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A chalk or coal mark left on a gatepost as a message to the next traveller.
Also known as: Hobo code, Tramp mark, Traveller's sign
Hobo signs are simple marks — a cat, a circle with an arrow, a row of crosses — said to have been chalked on gateposts and fences by itinerant workers in North America to tell the next traveller what to expect at a house. The system is genuinely attested but the published charts of it are largely twentieth-century compilations, and how far any particular symbol was actually used is not well evidenced. The catalogue records the tradition and marks the charts as the reconstructions they are.
Left a message for the next traveller about what to expect at a house — food, work, a hostile owner, a dog — chalked or scratched on a gatepost or fence where it would be seen from the road.
North America · Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries · Contexts: History
Is far better attested as a practice than as a specific vocabulary. The charts of individual symbols circulating today are largely later compilations, and how widely any one mark was used is not established by the surviving evidence.
The practice is attested; the published symbol charts are reconstructions of varying reliability, and this record does not treat any particular chart as authoritative.
Contexts: History
A small rough figure drawn in chalk or charcoal on a wooden or stone surface, using a few straight strokes, a circle or a simple outline.
Both are small incised or chalked marks left on a structure by a passing worker.