THE AMERICAN TRAMP.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9072, 12 February 1908, Page 6

THE AMERICAN TRAMP.

Every nation has a favourite “butt” on which co hang its humour. The Greek philosopher who centuries ago declared that tliere were only seven original jokes in the world, of course did not dream of the boundless possibilities of American enterprise. Otherwise he would have fiaiu there were eight, and that the last w'ould be created and patented in the United States somewhere in the nineteenth century, and have for its subject that peripatetic person generically as ‘ ‘ the tramp. ! ’ Cuarles Dickens wioce .an” iui Citable description of English tramns —“a mixture of perspiration and intoxication” ; hut in spite of his American experiences, says Cassell’s Magazine, he did not quite understand the genus which has sprung up in the West. For the American tramp has exclusive characteristics. He was “horn tired.” He suffers from ineradicable weariness. He will not dig, and to beg he is not ashamed. His salacrity is only displayed in flying from work. His utmost ingenuity appears in the discovering of reasons why he should eat at other people’s expense, and without making the silghtest return. And out of a personality so unprepossessing and unpopular, the American has extracted an unfailing supply of humour.