The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-14
DANCE HALLS AND GAMBLERS BARRED New Era Begins in Life of
 Alaska LAW AND ORDER PREVAILS Time Honored Amusements of From tier Life Are Banished Forever and Civilization Will As
 sume It's Sway.
LAW AND ORDER PREVAILS
BY c. H. E. ASQUITH.


 dance hall and the gambling house a part of life in Alaska and Yukonl Official edicts issued from Ottawa and Wash ington have abolished what were once the principal amusement places of the seeker after wealth in the northland An era that began in the days of '49, that has filled the pages of literature with it's doings, the life that Brete Hart l immortalized in the "Outcasts of Poker Flat and other tales, came to an end unwept, unhonored and unsung few weeks ago.
 It was pure coincidence that both the American and Canadian governments should almost on the same day issue or ders that dance halls, gambling, drink ing boxes, and various other evil, but hitherto considered necessary, elements of frontier life must forthwith be abol- ished. From the issuance of that order the ideal of the law-enforcers on both sides of the one hundred and forty-first meridian has been to make the north as safe, as sane, as quiet and as moral as Ottawa Washington
 No longer may Kipling sing Never a Law of God or Man Runs North of the Fffty-three. For at the present time not only frontier law but the law of the quiet east IS enforced as Tar as the aftlc circle and in some places far north as the cir cle.
 Shock of Enlightenment.
 The passing of the dance halls and gambling houses in Alaska and Yukon marks another step In the polishing off of the northland. The people of the north in late years have been quietly advanc- ing along all lines and the prevailing ig- norance as regards the countries will re- | near future. The Alaska-Y Y ukon Pacific exposition which will be held at Seattle in 1909 to exploit northland will show Alaska and Yukon to the world in their true light.
 Although it will be the aim of the ex- position to give the people an idea of what the two territories have to offer in the way of homesteads, agricultural, com | mercial and industrial opportunities, early life in the northland will not be neglected and one of the most interesting displays will be the reproducing of frontier life as it used to be. Since the uance hall and gambling house have become things of | the past, 1t has been planned to give the | public an idea of just what frontier life 1 was like. On the pay streak, the amuse- | ment thoroughfare of the exposition, en- | terprsing northerners will build replicas | of some of the famous old dance and 1 gambling halls over whose counters mil. | 1 tween whose log rafters five score mighty | fortunes have been fritted away. It Is l expected that some of the famous gamb- l lers of the early days, many of whom | have since settled down and become citi- | zens of weight and responsibility, will be present.
 The days of the picturesque gambler who staked fortunes on a single card, of | the dance hall girls whom the miners | nightly pelted with nuggets of gold as | they sang their turns, did not end with the civilizing of California. For, when | Klondike was discovered, and half a million people started on wild rush northward foremost In the weary climbers
 Chilkoot, first to build log cabin city,
 leaders In the crossing of Iinderman,
 and not the last to brave the terrors of
 Whitehorse rapids were these gamblers
 and these women who went north to prey
 on the gold winners.
 Heavy Wins and Losses.
 Tn those days when thousands were flung about as lightly as twoIbit pieces
 today nothing was too insignificant to es-
 cape betting upon, no sum was too great
 to risk. One man lost six hundred thou
 sand dollars in couple of months others were content to win or lose ten thousand dollars nightly. Professional men In Dawson expected to win or lose from
 three to five thousand dollars nightly at
 the card tables. Seldom was less than
 hundred dollars staked.
 Much of this money went to the dance
 hall women. It is the fashion to decry these women and to assume that they are all bad beyond redemption. But that Is
 far from the truth. Many of the women in the dance halls who danced nightly with the miners and who shared their drinks were as innocent of wrong-doing as the most carefully protected convent girl of Paris or New York. Indeed, in the early days before the mothers, wives and sisters of the miners arrived in the country many of these women married well. Many who today are taking their place as leaders of society in hundreds of towns throughout the United States-wo- men known as the wife of the rich miner, Mir Blank-first met their husbands on the floor of Dawson dance hall and charged them five dollars for the privi- lege of dancing half dozen rounds to the screech of the cheap phonograph.
 "A new country gets the best of them"
 sald London in Dawson. Look there at Lucille, with the face of an angel and the tongue of a gutter devil. at Mollle who looks like one of Gainsborough's old Eng fish beauties stepped from her frame to. reveal out the century in Dawson dance
 hall-and va, what a mother that girl ! would make"
 Gambling Is Stopped.