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[Illustration: JOSIAH FLYNT.]




NOTES OF AN
ITINERANT
POLICEMAN


By
JOSIAH FLYNT

AUTHOR OF "TRAMPING WITH TRAMPS"


[Illustration]


BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
_MDCCCC_




_Copyright, 1900_
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY




INSCRIBED
TO
WILLARD ROPES TRASK




NOTE.


A number of the chapters in this book have appeared as separate papers
in the _Independent_, _Harper's Weekly_, the _Critic_, _Munsey's
Magazine_, and in publications connected with McClure's Syndicate; but
much of the material is new, and all of the articles have been revised
before being republished.




INTRODUCTORY.


For a number of years it had been a wish of mine to have an experience
as a police officer, to come in contact with tramps and criminals, as a
representative of the law. Not that I bore these people any personal
grudge, or desired to carry out any pet policy in dealing with them; but
I had learned to know them pretty intimately as companions in
lodging-houses and at camp-fires, and had observed them rather carefully
as prisoners in jails, and I was anxious to supplement this knowledge of
them with an inquiry in regard to the impression they make on the man
whose business it is to keep an official watch over them while they are
in the open. I desired also to learn more concerning the professional
offender than it had been possible for me to find about him in tramp
life. If one has the courage to go and live with professional criminals
as one of them, he can become even more intimate with them than in a
police force, but it is very difficult to associate with their class
long and not be compelled to take an active part in their criminal
enterprises, and my interest in them was not so great that I was
prepared to do this. I merely wanted to know how strong they are as a
class, in which sections of the country they are the most numerous,
whether they have peculiar characteristics differentiating them in
public thoroughfares from other types of outlaws, how they live, and
what is the general attitude toward them of our police and prison
authorities. Partial answers to these questions I had been able to get
in Hoboland, but I was anxious to fill them out and get any new facts
that would throw light on the general situation.

During the spring and summer of last year (1899) it was possible for me
to have a police officer's experience. The chief of a large railroad
police force gave me a position as a patrolman, and, in company of two
other officers, I was put on a "beat" extending over two thousand miles
of railroad property. The work we were given to do was somewhat of an
innovation, but it afforded me an excellent opportunity to secure the
information I desired. For two months and a half, which was the extent
of my connection with the undertaking and with the force, we had to
travel over the property, protecting picnic trains, big excursions,
passengers travelling to and from towns where circuses were exhibiting,
and the ordinary scheduled traffic, whenever there was reason to believe
that pickpockets and other thieves were likely to put in an appearance.

Early in the spring wandering bands of thieves start out on tours of the
railroads. They follow up circuses and picnics, and make it a point to
attend all big gatherings, such as county fairs, races, conclaves, and
congresses. Their main "graft," or business, is pocket-picking, but in a
well-equipped "mob" there are also burglars, sneak-thieves, and
professional gamblers. The pickpockets and gamblers operate, when they
can, on passenger trains, and they have become so numerous and
troublesome in a number of States that railroad companies are compelled
to furnish their own protection for their patrons.

This protection, on the road for which I worked, has generally been
provided for by the stationary members of the force, and more or less
satisfactorily, but last year the chief wanted to experiment with "a
flying squadron" of officers, so to speak, who were to go all over the
property and assist the stationary men as emergency required, and we