FOR WEARY WILLIES

Evening Star, Issue 20592, 18 September 1930, Page 14

FOR WEARY WILLIES

GUIDE TO H BEST PLACES " Tile queerest editor in the world is he who founded and conducts the * Hobo News.’ Tramps all over England owe him a deep debt of gratitude ; for he is the man who writes and circulates a tiny paper which tells them where the ‘ 1 pickings ' ’ are good, at what houses the owners keep ferocious. dogs, what towns and workhouses to avoid, and so on. .. , _ , ... His name is Jeremiah Bolen. He is a weatherbeaten, sun-tanned man of fifty-six, who boasts of an education^at a well-known school; Once ho occupied a comfortable position, but now he tramps the roads, and every now and then ho brings out a little paper full of vital information to his brethren of tho highway. , . , f met him (says a correspondent of the ‘ Sunday Chronicle ’) setting out on his trip to Glasgow, and he told me how tho * Hobo News/ as ho calls it, came to be formed. . “In the old days,” he said, tramps used to rely for their information on signs placed on gate stoops and at the entrances to towns by men who had gone before them. “ That was unsatisfactory, for often these signs used to be rubbed out, and I was constantly getting complaints from men who had struck bad patches in consequence. “ As I went about I used to gather information of all kinds, and it struck me that it would be a good idea if I could pass it on in some way. “ I therefore found a triend, a printer, who agreed to set it out for me. A number of copies were printed, and these I passed on to tramps of my acquaintance. Now I receive information from men in all parts of the country, so that no tramp wherever he goes need lack knowledge of tho best places to go.” '