The San Francisco call., 1898-02-15

Francisco, for the sum of s, so you can have some idea of what things cost
 here. Meat now is $1 50 per pound whole sale; flour. $135 per sack of fifty pounds. Men are paid S1 50 an hour, and they are not worth that much per diem. Without
 exception this camp has fewer mining
 men than any other place 1 ever was in. They have not the slightest conception of mining. The only wonder to me is the
 fact that this place has been able Nto
 exist as long as 1t has under the terrible prices here demanded for everything.
 People in San Francisco-even Sloss &
 Co.-cannot conceive the condition of af- to be obtained, and it will be fully two years before these mines can be han
 dled as they should be on account of the
 want of the ordinary essentials for work.
 lot alone living. Wood sells here at $50 a
 cord. There is plenty of it, but no means
 of quick or easy transportation.
 To go back to the mines, they are cer- r tainly extraordinarily rich. but this present system of work must be largely or entirely abandoned and corporations must take hold and clean out this crowd
 dawn. As for the Alaska Commercial Company and the North American
 Transportation and Trading Company, the only two business concerns here, they must be met with a decided opposi- tion. and traders must come in here, where there is ample room, If transpor- tation lines are established. Situated as
 these companies are, they will throw every obstacle in the way of any and everybody coming in to compete with them and thus keep up all their sales. and slowly but surely absorb all the gold output by the infamous prices Of supplies.
 The Alaska Commercial Company dur ing the present famine has never raised the prices on any. staple article and has been very just, but the North American
 Transportation and Trading Company, as soon as it's nds that the Alaska Com mercial Company has sold out any ar ticle jump the price 300 per cent or more. Coal oil sells for Si0 per gallon and can dies fetch $1 each and are esteemed lux ury for breakfast. The restaurants are all closed as are the bakers and butchers,
 and bacon Is a thing of the past. The mands s per bottle, and you can buy but little at that figure.
 1 Light just now is the most important
 proposition on hand. One cannot buy l candles or oil now for love or money, | and 1 can't say how l am going to drag 1 out some of these long nights. l have i only spent one night in the town. as the
 place is absolutely too disgusting for any, | thing. Gin mills. loose women, dance l houses, gambling dens, and other deli i cacies of the same order are rampant. There is rot the slightest doubt that
 many poor fellow has died en route here
 and will never more be heard of, A man
 who came in the other day via Dyea told me that on the way down he saw men S
 arms sticking up out of the ice (the body
 being out of sight, grasping oars, blanks
 and pieces of wood which the poor fellows | had grabbed as they were drowning in
 the ice foe.
 The famine here cannot be pictured in 1 too awful a form. and soon the fuel will give out on us, as men cannot work with
 out food. and there Is no food for wood l cutters. Yesterday poor woman in