i;6 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCH WOMAN 



this " foreign labour " is not based on any 

 question of wages, as is pretended, but 

 on the question of competence or incom- 

 petence.' 



Then, it must also be remembered that the 

 disastrous series of ' booms ' which devastated 

 the Far West, as almost everywhere else, 

 unnaturally inflated wages, and undoubtedly 

 play their part in the present discontent. 

 The bane of the hoodlum, or street rough, 

 rests on more than one large city of the Far 

 West, and the tramp is the terror of women 

 on lone farms or dwelling unprotected beside 

 the railroad ; though of the hoboe it must be 

 added that it is not here that he is at his 

 worst, but rather in the States of the great 

 Middle West. The Mayor of one of its 

 cities recently suggested, moved by righteous 

 wrath, that the whipping-post be resurrected 

 as the only known cure for the disease of 

 trampism, and an authority on the hoboe 

 has exposed him, shorn of all his moving 

 attributes, in the pages of the Century 

 Magazine. In vain ! For him the tears of 

 the sentimentalist still flow. 



' I only want a piece of dry bread, ma'am.' 



