Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1885-08-08
CORRESPOND ENCE
A SLIGHT VIEW OF THE GAME
Through Cumberland Spectables,
Flanked by Observations of the
Small Boy, Natural Gas and
Local Politics.

CUMBERLAND, August g. 1885.
To the MINING JOURNAL.
AS the welcome rains have cooled
the atmosphere here considerably this
week, thought l would give your
readers a little Cumberland gossip,
promising that l will say as little as
possible about base ball until I hear
that the Frostburg club has been beat
en- by our Cumberland boys, who
started the season in good luck, but
are now suffering from inability per-
haps to stand too much prosperity.
When Cumberland beats Frostburg,
then your correspondent will feel in
clined to write little base ball gossip,
and to give credit where credit is due.
AS the situation is now Frostburg is
certainly entitled to crow as loud as
she likes, even if Flanagan did not
have chance to "wind her up" as the
Frostburg correspondent of the Daily
Times would say in his very amusing
letter over the nom de plume of "Observ-
or" on Monday last.
Natural gas" is now the sensation
here outside of the circus, which is bill
ed for Wednesday next, and is sitting
the boys almost wild. Wheelbarrows
loaded down with scrap iron, old
bones, rags, &c., can be seen at all
hours pushed by the small boy who is
waiting to get inside the tent, after he
has been paid for his wares by our
great rag merchant, Horner, who re-
ports this week imports much larger
than exports, all owing to the industry
of the small boy.
The natural gas industry is not boom
ing as much as we would like, but there
is plenty of it in Cumberland, and
those who profess to know say that
way down three OF four thousand feet
beneath the surface there must be not
only coal and oil but natural gas,
which would make business in Cum
berland boom. The only trouble is
money is scarce and laborers are plen-
tiful. One dollar for every foot bored,
and perhaps three thousand dollars
cash before natural gas is found will
be the estimated cost OF the undertake
ing. and ii. lively times would probably
be raised without much difficulty. But
where is the money to come from :
Are our capitalists going to spend that
much when they have three safe banks
to lock their money up in, and can oc-
casionally get Il few borrowers who are
forced to give from ten to twenty-five
per cent. for its use? Not much But
yet the experiment of raising Il suf1i-
cient amount of stock is being tried,
and will no doubt be success after we
have a public library and reading
room, q passenger railway all over our
city, a Board of Trade, public park
and a base ball catcher for Flanagan
whose life can be fully insured in
mutual accident society. When all
these things come to pass then will
Cumberland be the Pittsburg of Mary
land, as was gong to say. But how
long are we to wait for such a happy
event? Will Cumberland coal be ex-
hausted by that time, after the
Geoge's Creek mines are worked out?
/ hope Cumberland will not have to
wait that long and only wish that we
had few men of energy in this city
who could push things to success. We
have capital enough, and at times we
can give twenty thousand. dollars to
one railroad and sixty-fve thousand
dollars to another, and yet we are not
happy.
One man, and he a blackleg, is at
work in our Warren Glass Works,
while less than dozen are at work in
our Cumberland and Crown Steel
Works. In the Baltimore and Ohio
on Friday last the COM
pany gave all the men a holiday with
put their asking for it, and the next
lay they all went to work rather than
zee Frostburg beat Cumberland. What |