TRAMPS 123 



wildest charm the liberty which is the birthright of 

 every Briton, although he is so often robbed of it. 

 You preserve not only freedom of movement, but to 

 a great extent freedom of action too. The police may 

 want you ever so much, but they don't know where to 

 put their hands on you when they do ; and with a fair 

 start, and so many an earth open, it is your own fault 

 if you are caught by the slow-working pack of the 

 county constabulary. You live at free quarters, and as 

 you beg, bully, or steal your way, this triple variety of 

 occupation gives a constant zest to your life. In their 

 soul-stirring appeals to charity, many of our tramps 

 take very high rank as self-taught actors, and our 

 provincial managers, and some metropolitan ones, 

 might advantageously recruit their troops from among 

 them. There is an admirable versatility in the way in 

 which the prosperous tourist of the slum droops sud- 

 denly in the languor of over-mastering famine at a 

 vision of beneficent and unprotected petticoats ; the 

 whole robust person seems to crumple up under the 

 pressure of a crushing sorrow and a blank despair, 

 while the appealing whine is rendered with profound 

 feeling certainly, but at the same time with excellent 

 taste and judgment, not at all overdone. The ludi- 

 crous, perhaps, sometimes trenches on the painful, and 

 you may be more revolted than gratified when, sharply 

 coming round a corner to the sound of strokes falling on 

 a donkey, or of blows or oaths levelled at a wife, the 

 excited operator subsides into unconscious repose, to 

 rouse himself suddenly to eloquent entreaty. But in 



