1 - The Internationalism of American Vagrancy: Mark Twain and Josiah Flynt on the Tramp

Summary

In the winter of 1879, Mark Twain was in Germany finishing the manuscript of what would later become A Tramp Abroad (1880), a travel narrative detailing his experiences in Europe. Twain's time abroad shaped his understanding of tramping in ways that extend beyond the pages of his own travelogue. In a letter written to the Hartford Courant, for instance, he draws on observations in Germany to comment on vagrancy measures in the US. As his letter makes clear, travelling abroad provided him the vantage point not only for understanding tramps – whose illicit travels spanned state lines and crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean – but for containing their movement. Twain's letter notes the implementation of strict anti-tramp codes in his adopted home of Hartford, Connecticut, and praises the ‘good news’ that the city ‘at last ceased to be the Tramp's haven’. The correspondence cites approvingly the editor's call to halt ‘giving at doors’ to beggars since, according to Twain, ‘any community which will allow tramps to be assisted by its citizens will be sure to have a plentiful harvest of tramps’ (‘Hartford’ 113):

We have a curious proof of this fact here in Munich. You are aware that when our ingenious Massachusetts nobleman, Count Rumford, took high office here under the Bavarian crown in the last quarter of the last century, he found Bavaria just what Hartford has been for years, – the Tramp's paradise. Bavaria swarmed with beggars. Count Rumford applied the same remedy which you have lately found so effectual: he provided work for all comers, & then shut square down on all forms of begging. His system has remained in force here ever since. Therefore, for three-quarters of a century Bavaria has had the reputation of being the only country in Europe uncursed by tramps. I have lived here two months & a half, now, & have walked a mile to my work & a mile back again, every day during that time, through a densely populated part of the city, yet I have never once been accosted by a beggar. (‘Hartford’ 114)

While tramps appear fleetingly in Twain's famous works, as this chapter will demonstrate, this letter elaborates his understanding of tramping in several ways. First, it recognises vagrancy as a problem for local governments that nonetheless applies to a global scale. At the same time, he also shows sympathy for tramps and their talents.