The biography of a German tramp—Miserable and neglected childhood—Becomes a professional beggar and thief—Committed to an industrial school—Joins a fraternity of beggars and becomes very expert—Meets with varied luck on the road—Arrested and punished—Gives some account of German prisons—Perpetrates a robbery on a large scale at Mannheim—Is caught with part of the stolen property in his possession and sentenced to penal servitude.

Germany has suffered grievously in recent years from the growth of vagrancy. The highroads are infested with tramps, and the prisons are perpetually full. Every good citizen is keenly desirous of reducing these scourges of society, but the progress of reform is slow. It is a difficult problem, but the first step toward solving it is to acquire a more accurate knowledge of the true spirit and character of these wrong-doers. One of the most unregenerate and irreclaimable has revealed the whole story of his life and transgressions, and some quotations from the account may throw light on the difficulties of the problem confronting the prison reformer.

“My name is Joseph KÜrper and I was born at H. in the Palatinate on June 14, 1849. I was an illegitimate child and I spent my early years with my mother. When I was four years old, she went to service and I, thrown on my own resources, was forced to beg for broken victuals from door to door. Sometimes I was driven away with hard words or the dogs were set on me. I cannot remember ever having owned a pair of shoes, and as a child I had no bed to sleep in. I suffered all kinds of hardships. When the time came for me to go to school, my troubles increased. As I was dressed in evil smelling rags and tatters, I was kept apart, treated like a leper and an outcast, and if I played truant I was cruelly beaten. Nevertheless, I managed to evade instruction almost entirely and did not learn much more than the alphabet. My life was that of a poor waif forsaken by God and man.

“At first I bore no ill-will to the well-to-do, and I had no quarrel with those who had treated me so harshly. Gradually, however, I realised my grievance against society and began to wage war on it by acts of pilfering, the first of which I committed in the house of a small farmer where my mother was in service. Tormented by hunger, I got in through a window and stole a loaf of bread and a few kreutzers. This was my first theft and it had bad results for me, for, when taxed with it, I confessed and was cruelly flogged by the farmer. Out of revenge I killed one of his fowls every day. Presently my mother again gave birth to an illegitimate child, a girl, and when the little thing was just able to toddle, she sent us out to beg in company, preferring this mode of support to that of working herself. We were beaten if we returned empty-handed to our hovel, so I became an expert thief in order to avoid the stick. My mother applauded me and my success was my ruin.

“At last, in the continued practice of stealing, I committed a theft that brought me for the first time within reach of the law. In the spring of 1860, when in my eleventh year, I laid hands on a watch in an empty house in the village of Kottweiler. I broke it up into its different component parts, which I sold separately to the children of our own village for pieces of bread. Though the watch was missed, I was not suspected and, growing bolder still, I soon after audaciously possessed myself of another watch hanging in a bake-house. This time I was caught red-handed, severely flogged, and then taken before the magistrate at Kusel. He put me through a cross-examination and I confessed everything. On my return home the village authorities vented their rage against me by beating me black and blue, and my little sister having let out the secret that I was also the thief of the watch at Kottweiler, I was again arrested and taken back by a police official to the magistrate at Kusel, who, on account of my youth, only sentenced me to two years’ detention at the industrial school at Speier. I was allowed to go home with my mother before being sent there, and when the police came to convey me, I ran away and managed to get over the Prussian frontier to St. Wedel. Here I first begged and then worked for a small farmer in the neighbourhood. After a time I ran away again, taking with me the watch of this brutal man who had maltreated me. I now tried to live by carrying luggage at the railway station of the town. Here I found several opportunities for committing daring thefts and finally absconded, after helping myself to some money from the till of the refreshment room. After again intermittently working and stealing, I tried to set up as a highway robber, but without success, and was soon arrested by a police official who had a warrant out against me, and actually handed over to the authorities of the industrial school at Speier.

“Had this institution been the best in the world, I should not have felt at my ease in it, as I was like a young wild-cat or a bird of prey shut up behind iron bars. About one hundred Catholic children were confined there, all of them vicious and corrupt. Those who were unversed in criminal ways soon learned from the others. The majority, among whom I count myself, left the school worse than they entered. The system of education was perfectly worthless; we were constantly beaten and, being badly fed, we lost no opportunity of stealing broken victuals. I must acknowledge that I learned a great deal at school in regard to my trade, that of a shoemaker. But I had not been long in the place before I contrived to escape and reach the town of Lautern. Here I was taken into the house of a worthy tradesman, to whom I told my real name and origin; but I concealed the fact that I had run away from Speier. He became fond of me, and I noticed that he now and then put my honesty to the test, which induced me to resist every temptation bravely. As he was childless and wanted to train me up as a tradesman, a happy future might have been in store for me, had not fate decreed otherwise.

“One Sunday my master proposed taking me to see my mother, and we started on our drive. I was so afraid that the authorities of the village would send me back to Speier that when we halted somewhere to dine, and my master had dropped asleep, I ran away. I wandered about homeless for a time until at Kaiserslautern I was caught and returned to Speier. There I soon became aware that nothing good awaited me, and my fears were realised, for I was deprived of my supper the first night and on going to bed was cruelly flogged with a knout until the blood streamed down my back. But, though specially watched, I again escaped to Kaiserslautern, where I was employed by an upholsterer who taught me a great deal. Once more I was discovered and sent back to Speier, where I was a second time welcomed with the knout. I now made no further efforts to escape and for the rest of my time possessed my soul in patience. The days passed monotonously, the only variation being that sometimes I was flogged more than usual. We rose early, dressed, washed, prayed and did our school tasks, breakfasted on thin soup, in which there was never a scrap of fat, and worked in the various shops until eleven o’clock, when we dined. After that meal came gymnastic exercises and drill. Then school or working at our trades alternately occupied the time until supper at seven, and we went to bed at half past eight. Sundays were more entertaining. In the afternoon, after service, we went to walk outside the town. On these expeditions we stole what we could in the way of edibles and took our booty to bed with us to eat it during the week, though, of course, we were flogged if our thefts were discovered, which, however, did not deter us from further efforts at pilfering in the institution itself. When the two weary years were over, I had grown into a tall, likely lad. I possessed a fair amount of schooling and I believed myself to be qualified to take a place as assistant to a shoemaker, being expert at my trade. I had received no religious impressions; principles I had none. I only longed for freedom and to enjoy life.

“My dreams of golden liberty were not to be fulfilled as yet. On being dismissed from the school, I was provided with two suits of clothes and sent to Lautern, where I had to present myself to a certain Herr Meuth, the president of a reformatory society. He placed me with a shoemaker. I had hoped I should be paid wages but, when claiming them with the other journeymen, I was told I should get what I deserved, and my master proceeded to take down a dog-whip from a peg where it hung and flogged me unmercifully. On the following Sunday he informed me that I was only an apprentice and should have to serve him in that capacity two years longer and could not escape it. At the end of that time he offered to keep me and pay me regular wages, but I refused, as he had so often abused and maltreated me. He gave me my indenture, which was, at the same time, a certificate of good conduct. I packed my possessions and wandered out into the world.

“As happy as a king, I started on my journey to Mannheim. I carried a satchel on my back and my road lay through the Rhine district where the trees were in full bloom. Arriving at my destination, I found occupation with a shoemaker who, however, declared that my work was not of a very high character and paid me only one gulden a week, with insufficient food. In everything outside of my trade I was left to my own devices and consequently, being of an undisciplined nature, I led anything but a decent life. Looking back to these days, I recognise how very much better it would be if every apprentice, at the outset of his wage-earning life, were forced to belong to a guild, so that he would be protected by a strict corporation of this sort and obliged to obey its laws. In those days I thought otherwise, but now that I am under prison rule I regret the license I was allowed then. I remained a year at Mannheim but, as my master refused to raise my wages, I departed one fine day and walked to Karlsruhe, passing through Bruchsal and Heidelberg on my way.

“In Karlsruhe I likewise had the good fortune to find occupation without undue delay. The court shoemaker, Heim, took me into his house and gave me good wages and, as I did piece work, I sometimes earned from 12 to 15 guldens a week. On Sundays I used to dress myself in fashionable clothes, on which I spent my pay, and walk out with a glass in my eye and a cigar in my mouth, hoping to be taken for something far superior to a shoemaker’s assistant. I was a good-looking lad, and on a fine Sunday in summer I walked into a beer garden, where I made the acquaintance of a pretty young lady who was sitting at a table with a party of respectable people. I represented myself as the son of a rich man from Munich and said that my name was Junker, that I held a position in Karlsruhe as a confectioner and lodged in the house of the shoemaker Heim. The girl and her family believed my statements, and I was received with kindness as a visitor at their house. Of course, courtship in the guise of a rich man costs money, and I was soon obliged to pawn my watch. A Sunday came round on which I was unable to call on my sweetheart; I had to sit on my stool and draw my cobbler’s thread through shoeleather. My lady-love came to inquire for me, and saw me in my working garb. She turned and left the house, but I followed her and tried to excuse myself, whereupon she took out her purse and, pressing it into my hands, said, ‘Keep it and amend your ways. I do not quarrel with you for being a cobbler, but I am grieved that you should have deceived me.’ I returned to my room terribly ashamed and wrathful. I determined not to remain a moment longer in the town, so I paid my debts with the contents of my purse and took my departure. It was lucky for the respectable and decent girl that she discovered my swindling practices before it was too late.”

After this the tramp wandered to and fro, from Baden to Offenburg, leading a precarious existence, working as a shoemaker when he could find employment and living royally when he had the funds, but begging for food and half-starved when out of luck. At last he reached Darmstadt where he joined an organisation of professional vagrants. Their headquarters were at a low tavern where false passports and “legitimation” papers were manufactured to help in confusing the police as to the true antecedents of this semi-criminal fraternity. He continues: “The day after my arrival at the inn, my new colleagues joined me at breakfast and a plan of campaign was fixed upon. I was to take off my shirt and leave it at the inn, wind a cloth around my neck and button up my coat to meet it; thus attired, I was to start out, accompanied by one of the vagrants dubbed in familiar parlance ‘the Baron.’ He was to point out to me the most likely houses for our purpose. I was to enter the first of these and beg for a shirt, and having obtained it, repeat the process at other houses. Thus by evening we should have collected from twenty to thirty shirts, which we were then to sell. By pursuing this line of business we should have money in abundance and live at our ease. This is a fair picture of the mode of existence of large numbers of journeymen lads in Germany, the children of respectable parents who go to perdition, body and soul. My first attempt turned out most successfully as the Baron had foretold, and I became very expert in my new calling. We worked as follows: The Baron pointed out a house where I might hope to obtain something in the way of a gift and indicated a place where he would wait for me to rejoin him. When the servant answered the door, I gave him the envelope containing my false ‘legitimation,’ and a begging letter describing my miserable condition, and asked him to take it to his mistress. He soon returned with my papers and a thaler, explaining that this was the best the lady could do for me. Flushed with victory, I ran to find the Baron, who slipped my papers into another envelope. He always carried a supply of envelopes to replace those that had to be torn open. We next went to the house of the Bavarian envoy, where I received a gulden and a good shirt. We continued our successful round until the evening, when we returned to the inn with our rich booty. Here every article was inspected, sorted, valued, and later, when the other habituÉs came in, the parlour was turned into an auction room. Among the buyers was a policeman and, as he had first choice, he selected the best of my shirts, some of which were quite new, for himself. Other purchasers followed, and at the end of the evening we had disposed of all our goods. Our ready money amounted to a good round sum and was divided into three portions. I had made more in this one day than I had ever been able to earn in a week.

“Our plans for the following day came to nought. I was arrested about four o’clock in the morning by four police officials who penetrated into my room, pinioned me when I offered resistance, and took me off to the police ward No. 2 on the charge of theft. Here I was interrogated as to what I had done with the articles I had stolen on the previous day. I denied indignantly that I had stolen anything at all, but I was next conducted across the market place to a jeweller’s shop and identified by the owner as the rascal whom he suspected. I was quite puzzled at the unwarranted accusation against me, although I remembered having been in the shop on the previous day. From the police ward I was carried to the prison and locked up in a cell, where I remained for three whole days, until interrogated, and, as the jeweller persisted in his accusation, I was detained for eight days longer. Finally the jeweller, Scarth by name, appeared, full of apologies, and admitted that the knife he had believed to have been stolen had been found. The end of this incident was that Scarth compensated me handsomely for my long and unjust imprisonment. The next morning I packed my satchel and started for Frankfurt. I walked from Darmstadt to Frankfurt, and only remember that on my way I stopped at a farmhouse where, as I found no one about, I annexed a ham. Toward evening I reached the end of my journey and betook myself at once to a well-known ‘inn father’—for so we called our landlords—in the Judengasse. It is needless to state that a real vagrant has a perfect knowledge of all the disreputable haunts and low public houses of the whole German Empire. Next day I went direct to Baron Rothschild’s house, as he was the Bavarian consul, where I rang the bell, and, on being admitted to his presence, was told to produce my papers. I received two thalers and a free pass to the next place for which I said I was bound. This was all entered on my ‘legitimation,’ which was also impressed with an official seal, so that it became absolutely useless to me. As I now thoroughly understood the manufacture of these false documents, however, I made myself another one the same evening, entering myself as the sculptor Burkel from Messau and under this name and designation I spent ten months at Frankfurt without doing a stroke of work. I made out a plan of the town and pursued my trade of begging from wealthy families in the principal streets, with great success. It is true that I was arrested several times, and put under lock and key for a few days now and then. Though warned to leave the place or to find work, I did neither, but ran the chance of being caught and identified.

“There are many well managed inns all over Germany, where respectable working men whose trade keeps them moving about can be comfortably lodged, and I will give a brief description of one of these hostelries called ‘The Homestead,’ situated on one of the banks of the Main, where I spent a night during my stay at Frankfurt, drawn there by curiosity. With my satchel packed and the air of being a newly arrived traveller, I sat down at a table and called for a glass of beer and a dram of spirits. The landlord inquired if I knew where I was, and said that though any decent traveller might remain at the ‘Homestead’ for three days if his means were sufficient, it was no place for drunkards and brawlers; that brandy was not sold and beer only in limited quantities. He then, having asked who and what I was, and being told that I was a sculptor out of work, said that I might stay three days if I liked. I was eager to know in what way this inn differed from those I had hitherto frequented, and resolved to remain until the next day in any case. About 8 o’clock in the evening the ‘father’ came in again and announced that supper was ready. Most of the artisans, of whom some forty were present, ordered some sort of meal. I asked for soup, potatoes and a sausage. I was not a little surprised when the landlord objected to our beginning to eat until he had said grace. Cards and dice were not allowed, nor cursing, singing or whistling. The only authorised games were dominoes, draughts and chess, and they might not be played for money. At 8 o’clock the bed tickets had been distributed; they cost 18, 12 or 6 kreutzers according to the sort of accommodation required. Each man had a separate bed, which is not usually the case in the low class inns. I took a 12 kreutzer ticket. My expenses were so far small, as only three glasses of beer were allowed per head. I noted down all these details most carefully, for I had never before been in a house of this description, having hitherto always avoided any place where there might be any allusion to God. At ten the father of the inn appeared and offered up a short prayer. Then we retired for the night. The beds were clean and so were all the rooms, and everything was very cheap. At half past seven in the morning we had to be up.

“My experiences in this inn made a deep impression upon me but I confess I did not enjoy being there; I preferred the haunts where I met loose characters, and I enjoyed ribald songs and dissolute companions. Consequently I left the Homestead as soon as I could and betook myself to the Sign of the Stadt Ludwigsburg, where ne’er-do-weels congregate. Here I was initiated by a friend into the art of inveigling countrymen, small farmers and the like, to play cards. Our first attempt was made on a man who had just sold his produce in the town and been paid for it. We plied him with liquor and let him win for a while; then we relieved him of his ready money.

“Soon after this I was arrested as a disorderly tramp and sentenced to a short imprisonment with an injunction to find work on pain of being expelled from the town. The yearly fair was being held at Frankfurt, and I obtained employment on my release with the proprietor of a menagerie. My business was to attract people to his show, but I soon left him, as the public refused to pay for the sight of the sorry and starved wild beasts he exhibited. Next I hired myself out to the manager of a puppet show where I developed a great aptitude in the art of manipulating the puppets. When the fair was over, I had got together quite a considerable sum of money and I resolved to leave Frankfurt and go on to Stuttgart.

“Stuttgart is a happy hunting ground for those of my sort. It contains many ‘pietists,’—a sect made up of good and charitable souls who give freely. I remained there four weeks and did a wonderful business. I now figured in my papers as a compositor and on the strength of these documents even appeared before the Bavarian consul. I had collected a fine store of clothes and a lot of money when one day, toward the end of the fourth week of my stay, I was arrested in the KÖnigstrasse by a man in civilian dress who told me to follow him. There was something in his looks which so impressed me that I dared not resist. I was condemned by the police actuary to fourteen days’ imprisonment and then to be banished from the town. I was taken to the Stuttgart prison where the governor received me with harsh words; he was a Swabian and the Swabians are ruder than any other Germans; in other respects I had nothing to complain of.

“Several of my colleagues were sitting or lying about in a large room where we were detained, and at first they did not notice me. At last an old boy, who had evidently been through many vicissitudes, addressed me, and after some conversation, promised to wake me next morning to communicate something of importance. At three o’clock he poked me gently in the side and then led me to a corner of the room; there he told me that he was interested in me and wished to contribute to my success in the future, and that though he knew I was a member of the guilds, still I did not understand what most appealed to the public. At the present time, the war being just over, soldiers played first fiddle. He possessed an iron cross and a genuine ‘legitimation’ as the owner of it. This would suit me excellently, as it came from a Bavarian. He was old and had no more use for it and would sell it to me for three thalers. I was overjoyed at this offer which promised me large receipts, and I gladly paid the old man the three thalers.

“On my release I resolved to try my luck at Baden-Baden. I began by purchasing a newly published illustrated description of the French war, which I studied carefully, and tried to form an idea of those regions where I intended to lay the scene of my deeds of heroism. I bought a list of the visitors at this fashionable resort and selected my victims. I decided to present myself in person to German families of position, but to foreigners of distinction I would appeal in writing. At the end of two days I had purchased all the outfit I required from a dealer of old clothes, and on the third day I started out fully equipped. I had strapped my left arm to my naked body; the empty sleeve was pinned to my coat; on my breast I proudly wore the iron cross; in the pocket of my blouse I carried my ‘legitimation,’ and I had given my small moustache a martial twist. I began with a German baron, into whose presence I was admitted and who looked at me approvingly. ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, when he had read my papers, ‘one of our “Blue Devils;” you Bavarians must have given the French gentlemen a rare dressing.’ ‘We showed them,’ I replied, ‘that a Frenchman cannot wage war with Germans, Herr Baron.’ I then told him, in answer to his further inquiries, what regiment I had served in, etc., and that I had lost my arm at the storming of the Fort Ivry. He said he would gladly assist a brave soldier who had bled for his country, and gave me two gold pieces. This gift filled me with joy and confidence.

“At a country house where the family of a Prussian count were spending the summer, I was likewise admitted. The ladies were drinking their coffee on the veranda. ‘Look, mamma,’ exclaimed the daughter, ‘there comes a “knight of the iron cross,” like Papa. And the poor man has suffered the loss of an arm in battle.’ The young lady seemed to me rather over-enthusiastic, but that was all the better for my purpose, and I satisfied her curiosity with accounts of my prowess and deeds of daring and described how, when my heroism had resulted in my arm being shattered by a cannon ball during the storming of the village of Bazeilles, it had afterwards been sawed off in the hospital. I also told her in answer to her eager questions as to whether I was in want, that I had an aged mother to support and wished to buy a hand-organ. She gave me all the money in her cash box, and when I returned to my lodging I found a large parcel of clothes which she had directed a servant to leave for me. All my other visits were more or less profitable, and the foreign visitors whom I addressed by letter, two Russian princes, the Duchess of Hamilton and the Princess of Monaco, each sent me a handsome present in cash. Owing to the insufficiency of the police, I was able to carry on my frauds unmolested until I had almost exhausted the fashionable world at Baden-Baden. One morning whilst I was absent a police official called at my lodgings. Hearing of this on my return, I hastily packed my spoils and took train for Karlsruhe.

“The account of my criminal career would be incomplete without some mention of prisons. They play a larger part in the life of the budding convict than many people realise, and contribute materially to his development. While the state turns its chief attention to the larger gaols, the smaller prisons are often sadly neglected. If these were better administered, fewer large houses of correction would be required. Here the vagrants tarry, shaping their plans; here one thief learns from another various artifices and tricks; here young offenders are won over to the criminal life. The principal evils of these small prisons undoubtedly are the promiscuous congregating together of all offenders and the absence of occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, that the time is passed in idle talk, and that the man who can relate the largest number of rascally tricks he has played should be the hero of the company. Many an inexperienced lad listens to these anecdotes and acquires a taste for the life of a sharper. When to all this is added a brutal superintendent, open to bribery, then the prison becomes a real training school for criminals.

“Once in a prison at Baumholder I was locked up in company with a robber and murderer who had broken out of a Prussian gaol, and, on the road by which he was escaping, had killed a poor labourer for the sake of stealing his clothes and his small store of money. One evening this sinister individual sat brooding, his eyes glowing weirdly. Suddenly he said, ‘Hark you; when the warder comes round to-morrow he must be pulled in here; you shall hold him and I will cut his throat.’ I declined to be an accomplice in murder, and then he threatened me and looked at me so strangely that cold shivers ran down my back and I trembled like an aspen leaf. He saw my terror evidently and relented, for he offered me his brandy bottle and agreed to drop his murderous intentions if I would join with him in an attempt to escape that very night. This I was quite willing to do, but our essay came to nothing. We moved the stove and dug a hole in the floor beneath, but we presently came upon a beam with which we were not able to cope, and we were obliged to fill up the aperture with rags and bread and to move the stove back over it to escape detection.”

An account of a robbery perpetrated by KÜrper on a larger scale, and its sequel, may be told in conclusion of this criminal’s career.

“On July 4th, in the year 1873, I was crossing the market place at Mannheim, when I met an old comrade of mine from the industrial school at Speier. We greeted each other warmly and exchanged our experiences, which ran in a similar groove only in that he had been more unfortunate than myself, having already served two rather long terms in prison. We decided to enter into a temporary partnership, and this was the beginning of the end. He had a theft in view promising rich spoils, for which he required an accomplice, and that part he wished me to perform. Nothing loth, I agreed, and we arranged a plan of campaign. He related to me that a well-to-do man he knew of lived on the first floor of a house which was surrounded by a high wall, and in an unfrequented street, and kept his possessions in a heavy leather trunk. He went out every evening from nine until twelve o’clock, so that during his absence the coast was clear. We were to convey the trunk to the castle garden, carry it over the bridge which crosses the Rhine, and at Ludwigshafen break it open, bury it and take its contents to K., where my ally knew how to dispose of them.

“I liked the idea of the job, and we agreed to go to work that same evening. Accordingly just before ten o’clock we started. On reaching the street in question my heart began to beat furiously and I felt a presentiment that ruin was at hand, but it was too late to turn back. My colleague assured himself that the owner of the trunk was away, according to his usual custom, and engaged in playing cards. The street was quiet, and we scaled the wall around the house and entered the room where the heavy box stood. We dragged it out and succeeded in carrying it to the castle garden over the bridge already alluded to, bearing our burden slowly and securely in this region where the police is well represented. We passed through Ludwigshafen and reached a field where there is a fish-pond.

“Here we opened the trunk, which we found packed full to bursting, emptied it and buried it so successfully that the police were afterward four weeks in finding it, in spite of accurate indications. That same night we marched, laden with our spoils, to RheingÖnnheim, from whence we travelled to K., where in a few hours, thanks to my companion’s admirable business talents, we disposed of all we had to sell at remunerative prices. Drunk with victory, we could not rest satisfied and determined to attempt another coup de main. By broad daylight we proceeded to enter the room of a tradesman and rifle it of all its contents. We sold everything we had stolen except one waistcoat. This was the cause of our undoing. My comrade carried the garment in question, being half drunk, to a commissionaire in the open market-place. The police were already on our traces. Two members of the force came round the corner and immediately took us both in charge. We were now imprisoned, previous to being tried, and when subjected to a severe cross-examination, of course took refuge in subterfuge and lies. As we were parted, however, and separately interrogated, we soon made contradictory statements. My companion then decided to make a partial confession, but endeavoured at the same time to incriminate me as the ringleader in the affair. When I realised his infamy, I, on my part, did not hesitate to keep back the truth in regard to him. On December 24, 1873, we were taken, securely hand-cuffed, to the Court of the Assizes in ZweibrÜcken, where we were condemned to three years’ penal servitude. We entered a petition against this sentence, but it was thrown out. On February 5, 1874, the dark door of the gaol of Kaiserslautern closed upon me with a clanking sound.”