Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1897-10-17

BY E. j. Livernash to ST. Louis Republic.
Dawson City, September 10, via San
Francisco, October 9.-Have you ever
seen boy on his first spree, Dragging,
swearing, throwing around his money,
pretending to twice the drunkenness
that is his legitimately, out-rounding
the old FOUNDERS, proud of his fling,
and anxious that the world should
know what a devil of fellow he is?
If you have, you know the spirit OF
Dawson City.
YouNbegin to swagger as soon as you
get into it. 1t is Midnight on the Ten
derloin all the time in the Klondike
country.
To be sure, among the 5000 inhabi-
tants of the triangle of tents and cab
ms there are some who lay the bricks
of their fortunes with serious faces,
and without turning aside for faro,
whisky or women, but these are crows
among the snow birds. When the
story is done we know, of course, that
these will be the bank presidents and
capitalists, while the young fellow
over the way who has just slammed a
sock half full of gold dust on the bar
with a magnificently profane order
that it remain there until it is drunk
up by the crowd, will be telling how
rich he was back in 81.
Dawson is the widest yet. Not Lead
vile in its red heydey, nor Tombstone,
with the lid of, nor San francisco, in
The flush of 40, was as picturesque in
It's riot of wealth as this place up in
he Arctic Only in killing do they have
is beat. We are peaceab,e and compar-
itively honest yet Gold is too plen-
iful to be worth the risk of stealing.
It is the pride of the inhabitants that
he camp is a record breaker. 1t is
Dawson's vanity, and citizens look ap-
provingly when Swift Water Bill bets
a thousand on card at the Aurora
saloCn, and Sitka Belle filings bottles
Of champagne at $50 a bottle at the
miner who has incurred her displeaSure.
There is not man in the Aurora that
will not gladly pour out TIE three
ounces of dust to pay for each missile
as long as she feels like hurting wine.
DAWSON PROUD OF ITSELF.
Dawson knows what is due from
the richest geld camp the world has
ever known, and there is public spirit
enough to make it sure that it will not
fail to keep its reputation for reck-
Iessness and lurid extravaganza up
where it belongs.
Is it the richest camp the world has
ever known? There is not a man in
Dawson City that doubts it for an in
slant have seen more dust and mug
gets than | ever dreamed of, and they
were shown as proof Of stories of such
IA c,.-asI1~ ---~~T4I, +I,at I will not renaat
JiIat makes me say the placers of the
Yukon are beyond comparison in rich
Ness. The outlook is so full of PROM
Use that one dare not forecast the limit
of the riches men will drag from this
frozen land.
You observe the names-"Swift Wa
ter Bill, "Sitka Belle" etc. like an
echo Of Bret. H2rte over the ice fields.
1t may be imitation, it may be natural,
result of similar conditions, but the
whole thing is conventional, and the
wilder it gets the more conventional it
is. The serious purpose of everybody
Is to get the wealth from the bars, but
they 90 net so about it seriously.
Everybody seems to be playing a part
n the bonanza meIodrama and to be
conscious of the DicturesQueness of his
clothes; hence tie lack of commences
in the wild and woolly names
Dut with all this living up to q reDu-
tarion Dawson is really the maddast
town that ever turned the moral cOt-a
topsy-turvy. Men fling to a painted
dancer on rough board stage nuggets
representing as much as they mojled
and toiled a month for in New York or
San Francisco. What any man has
is so little in comparison with what
he expects to have next week or next
season that il is not worth saving.
So Dawson &c clink of glasses. q
smash of bottles, q rattle of chips. the
crazy music CT the hurdy-gurdy, the
shrill. metallic, professional laugh of
women.
And over it all hangs the shadow OF
the famine that everybody knows is
coming. Food will be scarce this Win
Ter: how scarce nobody knows vet.
Many may die Of hunger.
Well, what of it? Ii can't be helped
oy worrying or boarding. If no focI