The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-11
ALASKA'S ONLY TRAIN BOY.

The Youngster is On the Klondike Lin
tied and Rates Are High.
| The old query as to whether or no
you would like to be the iceman Will p'
rapidly forgotten as soon as song writ
ers and baladists learn about the tralr
boy in Alaska. There is train boy II
Alaska. Just one. Or rather there was
few weeks ago, but by this time he
may be somewhere in the Mediterran-
can on his private yacht blowing rings
from his flfty-cent cigars. and swearing
at his S5,000-a-year sailing master be-
cause he cannot whistle up a breeze.
Think of being the only train boy on
a railroad that brings miners with
thousands and thousands of dollars
worth of gold out of the greatest min
ing camp in the world. There is only
one railroad to Alaska-that is the
White Pass and Yukon railroad. On
that railroad there is a train called the
Klondike limited.
The Klondike limited! Isn't the
sound of that name enough to make
common candy butcher on the run be-
tween Peoria and Lafayette, Ind, stick
his head into his basket of sailed pea
nuts and strangle himself to death?
For there is trainboy on the Klondike
limited that brings prospectors and
miners and Adventures weighted down
with gold nuggets back to the states and
civilization, and the girls they left be-
hind them, there is a candy butcher.
And all these prospectors and miners
and Adventures on this Klondike linn
tied are bubbling over with joy that the
days Of their exile are over, and that
soon they will be back to their boyhood
homes again. Think of turning loose a
candy butcher in such crowd as that.
To quote another popular song, 'It
seems like a shame to take the money"
The trainboy on the Klondike limited,
like his brothers on the Kenosha local,
deals in peanuts, candy, books, papers
and magazines. But more than that,
he sells shirts and collars and bright
red neckties. He also has a full line of
whiskeys and plug tobacco and cigars
of the finest cabbage selected leaf The
trainboy does not like to sell cigars. He
gets only fifty cents apiece for them,
and they cost him seventy-five cents a
hundred. He sells the cigars to show
he's a good fellow. He didn't originally
deal in shirts and haberdashery, but he
found that the miners returning to civil
lization yearn madly for billed" shirt.
SO, after he had sold the shirt off his
back, Together with his collar and red
necktie for 500 he decided to carry a
stock of shirts and ties.
There are stringent restrictions in
Alaska in regard to selling whiskey,
and so he rainboy doesn' sell it. He
gives 1t away and lets the man who
drinks it tip him for his trouble in pull
ling the cork. If the man were to give
him a nugget any smaller than the size
Of the cork the trainboy would haughti-
y refuse to let him buy any more ci-
CARS, and would charge him at least IS
for two months old newspaper, which
he ordinarily gives away for only S150.
The the trainboy sells playing cards.
and the passengers are always wanting
4 game. He puts up the table too,
hands around the matches, and, of
course, large and substantial "kitty''
$ maintained on one side Of the table
-or the sole support of the obliging
IF anybody wants to put
quarter or a silver half-dollar into the
kitty" the trainboy wouldn't be angry.
He uses those things to pay storekeep-
rs for fresh goods for his next run.