, 1890-01-05
MARINE NEWS.

'-S ~
with all the prominent lines of this coun-
try and Mexico. was relating experiences
gained while in service IN the neighboring
republic. He SAID; Livery white man
down there has some sort of q graft
and few of them have any more use for
a strange Americana thsn the prejudiced
and vindictIve natives. A man who has
railroaded all over has lots of trouble to
get transportation, unless he wants to
leave. The brakemen and firemen are
nearly all mexicans and the conductors
and engineers are afraid that you will, in
some way. interfere with their plans
for profit or advancement Those
greasers are the greatest thieves in the
world. They steal just for pastime. Iron is
scarce in that country aud the men have to
be on the lookout all the time to keep
enough links and pins to hold their trains
together. Whole divisions are some
times crippled by raids of the metal
thieves. Right in the City of Mexico l
saw a party of the cigarette fiends try to
get away with a pile driver hammer that
weighed halt a ton at least. They no.
ticed the big piece of iron on a caboose
platform and at once planned to steal it.
A little burro, about two sizes larger than
a i~ackrabbit. was partly hidden under a
pack saddle and brought up beside the
J prize. By a concerted and herculean eff
fort five sleepy fellows rolled the hammer
on the beast of burden. OF course the
burro was crushed to earth and | guess
its bones are beside the track there yet.
The Mexicans were nightly surprised at
the result of their clever planning. In
that country you can see Just how things
were done about 200 years ago. A
splendid farming territory is tributary to
the International road, but | didn't
see a pillow or a threshing ma
chine along the whole road. They turn
the soil with a stick pointed with iron
and drive burros or sheep over the grain
10 thresh it. They tie a stick across the
horns of oxen instead of using a yoke,
and wagon tires are held in place with
rawhide thongs. The houses in the
country are very rude affairs. and in some
villages there isn't enough furniture to
outfit a caboose on the Union Pacific.
A great many adventurous American 8
who 90 to Mexico hoping to gain wealth
GO to theis death. for assassination is too
common there to be considered criminal.
If a man opens an old mine and Is making
money he is quietly killed and no one in
this country ever hears of it. Lots of
foreigners are lured to death BY the wiles
of captivating senoritas. They are CON
irmed firts and frequently make eyes at
a stranger to bring a native lover to time.
If the tool becomes persistent he is
stabbed in the back some dark night and
his body hlddeH."
paS-A railway man well known here
has a memory that challenges all accepted
theories on this subject. The individual
Is w. E. Green, formerly trainmaster on
the Wyoming division. but now superin
tendent OF the Overland Routes line in
Idaho. Green can carry in his head
an astounding mum Der of figures for
months. When he was here trace, 8
would come out from Omaha looking for
lost cars and 10 nine cases out of ten Mr..
Green could give, to the minutest detail,
the information they were after. 1t is an
actual fact that he could sit in the depot
here as a freight train passed and without
any special effort, apparently, write down
the numbers of the twenty five or thirty
cars of the train long after it was out OF
sight. OF course this remarkable faculty
is of peculiar value to its possessor. He
says he never Systematically drilled him
self in the work, but years ago fell into
the habit, when a conductor. of making
a mental check Of his train and then COM
pairing the memory list with the car mum.
bers.
pos~Away up in the Big Horn basin,
probably $50 miles from the railroad and
in a region isolated enough to suit an ideal
hermit and presumably wilder than most
new countries, there is published a weekly
paper called the Bonanza RustEer. The
journal reaches Cheyenne usually about
twenty days after it is printed, but it is
always welcome, because it is full of news
and crisp comment. The editor is Joe
DeBarthe, a brilliant young fellow of in.
dominatable pluck aud the energy of a sue.
cessful mar of affairs. He's an enigma,
even to his intimates. DeBlrthe is 9
thorough practical printer, being
swift %compositor and a tasty and rapid
Job man. He is a good stenographer In ar
approved system. His reportorial style is
of the dashing type that takes so well. He
is quite a lawyer, an excellent Englist
scholar, with enough Latin and a smat
tering of French. In business he i.
shrewd. Just why SO accomplished a fellow
should exile himself is puzzling, for Joe's
record in the East, where he held fine DO
%sitions, is good. In York state he wa,
slckly and then he says he likes Western
people. and the paper looks as though h,
was making something above expenses
The Big Horn basin has a good man 70
the country in Joe DeBarthe. printer, edi
tor, stenogrspher and lawyer.