The Nome nugget., 1903-05-27

presents. the white men would give pipes, matches, tobacco and knives, and the women would get needles, thimbles, and thread. We would give them birds and deer meat. They soon wanted bear skins, ivory and whale bone, and they gave Us knives, axes, saws and everything we needed. Soon schooners (Oomiacpourah) came; they stayed with us all summer: they gave us plenty of rum (tonga) and that was good. Soon we knew hard bread and flour were good to eat. and only the boys would go deer hunting in summer. In early spring we caught whales and walrus, and we always had plenty to eat, and when steamers came they brought us plenty of rifles, cartridges and whale-guns.
 Well, this is the manner in which an old doctor would tell you about the past, but talking about the present he is evasive. Let me tell what has and is eXterminating this unfortunate race. First came the New England whalerS in quest of oil, ivory and bone. They furnished the Indian with useful arti- cles, but they drove away and exter- minated his food supply; then followed the hootch trader; he cruised along the shore and furnished iutox ,cants. taught them how to be drunk and dissi- pated and how to eat the white mans food. In summer only the boys hunted number of skins for clothing. AlsO cane the steam whaler with dago crews and the scum of San Franclsco's tenderloin, bringing d loathsome, in- curable disease, syphilis. This disease destroys whole families, the chlld nurs- ing soon dies, and the child that is born of those mothers only lives few years. Those steamers came in early spring, a, fast as the ice would break, and even aiding the breaking process, following up the migrating game, and lli'l GU duOliOl llI ilOIj9 tIIt AICllC coast for at least two months every summer, where the natives passed the time in licentlouS debauchery, and drunkenness, prostituting their wives, daughters and sisters, or an unfortun- ate female who would be depending on them. When fall and winter came on, they would have new rifle, few boxes of cartridges. few sacks of flour, a little flesh and coffee, not enough to last until the ice would be strong enough to hunt seal and bear. The has been captured, no young whales either, and their underground caches are empty, the Eskimo has his new Winchester and some cartridges, he must hunt seal and traverse the Arctic ice-pack in quest of a polar bear: it's a dsperate struggle to sustain life. The flesh of those animals is now his food supply, aud by exchanging pelts at stations and on board of whalers, he continues to exist, but the struggle is a desperate one. Even his clothing is insufficient: he has exchanged his furs for alcohol, during the summer months, and wears cast off clothing. And when the blizzards come he is not properly clothed, the many thousand herds of migrating wild reindeer have also ceased to return to their feeding grounds. They wouldn't stand for the repeating Winchester, and they have gone to other remote fields. l could continue to write on this subject, but 1 may weary the reader, and have given enough facts to show the traveller and the reader the forces and the conditions that are exterminating the Eskimo, causing their villages to become de- serted and their dead to be unburied along the Northwestern crast.
 The reader will think the methods and causes are peculiar ones, and different from any other he has ever read or heard of. Let us go back four hundred years, or to the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain. Cortez conquered Mexico and slaughtered the inhabit- ants while in quest of gold and treas ure. Almagro and Pizarro conquered the lncas of Peru, slaughtered the in- habtants, converted idols into coin, and plundered their temples; in short, destroyed their civilization. Uncle Sam's whalers and hootch pirates have killed of and driven away the food supply of the Eskimo and they are dying of famine and disease, hundreds every year. don't believe our Uncle sam understands the conditions in cold 1 far-away Northwestern Alaska.
 Quicksilver at Lanps.