The Alaska daily empire., 1916-09-25

------------------- - for Buel wrote of the days when the writer contended that man born Of woman would have more days and less trouble if he put a squirt of lemon in it. or early.day news. paper life in Dawson Buel said:
 Almost simultaneously appeared the Midnight Sun and the Klondlke Nugget. It has ever since been a disputed question which came out first. l believe the Midnight Sun beat tho Nugget by S7h minutes.
 "The rivalry of these two papers engendered bitterness that lasted as long as they continued publica- tion.
 "The sourdoughs and cheechakoes (tenderfeeD were crazy for news. Outside papers a month old sold for s1 apiece. The local papers could not supply the demand at % cents per copy.
 At that time the local sheets de. pended on the newspapers from the outside for their telegraph news" The spanish-Amerlcan war was on, and interest was intense in Alaska.
 "The papers had their scouts sta- toned on the river front, watching and waiting for a small boat or a scow with an outside paper on board. It was considered a good stroke Of business to buy up the entire news source, and thus beat ones rival.
 "The lack of telegraph news cre- ated q fine bunch of liars. The pat rons of the papers had to have read. Ing matter-the oldstyle literature on the canned goods was no longer good enough.
 "Romances were in demand. There were Casey Moran, with his tales Of Circle City; George Carpenter, with his Juneau tales Dave Tewksbury, with his inside dope on the gamblers. and E. J. CstrollerD White, the prince Of all liars.
 He it was who introduced ice worms to the reading public.
 "Ice worms, according to "Strol- Ter" were form of worm-ife, matched in the ice at q temperature of 50 degrees below zero. They grew as large as an asparagus tip. which they resembled, although they were of bluish. transparent tint. The colder the weather the sweeter and tenderer they grew.
 Every winter the old sourdough9 would take their ice picks and gather at the river for the ice.worm harvest. Frying them in a flour batter, with strips of Scrlsp bacon, was the common method of serving them. The London Society of Re- search sent savants to Becure speci- mems
 We called q spade spade in that country, and our bosses let us go the limit.
 Tn most cases, however, when some husky miner came up to mop up the floor with some particular scribe, we were able to pass the buck on to some member of the froce not present at the time. This was considered the easiest way out.
 Stroller White, being under the average in stature and above the normal in glrth, often used this 'pass.the.buck idea, causing the rest of us great inconvenience. So 1t was with feeling of keen satisfac- ton that we welcomed MT. Walter Henry Horton Davison, an English man as big as Je.fries and just as ugly
 He came in with roar like a bull, demanding the name of the man who had insulted the English Nation.
 "The morning edition had con. tained heading, quoting from the speech of a Nova scotian in the Parliament ct Ottawa: "Englishmen Not Fit to Heard Sheep"
 "Mr. Davison called for the author of the headline. He wanted to die right there in the composing-room cramped as 1t was. He also screamed at us the information that fifty Johnny Bulls were willing to die with him right in our office.
 "we then and there decided to pass the buck to the Stroller We told Walter Henry to wait around the editor would soon come in.
 "He stayed. He roared and rant ed, screaming with rage:
 Engrshmen not fit to herd sheep! will die but what I'll do is avenge that insult to the Eng fish race
 "one could hear him across the
 -
 CALL US ON THE PHONE