TRAGEDY STRIKES THE TOWN
for all her needs; some of them came right to her door. One of the traveling merchants was the ''tin-peddler.'' His wagon was unique, being hung on straps instead of springs. The tin-peddler carried everything in the tin line that could possibly be put on or in, or hung on or under, the vehicle. He bartered with all the women along the routes, who saved their rags and feathers to trade for useful articles. Then there were the ''pack-peddlers,'' who arrived with staggering loads on their backs and, if they could gain a foothold over the threshold, spread out their goods on the floor of the living room and did their best to persuade the family to buy their wares.
Other callers at the back door, not to sell but to beg for food, were the tramps. For more than two hundred years in the Connecticut Colony there had been laws concerning vagrancy, and the several counties had been required to maintain workhouses for the confinement of vagabonds. This provision was later modified so as to allow each county to determine for itself whether it would provide workhouses; and it was further provided that no one should be confined without due process of law. For many years the interpretation of this had been to let the tramp alone, unless he had been guilty of some criminal act. So some of them roamed the streets and begged for food.
The most notorious of these tramps, who made his rounds more or less systematically, was the ''old leather man." He was a mystery whose secret no one was ever able to discover. He won his name because of his outfit: his suit was made up entirely of old boot tops or other scraps of leather, stitched together. These garments created a rattle when he walked, and naturally the dogs took offence to him. On his back he carried a pack which contained pieces of leather with which to mend his suit. He would suddenly appear in town, going south to Milford, always following the same route and stopping at the same houses. He spent his nights in caves or sheltered places. He was believed to be a French Canadian, since he could not converse with people, and some tried to add a touch
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