gets a
minimum for his wheat in Liverpool, and pays a maximum for
grain bags, machinery, lumber, and a thousand other supplies
in America ; and he goes to the city. The fruit-grower gets so
little for his fruit, and pays so much for protected tin cans, that
he goes to the city. In short, from every quarter there is a
rush cityward, which can only be checked by making farming
more attractive and profitable. It would be more profitable
were it relieved of paying the manufacturers' bounties; there-
fore, the first step, not only for cheapening the necessities of
life to the working-man, but also of lessening the number of
his competitors, is to cease governmental premiums to dwellers
in cities and penalties to dwellers on farms.
I come now to my second remedy a graduated land-tax.
At bottom, all wages practically depend upon the amount of
unoccupied land that is easily accessible. Let land be scarce,
either from density of population or from large private appro-
priations, and poverty is bound to follow. Unskilled labor can
always command, at the least, wages equal to the amount that
lamentable results are due to the fact that the low pay and scant oppor-
tunities of the New England farmer mean poverty."
The same volume gives some exceedingly valuable and significant sta-
tistics upon the hegira from the farms of Massachusetts to the cities and
factory towns. The same movement prevails in the rest of the Union.
Wages in cities will constantly tend downward until that movement is
checked by relieving the farmer of the heavy burdens at present imposed
upon him.
CONCLUSION. 291
can be derived from the nearest unoccupied land. In Portland,
Oregon, the average wages of unskilled labor was for some time
$2 a day. Several years ago, when employers cut wages to
$1.50, the laborers resisted. In the neighborhood of Portland
were marshy tracts which the laborers found, by draining and
cultivating, would yield them, on the average, $2 a day. When
the employers attempted to make the cut to $1.50, their men
struck, and went to work reclaiming the marshes. Of course,
no one was willing to work in Portland for $1.50 when he
could earn $2 in a garden ; hence employers were compelled to
continue paying the old rate. A few years later, however, when
they again made a fifty-cent cut, and when their men looked
around for gardens to cultivate, it was found that all the gardens
were appropriated. What could the laboring men in Portland
do ? They could not starve ; there was no ground easily accessible;
they did the only thing they could do they accepted $1.50.
This is but an illustration of the important part land plays
in the wage question. It is the most important factor. The
thousands of unemployed men in San Francisco and other Cal-
ifornia cities are ready to work, are anxious to make a respect-
able, honorable living; but they are not allowed to go to a
portion of the vast unoccupied territory around them and com-
mand a living from the soil, from Nature. No, that vast terri-
tory, though unoccupied, is appropriated, and the working-man
must stay in the cities and starve, or accept the wages that are
offered him. Along the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad,
miles from any cabin or house, are town lots staked out and
held, awaiting increased population. One town laid out on
the edge of the Mohave Desert miles from any human habita-
tion, has water-pipes laid on the principal streets, cement side-
walks, lamp-posts at the intersection of the well-graded streets,
and even a street-car track all this before there is a single in-
habitant. These speculative schemes, of course, operate to
keep working-men penned up in cities. In Colusa County,
California, 477,000 acres are owned by one hundred and twen-
ty-nine men. Dr. Glenn alone owns 55,000 acres.
292 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
"To cultivate these extensive tracts," says Ruskin, in his
" Letters to Working-men," " much machinery is used, such
as steam-ploughs, gauge-ploughs, reaping, mowing, sowing, and
threshing machines, and seemingly to the utter extermination
of the spirit of rural life. Gangs of laborers are hired during
the emergency of harvesting, and they are left, for the most
part, unhoused, and are fed more like animals than like men.
Harvesting over, they are discharged, and thus are left at the
beginning of their long winters to shift for themselves ; conse-
quently, the large towns and cities are infested for months with
idle men and boys. House-breaking and highway robbery are
of almost daily occurrence. As to the farmers themselves, they
live in a dreary, comfortless way."
It is not alone in the monopoly-cursed States of the Pacific
coast that land is becoming centred in the hands of the few.
In 1881, Hamilton Disston, a Philadelphian, bought 4,000,000
acres of land in Florida, paying therefor $2 an acre. " The
land," says Harper's Weekly of July 16, 1881, " was bought
for speculation."
In 1882 the Texas Land and Cattle Company, of Dundee,
Scotland, bought in one purchase 240,000 acres of Texas land.
On April 20, 1882, it was announced through the public press
that a syndicate had formed to purchase 7,000,000 acres of
Texas Panhandle lands. A Mr. B. H. Evers, of London, bought,
a few years ago, 1,000,000 acres of land in Mississippi. In
1881 a company was formed to buy 20,000 acres of farming
land in Ohio. An Englishman by the name of Scully is said
to draw an annual income of nearly half a million dollars from
lands owned in Illinois. Englishmen own large land estates in
Iowa and other middle Western States. In cities, single men,
like Vanderbilt and Astor, own hundreds of lots and houses.*
These instances suffice to show that there are even now vast
* " Rents [in New York] are s5 enormous that the space of every woman
employed by us may be said to represent simply so many cubic feet in
gold coin." This statement of a New York manufacturer is quoted in
Helen Campbell's "Prisoners of Poverty," p. 68.
CONCLUSION. 293
territories in the hands of single persons and corporations, and
that there is a tendency to continue in that direction. Would
not a graduated land-tax check this tendency ?
The attempt to increase taxation as income and general wealth
increases has, perhaps, properly failed to command approval
because tending to put a damper on the ambition of men to
become millionaires. A man who becomes a millionaire by
building ten hotels, or by producing ten crops of wheat, is a
benefit to society at large ; and it would be against public policy
to impose a heavy tax on an eleventh hotel should he build one,
or on an eleventh crop of wheat. These things are produced ;
their quantity can be increased or diminished. It is better that
they should be increased, hence should not be taxed more than
necessary. But land is not produced. Man cannot increase or
diminish it. There is a certain fixed quantity of land ; hence
it follows that the greater the share appropriated by one man,
the less there remains to be divided among his neighbors ;
hence it is policy to restrict each man's appropriation of land
within a reasonable degree. It would be better for society if
each man owned exactly the amount of land necessary for com-
fortably supporting existence this much, and no more. A
graduated land-tax would in part secure this result. Let the
rate of taxation on land rapidly increase as the amount held by
one owner exceeds the fair and reasonable requirements of one
family.
Congress, by its Homestead and Pre-emption laws, recog-
nized the danger of allowing land to become centred in the
hands of the few, and endeavored to avoid the danger by lim-
iting the amount of land pre-empted by a single person to 160
acres. How futile this scheme has proved every one familiar
with the question knows. "Dummies" are employed to take
up claims. The title secured from the Government, these "dum-
mies " sell out for a song to their employers. Thus recently,
in Humboldt County, California, a single corporation bought
the claims of one hundred and fourteen "dummies," and thus
at one stroke 18,240 acres of public land, which Congress
294 THE TRAMP AT HOME.
thought the pre-emption laws had secured to individual set-
tlers, fell into the hands of a single corporation or owner. A
graduated land-tax could not be escaped by " dummies." The
moment that 18,240 acres became vested in the name of a sin-
gle company or individual, that moment would the tax on all,
except a small portion necessary for the reasonable require-
ment of one family, become so heavy that the grasping specu-
lator would be either obliged to sell, or else cultivate it to the
highest point, in order to be able to pay the taxes. It would
be impossible for him to hold that enormous tract for future
high prices, keeping in the mean time perhaps for years
a host of men from making a comfortable and honorable
living.
There would be no check on a corporation's putting a mill-
ion-dollar factory on a piece of land, thus giving employment
to hundreds, and adding to the general stock of wealth ; but
there would be a check on that class of corporations which
buys up land in both town and country, to tie it up for years,
awaiting increased population and increased prices. That such
a check is needed, even in the sparsely settled West, is shown
by the clamors beginning to arise in California and other
Western States about over-population. Think of California,
with a territory sixteen times greater than that of Belgium,
but with less than a fifth of her population, as over-populated !
Working-men's unions in San Francisco recently clubbed to-
gether, not only to prevent Chinese from coming into the
State, but also to keep out immigration of all other kinds.
" Every new-comer," they say, " competes with us, and lowers
our wages; so let us keep out new-comers." It is not quite
so bad as that; not every immigrant competes with the city
wage - worker, for a few brave frontier life and the dampers
put on farming by tariff bounties, and make for themselves a
living from the soil. Nevertheless, it is true that a large num-
ber of the new-comers, unable to pay the fancy speculative
prices for land, and also deterred from becoming farmers by
the heavy tariff taxes, settle in cities and towns, and thus, as the
CONCLUSION. 295
trades-unions assert, by sharp competition reduce wages and
the standard of living.
But whatever may be thought of the graduated land-tax
idea, no one can successfully dispute that high tariffs are largely
responsible for the 'concentration of population in cities. Let
working-men once thoroughly understand that the keen compe-
tition they suffer resulting in starvation wages is the result
of the very system alleged to be instituted for their benefit, and
the whole protection scheme will burst like a pricked bubble.
As long as ten working-men try to fill nine places, wages will
be low. And, as I have stated, after a wide survey of the
industrial field both in this country and in Europe, the only
way to really and permanently benefit all is not by unions and
organizations (good as those methods are as temporary expe-
dients), but by making for ten men ten places instead of only
nine places.
This can be done by checking the rush of farmers to cities,
and by the prevention of an artificial scarcity of land through
unjust land appropriations. With land open to settlement,
the tenth man will command a living from the soil, instead
of, as now, seeking to wedge himself into a place only large
enough for nine.
There are two things I hate to see : I hate to see a billion-
aire, a man with more money than he knows what to do with,
more food than he can eat in a thousand years, more clothing
than he can wear if he lives to be as old as Methuselah, more
houses than he can occupy if he multiplies himself a hundred-
fold. I hate to see a man thus overloaded with wealth.
On the other hand, I hate it sickens my very soul to see
a homeless, friendless, foodless tramp : a poor devil, gaunt,
ragged, cold, slinking through life despised, barked at by the
very dogs in rich men's backyards. We think we live in a
Christian country, call ourselves followers of Him who said,
"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests;
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."
If this was pitiful, pathetic in the mild clime of Palestine,
296 THE TBAMP AT HOME.
how much more pitiful, how cruelly pathetic in this land of
snow and ice and bleak winds ! The same false conditions of
society, of law, of government which creates billionaires also
creates tramps. I utterly refuse to believe God ever intended
either class to exist. I feel certain that when we have wiser
laws, wiser customs, wiser and juster government, billionaires
and tramps will alike cease to be. Under a wiser and juster
condition of affairs, we will not see our women grinding out
their lives making shirts at fifty cents a dozen ; nor will we
see little children tortured in the treadmill of factories chil-
dren who should live in the open air, playing on the bosom of
Mother Earth. If there is a sight on earth to make angels
"weep, it is the sight of little children in factories, the martyrs
of labor, the martyrs of poverty, of unjust laws, of unjust cus-
toms, of unjust and unwise government !
High taxation, in the shape of "Protective" tariffs, and
large land appropriations may not play the important part in
impoverishing the people which I think they do : what, then,
are the principal factors which produce a society containing
those two excrescences billionaires and tramps ?
"Whatever those factors are, whether high tariffs and large
land appropriations, or factors not suspected by me, they must
be found, and either changed or totally eliminated.
That those factors will be found, I feel certain : I feel
equally certain that, when found, they will be changed from
factors of evil to factors of good. It cannot be that God in-
tends some men and women to idle in luxury, while other men
and women toil and starve. The day is bound to come when
society, laws, government will be wise enough and just enough
to permit each and every citizen to retain and enjoy the wealth
he himself has created.
When that day comes, society will cease to be vexed with
the " Labor Question," and the billionaire and the tramp
will go.
THE END.
A TRAMP TRIP.
How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day. By LEE
MERIWETHEB. With Portrait, pp. 276. 12mo,
Ornamental Cloth, $1 25.
" In the garb of a working-man Mr. Meriwether spent a year on a tramp
trip from Gibraltar to the Bosporus. His book overflows with entertain-
ing incidents and amusing descriptions, and it is of particular value in its
hints and suggestions to would-be pedestrians, and to others who wish to
travel wisely and economically."
An uncommonly interesting volume. N. Y. Tribune.
The book is full of interesting incidents and accidents that befell the
writer on his trip, and contains many entertaining stories of the manner of
life of the peasants, as well as many facts and figures on the much dis-
cussed " Labor Question." Independent, N. Y.
The book is altogether quite out of the range of and above ordinary
volumes of travel, and will give a fair, comprehensive idea of the hard
labor and miserable poverty of the European masses. To do this was
worth all the trials and hardships of the plucky explorer, who seems to
have enjoyed his uncomfortable days with a light heart. Nation, N. Y.
There is not a dull page in the whole book ; the style is simple and per-
spicuous, the portrayal of character keen and incisive, the deductions from
facts clear and logical, and no one who reads it can help envying a man
who succeeded in seeing so much that many travellers have passed by
without notice, and who has been able to give us such graphic pictures of
the home life and the simple manners and customs of toiling millions be-
yond the sea. Philadelphia Record.
Every one interested in travel or fond of out-door sport will enjoy it
immensely. Boston Globe.
Is as bright arid wide-awake in its style as it is unique in its subject.
Boston. Daily Advertiser.
All of it is intensely interesting, and we congratulate the young fellow
that has pluck enough to carry out such a remarkable scheme. Troy Press.
There will be hundreds, thousands who will go abroad next summer to
whom this book may give advice of a very useful sort. Brooklyn Times.
A thoroughly readable and entertaining book. . . . The writer put on
blouse and knapsack and wandered through parts of Italy and Germany
and Russia, seeking the humblest lodgings and putting up with the least
inviting fare in order to be near the people, to see them in their homes, to
learn how they earned their daily bread and how they ate it, and to get at
their views of life. With sharp eyes and a ready wit and a robust diges-
tion, he saw many things which the ordinary traveller would never notice
or indeed care to see, and he has written about them in a gay and jovial
vein. N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
" The above work sent by mail, pontage prepaid, to any part of the United States
or Canada, on receipt of the price.
FROM THE FORECASTLE TO THE CABIN.
By Captain S. SAMUELS. Illustrated, pp. xviii., 308.
12mo, Extra Cloth, $1 50.
"The record of a life of stirring adventure. Captain Samuels began
his career by running away to sea at the age of eleven years as a cabin-
boy ; at twenty-one he was captain of a fine ship, and he retired from
the active pursuit of his profession when commander of the famous clip-
per Dreadnought. He tells his experiences in tempests and mutinies, in
fights with pirates and street ruffians, in romantic escapades, in collisions,
and in battles with cannibals. As a yachting commander, Captain Sam-
uels sailed the Henrietta, which won the ocean sweepstakes in 1866, and
he commanded the Dauntless in her race with the Coronet"
" Captain Samuels has given me the privilege of reading the proof-sheets
of the following pages, and has asked me to introduce him to the public.
I cannot conceive of a more unnecessary ceremony. ' Good wine needs no
bush,' and 'From the Forecastle to the Cabin' has not a dull line in it.
The art of telling a story is, after all, as an Irishman would say, a gift,
and Captain Samuels certainly has that gift. I read to some friends of
not uncritical disposition the tale to be found in chapters twelve and thir-
teen, and they paid it the rare compliment of asking to hear it again the
next evening. In fact, a volume crowded with so much and such various
incidents, graphically told, could not fail to be interesting." BISHOP POT-
TER'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
A vivid picture of life on shipboard, and a stirring narrative of personal
experience. . . . Bishop Potter well says that the book has not a dull line
in it. The captain has the art of telling a story in high perfection.
N. Y. Tribune.
The story is full of interest and excitement. ... It is a charming book.
JV. Y. Commercial Advertiser.
The book is one of great interest. ... It is the story of a famous and
able sailor, told by himself in his own way, and has incident enough to
fix the attention and set going the imagination of anybody. N. Y. Sun.
It will take the front rank among the books of adventure on the sea.
Boston Courier.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
" The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of tte United State*
or Canada, on receipt of tht, price.
I A
