NEW BOOTS FOR TRAMP

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 209, 17 June 1935, Page 6

NEW BOOTS FOR TRAMP

GENEROUS VICAR BESIEGED. England's tramps, their clothes dirty and dilapidated by age and exposure, their boots worn out with constant wanderings from "spike" to "spike," were lately converging with one accord on the small Sussex town of Midhurs^. It was the Vicar of Midhurst, the Rev. F. Tatchell, who started this pilgrimage about a fortnight before Christmas. It was done fiuite unobtrusively—just a small notice in a window of his vicarage—but it caused a passing tramp to stop and stare and then to dive for the front door at a speed he had not attained for 20 years. "Tramps whose boots aire done for can obtain a new pair bere." So read the notice, and the vicar was as good as his word. Elated, mystified, and newly shod, the tramp went away, and before long there were mysterious whisperings in the haunts of his kind and even more mysterious marks chalked up about the roads. The results were soon apparent. "Lately we have been almost in a state of sie"-e," Mr Tatchel's secretary stated recently. "The scheme was originally intended only for the genuine 'tramp,' but we have been getting all sorts and conditions of men. applying As a consequence we have been forced to send them, to the police station to have their claims inquired into before we supplied them with the new boots and the two pairs of socks that go with them." So great were the number of applicants that a constable had to be detailed off to deal with thenr and later on applications were limited to those arriving before 10.30 in the morning. "You see, the Chief Constable became a little alarmed," the secretary said "and also the scheme was getting entirely out of control. As it is, we have had men who have come all the wav from Liverpool, and also people from as far away as >Vimborne and Winchester. Even now we are averaging about 15 inquiries a *«"*"«• an Once, and only once, was there an attempt at fraud, when a man who had already .received boots applied later toi another pair. He was quickly discovered. It was decided to close the offer after it had been open for six weeks. And so, with an added urgency, toward the end of last month, the tramps of England were shuffling or striding toward the yicarage of Midhurst and the relief of weary feet.