The Nome nugget., 1903-04-08

going to tell the reader, but it will
 serve to show that money can be made
 in Boring sea and the Arctic without
 hootch. In those days some Of the revenue cutter officers undoubl edly favored the hootch traders. and it was stated frequently that there was | graft in the favors thus shown. | What l have written. or may write, | concerning the h0otch traffic can easily be verified. l will begin with Capt. Redfeld, and he was known among whalers as the notorious Redheld. He never carried whale boats, for he was not looking for whales: he exchanged rum and alcohol and few article, such as knives. kettles, axes, needles and the like for bone, ivory and pelts. In those years the natives of Northwestern Alaska had no use for the while man 5 food and a breech-luading rifle was un- known. Each voyage Redfeld carried from 50 to 100 barrels of cheap rum. Some years the natives would fail in making catch of whalebune. and it being an of year Redteld would leave his rum with the chief, of the tribes. who would retail the stuff during the winter months for whatever they could get. When spring cane he would be there with a fresh supply, and collect his royalties.
 One of year" there was little trade and tedteld had big cargo of rum.
 lie landed il on the southeast end oi St. Lawrence island in care of the chief. When he returned the follow- ing spring he found no living inhabit- ants in the village, but in every house were the dead bodies of men. women and children. There had oeen tCo much rum and not enough natives to consume it, there being no surrounding tribes, that could come to St Lawrence island, like Cape Prince ol Wales, F. Tt Clarence, where there are villages all along the coast every few miles.
 On the Siberian side the fierce deer men inhabiting the interior are all hootch iiends, and with their swift rein deer, travel long distances to get the stuff. This is how the wealthy chief al Indian point acquired his riches. He was simply q mddleman for the hootch traders who landed from one hundred to two hundred barrels every year at | s warehouse door. Of course he was shrewd in his simple way, but he was no match for the hoolch trader. It was in thi, way that the present degener- ate specimens of this race acquire d their unsuitable appetite for alcohol.
 Redtield amasoed q large fortune. S250 GOO, it was sad by his acquaint- ances, when he retired from the busi- nest. This was in the sixties and early seventies. Well, Capt. Redlieid began speculating with his wealth. It was an era of wild speculation, and fortunes were quickly made and lost. Redlield lost his and died in the stockton in- sane asylum. There is something strange, weird and uncanny about this hootch traffic with the nal ives.
 The next person of any note in this trade was Capt. James Mckenna. It s said that he came utrth n llts first v0y- age as cook: the next voyage he char tered small SC Ooner on bis own ac- count: then he bougt,t one, securing a whale boat and two whale men to catch d whale now and then. The reader will understand that his stock-in-trade was sand wich island rum: he was not even sailor or yet navigator or a whalemau. That season he captured | eight large whales, and when he re- turned to San Francisco he went East vii h his bone and purchased the bark | Sta Breeze from Jonathan Brown, of New Bedford, who had re fired from be | whaling business and was selling lis ships as fast as he could find purchas- CTS.