SWITCHBACK JOE

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1688, 19 November 1925, Page 7

SWITCHBACK JOE

THE MAKING OF A DERELICT,

(By S.G.S. in the Melbourne Argus.) No one mourned at the graveside of Switchback Joe when his body, bruised and beaten through a life of vicissitudes, was carried recently to its last resting place. Fifteen years have passed since I christened him Switchbask Joe. The ups and downs about which I learned from him reminded me of nothing as vividly as the switchback railway of my boyhood days, with each slow, stiff toil of the upgrade followed by a swift, sickening, downwards plunge. The words "up" and "down" are merely relative as applied to Switchback Joe. His periodical struggles upward toward selfrespect, (cpnifori; 'and independence never took him very high in the social scale; the striving was never persistently or consistently maintained. On the other hand, each downward plunge carried him deeper into the mire of social degradation. The "come-back" was always harder to achieve, less pronounced, and less prolonged, until it disappeared entirely. Finally he sank to the level of the bleary, battered derelicts who slink along city lanes and by-ways, and there hd lost, for good and all, the capacity to generate sufficient energy and resolution to face afresh the tiring, up-hill climb. Joe's early history was shrouded in mystery, but that he -was reared in a good home was at least suggested by his speech, and his unfailing courtesy. Politeness served him well in his later years, when he fell to living on his wits. Kindly, twinkling grey eyes, shining less and lets Drlghtly from a somewhat rugged, bearded face, and a soft and persuasive tongue saved Joe many times from passing the night with the sky for a blanket. He was a rare palaverer, was Joe. I know, for even I —a hardened sifter of sad and troublous stories—fell a victim to his wiles in the ea.rly days of our acquaintance! He had, by that time, become a past-master of every dodge and trick of the city cadger. A convincing flavour of originr.l'ty in his tale of woe, combined with an equally convinving air of veracity in its presentation, ensured suqeess ,as success is appraised in the career of a cadger. He elected his "marks" with discrimination and insight into character which would have assured for him a flourishing business as a practising psychologist. He rarely encountered a rebuff. Who can say how vastly his life might have been affected had his earlier cadging essays met with consistent failure. But they did not, and he became Switchback Joe.

Of course, Joe drank. That was a factor of his downfall which commenced to operate in the early days of his manhood. He was then a man of parts, roaming the country, and making a living in many and varied ways between steadily lengthening drinking bouts. Many a railway construction camp knew him, for he was then of sturdy physique. At other times he re-appeared as a pedlair and canvasser, a farm labourer, a painter, a station rouse-about, a free-lance journalist. His literary gifts served him well, even in the years of social submergence., for he earned a humble fee by concocting and penning all sorts of epistles for others. No doubt his instability of character also contributed to his downfall. But an additional fa ; ctor was indiscriminate benevolence. The downward slo,pe was made still steeper for Joe by the ease with which he could obtain the bare necessaries of exictence —food, shelter, and clothing of a kind—from benevolent individuals and from the countless agencies which are to be found in most large cities ministering to the spiritual and physical welfare of the "down and out." None knew better than Joe the possibilities Melbourne offered in the way of free meals and the distribution of discarded clothing and bel -.ickets. A bowl of eoup and a bag of buns at one mission helped to keep him going for to-day. A free breakfast at another would contribute to the morrow's struggle for existence. And so.from day to day, Joe "carried on." He would join lustily in the singing of a few hymns, and listen patiently to the ardent address of an earnest missioner, but he was no hypocrite. He never professed conversion; he was never found on the penitents' bench. He was just a somewhat likeable, but unmitigated humbug, who was prepare! to join cheerfully in the service or u'KPies'ionably to accept a.nv other condili -n of qualification for a meal or other ephemeral benefit. He lived a day at a time, and never i«-.t tomorrow's troubles until they arrived. In the 'isvtiay of his vigour Joe welcomed ar. unemployment crisis. He was always "imong 'he first to find h's way into 'he rank" of th<; unemployed, gaining ma- • a heel and many a meal. He was a cheerful rec'-je'.t of a.i that our sxial and philanthropic system had to give him for nothing. Of course , good times nev-n- lasted foi Joe. He ".;ie soon found out, ti'i he was never discounted. He knew the gauii- too well to m easily deterred by any • e;iipcr;.ry set-back He always had an .:oe up his sleev?. There caire a time, however, as

there must come to all such as Joe, when the "game" beat him. Drink, exposure, :md the passing of years steadily wore down his physique, and he was compelled to enter an institution for the indigent and aged. Here, for a few more years, he rested, still a burden on the community, and now he has gone, mourned by none, but a rapidly fading memory to a few who established brief contact with his unlovely and uninspiring life. There are, unhappily, many Switch back Joes in our midst. It is not always their fault that they are there as they are. We are all prone to help turn them into social liabilities. There can be culled and refined from the slag—the human flotsam—of a large city many productive assets if we but go the right way about it. Private enterprise will cheerfully expend hundreds of thousands of pounds in the erection and installation of elaborate machinery for the extraction of payable products from the discarded clumps of a work-ed-out mine. The expenditure of only a few thousands would establish a fa.rm colony, for instance, for the extraction of national assets from the raDks of our Switchback Joes. Would it not be worth while?