The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-03-26

WILL ask you to nave q drink and not ON
will ask you to have a square meal
though starvation looks out of your yer,
eyes. With the pencil racket a fellow
may make two bits or perhaps thirty
cents a day, and this is how he lives OF
it: He buys a loaf of bread for fiv
cents in the morning and eats half of it
He then goes into one of those chear
| chop stands of which there are three il
Ell Paso. and gets a bowl of chill cor
carne. 1t is a Mexican dish, a kind D.
meat stewed with red peppers, and is .
great stimulant to the weak stomach
The commoncst kind of meat is used il
making it-stuf that sells in the butch
er's stall for about six cents a pound
A bowl of this stuff costs ten cents. Ir
the evening you a take another bow.
for supper. DAYS when I make a little
more mohey 1 take some Irish stew in.
| stead of the chilli con carne. 1t cost.
fifteen cents"
".How about bedsP"
'fWell, I've got a blanket, and there
are always empty box cars lying OF the
railroad track, into which / creep anc
sleep until morning. The last few
nights, though, it has been so cold that
! 1 couldn't go it, and that's the reason
struck you tonight"
'"The American laborer has not much
show here" queried the writer after /,
pause.
mo. He is too close to old Mexico
and Mexican cheap labor affects him
just as Chinese cheap labor affected hin
in California. No white man can worl
for Mexican wages, and as the supply
of Mexican labor right at their door.
is almost inexaustible, contractors nat
urally give it the preference; hence thu
vast number of idle men you see hang
ing round the street-corners- To give
you an idea how cheap Mexican labol
is, the Mexican Central Railroad foun(
it actually more profitable to employ
Mexicans by the thousand than to us,
labor-saving machinery in making tn,
road bed south of Chihuahua. Twent,
cents a day was big pay for them, anc
they actually carried the dirt in basket
on their heads to construct the dumps
First-class Mexican miners only ge
seventy-five cents a day and ordinar,
miners fifty cents. That is what tn
Corralitos Mining Company, which
considered a liberal outfit, is paying
No, sir; the Southwest frontier is NJ
place for a poor man, and the Republi
of Mexico is still worse. Mexico
one of the best countries in the worl,
to live out of, and don't you forget it.
Another curse to this place is" con
tinued the frontier tramp. "You'r
1900 miles from anywhere meal
from any large city. 1t is about tina
distance from st. Louis, to Chicago, t.
San Francisco, or to the City of Mexico
You are at the extremely small hub of
mighty big wheel, and you're foreve
crying, with Sterne's startling: Il can
get out. I can't get out Not that E
Paso is a bad place if a man is a genuin
bum, devoid of shame or the remnan
of self respect. Such men can pick u
their grub all the time and get some oil
corral to sleep in, and the climate j
splendid; but men like myself, sir, VIII
have seen better days and can hardl
into the all-night saloons On Ell Pas
Street and see the poor fellows VIII
sleep in chairs. hugging the stove t
keep their feeble blood in circulation
and if you won't think it must hav
been in a vein of irony that old Creole,
exclaimed: Go West, young man, g
West, 1 shall be greatly mistaken"
"What do you think is the reason tina
the West and Southwest are getting a
bad as the old, worn out Eastp"
Railroads, sir. railroads. They brin
in a hundred poor men for the n ma
with capital. In the old days when
took a small fortune to cross the plains
though all were not rich, every ma
was comfortable. What the Southwes
wants, sir, is less labor and NOR
capital"
Here an incursion on the part of
freight screw" on the Y. & P. brough
the interview to an abrupt close.-I
Paso fTer.) Cor. ST. Louis Globe-Dem,
crGt.