The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-12-15
Life in q Mining Camp.


1t is hard to keep separate the fantas-
tic and the sad, in ones impressions;
hard to decide which has more pathos,
the camp deserted or the camp newly
begun, the picture of disappointment
over and past or that of enthusiastic
hopes, nine out of ten of which are
doomed to die. l have sometimes
thought that the newest, bveSt, most
sanguine camps were saddest sights OF
all. H..sH 90,
The expression of a fresh mining
camp, at the height of its "boom,' is
something which must be seen to be
comprehended.
The camp is in the heart of a fir for
est, perhaps, or on ihe stony sides OF a
gulch. Trees fall here, there, every
where, day and night. Nobody draws
breath till he has got a cabin, or a
bough hut, or tent over his head. AS
if BY magic, there grows up sort OF
street, dozen or two board shanties,
with that cheapest and silliest of all
shams, the battlement front, Haunting
its ugly squares all along the line.
Glaring signs painted on strips of cot
ton sheeting, bleached and unbleached,
are nailed over doors. In next to no
time there will be mint, an sex
change" q "bank," q Vienna
bakery" "Chinese laundry" ''ho-
tel" and a ''livery stable" Between
each night and morning will blossom
out crops of ''real estate Offices" and
places where mining properties are
bought and sold," "claims located,
proved, bought and sold, " surveys of
mining claims made ETC.; crops also,
alas, of whisky saloons, with wicked
names and lurid red curtains, danger
and death signals.
The stumps are not taken out of the
pretense of a road, neither are the
powders; nobody minds driving over
them, or over anything, in fact, so he
gets quick to his ''claim," or to the
tract in which he is feverishly ''pros-
pecting." If brook trickleS through
the camp, so much the better; it can do
double duty as drain and well. Luck
lest they who drink highest up, but they
who drink lowest down do not mind
The women, if women there are, are
fierce and restless, like the men. They
make shifty semblances of homes out of
their one-roomed cabins. 1t is not
worth while to have things comfortable,
or keep them in order, for there is no
knowing whether the camp will turn
out to be good one or not; and to-
morrow they may pack up their chattels
and move on. At the faintest rumor of
a bigger find in another camp, the
men to whom they belong will be off,
and they must follow They stand in
their doorways, idling, wondering, wait
ing, gossiping and quarreling. The only
placid creatures are the babies, whose
simple needs of sun, dirt and being let
alone are amply provided. They are
happy, and they only, in all the camp.
1t is a strange life, unnatural, I'M
wholesome, leading to no good, com
FORTRESS to degree which many of those
who lead it would not endure a day,
except for the hope offs great gain, which
fires their very veins. The worst of it
is that the life is as fascinating as it is
unwholeSome. "Once miner ALWAYS a
miner" is proverb which is little less
than an exact truth The life is simply
a gamester's life, with the wide earth
for hazard table, and the instances are
rare in which a person who has once
come under its spell ever breaks away.
1t is no uncommon thing in Colorado
to meet an old gray-haired man who
has been prospecting and mining all his
life, and has not yet made dollar, but
is buoyantly sure that he will ''strike
it, soon.-Atlantic MONTHLY.