1. Describe from experience the sensations of hunger when prolonged over three days.
2. Explain the differences in living in New York, Chicago and San Francisco on a dollar a week. In such cases, how would you spend ten cents if you found it in the street at three o'clock in the morning?
3. How long would it be in your own case before want of food destroyed your sense of private property? Give examples from your own experience.
4. How far can you walk without food--(_a_) when you are trying to reach a definite point; (_b_) when you are walking with an insane view of getting to some place unknown where a good job awaits you?
5. If, after a period (say three weeks) of moderate starvation, and two days of absolute starvation, you are offered some work, which would be considered laborious by the most energetic coal-heaver, would you tackle it without food or risk the loss of the job by requesting your employer to advance you 15 cents for breakfast?
6. Can you admire mountain scenery--(_a_) when you are very hungry; (_b_) when you are very thirsty? If you have any knowledge of the ascetic ecstasy, describe the symptoms.
7. You are in South-west Texas without money and without friends. How would you get to Chicago in a fortnight? What is the usual procedure when a town objects to impecunious tramps staying around more than twenty-four hours? Can you describe a "calaboose"?
8. Sketch an American policeman. Is he equally polite to a railroad magnate and a tramp? What do you understand by "fanning with a club"?
9. Which are the best as a whole diet--apples or water-melons?
10. Define "tramp," "bummer," "heeler," "hoodlum," and "politician."
This is a paper put together very casually, and just as the pen runs, but the man who can pass such an examination creditably must know many things not revealed to the babes and sucklings of civilisation. From my own point of view I think the questions fairly easy, a mere matriculation paper.
When the Queen of Illusion illudes no more youth is over. I am ready to admit Illusion still reigned when I took to writing for a living. The first illusion was that I was not doing it for a living (it is true I did not make one) but because the arts were rather noble than otherwise and extremely needed. I admit now that they are necessary, in the sense of the necessarian, but I can see little use for them, unless the production of Illusion (with few or many gaps in it) is needed for the world's progress. The laudation of the artist, the writer, and the actor returns anew with the end of the world's great year. But if any golden age comes back, the setting apart of the Amusement Monger will cease. If it does not cease, their antics will be the warnings of the intoxicated Helot.