Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life

PART IV

THE TRAMPS JARGON

Almost the first thing that one remarks on getting acquainted with tramps is their peculiar language. In every country where they live they have dialects of their own choosing and making, and the stranger who goes among them must learn to speak these before he can associate with them on terms of intimacy. Indeed, the "tenderfoot" in tramp life, the beginner, is recognized by his ignorance of the "lingo." The way he carries himself, shakes hands, and begs are also signs by which the "professional" determines the newcomer's standing in the brotherhood; but they are not so unmistakable as his use of the tramp dialect, and it is seldom necessary to talk with him for more than a few minutes to discover how long he has been on the road.

On starting out on my first trip among the hoboes, I thought that I had provided myself with a sufficient number of words and phrases to converse with them more or less as one of their own kind; but I soon discovered how little I knew of their language. My stock of slang consisted of expressions taken from dictionaries and acquired in association with gamins of the street, and I was naïve enough to think that it would suffice for companionship with the regular tramps. It is true that the hoboes make use of a great deal of slang that is popular in the streets and not unknown to "respectable" people, but for social intercourse they rely mainly on their own jargon. In Germany, where the police collect tramp and criminal slang into dictionaries, in order that they may be able to understand the conversations of the Chausséegrabentapezirer and Gauner, it is less difficult for one to pick up the local tramp lingo; but in the United States there is no dictionary sufficiently up to date to give the beginner much assistance. Martin Luther was one of the first in Germany to take an interest in collecting the vagabond's "cant" phrases. He published in Latin a small volume, called "The Book of Vagabonds," which includes all the tramp slang he could pick up; and ever since the publication of this interesting little work, which is now very rare, German philologists and policemen have printed, from time to time, supplementary dictionaries and glossaries.

In all Continental countries the Hebrew and Gipsy languages have been levied upon by the tramps for contributions to their dialects, and even in England the tramp jargon contains a number of words which have been imported from Germany, Bohemia, Russia, and France. In this country, on the other hand, the tramps have relied largely on their own ingenuity for cant phrases, and they often claim that expressions thus invented are much more forcible and succinct than any that they might have borrowed from foreign languages. They think that a good word is as much the result of inspiration as is a successful begging trick; and they believe, furthermore, that America is entitled to a cant language of its own.

It is easy to see how this dialect originated. It came into existence primarily as a means of talking in public without being understood by others than those intimately connected with the life. It is also true that some of the words have sprung from those necessities of expression which ignorance and lack of education could not supply. In the United States, as a general rule, thanks to reformatories and prison libraries the majority of tramps are fairly well read, and can speak English with considerable correctness; but it often happens that they have thoughts and feelings which their faulty vocabularies cannot make clear, and they are obliged to invent their own words and phrases.

Take the word "bughouse," for example. As it is now used it means actually crazy, and when first used it signified a state of mind bordering on insanity; but it was not invented for purposes of secrecy. Old Boston Mary was the originator of it. Sitting in her little shanty one day, and talking with some tramps seated about her, she exclaimed suddenly: "Blokes, I'm bughouse." Asked what she meant, she said: "I'm losin' me brain." It hit off exactly her poor, failing condition, and the word went like a flash all over America. To-day it is the most popular word in the lingo for the ordinary word "insane." "Crippled under the hat" is also heard, but "bughouse" supplants this expression on all occasions when men talk to their fellows, and not to the public. It is most interesting to ferret out the origin of these words. Many of them are so old that no one remembers exactly how they came into popularity, and even about words more or less modern there are different explanations; but I have succeeded in a number of cases in getting fairly trustworthy stories.

In Chicago I met, one day, the man who, according to report, was the first to use the tramp word for a Catholic priest, "Galway." He was nearly eighty years old when I saw him, but remembered very distinctly how he came by it.

"I was batterin'," he said, "one moon [night] on the Dope [Baltimore and Ohio Railroad], an' a stiff 'e says: 'Blokey, squeal at that house over there – it's a priest; he'll scoff ye.' I goes over 'n' toots the ringer [bell]. The baldy [old man] 'e comes himself, 'n' asted what I wanted. 'I'm starvin', father,' I yapped, 'n' begun to flicker. 'Go 'way, you lazy man,' 'e said; 'I've fed ten like you since noon.' I was horstile. I dunno how the word come to me, but I yapped it in his phiz: 'Y' ole Galway, you, yer an ole hypocrite'; 'n' then I mooched. Lots o' words comes to me that way when I'm horstile."

"Punk" is another interesting word. Some say that it comes from the French word pain, and immigrated to the United States from Canada, where the hoboes had heard their Canadian confrères use it; and this may be the case. Certainly it is as near the French pronunciation as the average vagabond can come. But a more natural explanation is that punk being dry, and bread, particularly that given to tramps, being also often dry, the resemblance of the two impressed itself on some sensitive tramp's mind. The disgust with which beggars frequently speak the word helps to substantiate this theory.

"Flicker," meaning to faint, comes from the flickering of a light, "battering" (begging) from knocking at back doors, and "bull" (policeman) from the plunging, bullying attitude of these officers when dealing with rowdies.

A number of words used by tramps are also in vogue among criminals, who are even more in need of a secret language than are vagabonds. It must be remembered, however, that in America at least, and to some extent in other countries as well, a great many tramps are merely discouraged criminals, and it is not unnatural that they should cling to expressions which they found valuable when they were more intimately connected with criminal life. Even as tramps they are continually making the acquaintance of criminals, and it is one of their main delights to be seen in the company of notorious thieves and burglars; they enjoy such companionship as much as certain "middle-class" people enjoy the society of "aristocrats."

The word "elbow," meaning detective, is one of the slang terms common among both hoboes and criminals. It comes from the detective's habit of elbowing his way through a crowd, and it is the gloomiest word, as I heard a hobo once say, that the outcast ever hears by way of warning. Be he beggar or thief, a shiver invariably runs down his spinal column if a pal whispers or shouts "Elbow" to him while he is "at work" in a public thoroughfare. The word "finger," which is synonymous with "bull," has very nearly, but not quite, the same effect, because the finger is in uniform, whereas the elbow prowls about in citizen's clothes. "Finger" comes from the policeman's supposed love of grabbing offenders. "They like to finger us," a hobo said to me, one night, in a Western town where we were both doing our best to dodge the local police force. "Some people calls 'em the eye o' the law, but that ain't what they is; they're the finger o' the law."

"Revolver," or "repeater," is both a tramp and a criminal term for the professional offender, the man who is continually being brought up for trial. "Lighthouse" is one of the most picturesque words in the lingo. It means a man who knows every detective of a town by sight, and can "tip them off" to visiting hoboes and criminals. As mariners at sea look for the beacon light which is to guide them safely into harbor, so tramps and criminals look for their "lighthouse." He is one of the most valuable acquaintances in the outcast world, and more advice is taken from him than from any other inhabitant. Such expressions as a "yellow one" for a gold watch, a "white one" for a silver watch, a "leather" for a pocket-book, and a "spark" for a diamond, explain themselves, and I have heard them used by others than those in criminal life; but they are distinctly lingo terms.

"Flagged" is a word which is not so clear, although it has been taken from the railroader's parlance. It is used a great deal by pickpockets, and means that they have allowed a certain person whom they intended to victimize to pass on unmolested. It comes from the flagging of a train, which can be either stopped or made to go on by the waving of a flag. The person "flagged" seldom knows what has taken place, and every day in city streets people are thus favored by gracious "dips," or pickpockets. The dip's companion, the one who bumps up against the victim or otherwise diverts his attention while the dip robs him, is called the "stall."

"Just broken out" and "squared it" are phrases which very few would understand on hearing them spoken by tramps and criminals in public. The man who has "just broken out" is not, as I thought when I first heard the words, one who has escaped from limbo, but rather one who has newly joined the fraternity. The term is used in the sense in which it might be applied to an epidemic. Wanderlust (love of tramping, thieving, drunkenness) is the disease with which the newcomer in outcast life is supposed to be afflicted, and on allying himself with the brotherhood, the malady is "officially" recognized as having appeared, or broken out. "Squared it" I took to mean that a bargain or a quarrel had been settled, but I was again mistaken. It signifies that a tramp or criminal has reformed and become respectable. One who leaves the "road" for this reason is said to have "squared it," because he has settled his account with the brotherhood – he has finished with it.

The word "dead" is practically synonymous with "squared it." In using it the tramp does not mean that the pal of whom he is speaking has departed this life; "croaked" is the term for that. "Dead" means that he has left the fraternity and is trying to live respectably. On one of my tramp trips I was entertained at supper by a carpenter in Detroit, and during the meal he confessed that he used to belong to my "push," the tramp brotherhood.

"I've be'n dead now about ten years," he said, "I learned my trade in the pen, 'n' when I got out I decided to square it. I was petered out."

On leaving his house he cautioned me not to say anything to the "'boes" (hoboes) about his being my "meal-ticket." This is a tramp term for a person who is "good" for a meal, and the carpenter did not care to have this reputation.

When a man denounces to the police a beggar who has accosted him in the street, the latter, in relating the experience at the "hang-out," says that the "bloke beefed" on him (gave him away). In Cincinnati, one day, I met an old tramp acquaintance who had been given away by a pal. He had just come out of prison when I saw him, and looked so poorly, even for a recently discharged convict, that I asked him for an explanation.

"Oh, it was a soaker [a sickening experience], Cig," he said. "Mike, my pal, he beefed [turned state's evidence], 'n' the screws [prison officers] they did me dirt from the start. Got the cooler [dark cell] ev'ry time I did en'thin'. Had fifteen days there twice. It was that killed me. But wait till I catch that gun Mike. It'll be his last beef if I ever find him."

"Gun" means practically what "bloke," "stiff," and "plug" do – a fellow; but there is a shade of difference. It comes from the verb "to gun," to do "crooked work." Consequently a "gun" is more of a professional thief than is the "bloke." "Mug," on the contrary, is the exact equivalent of "bloke," but the verb "to mug" implies photography. In some cities suspicious characters are arrested on general principles and immediately photographed by the police authorities. Such towns are called "muggin' joints," and the police authorities "muggin' fiends."

Some tramp words are popular for only a few years, and are then supplanted by others which seem to make the thing in question more vivid and "feelable." Not so very long ago, "timber" was the favorite word to describe the clubbing given to tramps in certain "horstile" towns. A hobo has recently written me that this word is gradually giving way to "saps," because the sticks or clubs used in the fracas come from saplings cut down for the purpose.

On account of this continual change it is difficult to keep up with the growth of the language, and in my case it has been particularly so because I am not regularly in the life. If one, however, is always in the way of hearing the latest expressions, and can remember them, there is not much else in the language that is hard. The main rule of the grammar is that the sentence must be as short as possible, and the verb omitted whenever convenient. As a general thing the hoboes say in two words as much as ordinary people do in four, and prefer, not only for purposes of secrecy, but also for general intercourse, if in a hurry, to use their own lingo.

How many words this lingo contains it is impossible to say absolutely, but it is my opinion that during the last twenty years at least three thousand separate and distinct expressions have been in vogue, at one time or another, among the tramps and criminals in the United States. The tramp who wrote to me concerning the word "timber" added the information that for practically everything with which the hobo comes in contact he has a word of his own choosing, and if this is true, then my estimate of the number of words that he has used during the last two decades would seem to be too small; but I am inclined to think that my correspondent gives the hobo's inventive powers more credit than is due them. It is not to be denied that he has a talent for coining words, but he has also a talent for letting other people do work which he is too lazy to do, and my finding is that, although he has a full-fledged lingo, he is continually supplementing it with well-known English words which he is too lazy to supplant with words of his own manufacture. When detectives and policemen surround him, and it is necessary to keep them from understanding what is being discussed, he manages to say a great deal without having recourse to English; but it is a strain on both his temper and lingo to have to do this, and he gladly makes use of our articles, conjunctions, and prepositions again when out of ear-shot of the eavesdropping officers.

So far as I know he has not yet attempted to write anything exclusively in his jargon which can be termed tramp literature; but he knows a number of songs which are made up largely of tramp words, and his stories at hang-outs are almost invariably told in the lingo, or, at any rate, with so little English interspersed that a stranger would fail to appreciate the most interesting points.

Nevertheless, it is one of the regrets of the hobo that his dialect is losing much of its privacy. Ten years ago it was understood by a much smaller number of people than at present, and ten years hence it will be known to far more than it is now. There are hundreds of "stake-men" and "gay-cats" on the road to-day where there were dozens a decade ago, and they are continually going and coming between civilization and Hoboland. The hobo dislikes them, and, when he can, refuses to associate with them; but they pick up his jargon whether he will or no, and on leaving the road temporarily in order to get a "stake," they tell the world at large of what they have seen and heard. In this way the secrets of Hoboland are becoming common property, and the hobo is being deprived of a picturesque isolation which formerly few disturbed.

At present he likens himself to the Indian. "They can never kill us off the way they have the Injuns," a hobo once said to me, "but they're doin' us dirt in ev'ry other way they can. They're stealin' our lingo, breakin' up our camps, timberin' us, 'n' generally hemmin' us in, 'n' that's what they're doin' to the Injuns. But they can never croak us all, anyhow. We're too strong for that, thank God!"

No, Hoboland can never be completely depopulated. It will change with the years, as all things change, but it is impossible to wipe it off the map. As long as there are lazy people, discouraged criminals, drunkards, and boys possessed of Wanderlust, Hoboland will have its place in our social geography, and a jargon more or less exclusively its own.

GLOSSARY

The following collection of tramp words and phrases is not intended to be at all exhaustive. I have merely explained the slang used in the text, and added certain other words which I thought might interest the reader.

Baldy: an old man.

Ball: a dollar.

Batter: to beg.

Beefer: one who "squeals" on, or gives away, a tramp or criminal.

Blanket-Stiff: a Western tramp; he generally carries a blanket with him on his travels.

Blind-Baggage: the front end of a baggage-car having no door.

Bloke: a fellow; synonymous with "plug," "mug," and "stiff."

Blowed-in-the-Glass Stiff: a trustworthy "pal"; a professional.

'Bo: a hobo.

Brakey: a brakeman.

Bughouse: crazy.

Bull: a policeman.

Bundle: plunder from a robbery.

Chew: to eat or "feed."

Chew the Rag: to talk.

Chi (pronounced "Shi"): Chicago.

Cincie: Cincinnati.

Con: a conductor.

Cooler: a dark cell.

Cop: a policeman. To be "copped" is to get arrested. A "fly-cop" is a detective.

Crib: a saloon or gambling-place; more or less synonymous with "joint" and "hang-out."

Croak: to die, or to kill.

Crocus: a doctor.

Crook: a professional criminal. "Crooked work" means thieving.

Dead: reformed. A "dead" criminal is either discouraged or reformed.

Dicer: a hat.

Dip: a pickpocket.

Ditch, or Be Ditched: to get into trouble, or to fail at what one has undertaken. To be "ditched" when riding on trains means to be put off, or to get locked into a car.

Dope, The: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Doss: noun, sleep; verb, to sleep.

Doss-House: a lodging-house.

Dump: a lodging-house or restaurant; synonymous with "hang-out."

Elbow: a detective.

Fawny Man: a peddler of bogus jewelry.

Fence: a receiver of stolen goods.

Finger: }

Flatty:} a Policeman; synonymous with "bull."

Flagged: when a man is said by criminals or tramps to be "flagged," it means that he is permitted to go unmolested.

Flicker: noun, a faint; verb, to faint or pretend to faint.

Gag: any begging trick.

Galway: a Catholic priest.

Gay-Cat: an amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him.

Ghost-Story: any statement or report that is not true. When told to young boys it means a "faked" story of tramp life.

Graft: a line of business; synonymous with "spiel."

Grafter: a pickpocket.

Gun: a fellow; more or less synonymous with "bloke," "stiff," "mug," and "plug."

Guy: a fellow.

Hand-Out: a bundle of food handed out to a beggar at the back door.

Hang-Out: the hobo's home.

Hit the Road: to go tramping.

Hobo: a tramp. Derivation obscure. Farmer's "Americanisms" gives: "Ho-Boy, or Haut-Boy: a New York night-scavenger."

Hoister, or Hyster: a shoplifter.