212 Urdalil — The Present Fee System in the United States. 
wonder that some of our county jails are known far and wide 
among the vagrant classes for their accommodations! Is it sur¬ 
prising that instances repeatedly occur, where a tramp commits 
some misdemeanor before the very eyes of the sheriff or con¬ 
stable, with the express purpose of securing a commitment to 
jail for a period of time? 
Counties using this system find the number of tramps increas¬ 
ing year after year, in spite of the fact that the jail or prison 
is crowded the greater part of the time. This has continued, 
in many cases, until the expense of maintaining tramps has be¬ 
come unbearable, and a demand is made for a new system. As 
a result the jailor and sheriff, or both, are given a fixed allow¬ 
ance out of which to support and feed all prisoners, 1 and a cer¬ 
tain amount of labor is required of these to relieve the monot¬ 
ony. The conditions become changed. The sheriff is no longer 
interested in having as large a number of tramps as possible 
within his county. Life within the prison walls is made less 
attractive; and as a result the stream of vagrants takes another 
route, through more hospitable districts. A change like the 
one above described took place in Dane county, Wisconsin; and 
in four years the cost of maintaining tramps was reduced from 
$15,000 to $3,000. 2 This amount represents the taxes annually 
levied and actually paid by the public in a single county to sup¬ 
port the tramp during that seasen of the year in which he can¬ 
not depend on private charity. In one sense it may be looked 
upon as a standing bribe to encourage shiftlessness, in the same 
way that the poor laws of the last century put pauperism at a. 
premium in England. 3 
The jailor and keeper are not the only public officers who are 
interested in the existence and presence of the tramps. Where 
the fee-system is fully applied, we find every judicial officer more 
or less interested in having as many tramps brought up for 
trial as possible. It means, as a rule, a fee for the judge, a fee 
1 This system is now in force in several counties in Wisconsin. 
2 Report of Dane Co. Board of Supervisors. 
3 A member of the Wisconsin State Board of Charities estimates that 
the tramps, through the fee system, cost the state over a quarter of a mil¬ 
lion dollars a year. 
