Far from being a figure of hate or used as a bogeyman type reference to instil fear into impressionable children the Hobo has assumed a benevolent and enduring persona of unfortunate and downtrodden citizens forced out onto the open road in search of work.
The facts behind the rather romanticised imagery are of hard economic truths, of a displaced generation in an era, broadly the first four decades of the 20th Century, when social pressures, demographic changes and poverty were the ruin of many a mainstream livelihood.
In the early 1900's some half a million in the country had to seek employment away from their home areas.
The actual derivation of the word Hobo is unclear as not dissimilar words for a dishevelled lout exist in the English language as in hawbuck or hawbaw although the prime candidate is from the shout of railway workers when spying someone trying to hitch a ride of "ho, boy".
The Hobo has to be clearly differentiated from the likes of a tramp or a bum as the two latter descriptions were of non-working or just plain lazy types.
In spite of the popular perception of the Hobo as someone doing their best to make their way in difficult circumstances they were still an easy target for prejudice, violence or to attract the unwelcome attentions of Law Officers if anything went awry or amiss in a local community where a Hobo just happened to be passing through.
That well worn cinematic ruse of a hungry and exhausted Hobo taking a cooling apple pie from the open window of a rural house could result in the prosecution and incarceration of the individual concerned.
Somehow being in the same predicament served to galvanise and coalesce Hobo's into an informal fraternity or brotherhood even though there was a strong element of competition to secure the scant amount of working opportunities on offer.
The Hobo Code was developed for the mutual benefit of all.
A series of symbols of very simple and easily interpreted form arose and many a gatepost, picket fence or roadside structure was etched and carved with the appropriate warning or helpful advice.
These included a symbol for a woman, doctor no charge, housewife feeds for chores, food for work, you can sleep in the loft, keep quiet baby here, you'll get cursed out here, talk religion get food, bread, good for a handout, gentleman, a kind gentleman lives here, I ate, all-right(okay), hold your tongue, home heavily guarded, tell pitiful story, tell a hard luck story, fake illness here, anything goes, sleep in barn, keep away, work available, good chance to get money here, here is the place, help if you are sick, beware thieves about, telephone. poor people live here, jail, bad tempered owner, dishonest person lives here, man with gun lives here, mean dogs here, bad dog, policeman lives here, courthouse or police station, dangerous man lives here, judge lives here, nothing doing here, doubtful, owner home, owner out, good road to follow, stop, good place to sleep, safe camp, bad water, good water and good place to camp, hobos arrested on site, cops active, cops inactive, beware 4 dogs, good place to catch a train, trolley, tramps here, no alcohol town (dry town), go, 1 went this way, don't go this way, hit the road quick, get out fast, unsafe area, dangerous place, danger, afraid, unsafe place , be ready to defend yourself.
I like to think that many of these symbols survive today where they were originally carved and configured and that their socio-economic value is appreciated and more so in the uncertain times that we find ourselves to be in the first quarter of the 21st Century.
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