The San Francisco call., 1898-11-07
CANADIAN
 GOVERNMENT
 SIZES BOATS High = Handed Work on the Yukon. SUPPLIES BOLDLY TAKEN PRETEXT THAT A MILITARY CONTRACT WAS BROKEN. Parsimony in the Navigation of River Craft That Will Cause Passengers to Enter Claims
 for Damages.
PRETEXT THAT A MILITARY CONTRACT WAS BROKEN.
BY SAM W. WALL.
Special Correspondence of The Call.

has happened this year indeed. Int
 Yukon has not seen such an open sea
 son for g decade. Ten days ago g
 light fall of snow covered the ground
 and everybody conceded that winter
 had come. The snow passed away, an6
 another week of perfect Indian sum
 ner has succeeded it. Frequently
 heavy frosts and thin glaze of ice
 that forms in the pools during the night
 are the only evidences that summer
 has passed, for the vast old Yukon
 flows as tranquilly as though 1t never felt the grip of winter, the air Is balmy and the sun shines brightly in a clear sky every day. So near it's close one
 cannot but smile at the dark proph- ecies with which many of the so-called
 old-timers worked their names into print early in the season. There was to
 be no water in the river sufficient to carry a boat to Dawson, because there had been such slight fall of snow the preceding winter. The fact was there had been quite the usual fall of snow, and there has been all the season a most unusual flow of water. There has been no day since the river cleared of ice that a boat drawing five feet of water could not navigate the river with perfect freedom. That so many found great difficulty in getting up was chargeable to the incompetency of those in charge. Never perhaps in all the history of business enterprise has so much capital been placed in the care of inexperienced, untruStworthy and incompetent hands. In order to save a few dollars on the salary of a steam boat captain or perhaps to find a place for some poor weakling who could not find one for himself positions of the highest responsibility, requiring expe- rience and executive force, were be- slowed where these qualities were con- spicuously absent. But for the unusu- ally favorable conditions, the uniformly high water and the great length of the season, the record of last year with re- gard to the number of persons winter bound on the river at a distance from their destination would have been far outdone this year. AS it is there will, no doubt, be many who will fail to reach Dawson. Of the boats arriving this week, the Boston and Alaska Com pany's Governor Pingree and Philip B. Low, having in tow the barge New York, are probably the most derelict of all the great fleet that attempted the ascent of the river this year. The boats started from Puget Sound on the 11th of June in tow of the same company ocean steamers, the Laurada and he Brixhal-., and did not arrive here until the 25th of September. The passengers, besides having to practically work their way up the river chopping and loading the wood for the furnaces and shifting and reshifting and loading and unload ing freight, as the almost daily encoun- ters with sandbars made necessary, were almost starved.
 The boats were carrying several hun dred tons of supplies for the Canadian military post of Fort Selkirk. Arrived at Rampant City, the Canadian officers who accompanied the outfit, becoming anxious, offered to take charge of the boats and get them through, and the officers of the boats, beginning to feel their incompetency, accepted the offer. Two men were sent forward to Daw- son by a boat of another company and the steamer Seattle was secured at a cost of 0,000 to go down and bring up the barge Michigan, which had been in tow of the Pingree, but which was left at Port Yukon. With the single tow, the New York, the Low and Pin gree struggled through the eighty miles of flats, consuming ten days in so do- ing, and thence to Dawson. Here the officers of the Canadian Government, on the grounds that the company had broken it's contract in failing to deliver the military supplies in July, took pos session of the boats, paid off the eir- ployes and assumed entire charge of the property. Nearly every passenger on board had some claim against the l
 
 gle instance where they received the | freight or baggage that they had in- | trusted to the companyS care. They 1 had intended to bring some action for recovery against the company, but this 1 action of the Government presented | a complication that was difficult to | meet. The passengers as well as ship | pers freight, had been broken into and | plundered. Some of the passengers could not find single package of their | freight. Immediately upon arrival | Captain Blakeley of the barge New | York was arrested on a charge If | brQaching cargo. He is still in jail. l He Is thought to have made away with | a quantity of whisky, the property of | Donahoe & Co. Colonel McCook, United States Consul, is of the opinion that the Canadian Government has overstepped it's limitation in arbitrarily seiZing the boats for broken contracts, and that it may be compelled to pay damages. The recourse of the Gov ernment, he says, was a suit for dam ages, and nothing more. The Boston and Alaska Company is In the hands of 8 receiver, and it is understood that it i will change its name for a contenl- plated campaign next spring, In order to avoid as much as possible conse- quences of it's bad management.
 Captain Worth has been arrested at Circle City on charge of embedding some 900 claimed to be due Carpen- ter and the other owners of the May West, of which Captain Worth was master and part owner Captain Worth superintended the building of the little steamer at St. Michael last fall. With her he was frozen in at a point about ninety miles below Minook. He passed very bad winter with his unhappy passengers. He arrived early in the spring and, although he had plenty of troubi- in squarin~ accounts with passengers. many of whose out fits had been consumed during the long winter, although his contract reduired him to feed them until he landed them at Dawson, he finally effected bis re- lease and carried boatload of pas sengers down the rive at good figures the first run of Klondil1ers for the outside after the beginning of the : cleanup It was for appropriating this passage money that he was ar- rested. Captain Worth sets his ser vices against the claim and declares he does not owe the company one cent ! The situation in Dawson at this writ