The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-10-05
Butte's Saturday Night.

Butte may be a thriving commercial city /
for six days and nights of the week, but on
Saturday night 1t is the mining camp, pure ct
simple. At nightfall crowds of men from the
wood chopping camps andfrom adjacent min
ing districts come pouring into town until
Main street presents a scene which would be
no ciscredit to a city of ten times Butte's
population. Well dressed crowds sauuter
along the street or fill the stores, where every |
salesman is kept busy waiting on the ever
changing tide Of customers. Good music is
heard from the open doors of several saloons,
and in the gambling houses we find the diff
ferent games enjoying far more than the av-
erage run of patronage. The keno table is
surrounded by about rs players, each having
his attention closely fixed upon the layout
before him. At the faro tables We find the
Older sports, the mel who wish to win rap
idly if they win at all, and who back their
Judgment upon the probable turn OF a card
with piles of white, red or blue chips, accord
Ing to The depth Of the play and the strength
of their exchequer. Poke also has its deyo-
tees, but outside of those three games, keno,
faro and poker, no other money games are
played. Such swindles as three card monte,
the ten-die game, or even Diana, would find
no patrons among tie old stagers of Butte who
have long since learned the folly of betting on
"dead things" in gambling. Taken altogether
Butte's Saturday night presents a picture
about as wide as can be imagined from the
"Cotter's Saturday night" as delineated by
Burns. But the adventurous, Woodworking
and hard-faring miners of Montana require
stronger and more intense excitement than
there was any necessity for in the simple,
uleventful lives of the jewellers in the pas
toral regions of Scotland. This excitement
they are bound to have in one form or anoth-
er, and if it is not to be found in the explo-
ration of very promising looking groupings,
the gaming table is resorted to as the best
substitute. But because :heir sports are of a
more exciting nature, and even of a more
questionable character than were those of the
last century Z" cotter " it does not follow hat
the miners are less honest as a class han were
the ~cotters, or that their morals in any broad
comprehensive comparison would be found
inferior. In one field of morals-sobriety-
it may be claimed for the miner that he is
immeasurably the superior Of the simple.
minded, but hard-drinking, shepherd. Com
pared class with class, and supposiug the cot
tiers to be situated as are our miners who have
money IN their pockets for the satisfaction of
any taste they choose to indulge, it is certain
that intemperance among our miners prevails
in nothing like the degree in which it was
found among the cotters whose virtues were
sung by Burns in such graceful strains. The
Montanian may be a pretty hard case ; apt to
Ego broke on the turn of a card, and very
careless in his choice of means to resent an
insult, but, as in the case of a better known.
II not more exemplary party, we should give
him his due, which is about summed up in
the statement that he is honest, industrious
and sober.