Whenever I think of them I think of the spectacle that genius of the burlesque world of my day, Nat Wills, used to present when, in fluttering rags and tatters, his vestless shirt open at the breast, revealing no underwear, his shoes three times too big, and torn and cracked, a small battered straw hat, from a hole in which his hair protruded, his trousers upheld by a string, and that indefinable smirk of satisfaction of which he was capable flickering over his dirty and unshaven face he was wont to strike an attitude worthy of a flight of oratory, and exclaim: “Fifteen years ago to-day I was a poor, dispirited, broken-down tramp sitting on a bench in a park, not a shirt to my back. Not a decent pair of shoes on my feet. A hat with a hole in it. No money to get a shave or a bath or a place to sleep. No place to eat. Not a friend in the world to turn to. My torn and frayed trousers held up by a string. Yet” (striking his chest dramatically) “look at me now!” And then he would lift one hand dramatically, as much as to say, “Could any change be greater?” The humor was not only in the contrast which his words implied and his appearance belied, but in a certain definite and not unkindly characterization of the bum as such, that smug and even defiant disregard of the conventions and amenities which characterizes so35 many of them and sets them apart as a species quite distinct from the body social—for that they truly are. And for that very reason they have always had a peculiar interest for me, even a kind of fascination, such as an arrestingly different animal might have for others. And here in the great city, from time to time I have encountered so many of them, suggesting not poverty or want but a kind of devil-may-care indifference and even contempt for all that society as we know it prizes so highly—order, cleanliness, a job, a good suit of clothes, marriage, children, respected membership in various orders, religion, politics—anything and everything that you will. And yet, by reason of their antithesis and seeming antipathy to all this, interesting.
For, say what you will, it does take something that is not social, and most certainly independent, either in the form of thought or temperament, to permit one to thus brazenly brave the notions and the moods, to say nothing of the intellectual convictions, of those who look upon the things above described as essential and permanent. These astonishingly strange men, with their matted hair over their eyes, their dirty skins, their dirty clothes, their large feet encased in torn shoes, their hats with holes in them and their hair actually protruding—just as though there were rules or conventions governing them in the matter of dress. Along railroad tracks and roads outside the large cities of the country I have seen them (curiously enough, I have never seen a woman tramp), singly or in groups, before a fire, the accredited tin can at hand for water, a degenerate pail brought from somewhere in which something is being36 cooked over a fire. And on occasion, as a boy, I have found them asleep in the woods, under a tree, or in some improvised hole in a hay or straw stack, snoring loudly or resting as only the just and the pure in heart should rest.
But here in the great city I have always thought them a little strange and out of place. They consort so poorly with the pushing, eager, seeking throngs. And arrayed as they are, and as unkempt and unwashed, not even the low-priced lodging houses of the Bowery would receive them, and most certainly they would not pay the price of fifteen or twenty cents which would be required to house them, even if they had it. They are not of that kidney. And as for applying to a police station at any time, it were better that they did not. In bitter weather an ordinary citizen might do so with safety and be taken care of, but these, never. They would be driven out or sent to the Island, as the work-house here is called. Their principal lodging resource in times of wintry stress appears to be some grating covering a shaft leading to an engine room of some plant operative the night through, from which warm air pours; or some hallway in a public building, or the ultra-liberal and charitable lodging house of some religious mission. Quite often on an icy night I have seen not a few of them lying over the gratings of the subway at Fourteenth Street and at other less conspicuous points, where, along with better men than themselves, they were trusting to the semi-dry warm air that poured up through to prevent death from freezing. But the freeze being over, they would go their ways, I am sure,37 and never mend them from any fear of a like experience.
And it is exactly that about them which has always interested me. For, by and large, I have never been able to feel that they either craved or deserved the need of that sympathy that we so freely extend to others of a less sturdy and different character. In truth, they are never as poor physically and nervously as many of those who, though socially fallen, yet appear to be better placed in the matter of clothes, food and mood. They are, in the main, neither lean nor dispirited, and they take life with too jaunty an air to permit one to be distressed about them. They remind me more of gulls or moles, or some different and unsocial animal that still finds in man his rightful prey or source of supply. And I am positive that theirs is a disposition, either inherited or made so by circumstances, which has not too much chemic opposition to their lackadaisical state, that prefers it even to some other forms of existence. Summer or winter I have seen them here and there, in the great city, but never in those poorer neighborhoods, frequented by those who are really in need, and always with the air of physical if not material comfort hovering about them, and that in the face of garments that would better become an ashcan than a man. The rags. The dirt. And yet how often of a summer’s evening have I not seen them on the stones of doorways and the planks of docks and lumber yards, warm and therefore comfortable, resting most lazily and snoring loudly, as though their troubles or irritations, whatever they were, were far from them.
38 And in these same easier seasons have I not seen them making their way defiantly or speculatively among the enormous crowds on the principal streets of the city, gazing interestedly and alertly into the splendid shopwindows, and thinking what thoughts and contemplating what prospects! It is not from these that the burglars are recruited or the pickpockets, as the police will tell you. And the great cities do not ordinarily attract them; though they come, occasionally, drawn, I suppose, by the hope of novelty, and interested, quite as is Dives in Egypt or India, by what they see. Now and then you will behold one, as have I, being “ragged” by one of those idle mischievous gangs of the city into whose heartless clutches he has chanced to fall. His hat will be seized and pulled or crushed down over his eyes, his matted hair or beard pulled, straws or rags or paper shoved between his back and his coat and himself made into a veritable push-ball or punching-bag to be shoved here and there, before he is allowed to depart. And for no offense other than that he is as he is. Yet whether they are spiritually outraged or depressed by this I would not be able to say. To me they have ever appeared to be immune to what would spiritually degrade and hence torture and depress another.
Their approach to life, if anything, appears to be one of hoyden contempt for conventional processes of all kinds, a kind of parasitic indifference to anything save their own comfort, joined with a not unadmirable love for the out-of-doors and for change. So often, as I have said, I have seen them about the great city,39 asleep in the cool recesses of not-much-frequented doors and passageways, and in lumberyards and odd corners, anywhere where they were not likely to be observed. And my observation of them has led me to conclude that they do not feel and hence do not suffer as do other and more sensitive men. They are not interested in material prosperity as such, and they will not work. If any one has ever seen one with that haunted look which at times characterizes the eye of those who take life and society so desperately and seriously, and that betokens one whom life is able to torture, I have yet to hear of it.
But what an interesting and amazing spectacle they present, and what amusing things are to be related of them! I personally have seen a group of such rowdies, such as characterize some New York street corners even to this day pouring wood-alcohol on one of these fellows whom they chanced to find asleep, and then setting fire to it in order to observe what would be the effect of the discovery by the victim of himself in flames. And subsequently pursuing him down the street with shouts and ribald laughter. On another occasion, in Hudson Street, the quondam home of the Hudson Dusters, I have seen six or eight of such youths pushing another one such about, carrying him here and there by the legs and arms and tossing him into the air above an old discarded mattress, until an irate citizen, not to be overawed himself, and of most respectable and God-fearing mien, chose to interfere and bring about a release. And in another part of this same good city, that part of the waterfront which lies east of South Ferry and south40 of Fulton Street, I have seen one such most persistently and thoroughly doused by as many as ten playful wags, all in line, yet at different doors, and each discharging a can or a bucket of water upon the fleeing victim, who sought to elude them by running. But, following this individual to see what his mood might be, I could not see that he had taken the matter so very much to heart. Once free of his pursuers, he made his way to a dock, where, seated behind some boxes in the sun, he made shift to dry himself and rest without appearing to fret over what had occurred.
On one occasion I remember standing on the forward end of a ferry boat that once plied between New York and Jersey City, the terminal of one of the great railways entering the city, when one of these peculiar creatures took occasion to make his very individual point of view clear. It was late afternoon, and the forerunners of the homeward evening rush of commuters were already beginning to appear. He was dirty and unkempt and materially degraded as may be, but not at all cast down or distrait. On the contrary. Having been ushered to the dock by a stalwart New York policeman and put on board and told never to return on pain of arrest, he was still in an excellent mood in regard to it all. Heigh-ho! The world was not nearly so bad as many made out. His toes sticking out, the ragged ends of his coat flapping about him, a wretched excuse for a hat on his head, he still trotted here and there, a genial and knowing gleam in his eye, to say nothing of a Mona Liza-like leer about his mouth. He surveyed us all,41 kempt and worthy exemplars of the proprieties, with the air of one who says: “Well, well! Such decent and such silly people. All sheep who know only the conventional ways and limitations of the city and nothing else, creatures who look on me as a wastrel, a failure and a ne’er-do-well. Nevertheless, I am not as hopeless or as hapless as they think, the sillies.” And to make this clear he strode defiantly to and fro, smirking now on one and now on another, and coming near to one and again to another, thereby causing each and every one to retreat for the very simple reason that the odor of him was as unconventional as himself.
Finding himself thus evaded and rather scorned for this procedure, he retired to the forward part of the deck for a time and communed with himself; but not for long. For, deciding after all, I presume, that this was a form of defeat and that he was allowing himself to be unduly put upon or outplaced, at least, by conventionalists, for whom he had absolutely no respect, he whirled, and surveying the assembled company of commuters who had by now gathered in a circle about him, like sheep surveying some unwonted spectacle, he waved one hand dramatically and announced: “I’m a dirty, drunken, blue-nosed bum, and I don’t give a damn! See? See? I don’t give a damn!” and with that he caroled a little tune, whistled, twiddled his fingers at all of us, did a light gay step here and there, and then, lifting his torn coat-tails, shook them defiantly and contemptuously in the face of all of us.
There were of course a few terrified squeaks from a42 few horrified and sanctified maidens, old and young, who retreated to the protection of the saloon behind. There were also dark and reproving frowns from a number of solid and substantial citizens, very well-dressed indeed, who pretended not to notice or who even frowned on others for noticing. Incidentally, there were a few delighted and yet repressed squeals from various youths and commonplace nobodies, like myself, and eke a number of heavy guffaws from more substantial citizens of uncertain origin and who should have, presumably, known better.
Yet, after all, as I told myself, afterward, there was considerable to be said for the point of view of this man, or object. It was at least individual, characterful and forceful. He was, decidedly, out of step with all those about him, but still in step, plainly, with certain fancies, moods, conditions more suited to his temperament. Decidedly, his point of view was that of the box-car, the railroad track, the hay-pile and the roadside. But what of it? Must one quarrel with a crow for being a crow, or with a sheep for being a sheep? Not I.
And in addition, to prove that he really did not care a damn, and that his world was his own, once the gates were lifted he went dancing off the boat and up the dock, a jaunty, devil-may-care air and step characterizing him, and was soon lost in the world farther on. But about it all, as it seemed to me, there was something that said to those of us who were left in the way, that he and his kind were neither to be pitied nor blamed. They were as they were, unsocial, unconventional, indifferent43 to the saving, grasping, scheming plans of men, and in accord with moods if not plans of their own. They will not, and I suspect cannot, run with the herd, even if they would. And no doubt they taste a form of pleasure and satisfaction that is as grateful to them as are all the moods and emotions which characterize those who are so unlike them and who see them as beings so utterly to be pitied or foresworn. At least I imagine so.