Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US tramp) sympathy but nothing else.

1909		‘The Lang. of Crooks’ in Wash. Post 20 June 4/2: [paraphrasing J. Sullivan] To be offered sympathy while one is locked up is to receive Vermont charity.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 564/2: [...] Since ca. 1915; archaic.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 293: Vermont, a symbol of cheapness, as in Vermont charity, which is what hobos call sympathy when it is accompanied by nothing else.