RECOLLECTIONS OF MINING DAYS OUT WEST.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 16 August 1890, Page 6

RECOLLECTIONS OF MINING DAYS OUT WEST.

I spend no happier days in the year than those that I annually pass with my old college chum, Smith, in his quiet little rectory in Devon. Who ever would have dreamt that Smith, the hardest rider of Tollitt’s screws, the stroke of his eight, and the soul-vexer of Dons, would have settled down as an exemplary country parson, devoting most of his time to listening to and relieving the complaints of all the old women, and becoming the recognised doctor, lawyer and adviser of the whole parish ? We sit up yarning till midnight, and Smith is never tired of listening to my adventures “out west,’ and when he asked me the other evening, over a glass of grog after a good day’s trout fishing, “ Don’t you often wish you were out there now ? ” I found it difficult to answer him yea or nay. So I’ll tell my readers what I told Smith, and let them answer whether they would like the “life of an honest miner” or not. The first mines I ever tried were Leech River in Vancouver’s Island. I landed in Victoria, with an enormous box containing an “outfit,” which was the combined result of my friends’ suggestions. Every one wanted a hand in that box, or rather its contents. One suggested a small cargo of Cockle’s pills as a good “ spec., another decided that an oilskin suit and a sou - wester were indispensable, while a City mangsaid i I might as well not go at. all as go without lots j of beads for the Indians. ’ I had that box just four days at Victoria ; I sold the contents by i auction, and lost about over it. I remember that the thing which fetched most was a large Noah’s Ark, which a religiously inclined old lady gave me, with strict injunctions to present it to that youthful Indian whom I j should first succeed in inducing to leave off having cold missionary for breakfast, and take j to digging potatoes. If that old lady could only know the sequel of that Noah’s Ark, she d die of remorse. A trader bought it for one sovereign; it passed through another trader s hands, who sold it as a “ big medicine ” to a chief of the Oregon Indians. One of his children took to sucking the paint off Shem’s coat and the elephant’s trunk, was siezed with colic, sand went to the Great Spirit. Noah s Arks are at an awful discount ever since. I never shall forget my first walk to Kennedy Flat. I had never shouldered a pack in earnest till then, and 6olb under a hot sun over an awful trail is no joke. However, I had an idea somehow that if I got to the North Forks I should be able to ramble along all day, now and then picking up a nugget or two. I always pictured a claim as*a deep hole very like a well, and that the owner always had his tent pitched close by, the said tent being tolerably comfortable, with a few books, dogs, guns, &c., scattered about. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I first saw Kennedy Flat. There were some log huts scattered about on the banks of a rushing torrent, where a few men were engaged in “ rocking.” There was, of course, a store, with two empty flour barrels outside, on one of which a man was sitting whittling a stick, with his hat tilted very much over his eyes. I approached this man, and asked him where the mines were. He looked at me fixedly for some time, and said at length, “ You’re right straight from the old country, I guess ? ” I replied in the affirmative, and again asked where the mines were. “Have you 155 dollars in gold in your pocket, young man ?” I answered that I had. “ Well, then, take my advice free gratis, get up and git; take the fust steamer, and go home.” I often think that chap knew human nature. I knew a young fellow who came to Victoria with about the same ideas that I had. He went up to Cariboo, and came down flat broke. He had sense enough to see that he had better get back if he could; but he hadn’t the 155 dollars in gold. A happy thought struck him, however, and he set up a first-class boot blacking chair outside the St. Nicholas Hotel; in three months he made and went home. He is now a Co. in a city firm, and always gives a shoeblack 2d. Leech river claims were pre-eminently poor diggings, and the life there preternaturally slow. There wasn’t even any drinking there, as a drink cost three bits, or is 6d, and there was hardly three dollars among the whole crowd. Two Yankees, how-

ever, managed to play it on the bar-tender at Kennedy Flat in a way that was riling. These two fellows had got dead broke, and finding it very hot work prospecting on water, resolved to have some whisky somehow or other. They bad a gallon keg with them, and one of them had a brilliant idea. He half filled the keg with water, and, going into the bar saloon, he placed it on the counter, and requested to be supplied with half a gallon of the best pizen in the shanty. The unsuspecting bartender put half a gallon of old Rye in the keg. “ Times is dull, Johnny; I s’pose yer don’t object to giving jawbone on this here trifle ? “ Don’t I. Thunder! no jawbone on Kennedy Flat; too many deadheads around.” “Wall, then, guess yar’ve got to take it back again, boss. There’s jest a trifle of the old chainlightning we had afore left —jest the residoo. The half-gallon was poured back, the bartender tasted a drop, turned up his eyes, and observed, in admiring tones: “Joshaphat, that’s smart; you’ll do, my bootiful Congressman ; but your residoo is considerable toned down ! ” He was always extremely suspicious of miners with gallon kegs ever afterwards. Although it was dull, yet the days I spent at Leech River seemed short. One day the bishop visited us at the Devil’s Grip. What a to-do there was. Jumper shirts were at a discount, and white ones were worth any money. Three Canadians, who were working a claim next ours, when they heard that a live bishop was, coming up to Devil’s Grip, were flummoxed, because they could only raise one shirt among the crowd. After nearly coming to blows about it, they cast lots for the article, and the lucky possessor pro tem was delegated to do the honours. When he donned the shirt, he remarked, “ Thunder, gentlemen, when I’ve a biled shirt on me I feel got up to the handle! I only wants a ten-dollar bell topper to look real Broadway style!” The bishop, accompanied by a lady, came up, and we had a grand spread of vension cutlets, &c , and the whole river went wild. He was pleased to say that he had enjoyed his trip exceedingly, and though there were lots of Lancashire and Cornish miners on the claims, not even a quarter of a brick was ’eaved at him. I soon left Leech River, however, and went to Oregon Diggings. In those davs Oregon was rough, jest a trifle ; -out Boise City and Idaho and Montana terrorities the rowdies had it a good deal their own way. Fred Patterson and other “festive cusses,” were ornaments of society, and Mr. Lynch was around as well. There are a great manv remarkable men in America, but the difficulty is to find the most remarkable man There can be no possible doubt, however, that this distinction must be awarded to Mr. Lynch in the mining camps and “ new countries.” If he has not reduced murder exactly to a fine art, at all events he drops on his victims in a manner most terrible, most unexpected and most swift. He has no regular circuit, and does not trouble himself much about counsels and juries; in fact, he generally dispenses with all such formalities altogether, and he has a •great aversion to a crowded court. One of the great differences between Judge Lynch’s Assizes and those of other judges’ is that, whereas when the latter are being held, most of the friends of the accused make a point of being present at the trial, when the former come on very few, if any, hear anything about it, and if they do they usually exhibit a contrary desire to stay away; for Judge Lynch has a pernicious, although illegal habit of occasionally including the prisoner’s friends in the indictment, and treating them to the same penalty. There is one great point in favour of his verdicts, and that is they are always the same—Death ! His mode, also, of conducting the proceedings of his court, as regards economy and saving of time, might very well be studied with advantage by our law courts. The great objection to his judgeship is that he occasionally gets hold of the wrong man, and as his invariable principle is “ hang first and try afterwards,” no doubt he makes himself objectionable sometimes, but, on the whole, he is a good institution in new countries, and a sudden visit from him is attended with the absquatulation of a good many scalliwags, gamblers, and general evildoers. He has visited most portions of the great American continent. Once he held a very bloody assize of some years length in San

Francisco itself. Oregon and Idaho were always rather pet places of his, and only a few yeaJs back he was particularly busy on the Union Pacific Railway. They have found out rather a more smooth-sounding title for him of late, and instead of Judge Lynch he is usually called V.C., not meaning thereby that he gained the distinction of the Victoria Cross, but that he is the spirit that rules the “Vigilance Committee.” A vigilance committee is a body of men composed generally of those who have any stake in the community where they reside, and who combine together, under the strictest oaths, to protect themselves against ruffians who act with violence. In the vast west of America new mining camps and new “rushes” are perpetually springing up, and were resorted to by hundreds of adventurers of all classes. Owing to the evident circumstances of the case it is almost impossible at once to have a complete or incomplete system of law administration for the protection of life and property, and every man, more or less, is a law unto himself. In the rear of every army of these rushes is a tail of gamblers and loafers who trade on and not unfrequently kill a good many of their number. If the rush turns out such a good thing that a permanent settlement is made, of course law and order must be maintained at

any cost, and it is to meet this end that the V.C. is formed. Some inoffensive man is killed, and the trees next morning are decorated with an assortment of rowdies dancing on nothing with a paper pinned on their breasts with the ominous letters V.C. on it. Some others, who are “ wanted,” take the hint, and go. It takes some time, however, to “corral” a real out-and-outer. Fred Patterson was a long time “ going,” till he was shot in a barber’s shop at Portland. Billy Mulligan killed eight men “ that were known,” and probably many others. I was standing in Montgomery and Washington streets when Charlie Duane shot Colonel Fox through the back at San Francisco. Billy Mulligan killed a man in a gambling saloon, and was shot by a policeman through a window of the St. Francis Hotel, but not before he had killed one man and wounded another after he had entered the hotel. The policeman got out on the balcony of the opposite house, and shot him ' with a Springfield musket. Mr. Duane is still flourishing, I believe ; most likely he is in Congress. Denver City, Colorado, at one time, was in complete possession of the murderers, and they had a dead man for breakfast every morning. A noted rowdy, called the “ Devil’s best trump in,” once killed a man named Jules, and cut off his ears. Whenever he wanted a drink he used to go to the nearest saloon, throw the ears on the counter, and call for a cocktail. This was merely his way of hinting to the barkeeper that his ears might possibly be added to the collection. He didn’t believe in paying for any drinks. His end was remarkable; the V.C. got him at last, and hung him. His wife, when she heard he was corraled, mounted a horse and galloped to where he was as hard as she could, intending to shoot him before the V.C. could get hold of him. She was too late, however, and when she arrived at the scene of action her husband was dead. “ Well,” said she, “I’m real sorry he’s pegged out so mean; but thank God he’s died with his boots on ! ” This fellow once killed a man in Denver city in the open streets; when one of his pals asked him why he was so fresh that afternoon, he replied, “ that feller had the darndest squint I ever seed ; I raaly do hate a squint-eyed man, they allers spiles my dinner! ” A friend of this playful gentleman was also very particular about his dinner. At a restaurant in Bear city two strangers came and sat opposite him; one of them, when the meat was served, took what was considered more than his share of the gravy, and for this he was immediately shot dead. The other stranger got up in haste to clear out, but he was covered by the six-shooter. “ Sit down and finish your hash, anti wait till I’ve got through with mine.” After he had finished he galloped off. I happened once myself to be at the Bedrock Valley placers. Bedrock was new and quite lively; the first week I was there, however, was drawn blank; this was regarded as so derogatory to the honour of the camp that two men were laid out on Sunday to make up. A V.C. was immediately formed, and two noted desperadoes suddenly

‘‘ went down to the flame.” After this Bedrock was quiet for some time, till a man called Jack Short, or, as he was familiarly termed, “ Highlow Jack,” thought proper to lay out an in- ' offensive miner, for the inadequate reason that he ventured to differ from him on the subject of drinks. It appears that High-low Jack went into a saloon, and ordered a whisky cocktail. The ba keeper gave him what he thought, no doubt, was a whisky cocktail, but High-low Jack thought otherwise, and decleared it was *‘ sulphuric acid ’tarnal neat,” and appealed to a miner standing by to corroborate his statement. Unfortunately the miner thought the mixture, at all events,' had whisky in it, and for this unpardonable mistake High-low Jack drew his shooter, and shot him dead. It was hasty, no doubt, done in a moment of thoughtlessness, but still it was considered “rough on tne miner” —so rough, indeed, that the V.C. resolved to go for him straight off. High-low Jack bolted but was hung at sundown, some fifteen miles out. Having.once made a beginning the V.C. resolved to clean out Bedrock, and a good deal of street-firing took place all that night and next day. Some ten men were killed, when the rowdies thought Bedrock was “warmish,” and vamoosed the ranch. The dead were buried in the churchyard, where, out of forty graves, only seven were occupied by men who had died a natural death.' And yet, with all their roughness, I could mention many instances of kindness done by miners to comrades out of luck or ill. once at some diggings where I w as , a man had a boulder fall on him, which hurt' Kim severely. The claim at the time was paying well, and yet four men came forward and offered to work the claim, while two of his comrades packed him thirty-five miles down the trail to a doctor. Wages then were about £2 a day. I myself did a little service to a miner oncer' Well,-I don’t mind saying what that service was; I wrote letters to his sweetheart in the State of Maine for him. I saw this man some time afterwards in fresh diggings .where* he had turned out pay dirt and no mistake. “Young fellar,” said he, one day, “guess I present yew with a specimen; ” and without more ado he handed out a 40Z. nugget, which I pocketed right off. Sometimes a man gets ill and flat broke. Some one chucks a ten dollar piece in a prospecting pan, and says, “ Boys, shell out! ” and {often as not eighty or one hundred pounds are subscribed in less time than I have taken to write it. When they are “taking out the stuff” nothing can exceed the extravagance of a miner. I have known an owner of a good paying claim strike the richest kind of dirt. He had a fancy to stand all hands a “ big drunk,” and bought up all the liquor there was; they couldn’t drink all, and at last he knocked the heads off the bottles and flooded the floor of the saloon with their contents. Brandy was worth about £3 or more a bottle. It’s nothing to see a man lose at half an hour’s poker. Amusements in mining camps are varied, and they are pretty discriminating audiences, too. Dickens is wonderfully popular amongst miners, and I’ve seen a crowd of twenty or thirty of them sit in a shanty and listen to Little Nell or Nancy as eagerly as a London Hanover-square audience. A man who can read well or recite is always a favourite in the camp. I remember an Oxford second class man in an Oregon camp, who had certainly hacj njistaken his profession, as he would have majle a first-rate actor; he used to be beseiged every Saturday night, well cocktailed, and? then he’d have 50 miners laughing at Falstaff, half-crying with Rosalind, and wondering at Hamlet. A lively discussion always followed these extempore recitals, and some very shrewd criticisms were occasionally passed. Sometimes a travelling company comes to the camp, and if good, the actors and actressses make a good deal of money. They .have : a very practical way of showing their appreciation of an actress by pitching on the stage five-dollar pjeces; perhaps, on the whole; 'a more sensible mark Of esteem than-bouquets of flowers. f The of the mining camps is proverbial. “ Bet, your bottom dollar; ” gamblers generally have a pile of dollars by their side, and. keep.on; taking off and adding on to > the pile as they win or lose when they come to .the. bottom -one, of course that’s all they have left. “ Guess it won’t pan out,” refers to (

washing out pay dirt. “ Going jawbone ” for a thing, meaning getting credit for it, refers to tfle fact that the man who gets credit for the afticle has such an overpowering amount of talkee-talkee about him —what we vulgarly call “jaw,” that he gets the better of a Yankee storekeeper even. A miner is quite out of his element in a big town ; you can tell them in a moment from their inveterate habit of sitting round in a circle with their chairs tilted back, in almost absolute silence, and from their being always dressed in a long, bran new black coat down to their heels, a “biled” shirt, with a large specimen nugget in the breast, and very highheeled boots. They look something like undertakers out for a holiday. They don’t drink much in the big towns; they gamble a little now and then, but as soon as the news comes that the snow in the mountains is beginning to melt, off go the black coat and high-heeled boots, the well worn blankets are packed, the revolver oiled, and Last Chance and Indian Gully are once more “ live camps.” Plain Snaffle.