The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1879-03-27
BACK FROM LEADVILLE.
a Good Place to Stay Atray From-Sin Il,
Starvation

A Good Place to Stay A,ray Froms-Sin and
Starvation.
indianapolis News.
A Neaos reporter met Mahlon b. Draper,
an old Indianapolis boy, who has been re-
siding at Whiteland, this State, for several
months, and who, a short time ago, was
seized with the gold fever and went to Lead
vile, Col.
"Back already?" inquired the reporter.
swell, yes; know when I've got enough.
I was only in Leadville for one week, arriy-
ing there on the 10th of February, and leav-
ing on the 23d.''
MIR. Draper is man about 80 years of
age, full of pluck and determination, and
one would think not easily discouraged.
"Why did you come back so soon from
that place of surprising prosperity, where
pay-dirt is SO rich, even in the streets, that a
moderate sized mule is reported to exalt $50
worth of gold and silver every time he raises
a hoof?''
"1'n tell you. went there with view of
Locating, but soon saw there was no show.
Merchandising was what intended, grocer
les, and everything of that sort, general
stock; but soon saw that nothing of that kind
would pay,-already overdone. Dry goods
business in the someix,-in fact, there seems
to be nothing in anything but the vices. In
the first place, rents, even if you are lucky
enough to get room, are too high. There
are 1900 people in Leadville to-day, nearly
all nen,-the few women there are, as q mat
tor OF course, for the most part prostitutes
and of these $4,000 people at least one-sixth
that is, 2,000-are without work and with.
out dollar in their pockets. I never saw SO
Vno hor
ging for quarter to buy loaf of bread.
You can get little loaf, about mouthful,
for 10 cents, but decent sized loaf sells for a
quarter.''
"But the other 1O,OOO-are they making
money?''
''Some of them are. But there's no room
for new men, and yet they are constantly
coming. The mines, smelters, and saw
mills are running all the men now that they
can handle. And just think! This little
city, the liveliest, wickedest city in the
world, has nearly all grown within the past
year. lot in the business part of the town
that twelve months ago sold for $1OO, to-
day sells for $4,000. Rents are viciously
high. A business room eighteen feet wide
by forty feet deep rents at $500 month.
The Theatre Comique building, a rough
frame box, seating and standing about 700
people, though they crowd in 1000 night
seven nights in the week at 81 a head-well,
sardines in box are comparatively COM
Portable compared with them-rents at
81 400 month. Well, the iniquity can
afford to pay it, for the wine-room
alone-the attraction being lot of beefy
women, with few clothes and very aggress-
i've legs-takes in $500 night for liquors.
1t is the loosest show, with no merit but it's
outrageous indecency. There are two other
theatres, not quite 80 far removed from de-
cency, paying the same heavy rents as the
Comique, but not making the money 1t
does. Gambling houses and saloons7 I
don't know; there's over hundred of them,
l should think. Every saloon is a gambling
house. There are numerous dance halls
which pay an average rental of 5000 per
month. These furnish women to dance
with the customers, the patrons paying fifty
cents for drink and the privilege of dane
ing once. If the drink doesn't kill i'm
mediately, buy another and dance again.
'"Ihe first mines are not over q quarter of
mile from the main street, and they extend
over several miles of territory, though the
paying mines are, am told, all near Lead
vile. The big run of metal is silver, though
there's some gold. Most of the mineral is
low-grade ore. There's no room there for
men unacquainted with mining. The fore
man of the Little Pittsburgh mine exclaimed
10 me the other day
"'What the devil do people mean by COM
ing here green men-tO work in these
mines. D-n 'em, we don't want 'em. It
takes the best bridging to keep these mines
from tunbling in now when worked with ex-
perienced hands-old miners-as the mine
raj is chiefly in the form of carbonate, and
crumbles like rotten cheese
"The paying mining interests are monop-
olized by capital. It takes capital to run
these mines, and great deal of it to Get any
profit out of them. They ara already filled
with old miners who have poured in from
Deadwood, Georgetown, and hundred other
points, so you see there is no show whatever
for amateur talent.''
"Any lawyers in Leadville?''
"Lawyers? Yes, there's forty of them,
poor devils; nothing to do unless thew can
play keno or faro. There's been 80 much
building that carpenters who brought their
kits of tools with them have had work right
along at "a per day, but there's a surplus
OF merchants. lsborers. and mechanics of all
kinds.''
''Do merchants make any money?n
~ don't think they do; they're eaten up
by rents and freights. Railroad freiehts are
outrageous; while from Webster, the ter
minus of the rail, to Leadville, distance OF
seventy miles, they are simply damnable,
slow freights coming by wagon being $1.40
per hundred, and express being seven cents
= pound. You 60 from Webster to Lead
vile by stage, seventy miles, for which you
pay 800, being allowed forty pounds of
baggage, paying for all above that amount
seven cents pound.
"The saloons, lodging houses, restaurants,