The Alaska citizen., 1910-09-19
HOGGlSHNE SS.
Gone Broke.

Gone Broke.
 This is the answer that frequently of late has been returned to an in quiry in regard to some acquaintance who has been operating on one of the declining placer creeks. Latterly it has been more common than it was even a year ago, and it strikes one that il is time to investigate the cause with a little more care than has been accorded to the subject in the past
 And one cause of many of these
 failures where men are working hon
 estly and capably to dclve living
 from the ground, is not hard to
 find, although, because of the inher- ent sefshncss of the human race. it is difficult 10 eradicate. Yet it is none the less rcgrettable, especially in view of the fact that by such failure the whole community, not excepting the man who helps much
 to bring about the condition. is harmed thereby.
 We refer to the owner of claim who sees a layman working day and night. eXpending every ounce of his energy and all of his best judg- ment. on a piece of ground on which he cannot afford to pay a 9 per cent. royalty, and who. selfishly
 standing by and insisting on the last pennywcight of his pound of flesh,
 takes no steps to avoid the ineyit- able bankruptcy of the layman. In nearly every case the owner of the
 claim is hurting himself to almost as great an extent as the layman is being injured. but it is seldom that his shortsightedness permits him to step forward with the relief that is
 his to offer
 There have been cases this sum-
 mer where thoroughly capable miners
 have taken lays on property and ! worked them to the limit, diligently and capably. and yet have been plunged into bankruptcy by the
 weight of the two-bit royalty. They have done the best they could, and when they were through the owner
 of the claim had his royalty, but his ground was in such shape that mo- body else would take lay on it be- cause it was so discredited and so badly torn to pieces that it would not pay to work. An offer by the owner to stand the loss of a part of the royalty in case the layman did not break even would have saved the
 layman and would have left the
 ground in such shape that it could have received their full pay and the merchants would have been paid for the goods supplied.
 Many a piece of ground has been blocked out by a layman which af-
 ter it has been worked for time ut terly fails to make good the pros poets it gave at the start, and it is on just such ground that the usual failures are made Then there is the water shortage that has to be taken into consideration. In making his calculations the layman is prone to figure on a reasonable supply of
 water, such as will enable him to continue operating at normal speed. This may not be the most sensible thing to do in view of the trouble
 the Fairbanks district has had with water shortages, but it is the habit
 that prevails and which will prob
 ably continue. The shortage comes,
 as it did this summer, and he is unable to handle nearly as much dirt
 as he had figured on. Unless the
 ground has turned out richer than he expected he is almost certain to be up against it, and the twO-bit roy atty drag puts him out of business.
 The owner of the claim has been following every movement made by
 the layman all summer and knows that he has done all in his power
 to make his lease a paying proposl- tion He knows he could not have
 done any better if he had been in the layman's place. And yet he in- sists on the pound of flesh.
 Fortunately there are some owners in the camp who are not built that
 way. There are men who have seen
 the layman up against just such prop ositions as have been indicated and