Editing Hobo (section)

==Culture==

===Expressions used through the 1940s===

Hoboes were noted for, among other things, the distinctive lingo that arose among them. Some examples follow:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Hobo term
! Explanation
|-
| Accommodation car
| the [[caboose]] of a train
|-
| Angellina
| a young inexperienced child
|-
| Bad road
| a train line rendered useless by some hobo's bad action or crime
|-
| Banjo
| (1) a small portable [[frying pan]]; (2) a short, "D"-handled [[shovel]], generally used for shoveling coal
|-
| Barnacle
| a person who sticks to one job a year or more
|-
| Beachcomber
| a hobo who hangs around [[Dock (maritime)|docks]] or [[seaport]]s
|-
| Big house
| [[prison]]
|-
| Bindle stick
| a collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick
|-
| Bindlestiff
| a hobo who carries a bindle
|-
| Blowed-in-the-glass
| a genuine, trustworthy individual
|-
| 'Bo
| the common way one hobo referred to another: "I met that 'bo on the way to Bangor last spring."
|-
| Boil up
| specifically, to boil one's clothes to kill lice and their eggs; generally, to get oneself as clean as possible
|-
| Bone polisher
| a mean [[dog]]
|-
| Bone orchard
| a [[graveyard]]
|-
| Bull
| a railroad officer
|-
| Bullets
| [[bean]]s
|-
| Buck
| a Catholic [[priest]], good for a dollar
|-
| Burger
| today's lunch
|-
| C, H, and D
| indicates an individual is "Cold, Hungry, and Dry" (thirsty)
|-
| California blankets
| [[newspaper]]s, intended to be used for bedding on a park bench
|-
| Calling in
| using another's [[campfire]] to warm up or cook
|-
| Cannonball
| a fast train
|-
| Carrying the banner
| keeping in constant motion so as to avoid being picked up for loitering or to keep from freezing
|-
| Catch the westbound
| to die
|-
| Chuck a dummy
| pretend to faint
|-
| Cooties
| body [[lice]]
|-
| Cover with the moon
| sleep out in the open
|-
| Cow crate
| a railroad stock car
|-
| Crumbs
| lice
|-
| Docandoberry
| anything edible that grows on a riverbank
|-
| Doggin' it
| traveling by [[bus]], especially on the [[Greyhound bus]] line
|-
| Easy mark
| a hobo sign or mark that identifies a person or place where one can get food and a place to stay overnight
|-
| Elevated
| under the influence of drugs or alcohol
|-
| Flip
| to board a moving train
|-
| Flop
| a place to sleep, by extension, "[[flophouse]]", a cheap hotel
|-
| Glad rags
| one's best clothes
|-
| Graybacks
| lice
|-
| Grease the track
| to be run over by a train
|-
| Gump
| a chicken<ref>{{cite book|last=Bruns|first=Roger|title=Knights of the Road: A Hobo History|year=1980|publisher=Methuen Inc.|location=New York|isbn=041600721X|page=[https://archive.org/details/knightsofroadh00brun/page/201 201]|url=https://archive.org/details/knightsofroadh00brun/page/201}}</ref>
|-
| Honey dipping
| working with a shovel in the sewer
|-
| Hot
| (1) a [[fugitive]] hobo; (2) a hot or decent meal: "I could use a hot and a flop"
|-
| Hot shot
| a train with priority freight, stops rarely, goes faster; synonym for "Cannonball"
|-
| Jungle
| an area off a railroad where hoboes camp and congregate
|-
| Jungle buzzard
| a hobo or [[tramp]] who preys on his own
|-
| Knowledge bus
| a [[school bus]] used for shelter
|-
| Maeve
| a young hobo, usually a girl
|-
| Main drag
| the busiest road in a town
|-
| Moniker'' / ''Monica
| a [[nickname]]
|-
| Mulligan stew
| a type of [[community stew]], created by several hoboes combining whatever food they have or can collect
|-
| Nickel note
| a five-dollar bill
|-
| On the fly
| jumping a moving train
|-
| Padding the hoof
| to travel by foot
|-
| Possum belly
| to ride on the roof of a [[Passenger car (rail)|passenger car]] (one must lie flat, on his/her stomach, to avoid being blown off)
|-
| Pullman
| a railroad sleeper car; most were once made by the [[George Pullman]] company
|-
| Punk
| any young kid
|-
| Reefer
| a compression or "[[refrigerator car]]"
|-
| Road kid
| a young hobo who apprentices himself to an older hobo in order to learn the ways of the road
|-
| Road stake
| the small reserve amount of money a hobo may keep in case of an emergency
|-
| Rum dum
| a drunkard
|-
| Sky pilot
| a preacher or minister
|-
| Soup bowl
| a place to get soup, bread and drinks
|-
| Snipes
| cigarette butts "sniped" (e.g., from ashtrays or sidewalks)
|-
| Spare biscuits
| looking for food in a garbage can
|-
| Stemming
| panhandling or begging along the streets
|-
|[[Tokaji|Tokay]] blanket
| drinking alcohol to stay warm
|-
| Yegg
| a traveling professional thief, or burglar
|}

Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others.

===Hobo signs and graffiti===
[[File:Beggersignsinfrance-sept1921.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|1920s guide to a supposed traditional beggar's code in France<br />1.&nbsp;Poor unwelcome, disagreeable people. 2.&nbsp;Danger. 3.&nbsp;Beware of prison. 4.&nbsp;Nothing doing. 5.&nbsp;Eats. 6.&nbsp;Can get anything by threatening. 7.&nbsp;Do not threaten the people in the house. 8.&nbsp;Take vengeance. 9.&nbsp;Might give in. 10.&nbsp;Look out for the dog. 11.&nbsp;Brutal owner. 12.&nbsp;Money given here. 13.&nbsp;Men and dogs ready to attack. 14.&nbsp;Woman alone with child or servant. 15.&nbsp;Hard luck stories are profitable. 16.&nbsp;Charity given. 17.&nbsp;Insist and they'll give in. 18.&nbsp;Talk religion<ref>https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1921-09-18/ed-1/seq-53/</ref>]]

Almost from the beginning of the existence of hoboes, as early as the 1870s,<ref name=":1" /> it was reported that they communicated with each other by way of a system of cryptic "hobo signs", which would be chalked in prominent or relevant places to clandestinely alert future hoboes about important local information. Many listings of these symbols have been made. A few symbols include:
* A triangle with hands, signifying that the homeowner has a gun.<ref name="university">Moon, Gypsy: "Done and Been", p. 198. Indiana University Press, 1996.</ref>
* A horizontal zigzag signifying a barking dog.<ref name="Moon">Moon, Gypsy: "Done and Been", p. 24. Indiana University Press, 1996.</ref>
* A circle with two parallel arrows meaning "Get out fast," as hoboes are not welcome in the area.<ref name="Moon" />
* A cat signifying that a kind lady lives here.<ref name="Moon" />

Reports of hoboes using these symbols appeared in newspapers and popular books straight through the Depression, and continue to turn up in American popular culture; for example, [[John Hodgman]]'s book ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]'' features a section on hobo signs listing signs found in newspapers of the day as well as several whimsical ones invented by Hodgman,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hodgman, John.|title=The areas of my expertise : an almanac of complete world knowledge compiled with instructive annotation and arranged in useful order ...|date=2006|publisher=Riverhead|isbn=978-1594482229|edition=Riverhead trade pbk.|location=New York|oclc=70672414|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/areasofmyexperti00hodg}}</ref> and the [[Free Art and Technology Lab]] released a [[QR code|QR]] Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011.<ref>{{cite web
| title = QR Code Stencil Generator and QR Hobo Codes
| work = F.A.T., Free Art and Technology Lab
| access-date = July 18, 2012
| date = July 19, 2011
| url = http://fffff.at/qr-stenciler-and-qr-hobo-codes/
}}</ref> Displays on hobo signs have been exhibited in the [[Steamtown National Historic Site]] at [[Scranton, Pennsylvania]], operated by the [[National Park Service]], and in the [[National Cryptologic Museum]] in [[Annapolis Junction, Maryland]],<ref name="Rothstein">{{cite news|last1=Rothstein|first1=Edward|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/arts/design/national-cryptologic-museum-is-the-nsas-public-face.html|title=Security Secrets, Dated but Real|date=August 1, 2014|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=August 2, 2014}}</ref><ref name="NCMLibrary">{{cite web|url=http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/virtual_tour/museum_tour_text.shtml|title=National Cryptological Museum – Virtual Tour|access-date=October 5, 2010}}</ref> and Webster's ''Third New International Dictionary'' supplies a listing of hobo signs under the entry for "hobo".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Webster's third new international dictionary of the English language, unabridged|date=1993|publisher=Merriam-Webster|others=Gove, Philip Babcock|isbn=0877792011|location=Springfield, Mass.|oclc=27936328|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/webstersthirdne001gove}}</ref>

[[File:19-06-376-carter.jpg|thumb|upright|Mailbox at [[Jimmy Carter National Historical Park]]. The symbols on the post were originally drawn by hoboes during the Great Depression.]]
Despite an apparently strong record of authentication, however, there is doubt as to whether hobo signs were ever actually in practical use by hoboes. They may simply have been invented early on by a writer or writers seeking to add to the folklore surrounding hoboes soon after they acquired the name, an invention perpetuated and embellished by others over the years, aided occasionally by amenable hoboes themselves.<ref name=":1" /> Several hoboes during the days that the signs were reportedly most in use asserted that they were in fact a "popular fancy" or "a fabrication".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.historicgraffiti.org/post/hobo-signs-code-of-the-road|title=Hobo Signs: Code of the Road?|last1=Wray|first1=Mike|last2=Wray|first2=Charlie|date=2018|website=Historic Graffiti Society|language=en|access-date=February 25, 2020}}</ref> [[Nels Anderson]], who both hoboed himself and studied hoboes extensively for a [[University of Chicago]] master's thesis,<ref name=":1" /> wrote in 1932,<blockquote>Another merit of the book [Godfrey Irwin's 1931 ''American Tramp and Underworld Slang''] is that the author has not subscribed to the fiction that American tramps have a sign language, as so many professors are wont to believe.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Anderson|first=Nels|date=March 1932|title=American Tramp and Underworld Slang. Godfrey Irwin (book review)|journal=American Journal of Sociology|volume=37|issue=5|pages=842|doi=10.1086/215902}}</ref></blockquote> Though newspapers in the early and peak days of hoboing (1870s through the [[Great Depression|Depression]]) printed photos and drawings of hoboes leaving these signs, these may have been staged in order to add color to the story.

Nonetheless, it is certain that hoboes have used some graffiti to communicate, in the form of '[[Moniker (graffiti)|monikers]]' (sometimes 'monicas'). These generally consisted simply of a road name (moniker), a date, and the direction the hobo was heading then. This would be written in a prominent location where other hoboes would see it. [[Jack London]], in recounting his hobo days, wrote,<blockquote>Water-tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do tramps carve their monicas, dates, and courses. Often and often have I met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such a "stiff" or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the monica of recent date, the water-tank, and the direction in which he was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were still going.<ref>{{Cite book|last=London|first=Jack|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14658/14658-h/14658-h.htm|title=The Road|publisher=Project Gutenberg|year=2005|orig-year=1907}}</ref></blockquote>The use of monikers persists to this day, although since the rise of cell phones a moniker is more often used simply to "tag" a train car or location. Some moniker writers have tagged train cars extensively; one who tagged under the name Bozo Texino during the 1970s and ’80s estimated that in one year ("where I went overboard") he marked over 30,000 train cars.<ref name=":2">Daniel, Bill. ''Who Is Bozo Texino?'' (documentary). Self-published: billdaniel.net, 2005.</ref> However, not all moniker writers (or "boxcar artists") are hoboes; Bozo Texino in fact worked for the railroad, though others such as "A No. 1" and "Palm Tree Herby" rode trains as tramps or hoboes.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.historicgraffiti.org/post/moniker-mark-of-the-tramp|title=Moniker: Mark of the Tramp|last1=Wray|first1=Mike|last2=Wray|first2=Charlie|date=2018|website=Historic Graffiti Society|language=en|access-date=February 25, 2020}}</ref>

===Ethical code===

Hobo culture—though it has always had many points of contact with the mainstream American culture of its day—has also always been somewhat separate and distinct, with different cultural norms. Hobo culture's ethics have always been subject to disapproval from the mainstream culture; for example, hopping freight trains, an integral part of hobo life, has always been illegal in the U.S. Nonetheless, the ethics of hobo culture can be regarded as fairly coherent and internally consistent, at least to the extent that any culture's various individual people maintain the same ethical standards. That is to say, any attempt at an exhaustive enumeration of hobo ethics is bound to be foiled at least to some extent by the diversity of hoboes and their ideas of the world. This difficulty has not kept hoboes themselves from attempting the exercise. An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 (a hobo union created in the mid-1800s to dodge anti-vagrancy laws, which did not apply to union members)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/54624/strange-states-iowas-hobo-convention|title=Iowa's Hobo Convention|date=January 21, 2014|website=www.mentalfloss.com|language=en|access-date=December 20, 2019}}</ref> during its 1889 National Hobo Convention:<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.hobo.com/whatisahobo/hobocode.html | title=Hobo Code | publisher=National Hobo Museum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724195757/http://www.hobo.com/whatisahobo/hobocode.html | archive-date=July 24, 2011 | url-status=dead | access-date=April 20, 2014 }}</ref>

# Decide your own life; don't let another person run or rule you.
# When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
# Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hoboes.
# Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
# When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
# Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hoboes.
# When jungling in town, respect handouts and do not wear them out; another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.
# Always respect nature; do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
# If in a community [[homeless encampment|jungle]], always pitch in and help.
# Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
# When traveling, ride your train respectfully. Take no personal chances. Cause no problems with operating crew or host railroad. Act like an extra crew member.
# Do not cause problems in a train yard; another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
# Do not allow other hoboes to molest children; expose all molesters to authorities – they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
# Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
# Help your fellow hoboes whenever and wherever needed; you may need their help someday.
# If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!
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