Chicago is the paradise of tramps, the term is generally applied to able bodied men and women who are too lazy to work, but prefer to pick up a precarious living by begging food and clothes from house to house. In mild weather they sleep in the parks and public squares, and in winter take refuge in the police stations. During the warm season they leave the city in large numbers, and wander through the country, going into many states, but in winter they flock back to Chicago, where they are sure of food and shelter. Some remain in the city throughout the year. They are dissipated as a rule, and the majority have been brought to their present condition because of drink.

They will steal and even commit highway robbery, rape, or murder, if they get a chance, and are a terror to householders of the city. They haunt the beer saloons and low class bar-rooms, beg for drinks, and will even drain the few drops left in the empty beer kegs in the sidewalk. They will solicit passers-by for money, and in this way often manage to collect enough to buy whisky or beer. Their food they beg at the doors of residences, keeping a sharp lookout all the while for an opportunity to steal something of value when the servant’s back is turned.

The parks are the favorite lodging places with them in warm weather. Under cover of darkness they creep into the shrubbery and make their beds on the grass. Sometimes they sleep on the benches scattered throughout the grounds, but as they are apt to be disturbed by the police, they prefer the shrubbery.

The more fortunate tramps patronize the cheap lodging houses, which are very numerous in some portions of the city. In some of these places a bed may be obtained for five cents.

Some of the more aristocratic places charge ten cents, and each occupant is furnished with food in the morning. Nightly scores of men and boys apply for lodging at the police stations.

Many deserving persons are classed among the tramps. They are friendless, homeless, and without money or work and must adopt the tramp’s life in order to maintain existence. Such persons gladly accept any work offered them, and escape from the wretched companionship as soon as they are able to do so.

It is easy to distinguish them from the genuine tramps, however, for they are eager to work, while the tramp pure and simple, regards an offer of labor as an insult.