St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-05-02

uu-A liHcs L got let out. l hadn much
money, but / started for Silver City,
but found nothing. 1 tried Demine
with the same result. and then Lake
Valley. My money had given out and
was glad of any job. tried to get on
as surface laborer at the Sierra Grande
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 Greelev's crv
TO West. young man. 60 West, seem
to entirely ignore. From Lake Valley
to here beat my way over the Santa
re line. and have now been in Ell Pasc
about three weeks"
'HoE have You managed to livee'
20, it's wonderful how little maj
can live on when he's forced to it. Look
at these fellows up in the Arctic. how
they got along on their sealskin pant.
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 yop
how have managed to live. / peddlt
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 a drink.
l suppose I'm often asked to take a
drink dozen times in day. 1t never
struck You, perhaps, but it has often
struck me as strange that a dozen men
will ask you to have drink and no: one
will ask YOU to have square meal,
/ enough 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 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 commoncst 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 little
more money take some Irish stew in
stead of the chilli con carne. 1t costs
fifteen cents"
''How about beds?"
'Well, Eve got blanket. and there
are always empty box cars lying on the
railroad track, into which l creep and
sleep until morning. The last few
nights. though, it has been so cold that
l couldn't 60 it, and that's the reason ]
struck you tonight"
The American laborer has not much
shcw here" queried the writer after a
pause.
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
nrally 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
cents a day and ordinary
miners fifty cents. That is what the
Corralitos Mining Company, which is
considered a liberal outfit, is paving.
No, sir: the Southwest frontier is no
place for a poor man. and the Republic
If Mexico is still worse. Mexico is
,ne of the best countries in the world
o live out of, and don't you forget it."
Another curse to this place is. con-
inued the frontier tramp. You're
200 miles from anywhere-1 mean
rom 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 a
mighty big wheel, and you're forever
ret out. Ican't get out Not that Ell
'aso is bad place if man is a genuine
,um. devoid of shame or the remnant
# self respect. Such men can pick up
heir grub all the time and get some old I
Oral to sleep in, and the climate is
plendid: but men like myself, sir, who
lave seen better days and can hardly
ee worse, it is we who suffer. Drop I
nto the all-night saloons on Ell Paso
street and see the poor fellows who
leep in chairs. hugging the stove TO
eep their feeble blood in circulation, ;
nd if you won't think it must have ;
cen in a vein of irony that old Greeley {
reclaimed: Go West, young man. go
Vest. l shall be greatly mistaken" {
What do you think is the reason that $
he West and Southwest are getting as {
ad as the old, worn out Easto" 5
Railroads. sir, railroads. They bring |
a hundred poor men for the one man I
nth capital. In the old days when it |
,ok a small fortune to cross the plains, (
rough all were not rich. every man '
as comfortable. What the Southwest 7
ants, sir, is less labor and more 9
apital." +
Here an incursion on the part of a .
eight "crew" ON the Y. & P. brought
le interview to an abrupt close.-H
aso f7er.j Cor. st. Louis Globs-Denso.
al. {