Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1881-05-19
BUTCHERING BUFFALO.
A Hundred Thousand Killed Last
Winter i'm the Yellowstone
Country.
Sioux City Journal.


1t is estimated by competent author
tiles that 1O0, 1000 buffalo hides will be
shipped out of the Yellowstone coun-
try this season. Two firms alone are
negotiating for the transportation of
10000 hides each. When to this is ad
ded the immense amount of skins and
fuTs of other kinds, deer, elk, antelope,
beaver, ETC. some idea may be formed
of the extent of the Yellowstone pelt
and fur trade.
Most of our citizens saw the big load
Of Buffalo hides that the c.. K. Peck
brought down last season, q load that
hid everything about the boat below
the hurricane deck roof. There were
ten thousand hides on that load, and
they were all brought out of the Vel
lowstone on one trip, and transferred
TO the G. k. Peck. How such a load
could have been piled on the little
Terry not even the men on the boat
appear to know. 1t hid every part of
the boat, barring only the pilot house
and the smoke stacks, But such a
load will not be attempted again. For
such boats as ply the Yellowstone there
are at least fifteen full loads of Buffalo
skins and other pelts. Reckoning one
thousand hides to three carloads, and
adding to this fifty cars for the other
pelts, it will take at least three hun
dred and fifty box-cars to carry this
stupendous bulk OF pelts east to mar
ket. These figures are not guesses,
but estimates made by men whose bus
mess it is to know about the amount of
hides and furs awaiting shipment.
Nothing like it has ever been known
in the history of the fur trade Last
season the output of buffalo hides was
| about the average, and last year only
about thirty thousand hides came out
of the Yellowstone country, or less than
third of what is there now awaiting
shipment.
The past severe winter has caused
the buffalo to bunch themselves in a
few valleys where there was pasturage,
and there the slaughter went on all
winter. There was no sport about it,
simply shooting down the famine-tam-
ed animals as cattle might be shot
down in barn-yard.
To the credit of the Indians it can
be said that they killed no more than
they could save the meat from. The
greater part of the slaughter was done
by white hunters, or butchers rather,
who followed the business of killing and
skinning buffalo by the month, leaving
the carcasses to rot. When the buf-
faloes are all killed off, as they bid fair
to be in very few years at this rate,
then everybody will wonder that the
government did not do something to
preserve this, the noblest of animal
game, or at least prevent the killing of
the buffalo for the hides alone
| People who are in a hurry to order
their paper stopped when the editor
says something that displeases them
will do well to ponder over these words
from the Christian at IVcrk: An hon
est, straightforward, manly man, see
ing som ething in his newspaper that
he does not like, writes to the editor
expressing his dissent-as it is his priv
| ilege to do and as he would do to a
! friend. No true man gives up a friend
because of a difference of opinion;
neither does he, for like reason, part
with one of the best of friends, a good
newspaper. On the other hand, no
editor who is half an editor resents, but
rather welcomes and respects the hear
| ty, pronounced expression of contrary
opinion from manly dissentient. But
! for the one who, reads, dissents and
flashes back an angry "Stop my paper"
well, we are sorry for such brethren.
1t is always a disappointment to meet
with the weakness of childhood where
you naturally look for the strength Of
maturity. the infrequency of the oc-
currence makes it a matter of less
consequence than it otherwise might
he