The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-02-10
me- NEW 81 poRAoo.
4 orarhie P,csurs Of Life In the Black
Hills.


A facetious correspondent, writing
from Deadwood, says: ssThere is no
regularity about anything. "A man
opens a place of business and makes
lots OF money, then he gets the pros
pecting fever, starts for the gulches
and shuts up his shebang. When a
place is closed upit means the owner is
in q fight or of ona spree. Every man
thinks he is mayor o fVthe town. Every
once In a while the boys cali a mass
meeting, draw up resolutions, etc, and
decide to incorporate the town and
have a board of aldermen, but at the
end Of the week nobody knows what in
h4lhasl become Of the resolutions of
the aldermen.
4 The orchestra chairs in the theatre
are made Of stakes driven into the
ground with a round piece of board
about the size of your hand nailed on
top. Admission $3.50; reserved seats
S.. They run q sort of variety show,
and sling in the jokes and stage bust
ness as broad as possible. The ''can-
cam" was danced for some time until
the boys got tired of it, and they said,
''Give us some singin' or We'll clean
out the place; we want something ele-
vatin'," and the manager had to import
a female sentimental vocalist at big
expense to appease the patrons. She
sung "Sweet spirit hear my prayer"
Consider the lilies, - II know that my
Redeemer 1iveth,' and other h~igh-toned
music, and I thought the boys would
go crazy with delight. But they got
tired of it in about a week.
There are saloons all over the place,
and whisky two bits a drink. They put
two barrels up on end, nail a board
across for a bar, and deal it out. A
miner who wants to treat pours some
gold dust on the barrel head and says
''Set 'em up" They never weigh the
dust. Sometimes a man won't put
down enough dust, but then they never
say a word; and if he is a little tight
and pours out ten or fifteen dollars
worth they never mention it. They
have three faro banks running all the
while. They don't use checks for the
boys; when they won a pile of checks
they threw EN- all over the place, and
some were too drunk to handle 'em.
So the checks got played out. Now a
nan puts a little gold dust in a dollar
greenback and it goes for two dollars.
Ten dollars worth of dust in ten dollar
greenback goes for twenty dollars, and
so on. They never weigh dust at all,
but guess the amount.
The diggings are immensely rich. !
have known five men to take out $4,000
a day right along. Of course, every
place isn't alike. Some men dosn't
strike such rich deposits, but a man
who is thrifty, saving and indus
trious can take away a big stake at the
end of u year. The men who come
from there broke are shiftless fellows,
who gamble and drink all the while,
and squander every cent they get. /
have seen mcnlput down a weeks run
of dust on a single card. There is no
limit to bets, and 1 have seen $1,000
put down on the ace, and it was what a
man had washed out of the gulches in
a week. OF course the dealer took it.
Board is S12 a week, and everything in
proportion. The quartz claims are
also very rich. 1 saw just before 1 left
a piece of quartz literally honey
combed with free gold--more gold than
quartz. The piece was not as big as
my hat, and there was $500 in gold in