The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-30
MIGRATION EXTRAORDINARY,

MIGRATION EXTRAORDINARY.
Of all the movements hithertoo OBJ
served in this country, among a peo-
pie eXcitable and open to the allure
ments of the sensation Of the hour,
none has approached the proportions
sure to be attained by the rush to the
Kfondike this season. We believe that
the most vivid imagination has scarce
1y exaggerated the migration that is
about to occur. The people who have
been calculating the number of men
who would hasten, at the opening Of
the season, to seek fortunes in the
Alaskan gold fields have fallen short
of the fact. Already, although it is
long in advance of the season when
entrance to the Yukon and Klondike
country is possible, advance guards of
gold seekers are hurrying to the scene.
The thousands of Adventures who
have wintered in Seattle and other
coast towns, in order that they might
be on the spot for the first stampede,
are being reinforced daily by other
thousands of newcomers. From every
portion not only of the United States,
but Of the known world little rivu-
lets of migration are setting toward the
frozen north; and, when these shall
finally have united, they will pour into
Alaska with the volume of a mighty
stream.
No event in the history Of the world.
short Of a great war, has ever been adj
vertised as thoroughly as the gold dis
coveries on the Klondike. They made
their appearances with every circum-
stance that could interest and excite
The story of fortunes awaiting the first
conner, of not merely a competence but
absolute wealth to be won by a few
months, or even weeks, of endurance
and labor, were spread to the ends of
the earth. This advertising has been
continued now through the better part
Of a year, and it has penetrated every
publication in the English tongue, and
been scattered no less widely among
other peoples. The episode of the
and vital to escape the omni-
present journalist; and, down to
the most isolated home in our most
sparsely settled territory wherever a
printed document goes, the people have
heard of the KIondike, and the flow of
population that is about to begin thith-
er, and each man has felt the impulse
of the adventurous spirit and the hun
ger for gold urging him to join the
coming army
1t is not merely in great centers of
ropulation-not principally in them,
perhaps-that the greatest effect has
been produced. Most dazzling to the
imagination Of the dweller of the viii
lage or the field, to the man who has
fought with hard labor for a scanty
subsistence, is the possibility of untold
wealth suddenly acquired. Thousands
upon thousands of these men are ready
to accept what seems to be the chance
of lifetime, and are either only wait
Ing for the time to start or are already
on their way. The tide of travel, which
has even now, before the first month
of the year is over, begun to fill the
banks as it passed through st. Paul,
shows what we have to expect Little
parties have been made up all over
the country, cars have been chartered,
boats engaged or purchased outright,
and a very short time now will see the
route to the Klondike occupied by one
continuous, struggling, fastening army
Of men.
1t has been folly to preach patience
to those whom the fever has smftten,
idle to explain to them the dangers of
the way, futile to suggest the posi-
bility of failure. All the records in the
world are to be broken by this years
march to the Klondike, and the rest of
the country will have a rare opportu-
nifty to witness an exodus and an in
vasion, a great movement of popu-
lation from civilization into the fnhos-
pitabIe wilderness, on scale hitherto
unknown to history.