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The Hobo: Myths and Realities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Alexandre Vexliard
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Extract

The hobo is a man of many legends; these legends are contradictory because they “serve” opposite goals. Like Snow White, Mickey Mouse, or Sherlock Holmes, he has become a hero of comic-strip cartoons for children. Sometimes he is a bugaboo, whose mournful fate serves as an example of punishment for “laziness, that mother of vices.” At other times he is the protagonist of proud and lofty freedom. And is not freedom the purpose of our actions and the reward for the greatest virtues?

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 4 , Issue 16 , December 1956 , pp. 59 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1. Cf. my book, Le Clochard (Etude de Psychologie sociale) in which the psychological, sociological, and juridical theories of vagrancy are discussed, from which some elements of this article have been borrowed. The reader will find these mainly in the description and analysis of the present-day hobo's living conditions, based upon more than sixty individual cases.

2. I have studied vagrancy from the socio-psychological and historical points of view in Introduction à la Sociologie du Vagabondage (Paris, Ed. Marcel Rivière, 1956).

3. Cf. R. Benedict, Echantillons de Civilisations (Paris, Gallimard, 1950), p. 250 ff.

4. D. Lagache, L'Unité de la Psychologie (Paris, P.U.F., 1949).

5. A. Vexliard, Le Clochard, ed. Desclée de Brouwer, to appear in 1957.

6. This is also the hope of communities after a crisis, a war.

7. L. Paulian, Paris qui mendie (Paris, Ollendorf, 1894), p. 24, 8th ed.; Eng. ed.: London & New York, Arnold, 1897.

8. D. Stafford-Clark, Psychiatry Today (London, Penguin Books, 1952), 2nd ed., 1953, p. 76.

9. J. Abramson, L'Enfant et l'Adolescent instables (Paris, P.U.F., 1940), cf., G. Huyer, the preface to this work. A.P.-L. Beley, L'Enfant instable (Paris, P.U.F., 1951), G. Neron, L'Enfant vagabond (Paris, P.U.F., 1952), p. 39.

10. Marie and Meunier, Les Vagabonds (Paris, Giard & Brière, 1908), p. 306.

11. V. Cyril-E. Berger, Têtes baissèes (Paris, Ollendorf, 1908), p. 260.

12. Ibid., p. 4.

13. H. A. Phelps, Contemporary Social Problems, 3d ed. rev. (New York, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1932), p. 437.

14. D. Lagache, "Rapport de Psycho-Crimogénèse," Actes du Congrès international de Criminologie (Paris, P.U.F., 1950), reprinted in Bulletin de Psychologie, II (Paris, Sorbonne, Nov. 31, 1950), p. 64; K. Friedlander, The Psychoanalytical Approach to Juvenile Delin quency (New York, International Universities Press, 1947).

15. E. Rotten, Enfance vagabonde (Paris, UNESCO, 1951), p. 12.

16. R. Linton, Science of Man in the World Crisis (New York, Columbia University Press, 1945; 1947), p. 18.

17. R. M. MacIver, The Web of Government (New York, Macmillan Co., 1947), p. 20.

18. H. A. Murray, Exploration de la Personnalité (Paris, P.U.F., 1947), p. 44; Eng. ed.: New York & London, Oxford University Press, 1938.

19. H. A. Murray, op. cit., pp. 10, 42 and passim.

20. As cerebral pneumography reveals in particular.

21. K. Friedlander, op. cit.

22. E. H. Sutherland, The Professional Thief (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1937).

23. E. Mounier, Traité du Caractère (Paris, Ed. du Seuil, 1947), pp. 453-54.

24. P. Chauchard, La Physiologie des Moeurs (Paris, P.U.F., 1953).

25. L. Cole, Psychology of Adolescence (New York, Rinehart, 1947), p. 631; E. F. Williams, Adolescence (New York, Fusser & Richmond, 1930), p. 16; R. G. Kuhlen, The Psychology of Adolescent Development (New York, Harper & Bros., 1952), p. 573.

26. Charles Hartshorne, "Chance, Love and Incompatibility," Philosophical Review, Sept. 1949, No. 3, p. 447.

27. D. Lagache, op. cit., p. 64.