The New York Dime Library, No. 1062

# Museum Catalog Note

This July 1902 issue of Nemo, King of the Tramps (No. 1062) features the serialized story "The Romany Girl's Vengeance: A Story of the Great Railroad Riots" by Captain Fred. Whittaker. The narrative opens during the heat of summer 1877 in Pennsylvania coal country, where a slight, well-dressed boy calling himself "Spunky Jack" encounters Billy Barlow, a gruff vagrant identifying himself as "Boss of the Bummers." When a carriage passes carrying Judge Oliver Calvert—apparently Jack's nemesis—the boy shoots Calvert without hesitation, then calmly departs. Billy escorts Jack to the Wanderers' Home, a hidden tramp encampment, where Jack's defiant behavior and armed resistance against the hostile mob impresses Nemo, the bearded, authoritative "King of the Tramps," who claims Jack under his protection and confiscates his pistol.