davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1916-09-17

Is IS: or 1t may be as high as 800, so
that the pool as whole may have as
much as $4,000. After a pool has been
formed. sixty slips of paper, bearing
the numbers from one to sixty, are put
in a hat. Each number represents
minute of the hour. and the man who
gets the minute shown by the stop
watch as the flood reaches Dawson is
given the purse. Bets are also made
on the day of the month and week, and
upon the hour of the day, at which the
whistle will blow. In 1914 the engineer
on the steamship Sarah invested 81
in a five-hundred- dollar pool, and won
it all. That was day. hour and min
ute pool. He guessed the time right to
the minute. There are also many in
dividual bets. The crowds gather on
the banks of the river as the ice shows
signs of breaking and watch the pole.
AS the whistle blows the city goes
mad.
The same betting goes on at Fair
banks. The time there is the exact
minute the ice tears away the bridge
across the Chena river, in the heart of
the town. 1t does that every spring,
breaking the posts as though they were
matches. Among the bets of last year
was one made at the Tanana Club for
a hundred-dollar dinner to be given to
the crowd. Tom MCGOWAN was the
loser and he gave the dinner.s
1 find there Is difference of opinion
as to the Alaska winters All are not
as enthusiastic about the delights of
Evening star., 1916-09-17
Odd Features Of Life in the Wintry Heart Of A1ask
Copyrighted, 1915. by Frank c. Carpentero

Copyrighted. 1915. by Frank C. Carpenter.)
TANANA, Alaska.
q AN in the very heart Of Alaska.
Tanana claims to be the hub of the
territory. 1t is little town lying on
. the right bank of the Yukon just
about half way between the Pacific and
Arctic oceans. and half way down the
Yukon on it's course from the interna-
tional boundary at Eagle to its mouth.
where it flows out into Bering sea not far
from st. Michael. have come 500 miles
down the river from Canada on my way
to this point. and 1 have 500 miles more
to go before I can get the little steamer
that will take me over Bering sea to
Nome. Just opposite where my steam
boat is anchored is the mouth OF the
Tanana river 1t is a wide, sluggish
stream, having a course Of something
like 600 miles from the Wrangell noun
tains to where 1t flows into the Yukon.
It will take me two days of steaming
to go up it to Fairbanks. where the
terminus of Uncle Sans new railroad
is to be.
The people here think that the rail-
road should be extended to Tanana.
They claim that the Tanana river is
not deep enough for large steamers. and
that its sand bars and islands affect
navigation. They say that if the road
were so constructed as to cross the
Yukon at the rapids about thirty five
miles above here the cost Of bridging
would be extremely low, and the road
could then be run down the north bank
of the river to Tanana, opening up a
vast region lying to the west and north
of the Yukon.
There is no doubt that Tanana can
offer room for all the population she
may have in the future. The corporate
a oh IN
give an acre to every man, woman and
child and leave some to spare. The
town has 400 population, and 1t Is
scattered along the water front for
cf it begins the army post of Fort Glib
ben, which extends three miles farther,
and which has a government reserva-
tion of sixty square miles.
The town consists of the post and
the civil community. The latter has
two churches. three hotels, six saloons
and several large mercantile eetab-
Hshments. 1t has also a public school
of logs and boards. and the place on
the whole is the largest and most pros
porous of all on the Yukon river
proper.
The people of Tanana are enthus-
iastic Alaskans. They have chamber
of commerce, consisting of boomers
Ihey have a camp of the Arctic
Brotherhood and a local organization
Moose. Talk to them about their vii
lage and they will make you think 1t
a paradise, as beautiful as the Vale Of
kashmir and as salubrious as Los An
geies
How about your winters?' l asked
Judge Dehn, the United States commits
sioner here.
The man who went away from here
and said that we have nine months of
hard winter and after that three
months of bad sleighing Is liar. Our
Evening star., 1916-09-17

carcass out in front of his shop, and
used it for a sign.
Among other strange cold weather
features of this part of the world is
the watching the ice in the river to
see when it will form. how deep 1t
will freeze, and when 1t will go out in
the spring. One of the river captains
tells me he has measured the ice of the
Yukon and found 1t at times five feet
in thickness. In the ordinary season
the ice on the main part of the stream
is only two and one-half or three feet
deep. and the water flows beneath 1t.
The ice forms the great highway of
travel in winter weather.
I asked this captain to tell me more
about the ice on the Yukon. He re-
piled:
Navigation opens at Dawson between
the 9th and the 10th of May, and it
usually closes about the 25th of Octo-
Der. Long before the center of the
river is frozen there is continuous
strin of ice along the shores. and cakes
of ice float along the channel. AS the
cold weather continues, the ice extends
farther and farther out. until the chan
mel grows so narrow that the steamers
cannot make their way through. Tho
floating cakes increase in number, and
at last they make gorges at the narrow
places and form solid ice there. AS
winter settles down into a steady cold,
bank, and it Is so solid that you can
run train of cars over it.
The most interesting time on the
Yukon" continued the captain. 'is
when the ice breaks up in the spring.
That on the upper part of the river
breaks first. and pushes its way down
the stream. breaking the other ice as
1t goes. The boats start in behind the
nd al 70 OF bov
and sometimes small boats start in the
ice. The water never freezes again after
1t once melts, for we then have the long
days and the sunshiny nights of the
summer"
I asked the captain to tell me about
the betting on the ice-break.
That is most exciting" was his re-
ply. "All along the Yukon the people
bet when the great ice-break will oc-
cur. They organize pools at Dawson
and Fairbanks. and large sums are lost
and won at the whim of Jack Frost. At
Dawson they cut hole in the ice in
the middle of the Yukon and erect a
pole about four inches thick and TWEEN
ty feet high This freezes solid Then
they fasten one end of wire cable to
the top Of the pole. and the other end
to an electric stop clock set to standard
moves the pole the clock stops, and
that moment marks the record of the
beginning of the running of the ice. 1t
decides all bets. and after 1t all bets
are off. At the time the clock stops a
steam whistle is blown, and every one
knows the hour and minute of the run
ming. The usual date is about May 10.
the time when corn is planted in the
middle states. Last spring 1t was ear
ier. The clock stopped May 8, at three
minutes past 10, and the ice moved
down stream the length of a city block
and jammed. the water rising behind 1t
inc fha
the town.
The usual betting pool at Dawson
has sixty subscribers" the captain con-
ttnued, "and the amount each puts in
Evening star., 1916-09-17
TWO
CHILDREN FROM sLUMs LONDON.
8 AWAY THIS BRIDGE EVERY SPRING.

the army. is doing his share in the
public grounds experimenting the chill
dren and the INDECENT who have been
pressed into service.
But the marvellous old gardens In his
toric estates are unhappily suffering
because of irregular care. A recent
visitor to the beloved objective OF ro-
mantle pilgrims. Haddon Hall. says
that Dorothy Vernon's walk has lost its
afr of trim isolation, that the trees have
interlocked and the secret garden has
been submerged into riot of wild
flowers and weeds But in the case of
such ancient planting the neglect will
not bring lasting trouble. A year or
SO of careful tending will restore its
beauty
A pretty story comes from italy that
Queen Marghirita. always the friend of
the young peasants has gathered quite
are cuitivating the fine gardens about
Castillo Montalto, and that even the
vineyards and the olive groves are not
suffering, although every able man in
the valley of Aosta is away with the
army The queen mothers example
has inspired other great ladies', so that
1t is reasonable to believe that the
Wonderful classic gardens of Italy will
not lose their beauty because of the
war.
The villas about Lake Como and
Lake Maggiore, with their gardens,
which have served as themes for poets
since the days of Virgil. are mostly in
the hands of caretakers. Their owners
are of polyglot nationality, many being
the property of Germans Austrians and
Hungarians, as well as Americans.
English and French. Some of the
American owners have turned their
mansions over to relief societies
At the villa of Mrs. Andrew Fisher of
Trenton, \. j.. on Lake Como, famous
for roses. phlox and oleanders, motor
boats laden with flowers make Tdaily
journey. leaving their wares at the
temporary hospitals, and other pack
ages being dispatched by train to
Milan, Verona and Turin on the same
humane mission.
Some of the wonderful terrace gar
dens on the Adige were trampled out of
existence in the drive of the Austrians.
prior to the fight to the north to re-
pei the conquering Russians. The re-
nowned gardens of Verona were hope
lessly injured by shells. Some of the
best Venetian gardens were destroyed
by stray missiles from aeroplanes. but
the public garden just beyond the Lido,
in Venice, has thus far escaped.
The world famous gardens of Rome
Florence and about Naples are far from
the track of the storm and will very
likely be spared to give the same Joy
and Inspiration to the future lover Of
nature that they have in the past.
But in. Belgium and Luxembourg the
feet Of many soldiers have stamped
out the garden industry, SO far as 1t
Evening star., 1916-09-17

lage. the correspondent saws. with a
single long street of houses parallelinE
the line, which is perhaps 300 yards dis
tant.
a little before sunset the groups of
loafers get up and stroll innocently to-
ward the street, disappearing behind
the houses, while a deep peace broods
for while over. the village.
Suddenly, however, from somewhere
sounds shrill whistle. After an in
terval the signal is repeated twice. Per
haps the signal is not a whistle; it may
be come sort of tnaudible sign, as
smugBlers' signals vary frequently At
any rate, from behind the houses dashes
a group of men. often as many as 200
IN one company. Each man bears a
sack Or bag on his shoulders. The
coup speads fanwise and the men run
for the border. Some of them, appar-
emily by design, dash straight into the
arms of the soldiers guarding the from
tier.
What can the guards do? Even were
they quick enough, they could hardly
shoot more than a very few of the
smugglers, outnumbering the soldiers
maybe as many as forty to one. A
rev shots do crack. and 1t may be one
or TWO of the smugglers drop. usually
shot In the legs. But out of the 200
as many as 100 get across the frontier
safely. where the German state-organ-
lzed receiving agents await the bags
OF contraband, especially fats, brought
across The smugglers disappear. and
later dribble back to the home village
by roundabout ways. Somewhere the
profits of the venture are shared. and
the wounded men, as we'll as any of the
smugglers who may have been arrested,
receive their proper share, with an ad-
d1uona1 sum as compensation fo-,Nheir
hurts, or their detention and punish
ment. Should any particular village
become too warm, the smugglers aban-
don that place to take up the work
elsewhere.
Many of the soldier guards, the cor
respondent says. have considerable
sympathy for the smugglers Perhaps
the daring of the rush tactics appeals
to their sporting instincts In any case
they have no real desire to injure fell
low countrymen who are "only SNUG
Cling. So the guards fire low, when
they fire at all; are not at all anxious
to make examples of the blockade run
ners, and 1t is probably difficult for
them to consider shooting these men
as part of their trade.
But the marechausee Is a different
and less sympathetic Individual He
Is not paid to be sportsman, but to
stop smuggling and blockade running
The result of the efforts of these off,
GERS. the correspondent says, Is unques-
tionably considerable, SO that the game
has many unpleasant risks. because the
smugglers never know when the SOL
diers on guard at the frontier may have
been withdrawn and replaced by the
special police.
Evening star., 1916-09-17

relates to their usual places of busi-
ness For years. many rose lovers. es-
pecially of the amateur class in this
country, have purchased the dormant
hardy rose. 1t has been acuteIy missed
Tor the last two years, and not all the
eHorts or native rosarians have been
able quite to bridge the gap. The sturdy
rose growers from about Client Bruges
and the environs of Brussels either es-
capped by way of Holland or England
and Joined the army in France or,
failing this. have come to this country
Other Client rosemen sought and
found an asylum in Holland, where
they are conducting a remnant of their
trade with this country. awaiting the
coming of better times for them and
their native land. The well establish
ed merchants of Holland have gener-
ous1y lent helping hand not only for
Belgium, but for Luxembourg and
France. Whatever flower intercourse
the war-stricken countries have with
the western world is mainly through
Holland
Amateur gardeners are delighted to
learn that Luxemburg will send a small
quota OF dormant roses as well as
dwarf trees and hardy ezaleas Ghent
Will NIL nearly every order this autumn,
Evening star., 1916-09-17

ceiled with a framework. the space be-
tween being filled with shavings.
keep an air-tight stove going in 1t. and
my hens lay all winter"
l went out with the Judge to see his
chickens. He has $50, mostly Rhode
Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks He
sells his pure-bred fowls at IS a piece
and he gets $1.50 and upward dozen
for eggs.
Speaking of chickens, I have been
handled in these cold countries of the
far north. We brought 500 blooded
fowls on our ship down the Yukon.
They had come from Seattle, and were
consigned to a man in Fairbanks. They
are still on the ship, and will go up
son / met Chicken Billy. who at one
time had 900 chickens, and who has
sold eggs in the winter for as much
as IS dozen. 1 have already written
of Swift Water Bill, who cornered the
egg market of the Klondike, buying, 1t
is said, 5000 eggs at dollar a piece.
In the past few years there has been
a craze in Alaska in favor of the help
full hen" Most of the residents have
been keeping chickens and raising their
own eggs. At first many kept the
chickens throughout the summer and
sold them as cold weather came on to
save the expense of warming and light
nights. They would then import a sec
ond flock for the following summer. To-
day it is the custom to care for your
chickens in summer and put them out
to board in the winter. In Dawson and
Fairbanks there are number of
Evening star., 1916-09-17
How Rose Gardens ofEurope Are Cared During War

Lyon and Orleans. The commercial
growers, he writes. have suffered more
than any other industry, for though they
sell flowers, it is for a pitiably low figure,
and labor is very high. very scarce and
skilled labor not to be obtained at ALL
The great war has brought no more
pathetic sight than the gardens OF
France present when orphanages send
out their tender charges to assist in
the work of caring for the flowers
orphanages and homes for the aged.
All about the Louvre. where glorious
rose trees bend down with their fra
grant weight. little tots from five to
ten. under the direction of some old
man or woman. usually one from the
rural districts or perhaps a former
gardener. directs their efforts and re-
strains their enthusiasm.
Three or four youngsters under care
full eyes can pull hose and Tnoisten the
branches and even do a little spraying.
With tiny trowels they make war on
weeds, and thin out plants which are
growing too luxuriantly. The small
II would take the trained eye to de-
tect any deterioration in the appear
ance Of the gardens about Versailles,
Saint Cloud or the government eStab-
lishments on the Seine
The same applies to the nurseries.
though the flower markets, once the
glory Of Paris and the enduring joy of
the tourist present a more chastened
appearance and are usually in charge
of some disabled and crippled soldier
retired. and Densioner on the nation
There are as many flowers on sale
in Paris as in normal times. the di-
rector of the Bagatelle says. but they
are usually bought up at once and at
the lowest possible prices for the hos
pitfalls and as gifts for those in sor-
row. instead Of for fetes and to adorn
splendid homes.
A dealer must be facing utter ruin
now when he asks more than a sou
or two for roses which formerly
brought him francs. Every prospec-
tive purchaser is asked to what
he intends to put his flowers. and If
Evening star., 1916-09-17
THE SMUGGLING OF FOOD
AND FATS INTO GERMANY

67HE smuggling of food and fats, es-
Ill peclally the latter, across the
frontier from Holland into Ger
many has become SO well organized and
offers such prospects of quick money
that mill and factory hands employed
In establishments near the border de-
sert by hundreds to Join the ranks of
the smugglers. The German talent for
organization has made itself manifest
In this phase of the great struggle, and
the Dutch government, 1t is reported,
has been forced to exert its utmost en-
deavors to suppress the traffic, accord
ing to reports from Holland.
Recent reports show that the Dutch
government has appointed an addition
al thousand of special frontier police
called 'marechausses," besides a force
of 1000 already on the border, to aid
the soldiers of the Dutch army in pre-
venting the smuggling of contrab band
across and into the hands of waiting
German agents.
While the total amount of foodstuffs
and fat that gets out of Holland by
means of smuggling is possibly not
sufficient in the course of a year to af-
feet the duration of the war by as
much as fortnight, 1t is recognized
that a single fortnight of battle means
Sacrl0ce OF thousands OF lives and eX-
penditure of millions of money. There
fore the light-hearted manner In which
hundreds of Hollanders go about snug
Cling contrab band across the frontier of
the little kingdom and the equally
blithesome way in which some of the
soldiers and many government officials
look on the proceeding do not at all
accord with the views of the allies on
the subject.
A correspondent in Holland describes
scenes in a certain village well known
as a nest of smugglers of particularly
auda cious methods.
A rush of smugglers across the from
tier, he says, resembles the rushing in
Rugby foot ball game when the op-
posing team is well scattered, and the
soldiers guarding the boundary have
little chance of stopping the men car
rying the coveted contraband into Ger
many.
On almost any day, the correspondent
says, one may see considerable numbers
of able-bodied men, well dressed and
not at all like vagabonds. lying about
on the grass Whatever conversation
goes on is in low tones: usually the
apparent 1oafers simply smoke or doze.
Farther along one sees factory being
dismantled and torn down for removal
to a distance from the border. This, he
says, is because 1t has been found i'm
possible to keep employees, because
within a few days after arrival the
new factory hands quit work and join
the smugglers.
It is typical Holland frontier vii
Evening star., 1916-09-17

the cold and the darkness a. those I
have quoted.
'I tell you. the winters are awful"
said one of the women Of Fairbanks
These people say they enjoy life when
the thermometer Is 20 or 80 degrees be-
low zero, and that it is not cold. / tell
you 1t is cold, although the still air
does not make it so bitter.
when it is more than twenty below
we women stay in the house. and the
men as much as they can. We work
by artificial light for the most Of the
day, and when spring comes every one
is peaked and deathlike. and our COM
plexions are pale. With the coming
Of the long days our color returns, and
in summer we are as healthy and rosy
as can be imagined.
And then the long. dark days rack
your nerves almost to breaking! You
get tired Of yourself and your friends
and want something new in the way Of
amusement. You sleep as long as you
can and pay but little attention to
Evening star., 1916-09-17

hours- An parties are held late. ana
they often last far into the night And
then the trouble Of entertafningi Every
one has the same supplies. and the same
canned stuffs to select from. You go
to your pantry and look at the shelves
in despair. It is hard to know what to
serve"
Another Alaskan talked to mo about
funerals. Said he:
TT is difficult to bury your dead in
land where the prehistoric ice lies only
two feet under the moss. and where you
have to build fires to thaw the fee
frozen gravel beneath. In winter you
sometimes have to chop the graves out
OF the ice. There is no need Of brick
walls or cement The coffin is laid in its
ice tomb the earth shoveled back. and
soon all is frozen solid again. The
dead buried in the winter remain frozen
for an indefinite period. and when taken
up years later look Just as In life. The
Zoe has turned them. as It were. to
statues of marble
Evening star., 1916-09-17

they be for the hospitals he gets good
measure and the price down to mini
mum.
Nearly all Of the famous rose gar
dens about Paris are cared for by chill
dren less than ten Yet it seems in
credible that new roses have been cul-
tivated and proven so worthy that the
annual rose trial at Bagatelle seems a
possibility next spring, and in the in
ternationai sense and not the local. as
1t was last season.
Another pieces of information which
has recently come from Paris Is that
Evening star., 1916-09-17

1
have escaped the eye of the
statesman and the economist and
which bring tremendous satisfaction to
that large division of Americans inter-
ested in rose culture.
One is the invitation recently received
by the National American Rose Society.
with headquarters in New York city and
branches all over the country. asking that
judges be delegated to the great interna-
Rose Garden in Paris, June. 1917. where
al the new roses placed on the market
during the past three years will be tested
and given a relative rating
The other is that the rose magazines
Of Great Britain and the continent arrive
at rnoie frequent intervals and that their
contents show renewed activity and GER
tasnly strike a new note Of hope.
The National American Rose Society
as members wherever the queen Of flow
c-s receives its due homage. and in every
section Of the country the keenest anxiety
'las heen manifested about the fate of
tie rose brothers and sisters Of Europe.
letters have been exchanged by the rose
people of this country and Europe wher-
sKer ard whenever possible since the
Ssrfy days Of the tragedy which involved
the entire rose culture of the little Duchy
of L1xemberg and practically all Of Bel
:-4Em-
BIT It is only recently that American
rosarians have been able to learn in de-
tail the fate Of those historic and beau
tiful gardens which have served as the
inspiration for the pleasure grounds Of
the world.