The silver state. [volume] (Unionville, Nev.) 1870-1903, 1893-07-22
coMsTocK SALARIES REDUCED.
Times Not What They Used to be on the
Old Lode.

Olu LOQe
In days gone by when the Comstock
payroll was a million month and
the world was ransacked for diamonds
large enough for mining superinten-
dents, in the days when champagne
baths were ceFnmon at Steamboat
Springs and Booth played in Piper's
opera house, the man who predicted
that the president of the Savage
would ever work for $l25 a month
would have been driven from the
slope OF Mount Davidson, if not off
the face of the earth, says the
Examiner of yesterday.
But the last awful crushing blow
has come and there is talk of retrench-
ment and reduction all along the line.
The wonderful Comstock lode, that
introduced silver kings to the Old
World, made Pine and California
streets a gamblers pandemonium,
that built half the fine blocks in San
Francisco, that paid 100000 in
dividends from one mine and eat up
nearly as much in assessments on
Others, that has always paid miners 81
day and enabled superintendent to
drive 40 trotters, that has aston
ished engineers and taught the whole
world how to bore holes in the ground
has fallen on evil times and is soon
to undergo revolution.
More than twenty-five years of Dig
ging, though they have only made
moletracks in the earth, has exhausted
the richer deposits and left only the
bare bones of the mines from Gold
Hill to the North End. The public
has decided to pay assessments no
longer, and there is nothing left bat
hard work and small pay.
They were great men who managed
the Comstock mines and used them for
counters in the gamblers game, but
there were other men who knew how
to take the lions share.
Some of them secured the timber
rights and built fume from the
mountains to Carson flats, others
built a narrow gauge railroad, others
again secured the water rights and
another set dug Il tunnel and got a
big share Of the profits for drainage.
A few managers became rich, but only
few, some gambler picked up
fortunes, but wood and water has
taken nearly all that has been dug for
many years.
The Comstock is rapidly going the
way of Phoebe, White Pine, Bodie
and all other famous camps.
OF the men who have worked there
for wages, some in one place for more
than twenty years, not one has got a
dollar to show for his toll.
True the miners union has always
kept the pay at 81 day, and no
Chinaman has ever done days
work in Storey county at any labor
except washing and peddling, but the
miners as a rule have nothing to
show.
"What is the use of reducing the
mems wages?" asked mining mag
nate in1S76. "Sure, the boys wouldn't
be able to pay their assessments if we
cut down their pay
That has been the secret OF it all.
Every miner bought stock, and it was
always regarded as next door to
treachery to the lode to sell share.
Five or six years ago with Conf
dence at $52 a share the foreman OF
the mine could have sold out his hold
ing for $65, 900, and he had been dig
ging there for twenty-five years. He
got as far as the brokers' Office, but
there his nerve came back, and re-
"I'll hold her for $500 a
share" he went away.
Next week the stock was down to
one figure.
Now it is probable that there will
be a reduction all along the line,