Stealing Train Rides

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 4

Stealing Train Rides

STORIES OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY

The railway authorities of the variouts States are faced with the difficult problem of coping with unemployed men who are going about the country looking for work, and stealing rides on the trains by hiding in trucks and waggons (states a report from America). In Australia, too, the habit of “jumping the train” is becoming prevalent.

This is an old problem in the United States, but it is only since the depression began that it has become a problem of serious dimensions in Australia. Reports published in the newspapers from time to time have shown that sometimes more than a score of men have been discovered hiding in goods trains. Often these free travellers have been numerous enough to defy interference from the railway officials and the police. It is not only the fact that they obtain free rides that annoys the railway authorities, but that they break open cases of goods in transit, steal things that are of use to them, and destroy other goods. In the United States, where there are thousands of tramps who use the railways free of cost, the loss to the railway companies in goods stolen and damaged amounts to many thousands of pounds every year. The tramp, in searching a railway waggon for goods that are of use to him, opens case after case, throws the contents about, and tramples on them. He breaks open bottles containing liquid goods, and bursts other containers, the contents of which are ruined by the liquids that flow over them. American railway companies employ police of their own to deal with the tramp problem. Formerly these police tried to prevent the tramps getting on the trains by keeping watch at water tanks and other places where tramps were in the habit of boarding trains when they pulled up. But now, owing to the depression, the tramps are so numerous that some railway companies put on extra waggons to accommodate them and prevent accidents. The railway police concentrate their attention on protecting goods in transit. In October, 1932, the Southern Pacific Railroad reported that it was carrying an average of 2500 tramps each week, and that there were often 200 to 300 tramps on a single train.

A great deal has been written in American newspapers and magazines about tramps and their ways, and they have also been the subject of several books. Mr W. H. Davies, famous in England as a lyrical poet, who spent some years of his early manhood in wandering about the United States in the company of tramps and beggars, gives some interesting experiences about stealing rides on trains in his book, “ The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp,” and the subject is dealt with more fully in “ Adventures of a Scholar Tramp,” by Glen H. Mullin, to which Mr Davies contributes an introduction. As a general rule tramps prefer to travel by goods trains, because it is easier to board them, as they travel more slowly than passenger trains, and because it is easier to avoid detection on a goods train than on a passenger train. In a goods train there are hiding places in the trucks and waggons, but on a passenger train the safest place is the roof of a carriage, which is by no means comfortable.

“ I was soon initiated into the mysteries of beating my way by train, which is so necessary in parts of America, seeing the great distances between towns,” writes Mr Davies. “ Sometimes we were fortunate enough to get an empty car; sometimes we had to ride the bumpers; and often when travelling through a hostile country we rode on the roof of a car so as not to give the brakesman an opportunity of striking us off the bumpers unawares. It is nothing unusual in some parts to find a man, always a stranger, lying dead on the track, often cut in many pieces. At the inquest they invariably bring in a verdict of accidental death, but we know differently. Therefore we rode the car’s top, so as to be at no disadvantage in a struggle. The brakesman,, knowing well that our fall would be his own, would not be too eager to commence hostilities. Sometimes we were desperate enough to ride the narrow iron rods which were under the car, and only a few feet from the track. This required some nerve, for it was not only uncomfortable, but the train, being so near the line, seemed to be running at a reckless and uncomfortable speed, whereas when riding on the car’s top a much faster train seems to be running much more slowly, and far more smoothly and safely. Sometimes we were forced to jump off a moving train at the point of a revolver. At other times the brakesmen were friendly, and even offered assistance in the way of food, drink, or tobacco.” Eventually Mr Davies met with a serious accident while boarding a moving train, his right foot being severed at the ankle. WANDERING, HOMELESS BOYS. The depression in the United States has added many thousands of youths.

AMERICAN PROBLEM OF THE RAILROAD.

to the army of tramps. Mr Owen J. Lovejoy, secretary of the Children’s Aid Society in New York, contributed an article on the subject to a recent number of Current History. He estimated that there wfere between 200,000 and 300,000 homeless boys between the ages of 16 and 21 years wandering about the United States. Of course some of these young wanderers are youths who ran away from home in search of adventure, but many of them left their homes because their fathers were out ‘of work, and there was not- enough food in the house to feed all the young mouths. They believed that by “hitting the trail” they would eventually find work and be able to send money home to relieve the distress there.

“ New York for years has been the Mecca for young people,” writes Mr Lovejoy. “ Tales of poor boys who have made their fortune there have been broadcast throughout the land. Youth is always optimistic, and naturally boys who have come from long distances believe that in a city of 7,000,000 people there is room and a job for one more. Arriving in the big city, they find, like many a footsore traveller before them, that the gigantic buildings and gaily-lighted streets lose their splendour when viewed on an empty stomach; they find also the signs, “ No Boys Wanted ” are as numerous there as elsewhere. A large percentage of these youthful travellers have little or no money, and have no definite trade. Some lose their courage chances for occupation dwindle; food becomes scarce, and pride is humbled. In New York city reports are constantly being printed that 6000 or 7000 homeless boys are wandering the streets; that 500 boys sleep each night in certain stations of the new Eighth Avenue subway; that 100 boys sleep in the corridors of the Lexington Avenue subway at Thirty-third Street; that scores of hungry boys are without any care or service from social agencies.”

ENGLISH TRAMPS. The English professional tramp—that is, the tramp who travels about the country without ever doing a day’s work—differs in many respects from the professional tramp, or “hobo,” in the United States. He never attempts to steal rides on the trains. The reason for this is that although he has a different destination every night he does not travel far in a day, and a slow walking pace will enable him to get to his destination, which is usually the casual ward of a workhouse. As the casual ward does not open to receive visitors till 6 p.nu, there is no advantage in getting there early. At the casual ward he gets a night’s lodging and a little food, and is discharged in the morning about 11 o’clock, after doing a little work in the workhouse. Then he sets out for the workhouse in a neighbouring town, timing himself to reach it about 6 p.m. As he must not return to the same casual ward within a period of thirty days, he makes a round of visits to a succession of workhouses within a ceitain area, the round occupying him from four to six months.

Writing on the subject, Mr Frank Gray;, a former M.P for Oxford, says: “ Tramps may be called area tramps,’ for they journey in areas which are more than sufficiently large to preclude the possibility of their having to call at any one casual ward within thirty days of the last visit—an offence involving detention. Some tramps, for instance, take the west of England and Midland area, stretching from Somerset to Staffordshire, and touching London, while others cover the eastern counties, and others again the north of England and Wales. The Western-Midland tramp will cover his area for years indeed, for a lifetime—but he won’t vary his journeys except within the area. In the northern, eastern, or any other area he would feel a stranger in a strange land.” In order to study at close quarters the social problem of the tramp, Mi Gray disguised himself as a tramp, and put in a night at every casual ward within twenty miles of his home in Oxford. In his book, “The Tramp: His Meaning and Being,” he explains how he coached nimself, so as to be able to pass the scrutiny of the officials at the casual wards, and be accepted by genuine tramps as one of themselves. “ For some weeks before I became a tramp, whenever my time permitted,” he writes, I would motor forty or fifty miles away from my home, and reach a main road between two workhouses, where I should be sure at any time between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to fall in with sonfe tramps. I would go along until I saw a single tramp in front of me. Overtaking him, I would say, ‘ Want a lift ? ’ Usually he accepted, but sometimes I got a rebuff. There are at least a few tramps on the road who in the bitterness of their soul and in their war on society will spurn a proffered act of kindness. Besides, sometimes it is very awkward and inconvenient to the tramp to be picked up. If he

is on the outskirts of a town he will not thank you to drive him through the town, even though you drive him to the very door of the casual ward. You 1 see, it is on the outskirts of the town that the tramp’s main business lies—for he has a business. Begging is his business, whether he is equipped for it or not. I mean he may be begging unashamed and unabashed, or he may make the pretence of pro T '*

ducing and trying to sell you a pai,r of bootlaces from a very small stock, in which case he will hate you if you buy the whole stock at anything but an amazing price, for you will have destroyed his assets and his power to trade. Well, I would pick up a tramp on the pretence of giving him a kindly lift, and get him in the seat of the car beside me. Now, the average distance between casual ward and casual ward is said to be fifteen miles; but this distande in recent years has been in places greatly lengthened by the closing of wards, as part of a policy of making things uncomfortable for tramps. Perhaps when I had picked up a tramp in this way it was only a matter of five miles to the outskirts of the next town to which the tramp was walking, and, as I have shown, he would not wish to go farther than the outskirts. This would have given an insufficient length of time for the long cross-examination I desired to embark upon, unless I pulled up by the roadside, which would have been embarrassing and uncomfortable as other knights of the road passed by.

“ So, once having got ray tramp victim into the car, I would whirl him, protesting or not, right through the next town and perhaps several other towns beyond. In effect, I kidnapped himi for the time being, and, having thus got him under my control and at m’y mercy, I would subject him to a searching cross-exami-nation. I would ask him his history; I would speak of his future and his objective, well knowing after a time that he had neither the one nor the other. I would ask him for a roadman’s special terms and definitions, of casual wards and their conditions, variations, and conduct. I would question him at length. In particular I would inquire about the proceedings on arrival at a casual ward and on the conclusion of the visit.”

UNSOCIABLE HABITS. The English professional tramp, unlike the American “(hobo,” does not chum up with others of his class, but prefers to travel alone. “ The genuine tramp, on being released from the casual ward, then decides—and probably only then decides—his direction for the day,” writes Mr Gray, “ for the very * regular ’ makes few changes in his route, and ambles along in his accustomed direction. Very occasionally, in the case of a genuine tramp, he has to deviate and go back a bit to recover a bit of personal treasure trove which he has not deemed it wise to take with him into the casual ward over-night. As he embarks upon his journey he first shakes off any proffered companionship. He will not admit that he is going in the same direction as anyone else, for he is by nature a lonely fellow, preferring his own reflections to the consideration of the ideas of others. He takes to the gutters on the off-side of the road to meet oncoming traffic; his eyes are alive to the possibilities of cigarette ends lying about, and indeed of every other article abandoned by a more fortunate public, for the genuine tramp leaves nothing of this kind out of account, sometimes closely inspecting a dustbin, though this is the business of the rag-and-bone man, not the tramp. The genuine tramp never leaves a piece of newspaper behind himi: he is fond of reading, and papers or bits of papers are the only things he gets to read.” Mr Gray declares that there are very few genuine unemployed men among the tramps to be found in the casual wards. The man who tramps the country in search of work cannot adapt himself to the casual ward system. He would not be discharged from a casual wai'd until 11 a.m., and that is much too late to apply to the Employment Exchange for a job with any chance of success. Any jobs available through the Employment Exchange are filled long before 11 a.m.; and if he is destitute and cannot pay for a bed he cannot spend much time looking for work, because he cannot return for the night to the same casual ward without being subjected to punishment. He must seek his night’s shelter at the casual ward in an adjoining towm. The professional tramp never looks at rwork, and avoids' it if it" is“ offered* to him. “ Stand on a highway between casual wards, stop each tramp, and inquire of him the whereabouts of the Employment Exchange in the town he has just left, and that is the one question he cannot answer,” states Mr Gray.