The Cairo Bulletin

HOW A TRAMP OPERATES.

The professional hobo generally travels and operates alone; but if, upon arriving at some large town or city, he happens to meet other congenial members of his profession, a pooling of interests is sometimes undertaken, a hobo camp set up, and the town is systematically worked. The spot for a camp usually chosen is in the outskirts, on some wooded tract, not too far from the railroad. Here the profits are divided and the different territory allotted. At nightfall all congregate to this point with the spoils and supplies; and over the "hobo stew" is a triumph of the culinary art, that these gentry have a particular weakness for. A large iron pot is purchased, begged or stolen, and half filled with water. Into this are thrown pieces of beef, pork, chicken (from some robbed hen roost), bread, potatoes, carrots, onions--and, in fact, everything edible that has been or can be secured. When the savory mess is sufficiently boiled, it is eaten, with much gusto, by the tramp. These camps are never kept in existence long, however, because the hobo realizes that the danger of detection, and a round-up, is an ever present one, when a large number remain long together in any one camp.

Professional tramps, like the birds, have regular migratory seasons. From April to September, this tide of immigration is toward the Northern and Eastern states and the region of the Middle West. From November on through the winter, his peregrinations take him South, Southwest and to the Southern Pacific coast. New York is a safe harbor at any time. It, with Chicago, in summer, forms the meccas of the professional tramp. In winter his Elysian fields are New Orleans, Frisco, and the southern points in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Texas.--Jack Hazle, in the Pilgrim.