Los Angeles Herald from Los Angeles, California • Page 13

DEATH AND WEALTH GO HAND IN HAND TRUTH ABOUT THE LAND OF RICHES TOLD BY A RESIDENT OF DAWSON CITY NEW YORK, Aug. Cor- I respondence to The Herald.) A letter has Just been received here by G. A. Schlichting of No. 310 Third avenue, New York, from a friend of his, Henry Reim, now at Dawson City in the Klondyke, which pictures in realistic fashion life as it actually Is in this principal city of the new EI Dorado.

The letter contains many new facts and gives details of frontier life that take the reader back to the days of '49. It gives a new Insight Into the actual methods of life in the metropolis of the Klondyke, and indicates what a ripe harvest death is likely to reap before the first breath of next spring is felt in these diggings of the north. It is a tale that should cause the optimistic gold seekers to stop and think before embarkins on a trip to the Klondyke this fall, it shows that discretion Is by far the better part of grubbing for wealth as it is of valor. This is the letter, for the first time published: "DAWSON CITY, B. July 3d, 1897 Friend: When we were oft on that Fourth of July trip a year ago.

neither you nor I had any idea that another year would seeme in a place where American holidays are forgotten In a search for such fortunes as we never even thought about. Tomorrow is the Fourth ot July, and I suppose that is why I think of the things that happened a year ago. Well, this Is the queerest place you ever saw. I have had the oldtimers out here tell me stories about the days' of '49 in California that were not in the same class with what I see happen every day here. "I suppose back in the states, in God's country, we call it up here, you are hearing a lot about the money that is being made in these diggings and how everybody is going to be rich.

There Is no doubt in my mind that there never was anything like this before anywhere. It isn't a question of finding the gold, It is a question of getting it out. If half the stories we hear are true, there Is enough gold In the Klondyke to make everybody rich that comes here. "That is one side of the story. But, friend, there is another, too.

Whoever comes in here, the way things are now, must make up his mind to suffer in various ways. If he happens to strike a streak of good luck, then he is likely to have enough to eat. If he does not, he might as well be in hades with a broken back. There is no worse place on earth for a man without money than a mining camp. There are 800 claims staked out within twenty miles of this place, so you can see how much chance there is for the newcomer.

Everything that is worth anything has been gobbled up around here, so that the only thing left to do is to move north, and that means to move farther into a country that Is fcMlPoSve ck Everytmng goes here. The saloons tjiever close. Gambling goes on at all houra In fact nothing In the way of dissipation is ever checked at There is no city government in this place of tents and shanties, but we have a vigilance committee which takes the place of both the government and the laws. You see this is British country up here, and most of us are Americans, so we do not know much about what the law is that governs this part of the counry. This being the case, we run the place like we think we ought to.

I don't mind telling you lam one of the vigilantes myself. "I wish you could take a trip around town and see these things for yourself. Why, it is nothing at all for a thousand dollars to change hands on the turn of a card. I mean that much In gold dust, for real money is a scarce article out here. Every man has a sack of dust and he buys or gambles by the ounce or fraction thereof.

The dance halls are livelyenough, too, for there is a lot of women up here, such as they are, most of them having come in from Seattle and San Francisco. I reckon there are about 4500 people here, all told, but they make noise enough for twice that many. "There is not as much killing going on here as you would think for, because we do not think much of bad men up here. We have planted about a dozen of these in the last two months, ar.d it has had the effect of keeping the tough sort quiet. I write about night, but we don't have any night here.

You see the sun sets about 10 p. m. and rises at 3 a. I but it never gets dark. You can read a i newspaper out of doors at midnight.

So you see it don t'make much difference when you sleep. The result is that the people here don't have any regular time for sleeping or eating at ail. They Just live like they want to. "You see all kinds of people here. I believe that every nation that we ever heard of in New York has got somebodyout here who belongs to it.

Everybody is as good as everybody else, it don't make any difference what color he is. There is one old fellow that used to be a slave and his wool is as gray as a sheep's pelt. He came up here with a freighting i outfit and did not have any idea of going after gold, but he did get here, old as he was, he got the fever. He staked out a claim and you can believe It or but that old devil has cleaned up $30,000 In good dust. You ought to hear him talk about what he is going to do with it.

"His name, he says, is St. John Atherton, and he comes from down in Georgia. 'Just a piece out of he rays. He says that the daughter of the man that owned him during the war is livir.g there yet on the old palntatlon, very poor. The old man is going back, so he says, and is going to buy that plantation and then he is going to have this woman that is there do nothing but 'live like a lady' all the rest of her life.

That is one of the most curious things I've heard since I've been up here, and I believe the old man means just what he says. "If the papers printed half the queer things I see up here It would be better than any book. About three- months ago there was an old fellow came from back and he had with him a boy of about 15 years old. He was one of the nicest boys I ever saw. He and his father staked out a claim Just east of a claim on the river that the boys called "Blue I think the old man said he came from Massachusetts.

He was a quiet, peaceable old man, minded his own business and paid no attention to GOLD SEEKERS SHOOTING THE TERRIBLE YUKON RAPIDS, THE MOST DANGEROUS PEAT OP THE JOURNEY, DRAWN BY DAN SMITH, ILLUSTRATOR POR PRANK LESLIE'S WEEKLY AND SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, WHOSE ALASKAN PICTURES HAVE A WIDE REPUTATION PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN OX THE BOUNDARY LINE SHOWING THE CHARACTER AND DRESS OP THE MEN NOW AT KLONDYKE Facing Awful Death for Klondyke Gold PHOTOGRAPH OF REPRESENTATIVE GOLD MINERS LOS ANGELES HERALD: SUNDAY AUGUST 6, 1897 DEATH AND WEALTH GO HAND IN HAND TRUTH ABOUT THE LAND OI RICHES TOLD BY A RESIDENT OF DAWSON CITY anybody. But after he commenced wort on his claim a few days it got around that he had struck $3 dirt. That means that every pan of dirt he washed out had 33 worth of gold in it. "There is a lot of mean sons of up here that when they think a man that will be run off has got a good thing they just try to run him off. So one night two or three of these fellows went to the Old man's tent, shoved their guns in faces of him and his boy and told them if they didn't get off ti.at claim within tweny-four hours they would get shot.

The old man wouldn't say anything to Ihem at all, so one of them owned up afterward, but just lay there, and the, boy he kept quiet, too. "The old man, whose name wee Henry Williams, talked it over with Ma bojc, and between them they agreed thethey would stick it out. So they took lying awake and watching for the claim jumpers. Three or four nights afterwards the Jumps came. The boy was asleep and the old man on watch.

Before the old man knew what had happened they had him shot in the shoulder. The boy heard the shot and he Jumped, with a gun In each band, dropped two of the fellows that were after them quicker than a wink and wounded another. The fourth man was so scared he ran away without firing a shot. Then the boy fixed the old man up a little and came down into town and told what had happened. "The boys got together right away and went out to the old man's campand brought him back to town, fixed him up the best the camp could afford and found he wasn't badly hurt.

After they had found this out and told the boy that his father was all right, the kid dropped to the floor like he was shot. They picked him up and laid him in a bunk and then they found out that he wasn't a boy at all, but a girl, and as pretty a girl as you want to look at. "As I get the story, the old man waa In fearful hard luck back east and somebody told him about this place. His wife was dead and he only had one child, this girl. He wanted to come out here and he did not know what to do with her.

But she just said she would come with him as a boy and made the oldman agree to it. Maybe you don't think that tha boys were stuck on her and her father. There ain't anything in Dawson too good for them. That girl could marry any unmarried man in town she wants to, and I hear some talk that she is likely to take one of them. "Lots of people have got money up here, or, as they call It, have struck it rich.

One kid from 'Frisco, that everybody calls Billy Jeans, got here, nobody knows how, but managed to get-some olfl. tools and a pan and went to work. He is just 16 years old and is as tough a kid -wrm I'm goln' to wear nothin' but glimmers on me mitts when I gits back to "I remember, old man. that back la New-York, we used to think that fellows were in hard luck that had to eat beef and beans, but you are in great luck to get them out here, particularly the beef. Everybody has beans.

Beans, coffee and soda biscuit. That's the bill of fare seven days a week. Of course there's lots of canned stuff, but you get awful tired, of that. There is a man here going to raise some garden truck, and If he does it all he raises will be worth Its weight in dust. "I tell you, partner, this Is a tough country.

It's all very nice to think about the gold that's In the ground and what you can do with It If you can only get it out, but I wouldn't take all this country if anybody would give It to me, if it wasn't for the gold. It gives you the blues Just to look outdoors. When it is cold here you think you are going to freeze sure, solid. When it is hot, you know there never was any place on earth any hotter, and there isn't any between. I would not give it all for an acre of ground in York state.

"We hear that people are going to come up here by the thousands, but I tell you If they don't get plenty of provisions In here there will be hundreds of new graves before next spring. I'm going to stay in over another winter, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll have provisions, enough so that I will not starve. I haven't made a fortune up here, but I have made good money and I'm going to keep hold of it, too. If more people would come up heTe ready to work and go into business instead of hunting gold, they would make a lot more money than they will prospecting. "You see, the stories that go out of here are only those about the fellows that have good luck.

But there's lots that don't. There's an awful lot of people come up here and die. You want to be able to stand cold weather and hardships. You want to be able to rough it and stand that eort of life. I tell you if you can't you want to keep away.

This iis no country for a man without money jor without health. What he wants to he able to do is to work hard and save his I cash. If he can do that he will make a good stake that will keep him in comfort in the states the rest of his days. "You get fo up here you don't think much of the gold. If you could see the amount of dust that changes hands on the faro tables here every night, it would make you hold your breathi You remember that old song we used to sing back east about 'Every day will be Sunday by and I guess that's the wayit is here, for all days are alike.

We haven't got a preacher in the camp. Nobody says anything about religion, at all. I have read about the rush for gold making people forget everything else, and I reckon that is about so. i' don't see any people get to be friends up here. If they are that way It is because they knew each other back in the states.

"Now, this is a long letter, but when even anybody that can't write, like me, gets to telling about the queer things in Dawson, he don't know when to quit. Maybe you will come out here, but don't think of doing It before next spring. That is the time to come to the Klondyke, and the fellows that break their necks getting In here in August and September won't be any better off than the fellowa that come in next June. Everybody ts here to make his pile, and I'm going to stick it out till I make mine. Tour friend, REIM." 13.