Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-19


cent Is the ordinary interest rate on we'll
secured loans.
No Politics yin the Town.
ihere Is no politics in Juneau. and to tho
visitor from the states the absence OF
political discussion and the desuetude OF
the terms. republican, democrat and popu-
hist are very noticeable. +
Three breweries supply thu town with
very good local beer. As an indication of
may be noted that the famous Presbyterian
log mission church, steeple and all, is now
the Office of the City Brewery. and its sign
is over the door. Col. Fischer is in charge
OF the mission work as now conducted.
While Juneau never had any kind of tax
alton except voluntary, and locally has only
that KIND now, there is. since July 1 of
this year, a government tax on all kinds of
business except the press and the pulpit.
Saloons are the heaviest payers, and the
nineteen saloons of Juneau pay $500
year each. or s2s5oo a year, not cent of
Wnlch goes to the town. 1t is a little re-
Inarkable that when there was no tax, and
IL was against the law to sell liquor at all,
OF bring 1t to Alaska. there were thirty
Saioons IN town. all doing more or less
business. Just how this was done and why
ana rev other questions bearing on the
same subject might better be answered by
me government officials who were in charge
OF analrS IN times past. In any event, the
W. C. +. .. people ought to be glad of
the new law.
Good board may be had at from IS to Sc
week, and rooms at from SO to $40
month. Drinks are Is cents each, except
beer. which is Is cents, and cigars are usu-
ally TWO for a quarter, but good five-cent
cigars are 70 be had, and the time-tried
,hre-tested Pittsburg and Wheeling stogie
can be had at two fer" OF 81 n hundred
shave costs quarter and hair cut so
cents Best hotels. which have water, cleo
trlc nsht and al the modern improvements,
charge 81 and s. day, and some very fair
as low as 81 day. Juneau a thousand
miles from everywhere, is cheaper place
TO live in, comfort for comfort, than New
erything.
Juneau has dozen lawyers, any one OF
Whom Will swear when he has to go over
to Sitka to see the court.
They don't take up a collection In the
Presbyterian Church. Comment is unnec-
essary.
Every One Owns n Claim.
1t is very poor man In Juneau who
doesn't own mine or a claim somewhere,
and one man there used to have the ideal
thing in the matter of money getting. He
owned small stamp mill near town on a
paying ledge, which he worked during the
summer. Ten to twelve thousand dollars
in solid yellow profit was the ordinary re-
suit of three or four months of commenda-
BILE effort. and then the owner would shut
up shop and go off to San Francisco or
Seattle to have a good time his hard
earned savings. In the early summer he
showed up again, cleaned out but hopeful.
The stamps began to click right away after
his arrival and when September came he
was loaded for bear again and Juneau saw
him not in the winter. What happier lot
would any one ask than this? And yet that
man sold out to big company for s250OO0,
and the Lord only knows how much of it
he has now.
There are three doctors and three Gene
teries in town. ratio of cause to effect
that should please all casuists and prevent
professional jealousy.
One steamship company handles between
1000 and 5000 tons of freight every year
which means from 100000 to $4,000 year
There is no railroad, but the people say
there will be one some day. Neither il
there a telegraph wire. and news is al
ways at least three days old, but Their.
will be a cable before great while. 1t is
$50 miles to the nearest connection.
The Juneau chamber of commerce is ar
cnterprisins body. 1t is told that on one
occasion the chamber was entertaining Il
company of distinguished visitors and one
of the strangers made most complimentary
and highfalutin speech, whereupon the then
president innocentlyt arose and asked if
the gentleman put that in the form of :;
motion"
The town is lighted by electricity from :,
fine plant and it has water works, supplied
by mountain streams so high up that Their,
is force enough to throw water all over
town 1t is cold water, too, and beauti
fully clear
Labor I'm Demand.
Labor is always in demand. the ordinary
kind being worth 81 a day and found.
Skilled labor is worth from 50 to 81 a day
Hotel cooks get from s75 to 800 a month
and found; walters $40 a month, chamber
maids s25 a month, barkeepers so a month
clerks in stores from $50 to s125 a month
hired girls are scarce at from so to $50 n
could get anything they might ask if they
would only come TO Juneau and ask H.
But they will not.
There are various and planning mills
and other manufacturing plants including
a cigar factory, where genuine Havanas'
are made.
Forty-five merchants and other persons
have telephones.
A brass band of twelve pieces wakes the
echoes now and then, and as long as the
echoes do not complain, nobody else ought
to or does.
Stores close at pm and open at am,
and only few of them are open on Sun
day.
The Juneau Indians are about as nasty
as their kind in Sitka but they occupy a
less conspicuous position in the public eve
The arrival of a steamer at the Juneau |
wharf is an event. and hundreds of people
come down to see what is going on Lively
scenes are often enacted, for during the sea
son there many young women withou,
chaperones, coming from or going to the |
rich gold regions OF the north, and their |
hilarity is often of the most pronounced
character, or lack of it. Many of their own
kind come down to meet them, and greet |
ings and partings are, to say the best of it,
not entirely conventional.
Juneau is the center of the quartz mining
of Alaska, with the Treadwell plants of $50 |
stamps crushing over 5000 tons of gold or.
q day, and the extensive mines of Silver
Bow Basin adding their output to the gen
eral wealth. Within seventy miles of Ju-
neau there are 1, 125 stamps at work, not to |
mention hydraulic, placer and other pro-
cesses of securing the precious metal y |
conservative business man of good judg-
ment estimates that the output for 1899 Of
the mines practically tributary to Juneau
will amount to $6,000,000. |
Ice Free of Cost.
Although Juneau Is three or four DAYS |
travel from n railroad, there are four or
five steamers every week. and the trip to |
Seattle is through the famous inside pas
sage of Alaska, which has been pronounced |
by all travellers to be the finest scenic route |
in the world. The fare each way is only
$40. that even a poor person may get out |
new and then and see things. |
Icebergs, of a very fair size, and beauti-
fully blue. have q of coming I'M IN /