The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-06-06

mines, but there were hundreds OF
strong, able laborers who, of course,
cut me out. Men who employ laborers
always select the strongest men they
can get. fact that the fellows who,
parrot-like, repeat Horace Greeley's cry
Go West, young man, 60 West seem
to entirely ignore. From Lake Valley
to here / beat my way oyer the Santa
Fe line. and / have now been in FL Paso
about three weeks"
"How have you managed to ivee
20, it's wonderful how little a man
can live on when he's forced to it! Look
at these fellows up in the Arctic, how
they got along on their sealskin pants
for months before they took to cannibal-
ism. / don't suppose that / ever sui
fered as badly as these men did, but !
have known what it is to be without
food for two days. But I'll tell you
how have managed to live. I peddle
pencils round the saloons, and young
fellows often give me ten cents and
refuse to take a pencil, in which they
are sensible, as they are the poorest and
cheapest could get in the town. Then
they very often ask me to have drink.
i suppose I'm often asked to take
drink dozen times in day. 1t never
struck you, perhaps. but it has often
struck me as strange that dozen men
will ask You to have drink and not one
will ask you to have a square meal,
though starvation looks out of your very
eyes. With the pencil racket fellow
may make two bits or perhaps thirty
cents day, and this is how he lives on
it: He buys a loaf of bread for five
cents in the morning and eats half of it.
He then goes into one of those cheap
chop stands of which there are three in
Ell Paso, and gets bowl of chill con
carne 1t is Mexican dish, kind OF
meat stewed with red peppers, and is a
great stimulant to the weak stomach.
The commonest kind of meat is used in
making it-stuff that sells in the butch.
er's stall for about six cents pound.
A bowl of this stuff costs ten cents. In
the evening you can take another bowl
for supper. DAYS when make a little
more money take some Irish stew in
stead of the chill con carne. 1t costs
fifteen cents" fs4 la N
How about bedsp" 1gr
'Well, I've got a blanket, and there
are always empty box cars lying on the
railroad track, into which creep and
sleep until morning. The last few
nights, though, it has been so cold that
l couldn't go it, and that's the reason ]
struck You tonight" as.cs
.sThe American laborer has not much
show here" queried the writer after a
pause. ,..ff fLf
mo. He is too close to old Mexico,
and Mexican cheap labor affects him
just as Chinese cheap labor affected him
in California. No white man can work
for Mexican wages. and as the supply
of Mexican labor right at their doors
is almost inexaustible. contractors nat
urally give it the preference; hence the
vast number of idle men you see hang
ing round the street-corners. To give
you an idea how cheap Mexican labor
is, the Mexican Central Railroad found
it actually more profitable to employ
Mexicans by the Thousand than to use
labor-saving machinery in making the
road bed south of Chihuahua. Twenty
cents day was big pay for them, and
they actually carried the dirt In baskets
on their heads to construct the dumps.
First-class Mexican miners only get
seyenty-fiye cents day and ordinary
miners fifty cents That is what the
Corralitos Mining Company, which, is
considered a liberal outfit, is paying
No, sir; the Southwest frontier is no
place for poor man, and the Republic
of Mexico is still worse. Mexico is
one of the best countries in the world
to live ont of, and don't you forget il. :"
another curse to this place is, = con-
tinued the frontier tramp. you're
l, 200 miles from anywhere-I mean
from any large city. 1t is about that
distance from st. Louis, to Chicago, to
San Francisco, or to the City of Mexico.
You are at the extremely small hub of q
mighty big wheel, and you're forever
crying, with Sterne's startling: i can't
get out. / can't get out Not that Ell
Paso is bad place If man is . genuine
bum, devoid of shame or the remnant
of self respect. Such men can pick mp
their grub all the time and get some old
corral to sleep in, and the climate is
splendid; but men like myself, sir, who
have seen better days and can hardly
see worse, it is we who suffer. Drop
into the all-night saloons on FL PasO
Street and see the poor fellows who
sleep in chairs, hugging the stove 10
keep their feeble blood in circulation,
and if you won't think it must have
been in vein of irony that old Greeley
exclaimed: Go West, young man, go
West. shall be greatly mistaken"
"What do you think is thereason that
the West and Southwest are getting as
bad as the old, worn out East?' 0e
Railroads, sir, railroads. They bring
in hundred poor men for the one man
with capital. In the old days when it
took small fortune to cross the plains,
though all were not rich, every man
was comfortable. What the Southwest
wants. sir, is less labor and more
capital" -. e~
Here an incursion on the part of .
freight screw" on the Y.&P P. brought
the interview to an abrupt close. -El
Paso Tea. Cor. 81. Louis Globe Demo-
cy0{ J.. IL saFfet rtisf