The San Francisco call., 1897-11-29


Yesterday and the others have given
notice that they will do so within a day or
so. The propretors have been securing
provisions one way or another and hoping
for the steamers like everybody else.
With the news that the steamers cannot
come, their resources, largely from new
comers, tighten up, and they are COM
PEELED to go out of business. The great
number who have been dependent upon
them, therefore, are being brought to a
sudden realization of what it is or may be
to 90 without anything. High prices are
no longer a matter of remark. Men pay
81 50 for a I5-cent meal, careless of the
fact that there is no better, and are still
grateful to the restaurant-keeper. AS for
the restaurant-keeper, like the agents of
the big opposition companies, he is CRATE
full to such of his customers who patron
ize the other man. In the city of Dawson
money cannot buy provisions, and for
those who have money and no provisions
the best use they can now find for what
they have is to purchase flight. Those who
by foresight or by a pull have laid in pro-
visions are by no means secure, as the
evening-up process, that will under stress
certainly be adopted by the miners, will
leave them no better off than others.
They will not starve, say the miners, so
long as any one man has provisions.
So far from combating this spirit, the
mounted police seem to be in full
sympathy with it, and this is readily un-
derstood when it is known that the police
are without provisions themselves and
may be compelled to resort to the same
methods. This has been done more than
once before in the history of the Yukon,
but the situation this year is much more
complicated than hitherto. Then The
population was made up almost entirely
of miners, who were willing to and did
work, and the loss to the stores or to in
dividuaIs where wrong was done could be
be made up in another year.
Now the great majority are untried
strangers, a large proportion of whom are
"hoboes" and ''sure-thing" men. To d.
vide the provisions of the miner with
these people is so manifestly unjust that
it will not be done, and this is feature of
the situation that will occasion much
trouble. On the other hand, that portion
of this class who have been here a Suffi-
Gent length of time have made provision
for themselves, and it will be these who
will first be called upon to surrender. An
officer of the police, in the presence of
Major Davis, in discussing the situation
with me, said to-day:
''When the time comes we will make a
canvass of the town and put the questions
to every man: Are you a miner? Do
you work and help develop the country,
and, if so, at What?' These questions
Will have to be satisfactorily answered. OF
course, we know nearly all OF them, and in
the case OF every gambler or other parasite
We will mply demand that he show US
his cache, and what we find there will be
placed in a general fund.
This mornin. ice is floating on the river
for he first time this winter, and the hope
that has been sustained by a rising river
is dying or dead, fo- floating ice is the cer-
tain sign of the end OF transportation for
the season. Last year the river was frozen
M At this time, but 8 thing unheard of
before; the ice broke late Snd went out,
allowing one steamer to reach here as late
as October That circumstance. solitary
instance as it is, is quoted over and over
and over as thing that may happen
again.
Since the steamer Hamilton failed to
cross the bar, and left for the Yukon on
the evening of September l, the river has
risen at its narrowest point almost four
feet In the fats at Fort Yukon, whore
the river filters through labyrinth OF
Islands and is xty-one miles from main
land TO mainland, this does not amountto
more than q few inches. Still the river is
not now accounted low, and even Captain
Healy, manager OF the North American
Trading and Transportation Company
here, has maintained his belief that the
steamers would arrive. Day by day, as
they kept passing, with no news from be-
low, the more anxious of the people here
elm bed the hills back OF the town, and
througn glasses scanned the winding line
Of white hill tops to the north that m ark
the course of the river, hoping for feck
OF smoke that would mean the steamer
They do so no more. Yesterday morn
ing, upon the information that l brought
Of the failure not only of the big Hamil-
ton, but the little Marguerite, to get over
the bar, Captain Healy dispatched Cap
tain Guyger 10 Fort Y ukon with instruc-
tions to the captains OF whatever vessels
belonging to his company he might find
there to bring them through at whatever
risk need be-if you have TO tear the bot
toms out of them bring them through, ="
and with that braced up his own hope and
that of those who consulted him. But
last night, following day behind me,
came Captain Hanson. manager here for
ihc Alaska Commercial Company. He
had gone 10 Fort Yukon to learn what he
could, and without hope OF a steamer get
ting through here, ca me in a polling boat,
as 1 had, with two Indians. His judgment
as chief here was accepted as conclusive,
and Captain Healy's reserve of hope,
based on the sacrifice of the bottoms of