The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-12-24
THEY SELL THEIR WIVES.
In the klOndiIe Better Halves Can
Be Purchased or Traded Like Or
binary ChatteIs.
From the Philadelphia an


Be Purchased or Traded Like Or
binary ChatteIs.
From the Philadelphia Times.
Startling reports regarding the extent of
the wife-selliug traffic of the Klondike
country is the sensation of Vancouver.
That a man can get buxom, dark-eyed
wife for fifty blankets would seem sort
of fairy story were not the facts so seri-
Gus.
Robert Stead Dun, a graduate of Har-
ward, and formerly editor of the Harvard
Monthly, has just returned to civilization
after f1fteen-hundred mile trip by the
Edmonton overland trail to the Klondike.
1t was here at Fort Graham that Mr.
Dun discovered the polygamous condition
of society and the widespread trafficking
In young women. He found that nearly
all the clerks and employees had no diff
Guilty in buying wives. And they bought
them.
Sparkling Eyes, noted Indian belle and
the daughter of a prominent chief, was
considered the prize of the Northwest.
From far and near came offers for her
hand. Ponies, guns, trinkets, brass
watches, yards of tin foil and bales of
copper wire were offered for a quit claim
deed to the maidens heart.
But the grim old warrior was not 10 be
caught by any ordinary purchaser. He
wanted something besides personal prop
erty. He was ambitious for a family all-
ance with some man of social standing
and influence in the community.
Thus il was that when Factor Fox. a
big medicine man, superintendent of
white-faced employees made overtures
with due ceremony and elaborate array
81,
quette of the land, the unprecedented
chieftain Immediately became an eager
party to the negotiations.
Then Factor Fox took the girl to his
cabin, decked her out in beads and gor-
geous trappings, with yellow handkerchief
for her head, purple scarfs for her neck,
resplendent brass rings for her ears and
fingers, and peck of flashy big headed
pins for other features of her adornment
She modestly appreciated her exalted POI
sition in the new life, and although she
did not seek to ostentatiously queen it
over the employees of the factory, yet she
had an air of authority and self-posses-
sion that won her the respect of the BOYS
of the settlement
The old Indian chief must have picked
up some new points from the whites, for
when he found that his daughter was a
jewel of a wife, about the finest thing on
Ice in the West, he demanded a codicil 20
be inserted in the deed.
He struck for more blankets If Factor
Fox had no blankets 70 spare the chief
would take dogs, brass watches or money,
but he preferred guns if he could get
them.
Mr. Fox refused to be blackmailed. 1t
should be explained that the copper-color-
ed father had threatened to give a low
whistle from the parapet of the fort that
the girl would understand and she would
run away. But the factor had treated her
too we'll and she knew good thing when
she had it, She refused to leave home;
she said she liked the white mans tents
and his children. and for the first time
during her painted career she had found
domestic happiness.
The old chief was furious and made
wild threats of vengeance But the girl
was true to her last love. When she look
ed into the big warehouses and saw great
boxes of brass watches and barrels of
copper beads, crates of bareback and best
of all several barrels of forty-rod whisky,
she remarked to her oldest stepscn
white daddy, heap good The boy gave
an Indian grunt, acquired only after long
practice and said his father was the best
man he had ever known The wife then
sent a clerk to warn her father to keep
away from the fort until he could behave
himself.