Enriching a Tramp

Two wealthy gentlemen of New York city have lately been making an experiment upon a very vile body and have worthily solved a very interesting if not important problem. What would become of a tramp if he were taken from his wanderings and excellently well provided for? was a question they discussed one evening, and so many more or less curious thoughts came to the surface that they concluded to try the experiment just for a lark. They found the man they were in search of and then employed a detective to watch him. All being arranged, the tramp, who was apparently about thirty years of age and very seedy, was drugged one night by the detective, placed in a carriage and driven to a hotel, the proprietor of which, after some demur, had agreed to the plan. The tramp was shaved and trimmed as to his hair, bathed and placed in bed in one of the most luxurious rooms in the house; his old clothes were taken away and a [brand] new and elegant suit was substituted for them. Everything was there, from the silk hat and boots to the watch and chain, the cane and the silk umbrella. In the breast pocket of the coat was a wallet containing $250 in notes of large and small denominations. The tramp’s name as he had given it when he was first treated by the detective to a drink—it may have been his and it may not, but at all events he would recognize it—was written in the hotel register, and the day clerk was put “fly” to the whole matter, and instructed to address him courteously in the morning when he came down stairs, to ask after his health, and to depart so far from the ordinary grandeur… Read More