Arizona republican., 1912-08-27
COPPER CAMP
 HAS PAYDAY
Description Furnished by Local Paper of Scenes at Ray at the Monthly Dis tribution by Copper Com pany of $140,000.

The Arizona Copper Camp thus de | scribes pay day at Ray:
 Pay day was a hummer this
 month Pay day always lends an aiI of gaiety to camp life. At Ray
 it has come to be the occasion of the l distribution of large sums of money 1 How to distribue these large sums
 among large number of men and maintain order and decency is some 1 thing of a problem. This months i pay day was the last monthly pay 1 day for the Ray Consolidated com l pany. For next month the semi
 monthly pay day law goes into eff | feet, when the amount handed out | through the pay window will not be
 so much at a time, but the pay days will be twice as frequent There were approximately 1900 men on the 1 Ray Consolidated payroll this month l and the amount paid out on Satur- cay was approximately $140,000. That | means per capita of over $20 for | every man, woman and child in | camp. Repeated twelve times year, means a yearly per capita of | $40, or seven times the amount of
 money each man, woman and child
 of the nation would have, if all the
 money in the United States were
 equally distributed. It is no small task to hand out $140,0OO to 1900
 men, It has been reduced to a sys
 tenn at the Ray Consolidated office, l by which it is accomplished in one day without working over time
 or any great rush. The men are l paid by checks, and the amount due 1 each, of course, is known, and the 1 check made out, and held in readi-
 ness beforehand. There are two pay windows, and the men appear at | these windows giving their names
 and presenting a check number with | which each is provided when he
 begins work The pay day windows | are kept open from 10 to F in the
 forenoon and 1 to 4 in the after | noon. and during these six hours | 1900 men were served Saturday.
 With d pay check in his possession It
 is the rule with the workmen to go
 direct to the bank. store or saloon
 and cash it. The more provident
 ones deposit a balance in the bank.
 but there are others who never go back to work until all their pay
 check is spent, and they have eX-
 hausted their borrowing credit. The
 pay day problem is to get this
 large sum of money directed into
 channels that will not operate to
 the detriment of the wOrkmen."
 The Copper Camp. under the sub
 head, Peep Behind Curtain de-
 scribes several institutions that do not belong strictly to the mining in
 dustry, including the numerous
 dance halls which are outside the !, company's property as well out side the laws.
 Under the head of Games of Chance" the Copper Camp indicates { as follows that the statutes against gambling are not of force and et- feet in that locality:
 There are those for whom the
 game of chance has an irrlstble
 charm and there is no business of
 which men become so enamored as
 that of the game of cards. All pay
 day night the night following, the day between, and even yet are the
 gaming rooms at the Hard Luck saloon tenanted by a crowd Of men who keep their nerves Tn tension with the uncertainty of the turn o1 face e-downward card. "Hokey- DO : ky is the game most generally
 played, which is one card face down
 and three face up. Upon the lace of the hidden or hole" card men bet their money. one dollar, ten dol lars, twenty five dollars. fifty, 2 hundred dollars, and sometimes more. Sometimes there is as much as a thousand dollars on the tapie and so infatuated do men become of the game that they neglect thell slumber and forget their meals Three tables at a time nave peer going at the Hard Luck saloon tnls
 nav day. accommodating twenty oi
 more people at time. There ar' , always new men dropping in, and sometimes the newcomer proves 3l ! expert himself in handling and guess ! ing on the turn of card. The mal ! of mystery this pay day dropped 1T ! week before and is known as Sill ! ver Tin His name and antecedentS ( arc unknown. but he had been IT
 camn but a fw days befor he hat
 established a local reputation as z
 csrd shark However, he can alWay'
 find a game and often sits at the
 tab,e with $500 to 5000 in front O.
 him. The amount that change:
 hands over the gambling table pay