The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1870-01-27

I
afterward he quit raising hay, for his
mining income had reached most com,
Portable figure. Some people said it was
$50, 600 a month, and others said it was
100000. Smith was very Iich anyhow.
He built house out in the desert-rieht
in the most forbidding and otherwise howl
ing desert-and it was currently reported
that that house cost him quarter Of a
million. Possibly that was exaggerated
somewhat, though it certainly was fine
house ard a costly one. The @cdsteads
cost $500 or $500 apiece.
And then the Smiths went to Europe
and travelled And when they came back
Smith was never tired of telling about the
fine hogs he had seen in England, and
the gorgeous sheep he had seen ia Spain,
and the fine cattle he had noticed in the
vicinity of Rome. He was fr.i Of the
wonders of the old world, and advised
everybody to travel He said a man
never imagined what surpris;rg things
there were in the world till hc '-ad tray>
eled.
One day, on board ship, the passengers
made up q pool of $500, which uas to be
the property of the man who sLcald come
nearest TO guessing the run Of the vessel
FOR the next twenty-fcur hours. Next
day, toward noon, the figures we're all in
the purscr's hands in sealed envalopes.-
! Smith was serene and happy, fer he had
been bribing the engineer. But another
party Won the prize Smith said,
Here, that won't do Es guessed
, l. r, Il. L IL I
The purser said, ''AIr. Smith, you
missed it further than any man On board
We travelled two hundred and eight miles
/ yesterday"
"Well, sir" said Smith, "thars Just
where I've got you, for I guessed two
hundred and nine. If you'll look at my
fggers again you'll find and t~o
naughts. which stands for 200, don't it {?
and after 'em you'll find 9 (2009),
which stands for Two hundred and nine
reckon I'll take that money, if you
/ please"
Well, Smith io dead And when he
died he wasn't worth . cent. The lesson
/ Of this is, that one must learn ho,o to do
everything lie does-one must have eXpe-
rience in being rich before he can remain
rich. The history of California vii! prove
/ this 10 your entire satisfaction. Sudden
/ wealth is an awful misfortune TO the av
erage run Of men. Il is wasting breath
/ TO instruct the reader after THIS fashion,
/ though, for no man was ever convinced
/ of it yet till he had tried it bimselt-and
l am around now hunting for man who
/ is afraid to try it. l haven't had any
luck, so far
All the early pioneers OF California ac-
| quired more or less wealth, but an enor-
nous majority of them have not got any
now. Those that have, get it slowly and
by patient toll
The reader has heard of the great
Gould & Curry silver mine of Nevada.
/ believe its shares are still quoted in the
stock sales in New York papers. The
claim comprised l 200 feet, if remem~
Der rightly, or may be it was 900-and
think it all belonged originally TO two
men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry
owned two-thirds of it-and he said that
he sold it out for twenty-five hundred dol
lars, in cash, and an old plug horse that
ate up his market value IN hay and bar
ley in seventeen days by the watch. and
he said that Gould sold out for pair of
secondhand government blankets and
bottle of whisky that killed nine men in
iree hours, and an unoiiending stranger
that smelt the cork was disabled for life
four years afterward the mine thus dis
posed of was worth in the San Francisco
market seven million six hundred thou
sand dollars in gold coin.
In the early days a poverty-stricken
Mexican vino lived in a canon right back
Of Virginia City, bad stream of water
as large as a mans wrist trickling from
the hillside on his premises. The Ophir
Company segregated 100 feet of their
mine and swapped it to him for the stream
of water. the hundred feet proved to be
the richest part of the entire mine four
years after TIE swap, ils market value
Qacluding its mild. was 81, 800, coo. /
was down in If about hat time, 600 feet
under the ground, and about half of it
caved in over my head-and yet, valuable
as that property was, l would have giveen
the entire mine to have been cut of that
! do not wish to brag-but l can be lib
eral if you take me right.
An individual who owned 20 feet in
the Ophir mine before It's great riches
were revealed to men. traded il for horse,
and very sorry looking brute lie was
too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir
stock went up TO 50, 900 foot, this man,
who hadn't cent, used to say he was the
most startling example of magnificence
and misery the world had ever seen-be-
cause he was able to ride 60,000-dollar
horse and yet had to ride him bareback
because he couldn't scare up cash enough
to buy a saddle He said il fortune were
to give him another 10000 dollar horse
it would ruin him.
The shiftIess people / have been talking
about have settled sedimentally down TO