Omaha daily bee., 1906-12-30
DEATH and WEALTH SUDDEN
Pneumonia the Dread soOurgs Of Gold
Hunters in Nevada.
EIGHTY DEATHS A MONTH At GOLDHELO
Men who Go TO Bed Pnupers and
wake Up worth Tens of Thous-
nnds-Gathering Place
of AdventHrers.


GoLDFIEID, New, Dec A.-Cspecial
Correspondence OF The Bee.)-There's a
terrible little fellow who seems to have
been appointed by the Spirits OF the Desert
to keep ward and watch over the golden
treasure buried in the barren hills Of bleak
Nevada He is the Pneumococcus. The
treasure hunters are slowly besting him.
but the little demon is exactlng a heavy
payment for the gold they take away.
Pneumonia Is the scourge of Goldheld.
Deaths in the mining camp run from 90 to
100 month. Call 1t an average OF 80 and
you have yearly death rate of per cent.
A very large majority OF these deaths are
due to pneumonia, a few to typhoid.
The outside world hears little Of II save
when some we'll known man passes away,
such as Ex-Governor Hunt of Idaho, who
succumbed here to the scourge of the
camp. Most of the victims are homeless
and friendless adventures. No fuss Is
made over them. They are simply taken
out and buried in the most godforsaken
cemetery in all the world
| In most of the victims life goes out like
snuffed candle So swiftly death rides
on the wings Of the Pneumococcus that
| they call 1t black pneumonia down here.
But It's only old-fashoned pneumonia
working the more swiftly that it has such
fertile soil in which to plant it's seeds. 1t
is intensive farming, and Death Is the
| farmer
Preparing for Pneumonia.
! The hardships of this coalless, over
crowded mining camp weaken constitutions
| so that when disease comes 1t meets little
resistance. In four saloons late the other
night The Bee correspondent counted sixty
eight men asleep on the floor. Some were
drunk and some were merely exhausted
with toll and had no other place where
they could sleep.
Out of the kindness of their hearts the
bartenders let them sleep where they lay
Occasionally n man with mop would ap
preach one of the sleepers and poke him
into semi wakefulness.
Hey, Bill" he would say roll over I'll
I mop beneath ye."
The sleeper would follow orders, return
ing to slumber the next instant, while the
mop continued it's work under the next
man. and the whirr OF the roulette ball the
popping of many corks and the volleys Of
profanity in many tongues blended for the
slumberer's lullaby. 1t is men of this sort
that are dying like sheep in Goldheld
They are shipping two or three OF then
out on every train; others they bury II
nameless graves; the hospital is full and
the undertaken cheerful.
Locating the Graveyard.
The newcomer wonders why there is 6
graveyard so near the middle of the town
This is the story of how it happened. re
lated by one Of the oldest inhabitants o.
Godheld:
when I first blew in here nobody hat
ever cashed in. A few days later SOM
fellow croaked. He had no money and M
friends and no name that anybody knew of
80 n few of us thought 1t was up to III
to plant him. I was on the committee t
pick out cemetery site. We found plac
out on the desert about a mile from town
Then we gave man IS to dig the grave.
, Jake Thurman was the fellow we picked
for the job. Jake was drunk and broke
, He hated 10 let his jag die, so hve-spo
t looked big to him.
81 took him out and showed him the plac
! and Jake came back to get a shovel and
l pick. On the way back he comes on
r hole, 6xS foot that some prospector ha
made, and ben' some tired he figures tina
this is just as slightly place for grav
I as the one we picked out So he digs 1
! right there in that prospector's excavation
when we come to bury the stranger W
[ sees Jake NUS Hldue u pTedh' Dul we wa
too busy to bother about it. So we plant
y him right there.
-" Course, the next one was put RICH
next to him and so 1t grew up Into a fin
, young cemetery. Pretty soon we gets %
: bodies there
, 80 we calls halt and starts anothe
, cemetery further, out. Jut Jake is re
sponsible for the first one"
Every Day I'm GOIdheld.
! But it's little Goldfield cares for tn
man who falls. They are rushing In ever
day to take his place. There's gold ou
l there in the desert and the lucky one
; will get it. II you i've you live If 20
! die. you die, says fatalistic Goldheld.
2 II a man were to recount all the tale