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.dt Seeking Fortune in America, by Frederick William Grey
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Transcriber’s Note:
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SEEKING FORTUNE IN AMERICA
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.ca THE WRITER AT CALGARY, 1891.
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.sp 4
.h1
SEEKING FORTUNE | IN AMERICA
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.nf c
BY
F. W. GREY
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.ce
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
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LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912
[All rights reserved]
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Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
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.pn v
.sp 4
.h2
PREFACE
.sp 2
In the early ’eighties lads who preferred exercise to
examinations looked abroad for work, and parents who
feared their failure in competitions agreed with them.
Ditties like—
.pm start_poem
“To the West, to the West, to the land of the free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea,”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
had long moved our agricultural class America-wards;
perhaps the next line—
.pm start_poem
“Where a man is a man if he’s willing to toil,”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
did not so much appeal to middle-class youth, but
there were always visions of “broncho-busting” and
rope-swinging. Moreover, no one in England, of
whatever class, knew what “toil” meant, as understood
in Canada and the States.
Land was easy to get in those days, free grants of
160 acres on certain conditions of exploitation which
were often evaded. After weary search from Iowa
northward I reached a rolling country dotted with
small lakes and groves, leading up to the beautiful
.bn 008.png
.pn +1
valley of the Little Saskatchewan. My driver said that
some land which I fancied here was certainly taken
up, but I saw a Scotchman ploughing and we foregathered.
He told me that the other holders around
were “jumping” new grants elsewhere, and that the
little “breaking” which they had done did not fulfil
conditions. Investigation proved this, and I bought
two square miles at prairie value from the railway
whose line was to traverse this very land. My son
eventually did not use it, and, twenty years later,
still as “prairie,” it fetched enough to cover the
original price plus accumulated interest and taxes.
My son was right; farming, as I saw it in
my wanderings, was not attractive. In Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Ontario, the surroundings were
delightful, but profits seemed small; while the prairie,
from the Canadian Pacific Railway down to Iowa,
though certainly productive, was to my eyes as heart-breaking
as the plains of India.
Travelling south from Buffalo, after a visit to the
Guelph Agricultural College, which later received my
son, a farmer joined me. He was Yankee to look at,
but his tongue was Devonshire. It attracted a rough-looking
customer in our carriage; he was Cumberland,
and we three exchanged ideas. Cumberland
.bn 009.png
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was a wanderer who had worked all over the States
up to the Pacific; Devonshire was naturalised, and
thereon Cumberland took him to task. Devonshire,
he said, had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Devonshire submitted that he could live on the pottage,
while Cumberland did not seem to thrive on the birthright.
Both had been agricultural labourers at home,
and now Devonshire had a little holding nestling in
one of the lovely vales which we were traversing.
He could live thereon, certainly, but what a life!
Cumberland, I think, had a better time, while able
for the varied work which he could always find.
Better for either would have been our army, navy, or
police. That class does not know the soldier’s advantages
when he has risen to sergeant and stays in
the army.
Sore though my son’s struggle was he was right not
to farm. Certainly he lost his capital, but this is
the normal English lot in the States; at his mine in
Texas a man came for a watchman’s job who had
started with £4000! Such, it seems, is the “footing”
which the gentle, handicapped by their traditions,
must necessarily pay. Nevertheless, those traditions
are an asset, as this book shows; so are horsemanship;
the athletics and the “straight left” which public
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schools taught in those days if they taught little else;
also a straight eye and steady nerve behind a pistol.
My son’s experience may not tempt others of his class
to seek fortune in America, but if they do so they will
learn therefrom what to expect, in what spirit to
meet it, and what equipment they need.
.ll 68
.rj
L. J. H. GREY.
.ll
March 1912.
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.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS
.ta h:60 r:6
CHAPTER I
| PAGE
"Thousand Pounders"—Ontario Agricultural College—Political\
Meetings—Volunteer Artillery—Value of the Agricultural\
College | #1#
CHAPTER II
Calgary—A Cow-puncher—"Roping"—Life on a Ranch—A\
Calgary Hail-storm—“Gun-plays” and "Bad-men"—Sarci\
Indians | #11#
CHAPTER III
Road-agents—“Roping” Contests—Broncho-busting—Strathclair—A\
Blizzard—Lumber Camps | #24#
CHAPTER IV
An Injured Knee—The "Laird"—Kit destroyed by Fire—Hunting\
round Strathclair—Trapping—“Batching” | #31#
CHAPTER V
Chicago—American Business Methods—Work as a Carbonator—Chicago\
Fair—“Hard-luck” Stories—Remittance-men | #38#
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER VI
Looking for Work—An Englishman’s Disadvantages—Addressing\
Envelopes—Running a Lift—Bogus Advertisements—Various\
Jobs | #47#
CHAPTER VII
Life under Difficulties—Drawbacks of a Public-school Training—Hints\
on Emigration—Pneumonia—Unemployment in Chicago,\
1893 | #55#
CHAPTER VIII
Hard Times—Health restored—Rabbit-catching—Hunting in Iowa—A\
Gentleman Tramp—The Hobo Business—Free Railway\
Travelling | #64#
CHAPTER IX
Toronto—An Interest in a Mine—The Railway Strike of 1894—Stranded\
at La Junta, Colorado—Strike Incidents—Troops\
called out | #73#
CHAPTER X
Golden—Pack-horse Difficulties—Camping out—Prospecting in\
British Columbia—On an Asphaltum Mine in Texas | #80#
CHAPTER XI
Cline—Bunk-houses—Work on a Rock-crusher—Mexican Dancing\
and Music | #88#
CHAPTER XII
Trouble at the Dance—A New Superintendent—Shots in the Dark—Arrest\
of Bud—With a Surveying Party | #96#
.bn 013.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER XIII
Swimming-holes—Hunting in West Texas—Fishing in the Nueces\
River—Jim Conners—Foreman Betner—A Runaway Car | #104#
CHAPTER XIV
A Sunday Fishing Party—"Bad-men"—Ben Thompson and other\
Desperadoes—The Story of a Hot Spring | #113#
CHAPTER XV
Coyotes—Wild Turkeys—Lynching and Jury Trial in Texas—Pistol-shooting—Negro\
Vitality | #122#
CHAPTER XVI
A "Periodical"—Italian Treachery—Bitumen Extractors—The\
Mexican Disregard for Orders—In Charge of the Stills—A Vote\
Canvasser | #129#
CHAPTER XVII
Elections in Texas—Feuds and Shooting Affrays—Family Pride—Prohibition | #138#
CHAPTER XVIII
A "Grandstander"—The Sheriff takes Possession—Night Watchman—Monte\
Jim—Further Trouble | #148#
CHAPTER XIX
Promoted to Foreman—Overwork and Eye-strain—Mexican Traits—Amateur\
Doctor—A Rival Asphalt Company—Its Failure | #157#
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.pn +1
CHAPTER XX
More American Business Methods—Trip to Corpus Christi—Trouble\
at the Mine—West Texas as a Health Resort—Expenses of the\
Simple Life | #165#
CHAPTER XXI
"Northers"—Almost Frozen—The Mexican Indian—Cold-blooded\
Ingratitude—Mexican Untrustworthiness | #172#
CHAPTER XXII
Employed by a Paving Company—The Growth of Los Angeles—Its\
Land Values—A Centre for Tourists | #180#
CHAPTER XXIII
"Graft"—Seeking Contracts in Los Angeles—In Charge of Street\
Work—Crooked Business | #189#
CHAPTER XXIV
Bribery and Corruption—The Good Government League—Servant\
Problem in California—The Climate and its Effect on Wages—Off\
to Guadalajara | #196#
CHAPTER XXV
The Barber Company—Guadalajara—Mexican Mendacity—Don\
Miguel Ahumada—His Humanity and Justice | #204#
CHAPTER XXVI
The Mexican Workman—His Remembrance of a Grudge—The\
Commissaria—Private Feuds—American versus English | #213#
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.pn +1
CHAPTER XXVII
Bull-fighting—Mexican Etiquette—The Police Department and its\
Difficulties—Treatment of Habitual Criminals—The Army | #219#
CHAPTER XXVIII
Federal Rurales—Robbery by Servants—Wholesale Thieving—Lack\
of Police Discipline—A Story of Roosevelt | #229#
CHAPTER XXIX
Tequila—Mexican Respect for the White Man—Personal Vengeance\
preferred to Law—Mexican Stoicism—Victims of Red Tape | #237#
CHAPTER XXX
Accidents at the Mines—Mexico City—Peculiar Laws—"Evidence"—A\
Theft of Straw | #243#
CHAPTER XXXI
Solitary Confinement—Mexican Rogues—The Humorous Side—A\
Member of the Smart Set—The Milkmen | #249#
CHAPTER XXXII
Carrying Firearms—The Business of Mexico—Its Management by\
Foreigners—Real Estate and Mining Booms—Foreign Capital—Imports\
and Exports | #257#
CHAPTER XXXIII
Climate of Guadalajara—American Tramps—Courtship under Difficulties—Influence\
of the Priesthood—The Metayer System | #266#
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.pn +1
CHAPTER XXXIV
Curious Customs—The Abuse of Concessions—Flagrant Examples—Prospects\
for Foreigners in Mexico—President Diaz—Mr.\
Denny’s Life-story | #273#
CHAPTER XXXV
Mr. Denny and a Mining Claim—Wholesale Killing averted—Stories\
of Shooting Escapades | #282#
CHAPTER XXXVI
Macdonald Institute at Guelph—Agricultural College—Their Value\
to Students—Back to Work through Texas | #292#
CHAPTER XXXVII
Puebla, the Misgoverned—Justice under Colonel Cabrera—Royal\
Family of Chihuahua—Tampico—Presidents Diaz and Madero | #300#
.ta-
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.pn 1
.sp 4
.ce
Seeking Fortune in America
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER I
.pm start_summary
"Thousand-pounders"—Ontario Agricultural College—Political
Meetings—Volunteer Artillery—Value of the Agricultural
College.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
The Western States and Provinces of North America
thrive on our “thousand-pounders” and “remittance-men.”
Some years ago in one small prairie town of
Iowa there were 105 young Britons on the books of
the local club. One of these (dubbed Sitting-bull
after a famous brave) was doing fairly well in a milk-walk;
a few others earned livings as farm hands;
the rest were, said the natives, “doing no good.”
How should they, unless to the manner born? Four
young sons of farmers and parsons, all neighbours
from Owersby, Walesby, and other Lincolnshire
"by’s," bought a “raw” farm on instalments in the
Red River Valley. A land-seeker was sent there by
the owner. “He has not got us yet,” said the lads;
“we are ready with our instalment.” But he got
.bn 018.png
.pn +1
them at last, with their improvements—homestead,
stable, well, and many acres under plough. That is
how the “thousand-pounders” nourish the West;
not that these Lincolnshire men had so much between
them, but many collapse with even more capital, for
lack of experience. And even afterwards the experience,
thus bought at a long price, does not generally
lead to much.
In 1890, 1280 acres of carefully-chosen land awaited
me in Manitoba, bought from and traversed by the
Manitoba and North-Western Railway. To qualify
myself for farming this land I went to Guelph, in
Ontario, Canada.
The Ontario Agricultural College is recognised as
one of the finest institutions of its kind on the continent
of America, because of the thoroughness of its
methods and the class of graduates it turns out.
There are graduates of this college holding professorships
in many of the agricultural colleges of the States,
others in charge of large farming interests, and also
of some of the largest dairies in the country.
Students have come here from Mexico, Argentine,
and even from Japan, sent by their respective countries.
I am sorry to say that the majority of us English
students did not come up to the general standard,
frittered our time away, and thought more of standing
.bn 019.png
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high in the estimation of the girls down-town than
in that of the professors. The great handicap under
which an English student labours at the college is the
fact that he has no practical knowledge of farming
while he is trying to learn the technical and scientific
part. I could not, for instance, appreciate duly the
fact that there were over a hundred different varieties
of wheat, when I could not tell wheat from barley
growing in the fields. At a live-stock examination I
once attended, the examiner had two sheep in the
room. “Now,” he said, “here are a Cotswold and
a Shropshire ram; I want you to give me what are
the best points of each class, and then try to find
them on the rams in front of you.” I had all the
good points of both sheep as per text-book on the tip
of my tongue, and got them off in good style, and
then proceeded to demonstrate them on the specimens
in front of me. When I got through, the examiner
said, “Very good indeed, but unfortunately the one
you are describing as a Cotswold is the Shropshire,
and vice versa.” And the worst of it is, that to this day
I do not know if he was joking or not, as he gave
me a “pass.”
The college could accommodate about two hundred
students, most of whom boarded inside, though this
was optional. The course was of three years for the
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degree of B.S.A.—Bachelor of the Science of Agriculture.
They also used to give a certificate at the
end of the second year for those students who could
not complete a full course. The first year’s work
was to a large extent general education, for the benefit
of the farmers’ lads, being courses in literature, mathematics,
and chemistry, though there were also lectures
on agriculture, dairy-work, and veterinary science.
The lectures were in the mornings and every alternate
afternoon, the other afternoons being filled with
practical work on the farm, for which the students
were paid, according to their ability, from 1 cent to
10 cents per hour. The second year there is more of
agriculture, chemistry, veterinary science, &c., and
less of other matters; and the same applies to the
third year. During the long holidays from June to
September the students who so desire can remain
and work on the farm under pay. This enables
students practically to pay their way through college
without assistance from their people. The college
farm consists of some 600 acres, some 200 of which are
under cultivation, though a large tract of this is given
up to experimental work with different kinds of grains,
different admixtures of soils, &c. The college also
grows all varieties of fruits and flowers that do well
in that climate. They have fine specimens of the
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different breeds of cattle, hogs, and sheep, for use in
the lecture-rooms; also a splendidly equipped dairy,
where cheese- and butter-making is taught.
For the athletic side of education there was a fine
gymnasium and swimming-pool, and a recreation field
for football, baseball, &c. Here, we English students
were in our element, and, so far as I remember, during
the two sessions I attended lectures at the college the
football club was almost entirely composed of Englishmen,
though there were some fine Canadian players in
the team also. The students were supposed to be fed
entirely on the products of the farm, and the meals
were certainly unequalled in any hotel in the city.
Still we kicked on general principles, as men do almost
everywhere. On one occasion the boys thought they
were getting rhubarb-pie and rhubarb-pudding too
frequently, and sent up a note to that effect to the
president, who, of course, ignored it altogether. Then,
of course, it became a matter of honour that the
rhubarb should stop, and next morning there was
not a plant of rhubarb growing on the college grounds.
It cost the students a fine of $1 per head, but every
one was happy.
The college was supported by the government of the
province, which at that time was of the “Grit” or
Liberal party, and the students were all enthusiastic
.bn 022.png
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politicians whenever they could get off in the evening
to attend a political meeting. I remember one
night I was on my way to a dance, but was prevailed
upon to go first to a political meeting with
the boys. When we arrived, one hundred strong, at
the City Hall, we were refused admittance. But,
putting the football team at the head of the wedge,
we soon arrived close up to the stage. On either side
of the stage were hoses and nozzles for use in case of
fire, and some brilliant genius took one down and
turned it on us. Then the fun really began, for we
stormed the stage, got hold of both hoses, and watered
up that assembly good and plenty. We were most
of us pretty damp, and I know, as I clambered down
a fire-escape, that my shirt front was not in condition
for a ballroom.
Our president, Mr. Mills, was one of the finest men
I have ever come across, and the boys all thought
a great deal of him. There was a door between the
college and his private house, and he used to say that
he never allowed college matters to pass that door.
No matter what trouble you got into in the college,
you were always a welcome guest in the president’s
house. I early got into the bad graces of the Professor
of Agriculture, who had no love for English
students, and the word was passed to the farm-foreman
.bn 023.png
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to see that no easy jobs came our way. This
finally led to my rustication. I had been invited
out to an “At Home” one evening, and that afternoon
happened to be hoeing sugar-beets when the farm-foreman
came along. I asked him to let me off early,
so that I could wash and change my clothes. He,
thinking to be sarcastic by giving what he thought
to be an impossible task for me, said, “You can go
when you have hoed five more rows.” I asked him to
mark them out, and then started in to make the
weeds fly, and, incidentally, some beets also. I got
through about five o’clock, shouldered my hoe, and
started home, when I met the foreman. He asked
me where I was going, and I told him I was through.
He came back and found it as I had said, and then
told me to go back to work, as he was only joking.
I told him I did not understand jokes of this sort,
and started off. Then he lost his temper, ran after
me, and tried to use force to stop me. He was, of
course, much stronger than I was, but, unfortunately,
did not know how to handle himself; so after a short
session I went on my way rejoicing. When I returned
to my room that night I found a note from the agricultural
professor—who was in charge, as the president
was away—giving me twenty-four hours to clear
out, for insubordination and assaulting my superior.
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
I borrowed a tent, and went into camp. One of my
friends down-town happened to be a big political
gun, and the next time I was at his house he asked
me all about it. I told him the facts, and within a
week I got a letter from the Minister of Agriculture
asking for proofs, which I forwarded in the shape of
letters from other students who had been working
with me at the time. By return mail I got a letter
ordering my reinstatement; and the next morning,
when I applied for my old room it was given me
without more ado.
Guelph has two Volunteer Artillery companies, one
filled with students from the college, and one with town
boys, four guns to each battery. I joined the college
battery, and after a couple of months of steady drill in
Guelph we were taken out to camp at Niagara, on the
lake near the falls. There were five or six other batteries
there also, some cavalry, and some infantry. One day
while standing listening to the band I got into conversation
with an artilleryman from Welland, and after some
talk found, to my astonishment, that he had been a
room-mate of mine at Westward Ho. Since then I have
met two or three other boys from the old school. It was
wonderful how quickly they licked us into shape, for the
Canadian lads are, like the Americans of the south and
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west, natural soldiers, being bright, intelligent, anxious
to learn, and able to stand considerable hardship—as
was proven in the Riel rebellion, and also, I think, in
Africa, where some of my old Guelph friends went.
That the college turned out good men is proved in
the person of the president. He had worked his way
through college practically without assistance from his
people, took his degree at the head of his class, and
with it a professorship in the Mississippi Agricultural
College. Then, after various other positions, he was
selected as president of his former college on the retirement
of our old head.
I would advise no young English lad to go to the
college until he has worked at least a year or two on
some Canadian farm to get the practical knowledge
necessary to really get the good out of his college course.
He should also have the rudiments of a good general
education. Here I might mention that the college did
not teach spelling; in this country it is not thought as
much of as in England, and nearly all Americans are
bad spellers. For instance, the business man who, on
reading about Roosevelt’s spelling reform, said that he
could not see anything new about it, as that was the way
he had spelled all his life! If here and in other places
I seem to roast Americans, they must not be offended,
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
as it is meant in all good nature; and they must also
remember that I have been roasted by them for the
past sixteen years, and this is the first time I have
had a chance to get back at them without giving them
a chance to answer me.
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.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER II
.pm start_summary
Calgary—A Cow-puncher—"Roping"—Life on a Ranch—A
Calgary Hail-storm—“Gun-plays” and "Bad-men"—Sarci
Indians.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Leaving the Agricultural College at Guelph on the
start of the summer holidays of 1891, I took advantage
of settlers’ cheap rates and went to Calgary, at the
foot of the Rockies, to try and get some practical
experience. After drifting round for a week, I found
that green Englishmen were at a discount, but finally
managed to get work with a Mr. Berney, who owned
two ranches, one within three miles of town, and
the other on Pine Creek, about thirty-eight miles out.
Mr. Berney asked if I could ride, and on my saying
yes, told one of the boys to bring out Bill and saddle
him. I noticed all the family (consisting of four
grown girls and two boys) and most of the men loitering
round in front when I proceeded to mount, but
thought nothing of it at the time. I rode Bill out a
mile or so, circled him at a good speed, and rattled
him up to the house, trying to show off, as a young
lad will, in front of the girls; but I noticed they all
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
looked very disappointed. After this trial I moved
my baggage, and was duly installed, and Bill was
turned over to me as a saddle-horse. I found out a
month later the meaning of the trial and the girls’
disappointment. I had come in from town, taken
off my saddle, and proceeded to ride Bill down to
the creek to water; I had on a pair of box spurs
(which are taboo in the cattle country), and, coming
up the steep bank, I happened to touch Bill with one
of the spurs, and the next second I knew what bucking
meant. Luckily the ground was soft. George
Berney told me then that the horse had originally
belonged to a livery stable in town much frequented
by cow-punchers, where, originally a bad bucker, he
had been trained by means of cockleburrs put under
his saddle blanket to become an expert. Every young
man who came to the stable looking for a mount, and
bragged of his riding, was given Bill. But one day a
young Englishman, who insisted on saddling and
doing for himself, rode Bill to a standstill, and in an
English saddle! So Bill was sold for a song to Mr.
Berney, and the family had hoped to see some fun
when I mounted; only it happened to be Bill’s day off.
I moved to the out-ranch, and learned to do many
kinds of work, and found out that on a ranch one did
many things besides ride, such as building log corrals
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
seven feet high and sixty feet across, with two wings
to guide the cattle right to the gate.
I built cattle stables, horse stables, and fences all
out of logs of spruce, and during the five months I
was there I broke twelve or fourteen horses to the
saddle. None were very bad, and I was never thrown
again in Calgary, though I had a rather nasty experience
with a half-broken mare. She was seven
years old, and had never had a rope on her, but in a
couple of weeks, during odd times, I broke her and
thought she was gentle. Her only fault had been
rearing, and she never bucked or kicked. One day
I put on my best tight riding-breeches and top-boots,
and started off to show her to some friends of mine
on Sheep Creek, about sixteen miles away. About a
mile from our shack I had to cross Pine Creek, which
has high steep banks, but luckily very little water.
Going up the opposite bank the mare suddenly took
it into her head to rear, and the next instant we were
off the bank and into the creek. I fell clear on my
feet; but the mare, falling square on her back, had
buried the horn and pommel of the saddle in the
bottom of the creek, and could not turn over. I
grabbed her head, and could just keep her muzzle
out of the water, though the rest of her was under.
I shouted and shouted, and emptied my pistol, and
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
did all I knew to attract attention, till finally, after
about twenty minutes which seemed hours, the local
scout of the mounted police came to see what was
up, and helped me to get the mare out. My clothes
were a sight, and I split the knees of my riding-breeches
as I fell.
I had learned to rope fairly well on foot, but never
made much of a success of it on horseback. By the
way, the word “lasso” is never heard in the cattle
country; the phrase is “roping.” After I had learned
to rope stumps, and could catch Bill two throws out
of three, I began to think I was a star. I went to a
local round-up on Pine Creek, and went into the
corral to get out a mare and yearling colt that belonged
to us. I was rather nervous after I once was
in, but made my throw after the approved fashion
from the ground, and to my amazement captured the
mare and colt in the same loop. I had a gay ten
minutes; but some of the boys, after they got through
laughing, came to my assistance, roped the mare by
the legs, threw her, and got my rope off. In a corral
it is not permissible to whirl a rope round your head,
as it frightens the animals, but the throw must be
made from the ground, where the coil is spread out.
Only in Buffalo Bill shows, where it gives more flourish
to the proceedings, and sometimes when roping from
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
a horse at the gallop, is this done—i.e. whirling the
rope—and I have seen good ropers, both in Canada
and Texas, even in the latter case trail a rope behind
and throw it with one forward swing. Another point
about ropes is never to tie one to the horn of your
saddle while riding, if you have anything at the other
end. I had gone out one day to bring in a two-year-old
heifer from a neighbouring ranch. After getting
my rope on her horns, I took one turn round the horn
of my saddle, and proceeded to pull her home, she
protesting. After we had gone a few miles she quieted
down, and I thought I would take a smoke. I tied
my rope in two half-hitches to the horn of my saddle,
got out my tobacco and papers, and proceeded to
make a cigarette. Just then simultaneously my horse
stopped dead and the heifer circled me on the dead
run, and I could not get the brute of a horse to turn.
I cut away the rope before it cut me in two, and
gained another experience at the cost of a fine waxed
linen rope and a sore waistband.
My life on the ranch was far from being all hard
work, and so it is on most ranches, though probably
I was more favourably situated than most, owing to
the owner having a large family who were fond of
amusement and could well afford it. We had picnics,
surprise parties, and dances, in all of which we hands
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
had our share, being treated as members of the family.
The work, of course, was not neglected on these occasions,
but so arranged as not to interfere, and if some
one had to stay behind we took it in turns. The
theory of a surprise party is as follows. A number
of young people arrange to have a party at a certain
person’s house; all the edibles are cooked beforehand
and taken along by the guests, and the hosts are
taken by surprise. But so many accidents occurred,
such as the hosts going to bed early, or, worse, going
out and locking up the house, that in practice notice
is generally given to the hosts of the proposed surprise
a couple of days beforehand. The people in the West
are most hospitable—in fact, this applies to a great
extent to all Canada. A stranger is always taken on
trust till he proves himself unworthy. Riding past
any ranch-house near a meal-time, the owner will call
you to come in and eat, if he is at home. Should he
be out, however, you will generally come across a
note like the following pinned to the door: “Have
gone ... will be back ... the key is under the
stone to the right of the steps. Go in and make yourself
at home.” This I have often done, hunting out his
grub and cooking what I needed; and on one occasion,
getting caught out at night, I fed my horse, ate
supper, and went to bed. I woke up when the owner
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
returned, smoked and talked with him (a complete
stranger) till he was undressed, and turned in again
till morning. In the morning you get up, help with
the chores (odd jobs such as feeding the stable animals),
have breakfast, saddle up, and depart.
Calgary is a beautiful place on the slope of the
foothills, at an elevation of about 3400 feet, rather
cold in winter, but delightful in the summer and fall.
On the out-ranch, however, where there was a lot of
timber, the winged pests—mosquitoes, gnats, horse-
and deer-flies—made work in the woods very trying,
more especially the two latter, whose bite will draw
blood every time. The surrounding country, especially
out towards Fort McLeod, is full of immense sloughs,
where the wild slough grass will often grow to a height
of five feet, and as much as 1000 tons can be cut off
a single slough. But haying is made hard work by
the gnats and mosquitoes.
It was while haying that I first saw a Calgary hailstorm.
George Berney was running the hay-rack
(which consists of an immense crate on wheels, so that
it can be loaded and handled by one man) and I was
raking, when, looking up, I saw terrible blue-black
clouds rolling up the valley towards us, for all the
world like Atlantic rollers. I shouted to George,
lifted the rake, and headed for the house, about a mile
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
away. By the time we had the horses safely in the
stable and got over to the shack, the storm reached
us. I have never seen its equal before or since. We
could hear the roar of the hail long before it reached
us, and when it did reach the clapboard roof it was
deafening. One stone we measured was eight and
a half inches in circumference, and seemed composed
of about a dozen smaller ones congealed together.
We had about twenty chickens killed; and
some people lost heavily, losing even colts, calves, and
pigs. The oat-crop, which was being harvested at
the time, was so cut to bits and driven into the ground
that not even straw was saved.
My first experience in Calgary was with the mounted
police, for as we stopped at the station three policemen
boarded our tourist sleeping-car, and while one
stood guard at each door, the third walked over to
one of the seats, lifted the spring cushion, and pulled
out from the recess underneath a 2½-gallon keg of
whisky. He asked the porter if it was his, and then
asked every passenger, but all denied any knowledge
of it. It was then taken outside, the head knocked
out, and the whisky emptied on the ground. Of
course the police had received previous notice from
some one, possibly the very man who had sold it and
knew its destination.
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
This prohibition of whisky, combined with the
mounted police, has kept the North-West Territories
from becoming, like Montana and Texas, a land full
of “gun-plays” and “bad-men.” Not but what
there has been whisky smuggled in in carloads of
kerosene cans; there have also been “gun-plays”
and “bad-men,” but they are the exception and not
the rule, as further south. How easily a “bad-man”
is made the following will show. A young fellow,
well known and well liked round Calgary, got on a
spree, and, after mounting his horse, proceeded yelling
down the street. A city policeman (distinct from the
mounted police) tried to arrest him. The puncher
(cowboy) took down his rope, and galloping past the
officer, roped him, and dragged him down the street
at the end of the rope; finally he dropped the rope and
rode off, leaving the officer seriously hurt. So far,
only a Western version of what the university students
used to do to the English police. But the sequel was
different. The young fellow, instead of coming in
the next morning, giving himself up, and taking his
medicine, took to the hills, and it was up to the
mounted police to bring him in. The open-house
system I have mentioned before made it easy for him
to live. But living in the hills and being hunted is
demoralising, and the next thing was a “hold-up”
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
of the Edmonton stage, for funds to leave the country,
in which a man was killed. A reward was then
offered for him, and people were warned not to harbour
him. He was finally killed one night in town, shot
from behind as he stood against the lighted window
of a saloon looking in. Whether he was killed for the
reward—which the killer was afterwards afraid to
claim because of the young man’s friends—or whether
it was a private grudge, no one ever knew, as the man
who did it never came forward; or possibly he was
killed for the money he took off the stage.
There is something peculiar about the air of the
West which makes a man take readily to a gun and
wish to be a law unto himself; but it is a strange
fact that the worst “gun-men” the West has produced
were easterners, and generally city-bred.
Though in this case the mounted police had no success,
they are generally on the spot when needed, as I saw
on the Calgary racecourse one day. One of the onlookers
called one of the jockeys a thief, and accused
him of pulling a horse in the race. He had hardly
finished speaking when the jockey, riding close up
to the fence, slipped his stirrup-strap, and cut him over
the head with the stirrup. They were both punchers,
and their friends took it up, and two or three guns
were drawn. But before anything occurred three
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
mounted police rode up; one arrested the jockey,
and the sight of the others soon restored peace.
The doctor for the Sarci Indian reservation, near
Calgary, was Mr. Berney’s son-in-law. During the
Riel rebellion the Sarci head chief promised that none
of his bucks should go out; but, unfortunately, he
fell sick, and the young bucks began to get restive,
though as long as he was alive they did not dare to
disobey the old chief. Dr. George told me he never
had a case in his life where so much depended on his
keeping his patient alive. However, the old man
pulled through, and only a few stragglers joined the
rebellion; had he died, Calgary would have been in
the greatest danger. These Indians are a lazy, dirty
lot, but have wonderful natural endurance. A mounted
policeman told me of a chase an Indian on foot led
him and a mounted comrade. They ran him eight
miles before they captured him, and only twice did
they get within roping distance of him, when he dodged
like a rabbit. After leading them over the roughest
ground he could find, he finally circled to where there
was a herd of Indian ponies grazing, as his last chance.
But one of the policemen headed off and stampeded
the ponies, while the other, getting within striking
distance, knocked the Indian down. The Blackfeet,
though, are the only really troublesome Indians, as
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
they are such inveterate thieves. A homesteader on
the head of Sheep Creek came home one night to find
his door-lock broken and all the food in the house
carried off. While investigating, he found in a “draw”
close to the house a camp of eight Blackfeet bucks enjoying
his provisions. He kept his temper, and picking
up what he could carry, took it up to the house. About
his third trip he found out that the Indians were
playing with him, for as fast as he could carry the
stuff up they were carrying it back to the tepee. Then
he lost his temper, and instead of going over to the
nearest police scout and reporting the matter, he
thought he would play a lone hand and scare the
Indians. He pulled out his pistol, and throwing back
the flap of the tepee, fired in two or three shots, without
being very particular whether he hit any one or not.
Unfortunately he killed one of them, and the others
ran, being unarmed except for their knives. As soon
as he realised what he had done, he caught his horse,
came into town, and gave himself up. The police
hustled him off to Regina, and that night his house
was burned and his stock killed.
Of course the Calgary I am speaking about was
Calgary of 1891, a town of about 5000 people; now
it is a city of nearly 20,000, and the surrounding
country is fast becoming a farming instead of a
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
ranching section. Large irrigation works have been
completed, and land is too valuable for grazing. The
Indians mentioned here are very different from those
to be seen in the States—for instance, at Pipestone,
Minnesota. There the Indians used to hold their
“truce of God” and smoked the pipe of peace, and
they still frequent those rocks and hawk the pipes
and other curios of soap-stone. But how changed
from the braves of Ruxton and Cooper and Reid!
The proud Pawnee now looks more like the degraded
“digger Indians” of Mayne Reid! In the Dominion,
however, the Indians have not been crushed as in
the States; they were still formidable at the time
of the Riel revolt some twenty years ago, and they
can hold their own even
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER III
.pm start_summary
Road-agents—“Roping” contests—Broncho-busting—Strathclair—A
blizzard—Lumber camps.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Montana, just across the line from Fort McLeod, was
for years an example of what the North-West Territories
might have been if it had not been for the
mounted police and prohibition. There, in its earlier
days, gun-men and even road-agents flourished, and
killings were of everyday occurrence. In fact, at
one time in Virginia City the sheriff, Plummer, was at
the head of a band of organised road-agents which
terrorised the country. Finally, the people rose in
desperation, and following the example of California,
formed a society of Vigilantes, and hanged all the
bad-men, including the sheriff. Most of these men
when cornered died like curs, but there were individuals,
like George Sears, who at least knew how
to die. When he was taken to the place of execution,
he asked for time to pray, which was allowed him.
Afterwards he made a short speech, in which he said
he deserved his fate, but his contempt of death showed
when requested to climb up the ladder which was to
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
serve as a drop. He said, “Gentlemen, please excuse
my awkwardness, as I have not had any experience.
Am I to jump off or just slide off?”
In Montana, Indian Territory, and Texas, great
roping contests are organised every year, and cow-punchers
flock from all over the United States and
Canada to try for the very valuable prizes that are
offered. In San Antonio, Texas, some years ago was
held a great contest for the championship of the
world, in which the first prize was $6000 (£1237);
silver-mounted saddles, gold-mounted pistols, and
other prizes were also offered. The steers used in
these contests are the very wildest that can be got.
They are held in a large corral, and turned out singly
through a gate in a chute. One hundred and fifty
feet back from this gate sits the cow-puncher on his
horse, with his rope coiled and one end tied to his
saddle-horn. The minute the steer is clear of the
chute he can start. He must rope and throw the
steer, and tie three of its legs together in such a way
that it cannot rise. As much or more depends on the
horse than on the man, and some of these cow-ponies
are truly wonderful. Out comes the steer with a rush,
and away goes the puncher after him with his rope
whirling. He makes his throw, the rope settles over
the steer’s horns, and as it does so the pony stops
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
dead, sticking out his feet in front and bracing himself
for the shock. The rope grows taut along the
steer’s flank, his head is jerked round, and down he
goes. Meanwhile the puncher, as his pony stops,
drops off and reaches the steer almost as it hits the
ground, with his tie-rope in his hands; and while the
steer lies for an instant half-stunned, he deftly makes
a hitch over three legs with what is known as a hog-knot,
jumps to his feet, and throws up his hands
as a sign that he is through. The pony, without rider,
can be depended upon to keep the steer down by
constantly side-stepping to keep the rope taut if the
steer attempts to rise.
At El Paso, during the roping contests there, Clay
McConagill did this feat in the wonderful time of
21½ seconds, counting from the time the steer left
the chute till Clay’s hands were in the air. He is the
champion Texas roper, and holds the world’s record
for a single tie. But in a long-distance contest held
in San Antonio he was beaten by Ellison Carrol of
Oklahoma, who tied in this manner twenty-eight
consecutive steers in 18 minutes and 58½ seconds, or
an average of 40⅗ seconds each, one of these ties
being made in 22 seconds flat, or within ½ second of
the record. One who has not seen these contests can
hardly form an idea of the speed and skill both of
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
horse and man necessary to accomplish such a feat as
this, or of the excitement among the audience of cattlemen,
all of whom, being good riders and ropers themselves,
can appreciate every move made. There is
considerable risk also attached to it. For instance,
a friend of mine had the misfortune to get a coil of
his rope round his arm as he threw, and as the rope
drew taut it cut his hand off at the wrist; and yet
he had been born and raised on a ranch! The S.P.C.A.
are now trying, if they have not already succeeded,
to put a stop to these contests on the ground of cruelty
to the steers. But I can see no sense in this, for
steers are roped and thrown every day in this manner
on the ranch, during the season of the screw-worm
fly, in order to kill the worms with carbolic and
chloroform, and they do not seem to be very much
hurt; and this is where the puncher gets his practice
in the course of his work.
Great broncho-busting (horse-breaking) contests are
also held in different parts of the West, where the
worst horses from all over the country are brought
for the men to try on. In these contests, if a man
lay hand on any part of his saddle, or tries to lock his
big spurs into the girth of the saddle, he is disqualified.
At one of these contests, Sowder, one-time champion,
for a bet drank a bottle of soda-water, without spilling
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
a drop, while his horse was bucking. Some horses
develop a devilish ingenuity in trying to get rid of
their riders. They will buck straight ahead, and
suddenly, while in the air, make a twist and turn
almost end for end by the time they land. They will
buck and twist first one way and then the other alternately,
squealing all the time with impotent rage.
There used to be a big negro in Calgary called Uncle
Tom, who never seemed so happy as when on a bad
horse. When his horse bucked, his face would suddenly
open back to the ears in a grin, and he would
holloa, "Dere’s de boy, good boy"; and when the
horse tired, he would pull off his hat and whack it
over the head and flank.
When I left Calgary, I took a flying trip home,
and on my return decided to go up to Strathclair
and look over our land there. I was met by
W. Geekie, a neighbour, who took me over to his
house to stay; but as my movements were uncertain,
it was decided to leave my trunks at the
station for a few days. Geekie, I found, was all prepared
to start off on a trip, hauling provisions up
to a lumber camp near Lake Winnipegosis, so I offered
to accompany him and drive one of the teams. This
was in mid-November, and the cold was bitter, but
with a good fur coat over a pilot jacket I expected
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
to be all right. We started out the next morning,
five big freight-sledges and a jumper (small home-made
sledge) for the provisions and bedding, six men all
told, and five gallons of whisky for the eight-day
trip. Strathclair with the surrounding country is a
settlement of Highlanders, and they were as hardy a lot
of men as I have ever come across, but very clannish.
I had two or three “Black Angus” steer hides tanned
with the hair on for lap-robes, but found that, in
order to be comfortable, I had every few miles to
drop off and flounder through the snow to start a
good circulation. The others mostly used whisky for
the same purpose.
We encountered one blizzard on the trip, and I
found out that they are not so black as they are
painted, for directly the snow commenced to fall, the
temperature rose, though the wind was very disagreeable.
The flying snow, however, made it impossible
to proceed for fear of losing the way, so we
pitched camp in a clump of tamaracs. We slept out
some of the nights, and the experience is not so bad
as might be expected, provided you can get plenty of
spruce-boughs and a place sheltered from the wind.
Steer-hides and spruce-boughs make a very comfortable
and warm bed if you pull in your head like a turtle.
If I had a very great enemy, I would wish him a
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
job in a lumber camp, if they are all like the one
we went to. A long house of one room, about 20
feet by 30 feet, with bunks built up on the walls; one
door as the only opening for ventilation; a large
cook-stove in the centre, which was always full of
wood, and served the double purpose of heating and
cooking. In this room lived about twenty men—French
Canadians, half-breed Indians, and other conglomerations.
Here they cooked, ate, slept, washed,
and dried their clothes steaming against the stove,
and cursed if the door was opened for a minute. After
seeing a decrepit Irish cook dropping ashes and nicotine
from his pipe into the food he was preparing for
supper, I fed outside, and stayed out during the
night and part of a day we remained there. I doubt
if these men washed their bodies during an entire
winter. Such a state of affairs would not be tolerated
even on a “Stag” cattle-ranch, and I have seen
a dirty cowboy taken out by his fellows, stripped and
scrubbed, and the operation never had to be repeated;
nor could he resent it, as he could not fight the entire
ranch.
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IV
.pm start_summary
An injured knee—The "Laird"—Kit destroyed by fire—Hunting
round Strathclair—Trapping—“Batching.”
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I may here record a little experience I had in
Calgary, which, while it turned out all right in the
end, caused me considerable excitement at the time.
I and George Berney were batching at the out-ranch
on Pine Creek, getting out black poplar posts for a
fence we were building at the home ranch. We used
to take it in turns every couple of weeks to go into
town with the wagon for the mail and provisions,
taking in a load of posts at the same time. On one
of these occasions, when it was George’s turn to go,
he told me he was going to stay in town for a couple
of days to go to some entertainment or other that
was coming on. He left at dawn, and I took my broad-axe
and went out to square up some logs we were
dressing for a grain-house we were going to build.
After I had been working some little time my axe
glanced off a small knot, and the heel of the blade
went into the hollow inside the left knee, just below
the knee-cap. I must mention that I am a left-handed
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
chopper—that is, I hold the butt of the axe-handle in
my left hand, and so work on the left side of the log
I am standing over. The cut was not very serious,
though for a moment it numbed my leg. However,
I went over to the house and bound it up, and stopped
my chopping for the time being. In a couple of hours
my leg had swollen to twice its normal size and
throbbed furiously, and by noon I could not walk
without considerable trouble. By afternoon I was
considerably worried, being young and inexperienced
at the time, as I could not expect George back till
about the evening of the fourth day, and my nearest
neighbours were two miles away; and by night I
had it all figured out that I was due to cash in my
checks. That night and the next morning I used
my gun to try and attract attention, but no one
heard me. But about four o’clock in the afternoon
I heard a wagon coming up our trail, and soon was
delighted to recognise our own horses, and George
driving. Some matter of importance in connection
with the sale of some horses had turned up, and his
father had bundled him back to attend to it. The
team was too tired (having done seventy-six miles,
half of the way loaded, in two days) to make the
return trip that night. I would not wait till morning;
and as we had no other driving team, George caught
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
my horse and saddled him, and, by dint of wrapping
and rolling my leg up in plenty of cloth and slipping
on my leather “chapps,” I made the thirty-eight
miles into town to Dr. George, who soon had me up
and around again.
Now to return to Strathclair and Manitoba, about
which I was writing. On our return from the lumber
camp we made a detour, and stopped one night at
Charlie Geekie’s house. He was the eldest of four
brothers who were settled in the neighbourhood; he
was known as the Laird, and was at the time I mention
reeve of the township (a sort of mayor); a fine
old Highlander he was, too. I drove a jumper, with
a five-gallon keg of whisky in the hind end, in his
interests during the election, which happened to be
held while I was there; but, unfortunately, he was
beaten. During the evening that we stayed at his
house, which was perched up on a hill, some one
noticed a glare of fire in the direction of Strathclair,
which was about ten miles off. But as we were too
far off to do any good, and it was late, we decided
not to go in till morning. How some nights stick in
one’s memory! That is one I shall not easily forget—the
red-hot stove, the deafening squeal of the bagpipes,
played by the laird (who was an immense,
bushy-haired and bushy-bearded man). He was a
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
sight to see as he pranced up and down, full of whisky
and music. This he and his brother alternated with
old Scotch songs and ballads, while we refreshed ourselves
with whisky, which we drank out of polished
horn cups. One of these the laird gave me, which
I kept as a memento for many years after. Horn, he
told me, was the proper vessel to drink out of, as
no one but yourself could know the size of your tot!
In the morning we went on to Strathclair, to find
that the fire had been in the railroad station, which
was burned to the ground, including the station-master’s
house and the freight warehouse. All my
trunks were lost, and I had nothing left but the clothes
I stood in, my rifle, shot-gun, and a few things I had
in a gladstone bag. This necessitated my return to
Guelph to replenish my wardrobe; but Geekie was
pressing in his invitation to stay on a few weeks, and
draw on him for anything I needed in the way of
clothes.
The hunting round Strathclair was very good, there
being plenty of rabbits, prairie chickens in myriads,
and a few miles north, in the timber country, plenty
of moose, elk, and spruce partridge; while on the
prairie there was plenty of fun to be had shooting wolves,
coyotes, and foxes for their pelts, and in trying to
trap them. I say trying to trap them, as I put in a
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
week at the game, trying every device I had ever
read or heard of, and only succeeded in catching one
coyote in a trap. However, I poisoned a good many,
using a rabbit for a drag on horseback, and dropping
baits at intervals; but in this method there is considerable
trouble in finding your game after you have
poisoned them, as they will sometimes travel miles
from where they picked up the bait, and trailing on
hard snow is slow work. The most satisfactory way
is to shoot them, and I got more this way than any
other, but it means heavy walking in the snow.
Geekie had a fine larder, such as is only found up in
that country. It consisted of an unchinked log-house,
in which hung, while I was there, three sides of moose
and simply hundreds of prairie chicken and spruce
partridge, uncleaned and unplucked, but frozen as
hard as a rock. This was his winter’s meat supply.
I heard a story there, in regard to being careful while
trapping, about a poor old man who made a living
trapping, and who was accidentally found with both
his hands caught in a trap he had been setting, and
which was chained to a log. He had been dead a
couple of days when found, from the cold. No one
will ever know how such a man, who had spent years
at the business, came to be caught.
Manitoba is not all prairie, nor timberless, as so many
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
people imagine. In the west and the south are immense
stretches of country, dead level, and with hardly a tree;
but north, on the Manitoba North-Western Railroad towards
Strathclair, the country is rolling, and there
are patches of timber, mostly small. Still farther
north the country gets quite hilly, and there are large
stretches of fine timber. It is all capital wheat country,
and also good for cattle, the only drawback being
occasional summer frosts and poor means of transport,
though this latter will soon be remedied by the advent
of the new Grand Trunk Railway which is building
across the country; and also, as I understand, the
Hudson Bay Railway is finally to be built. The
country, however, is far from beautiful.
The people dispense hospitality with a lavish hand
so far as they are able. The accounts of toasting
and drinking in India in the early days remind me
of a dance I attended near Strathclair, where the
host, having lost the use of his legs, lay propped up
in his bed (his bedroom being used by the men for
their wraps and coats), with a keg of whisky on a
chair by his side. There he lay in state, not too far
gone still to dispense his hospitality and drink with
every one who came into the room. After a few
weeks’ stay I left Manitoba and returned to the
college at Guelph. In the spring of 1893 I started
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
for Chicago, really to begin the earning of my own
living.
The expression “batching,” mentioned before,
means men doing for themselves—a rough business
out West. Exhausted with labour, the man comes in,
has a wash, cuts and toasts some rashers, prepares
scones, half-burnt, half-raw, from the barrel of flour
in the corner, and brews coffee. He had no time in
the morning to sweep or to make his bed. There it is,
some tumbled blankets in a box of straw; and after
a pipe he rolls into it, to sleep like a log till habit
wakes him an hour before dawn to split wood, fetch
water, light a fire, and prepare his meal as before.
Such was the ménage of the young Lincolnshire men
referred to in the first of these experiences. Such
was the life which awaited myself but for the fire
which destroyed, not my trunk only, but my farming
outfit, and made me abandon the idea of exploiting
my land in Strathclair. But if Western farming life
is hard for men, what is it for women who are not
to the manner born? The natives can stand it, also
the Russian, Scandinavian, and German immigrants,
all of the labouring classes. But “back to the land”
is madness for well-nurtured Englishwomen; better
the shop, or even domestic service.
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER V
.pm start_summary
Chicago—American Business Methods—Work as a Carbonator—Chicago
Fair—“Hard-luck” Stories—Remittance-men.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Chicago, which lays claim to having the largest in
everything, whether it be drainage canals, skyscrapers,
slaughter-houses, or the amount of railroad traffic, is
certainly a wonderful city.
The first thing that strikes any one on arrival is
the hurry and rush. Everybody seems to be going
somewhere in a terrible hurry, but after you have
been there a few months you find yourself getting
into the same habit. My first position—i.e., appointment
as distinguished from job—I got through a
friend, a Mr. Bole, of New York, who gave me a letter
to the Chicago Great Western Railway, where I
secured a post in the claims department of that road.
Here I worked two months, and drew the large salary
for a beginner of $50 per month. Then there came
a change of management, and out I went along with
hundreds of others. Here, let me remark, lies one
of the curses of American business methods. A new
head of a department, new manager, or new president
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
in any corporation, generally means a change of men
all the way down the line, as all of them have men
of their own to fill the places. So that generally a
superintendent, manager, or president has a set of
men that follow him around from place to place.
These are his henchmen, and he sees that they get
places where he is. They are, of course, efficient,
and men he can trust, and whom, therefore, he wants
near him; but what of the poor devils that are ousted?
Of course none of this applied to my case, as I got
my position through pull (recommendation), though
I had to hold it down myself, and naturally went as
soon as my pull went. But I have known many
cases where there was much hardship and wrong done.
I know a man who worked twenty-six years for one
railroad corporation, working his way up from brakeman
to divisional superintendent, which position he
held during the four years I knew him; a harder
worker and a finer man I never knew. A new president
was elected from another railroad, and this
man and five other divisional superintendents were
forced to resign in the first three weeks of the new
reign, to make way for men off the railroad from
which the new president had come.
Long service can claim no reward as in England,
and that is why there is not the same loyalty of the
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
men to their employers as there; and that is why a
man is always ready to leave one firm and give his
work and the experience he has gained to an opposition
firm, provided there are any inducements offered.
However, the main thing was to get another job,
and I was lucky enough to hear of one almost at
once. The firm who had the soda-water concession
at the fair-grounds were looking for carbonators, and
were offering $3 per day; so I hastened to apply.
I had not the remotest idea what the work consisted
of, but in America that is not considered a bar to a
man applying for any job. When I was shown into
the august presence, he snapped out, “What do
you want?” I replied, “Job as a carbonator.” He
scribbled on a piece of paper, handed it to me, and
said, “Report Monday, office electrical building,” and
I was duly hired. Luckily, he was too busy to ask
me for any references. The next thing was to find
out what I was hired to do. So off I went to the
fair-ground, and looked around till I saw some men
installing a soda-fountain in one of the buildings.
These I asked where I could find one of the carbonators,
and, getting the desired information, I looked the
man up, got into conversation, and, finding him a
decent sort of fellow, proceeded to explain to him
the situation, and offered him $5 if he would show
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
me the work and teach me enough to pass inspection
the Monday following. He started right in, and I
spent the rest of the time with him, learning to rock
the cradle, handle the gas-tanks, and watch the
pressure-gauge—in fact, all the secrets of carbonating.
On Monday I reported for duty, and was given a section
of about a hundred tanks, which I was supposed to
keep charged. The company had about two hundred
soda-fountains in the grounds, and about twelve
hundred tanks scattered all through the buildings.
I have a natural bent for mechanics, and also great
good luck, and I was soon able to carbonate with
any of them. In fact, I got quite “cocky” about it,
till one day my pride got a fall, and under unfortunate
circumstances. The firm who had the concession
were wholesale liquor dealers, and one of them who
had taken a fancy to me (the reason I will explain
later) would sometimes stop and talk to me if he
met me on my rounds. Well, one day I was just
going down into the basement of one of the buildings
to charge some tanks, when he came along. So as
not to delay me, he came down into the basement
with me, to talk while I worked. We were in the
midst of a great discussion while I happened to be
screwing the cap into one of the tanks, and being so
interested in the conversation I was careless, and did
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
not notice that the cap had “cross-threaded,” and
that, when I thought it tight, only about two or
three threads were holding. I opened the gas-tank
cock and commenced rocking, talking all the time
while watching the gauge. I had almost got it to
140 lbs. pressure (which was the pressure we used, so
that there should be lots of froth and little liquid),
when bang! fizz! away went the cap, and soda-water
was shooting all over the place. It was a sight to see
that fat man take those steps at a bound; and I only
waited to shut off the carbonic acid gas-tank, before
I followed at the same gait, to head him off from
the office. He was near the head of the stairs getting
his breath when I reached him. I managed to calm
him down, and explained what had happened, and
how, and begged him not to report me. He promised
not to, but said “he thought it a most dangerous
occupation.” He had taken a fancy to me for two
reasons, first because, when time hung heavy on my
hands and I had nothing to do, I would go over
to the office and ask them if there was not something
they wanted done, and would carry “small change”
out to the cashiers and bring in the bills, and, besides,
never kicked about working a little late, as we sometimes
did in the evenings. Of course, when we worked
over an hour late we got extra pay for it; but what
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
I allude to is the ten or fifteen minutes late we often
were. The second reason was because I was English,
and he a rabid American of the “greatest-country-on-earth”
type; and he loved to argue with me on the
relative greatness and strength of the two countries.
I really think that when I left the firm’s employ he
was beginning to believe that the State of Rhode
Island alone could not lick the British Empire, but
might need some assistance from Delaware!
Out in the lake, near the British building, a half-sized
model had been built, of brick, of the battleship
Illinois (or the cruiser Chicago, I forget which). One
day this man insisted on taking me over to look at
it, and then said to me quite seriously, “Now do you
really dare to tell me that there is a ship in the British
navy as big and fine as that?” To argue with such
a man as this one has to stretch a point, as Americans
are very fond of doing, and I told him that a boat
of that size was generally used as a pinnace aboard
a British man-of-war. Americans love humorous
exaggeration. An American, discussing with a
stranger the forty-five-storey building of the Singer
Company in New York, said, “Yes, they are really
getting too high now; in Chicago they have a building
that has snow on the roof all the year round.” However,
the best of friends must part, and I left the
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
firm’s employ through a nephew of my friend, who
did not care to argue. One night there was something
special on—I think it was the night they had
fireworks for the Princess Eulalia of Spain—and the
firm wanted to keep running till 12 P.M. Just as I
was leaving, this nephew came and asked me if I
would stay on if he would allow me a full day’s pay
for the six hours. I agreed and stayed, but when
Saturday came round I only received my regular
wages. The nephew was standing outside the office,
so I went up to him and spoke to him about it,
and he denied having made me any such promise.
He reached the office door just one jump in the lead,
and all that saved him was the fact that they had a
wire netting from the pay counter clear to the ceiling,
which I could not get through. The old man, hearing
the racket, came up and offered to pay me out of his
own pocket; but I was young and independent, and
would have none of it.
One rather amusing experience I had out at the
fair-grounds before this occurred. At that time I had
not quite forgotten the Hindustani learned during a
year in India. I had just delivered some change at
one of the fountains, and was taking a drink of ice-cream
soda, when I overheard two gentlemen, who
were also taking a drink, making comments, in Hindustani,
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
on the good looks of the girl cashier. In fun
I said, also in Hindustani, “Be careful what you
say.” I thought they would choke as they hastily
swallowed their drinks and fled. It must have astonished
them to find an American labourer in overalls
who was able to understand and answer them in a
language they naturally thought unknown over here.
Next I tried to get work in the grounds, and failed;
and then began the hardest struggle for existence I
have ever had. At the time I thought it a terrible
experience, but I have realised since that the year
I spent in Chicago has been worth more to me in
education than all the years previous to it. It taught
me the value of money; to curb my temper, even
under the greatest provocation; to hang on to one
job, no matter what it was, till I had another one
better; and, last but not least (since I became an
employer of labour), always to give a young, inexperienced
lad a chance and see what is in him. I
have in hundreds of places been met with the answer,
“We only need experienced men,” and have wondered
how on earth a man was to get experience unless
some one would give him a chance to start and learn.
I met with much hardness, and also with exceptional
kindness; and now that I have pulled through, I
am glad that I went through the experience.
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
I am afraid I am getting long-winded over what
we call “hard-luck” stories here, but it really seems
a bad state of affairs that a man who is really willing
to work, and is not particular what the work is, has
actually to go hungry for the want of it. The greatest
curse to the English name in the United States is a
class of Englishmen who are known as “remittance-men.”
They are content to live on what they are
able to get from home, and live as “gentlemen,” but
would be insulted if you asked them why they do
not go to work. I have met hundreds of such men,
who would tell you that the reason they do not work
is that they cannot find work that a gentleman could
do, and could not think of taking other work, as they
have the family name in their keeping. They are
the laughing-stock of the communities in which they
live.
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VI
.pm start_summary
Looking for Work—An Englishman’s Disadvantages—Addressing
Envelopes—Running a Lift—Bogus Advertisements—Various
Jobs.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
During the winter of 1892-93 and the spring of 1893,
thousands of men had flocked to Chicago from all
parts of the United States, owing to the reports of
work and good wages, and the expectation of a boom
in the city in consequence of the Fair. Building operations
in the fair-grounds, men necessary to instal the
machinery and the exhibits, Columbian Guards, and
the employees of the concessionaires, absorbed thousands
of them; and thousands more were absorbed
outside the fair-grounds in rushing up the hotels,
saloons, &c.; but still they came. After the Fair
was once in full swing, instead of there being employment
for more, thousands were being turned off daily.
Besides, the Fair was not turning out the financial
success that had been expected. Added to the thousands
who came to the city looking for work were
other thousands who had only come to see the Fair,
but, getting “busted,” had to remain and look for
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
work to earn money to get home. Then, to make
matters worse, in the summer and fall of 1893 came
the tremendous business depression and panic all over
the United States, which broke many banks and hundreds
of business men in Chicago and elsewhere.
Even in the spring and early summer we felt the
forerunner of this.
I have to relate all this in order to explain the
conditions I stepped into, and the reason why the
struggle was exceptional at that time for any one, and
more especially for a young married Englishman whose
training-ground had been an English public school.
The latter, as I will explain later, is the very poorest
training that a man could have to meet American
conditions, and in many ways it inculcates ideas and
ideals that militate against one’s chances—at least,
in one’s earlier struggles. I first tried to secure office
work, but found that I, with absolutely no business
training, was in competition with book-keepers and
stenographers of fifteen and twenty years’ experience,
who were also out of jobs; besides, these men were
Americans, and knew all the ropes thoroughly. I
have sat or stood (more often the latter) for two hours
in a hall in company with 150 or 200 men all come
after one vacancy. Any one who has not been through
the mill in dire need of work can hardly imagine the
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
agony one feels when a callous office-boy comes in
from the sanctum, and with a grin hangs up a sign,
“Position filled.” I used to get up before 5 A.M. to
buy the early morning papers, rush home to make a
list of the vacancies I thought I could fill and the hour
at which application had to be made. Often two or
three advertisements would name the same hour, and
I would have to choose between them, but always
with the feeling that I had picked the wrong one.
To some places I could walk, but as Chicago is a
huge town, I had to take cars to many of them, and
car-fare eats up money. It was certainly disheartening
to go day after day to five or six places and see
the sign without even having a chance to talk to the
“boss”; but it was just as bad when I did see him,
as the invariable answer was, “I need experienced
men only. Yes, I dare say you could do the work,
but we cannot afford to take chances. Good-bye.”
Finally, I got a job at a wholesale drygoods (clothing)
house, addressing envelopes. I worked hard, as I did
not dare to lose even this temporary employment,
and luckily, on the third day, attracted the attention
of one of the heads, who transferred me to the permanent
office force at $10 per week. This, though
small pay, was at least permanent till I could find
something better or could get a rise, and I worked
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
hard to make up for my other deficiencies. I had
been there working about ten days, when one night
on reaching home I received a note from an influential
friend connected with the New York Biscuit Company
(Chicago branch), that I could get a position
paying $15 per week by applying to the superintendent
at the factory the next morning at 9 A.M., and intimating
that the superintendent had said that the
position would only remain open till then. On reaching
the office the next morning, I applied for leave for
an hour, from nine till ten, and was refused. I was
now in a quandary to throw up a job I held, paying
$10, for another paying $15, but which I was not
sure that I could fill, as I did not know of what the
work consisted. I decided to take the chance, and
went to the cashier to ask for my money. He told
me, “The firm pays by the week, and if you do not
stay out the week you get nothing.” I was now in
for it; so I hurried over to the biscuit factory, and
handed my friend’s note to the superintendent, who
told me the job was to run the freight elevator. This,
though better than nothing, was not what I had
been expecting, and it was somewhat of a blow. I
went to work at noon, and found out that the elevator-man
was the intermediary between surly teamsters on
the ground floor and cursing foremen on all the other
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
floors. I had not my full strength then, being under
twenty, and found it taxed every ounce that was in
me to handle bales of wrapping-paper weighing 200
lbs., which I had to load on to and unload from my
elevator, also great hogsheads of lard weighing 800 lbs.
Cases of eggs were easy, and barrels of flour, but the
paper, lard, and molasses were terrible, and I found
they used the same password on every floor, “Hurry
up!” After four days I found my hands and back
in such a condition that I could not keep up with the
freight, and so, in spite of my dread of again having
to hunt work, I resigned. The superintendent treated
me very well, saying how sorry he was they had no
other vacancy to give me, and paid me up.
There is a class of brutes in the States, and possibly
in other places, who live off the poor desperately
in need of a job; and it must pay well, from the
offices they are able to keep up and the advertising
they do. They advertise for, say, painters at $3
per day, or it may be workers in crayon to enlarge
photos. When you apply, you find out that there is
still a vacancy, that the work is very simple, but, in
order to secure the position, you must buy your
paint-brushes and paints from them for $5 or more,
or it may be crayons at the same price or a greater
one. If you are desperate, and must have work
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
before your funds all run out, you buy, using your
last few dollars for the purpose. If you have not quite
the amount they demand, they will tell you that in
your special case they will let you have it for the few
cents less you may have, as they hate to let any one
escape them. After buying your outfit they may
possibly give you work (provided they see you have
money still left) for an hour or so, when you will be
told you are not up to the standard, but that they
can teach you their method for another $20 or so;
and so it goes on till they have bled you. This game
is worked in a hundred different ways, but the result
is always the same, and you are out from $5 to $25,
according to how much money or sense you have;
and you will have left to show for your money perhaps
50 cents’ worth of crayons. It is a wonder to me that
such men are not killed more often than they are by
some poor, desperate devil who sees nothing but
suicide before him, but wants to pay his debts before
he goes. I was lucky enough to keep out of their
clutches through being warned, but wasted much
time in answering their advertisements, which are
wonderfully plausible. I have often wondered why
Carnegie and some other of the wealthy, who are trying
to give their surplus wealth away for the good of
humanity, do not start some sort of national labour
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
bureau to bring the worker and the work together,
charging a small fee and giving honest treatment.
Surely this would do almost as much good as libraries,
&c., and would save many a young girl from a life of
shame, and honest young fellows from suicide or
crime.
My next job was as insurance solicitor (tout), but I
could not make car-fare at it. Then I sold sewing
machines, or rather tried to, but got tired of having
the dog set on me. I then got a berth as city salesman
for a wholesale grocery house, and did fairly well
for a while; but the quality of the goods with which
they filled the orders was so inferior to the samples
that I could never get a second order in the same
store. My next job was with a drug manufacturer
as demonstrator—that is, I had a chair and a table,
which I moved weekly from one large store to another
in different parts of the city, and gave out samples
(of root-beer and different essences) and advertising
matter, and explained all about the merits of our
particular goods, and tried to answer all the fool
questions put to me. The reason of all this was that
we sold our goods to those stores under a guarantee
that we would advertise them till we had created a
demand for them. After some weeks of this I was put
out on the street as city salesman, and did well, making
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
$15 per week and expenses. The head of the firm,
a “Yankee” from Hartford, Conn., was one of the
best men I ever worked for, and the kindest. The
first week I handed him a detailed account of my
expenses he told me, “I only want the total, not the
items. A dishonest man cannot work for me, and
an honest man I trust.” Then, when he had looked
over it, he saw I had lunches down at 15 cents (7½d.),
and he said, “My employees do not have to eat 15-cent
lunches. Get yourself decent meals hereafter.”
For men such as this it is a pleasure to work, and
they lose nothing by their kindness.
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VII
.pm start_summary
Life under Difficulties—drawbacks of a Public-school Training—Hints
on Emigration—Pneumonia—Unemployment in
Chicago, 1893.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Do not imagine from what I have just written that
I stepped from one of these positions into another.
Far from it; there are successive gaps between filled
with fruitless searching after work. In one thing I
was very lucky: two of my wife’s brothers came to
Chicago at the same time she and I did, and we all
helped one another. When in need, one could always
get meals from the others, if they had work; and for
this reason none of us starved, though we ate slim
meals occasionally. I remember, one evening, one of
the boys came up to our room to go out and sup with
us (we ate at a restaurant), whereas my wife and I
had been waiting for him to come home, so that we
could get him to take us out! I had a little bank in
which I had been putting pennies for a rainy day,
and we decided to break it open, as the rainy day had
arrived. It had, if I remember right, 78 cents in it;
and there came the rub—none of us wanted to hand
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
the waiter 78 copper cents for the supper, so it had
to be changed into silver, and none of us wanted to
do the changing. At last we put the job on my wife,
as we were two to one against her.
My wife was the life of the whole lot of us boys,
for boys we all were. She it was who cheered us
and kept heart in us during bad times, and during
one very bad time she tided me over by getting a
position as cashier at a soda-fountain, till I was on
my feet again.
We had our amusements too, and occasionally went
to the theatre, in the peanut gallery, and sometimes
I got passes from an actor friend of mine. There was
a piano in our boarding-house, where a mob of about
a dozen of us would congregate in the evenings and
have music, singing, and story-telling. It was quite
a conglomeration. There were two old-maid sisters,
teachers in the Chicago High School, who could recite;
a young fellow who was singing tenor in the “chorus”
of Kiralfy’s America Company at the Auditorium (he
could parody anything, had a very fine voice, and
was a natural comedian); then there was an engraver
in Lyon and Healy’s piano factory, who played well;
also an elderly man, who taught music on the guitar
and banjo, and played divinely on the latter; a stockbroker’s
clerk, my wife, her two brothers, and myself,
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
who were all strong on choruses; and others whom
I forget. When times were good, and we could buy
a jug of beer and had plenty of tobacco, that house
used to be a scene of much revelry.
Chicago, however, is not like London, where you
can find so many places to see and amuse yourself
without cost. Excepting the parks one has to pay to
go anywhere, either to the museum or picture gallery,
and even the parks cost car-fare. For, as I have
said before, Chicago is a huge city. When I worked
at the fair-grounds I lived on the west side, and went
eight miles to my work and back every day.
I have said that an English public-school education
was a poor training for a man who had to make
a living in the United States—at least, at the start.
I do not mean, of course, a man who has a finished
education and could enter one of the professions, but
I mean for a lad who comes of good family, who has
failed for the army or navy, who is not studious, but
who is not necessarily an idiot. Such a lad gets ideas
in an English public school—at least, it was so in my
school—both from the masters and from his comrades,
that when he grows up there are only a few
things a gentleman can do and not lose caste. He
must not be a “counter-jumper” or take any menial
position. A farmer or rancher is correct form, and
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
even “help” on either is within the pale. But it is
better to live as a gentleman supported by relatives
than to “disgrace” them by earning one’s own support
in any “low” position. Then, again, the education
one receives is not practical for the necessities of
life here. Here one needs book-keeping instead of
Greek, shorthand and typewriting instead of Latin,
and the study of modern business methods instead of
ancient history. All these things, of course, are good
in their place, but I am speaking solely of the boy
who finally has to come to the States to make his
way in competition with men who are thoroughly
up-to-date in all these things.
Once in Chicago I saw an advertisement for a
coachman at $60 per month and cottage. It was a
bonanza. I was in great need of work at the time,
and so applied for the position; but, unfortunately,
all the letters of recommendation I could show were
from the president of the Agricultural College at
Guelph, the rector of my church there, and my certificate
of the Simla Veterinary Course, all of which
told the tale of my being gentle-born and not of the
coachman class. The advertiser was an Englishman
and a large broker on the Stock Exchange, and though
he acknowledged that I could fill the place, and from
my veterinary knowledge would be of more value to
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
him than an ordinary coachman, he refused me the
job solely on the ground that I was a gentleman, and
he could not employ such in a menial position. I
explained that I was married and badly needed work,
and that I was not likely to presume, but would give
him good and honest work. He said he was sorry,
but it would make him uncomfortable to have a gentleman
working for him in a “menial position”; and
that was all I could get out of him.
In those days I was ashamed to write and tell my
friends what I was doing for a living; but as I grew
older and got a broader view of things, I got over
that false pride, and now am not ashamed that I have
been able to earn an honest living by any and all
kinds of work. Phil May’s reproof of this false pride
is amusing. He once, during his early struggles,
secured a job in a small second-class restaurant as
waiter. A friend one day recognised him, and said,
“My heavens, Phil, have you fallen to this?” May
replied, "Why, yes, my friend, I work here; but,
thank God, I haven’t fallen so far as to have to eat
here." Surely a man can remain a gentleman no
matter what he has to do to earn a living.
If I had a friend in England who had sons he was
forced to send to the United States to make their
way, I would, by the light of my own experience,
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
advise him to send the boy over here when he was
fourteen or fifteen years of age, and—unless the father
could also come here to live—put him under the care
of some friend or some reputable lawyer. If the boy’s
bent were agriculture, send him to the Ontario Agricultural
College at Guelph, which is about the best
institution of its kind on the continent. Pay his
board, tuition, and clothing bills, but let him earn
his own spending money, which he can easily do.
If his bent is mechanical, get him in as apprentice
with the Allis-Chalmers Company (mining machinery
manufacturers in Chicago), and after he has passed out
in four years of hard work, learning practically every
branch of the building of machinery, send him to
Columbia University to take the mechanical engineers’
course of three years. If the latter cannot be afforded,
the former will be sufficient for a bright lad who is
willing to study a little by himself. If his bent is
mercantile, send him to a good business college in New
York or Chicago, to learn shorthand, typewriting,
book-keeping, and general business methods, and after
he has passed through, either let him start out and
earn his own living—not getting a penny from home
except in the case of sickness, but not when out of work—or
else get him in as clerk or office-boy into the particular
business he is afterwards to follow. A little
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
hard times hurts no one, though the boy should be
carefully watched and not allowed to get into serious
trouble. Of course, this kind of education does not
put on a very fine polish, but it makes a capable man;
and if the boy has been well trained till he is fourteen,
there is little fear of his going wrong, much less fear
than if he has too much money. After this course
for a few years, he should be a practical business man,
and well capable of handling his own capital, either
to start for himself or to buy an interest in the business
in which he has been working.
I worked as drug salesman for some time, when I
had the misfortune to catch a very bad cold, which
turned into pneumonia. It was about four weeks
before I could walk again. My wife and the boys
pulled me through in spite of the doctor, who said,
“Wire for his people.” Some cousins of my wife,
who farmed near Iowa City, invited us to come and
stay with them till I was strong again, and so as soon
as I could toddle we went to them.
I had never written home what my life in Chicago
was, as, having married so young contrary to my
people’s wishes, I was determined to make my living,
if possible, without aid. But when the doctor told
my wife that my days were over, she wired Mr.
Bole in New York to cable home, and he sent her
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
funds to meet expenses and to take us both to Iowa
City.
Chicago is, I believe, the coldest city in America in
the winter, and the hottest in summer, but a splendid
business town, with large opportunities for a young
man. And when I hear men tell me that they can’t
get a job and have to beg, it makes me hostile; for I
know that a healthy single man need never go hungry
if he is willing to work, though he may not always get
the kind of job he fancies. This is, of course, during
ordinary times. The fall and winter of 1893 were
exceptional, for when I left Chicago in November of
that year it was estimated that there were 200,000
men out of employment in a city which had a normal
population of about one million and a quarter, though
it was much inflated at the time. The churches were
opened for them to sleep in, and soup kitchens established
all over the city that winter, and the police and
railroad men bothered no one who chose to leave town
in a “side-door Pullman” (baggage wagon), as they
were only too glad to see the last of them. There was
some little rioting, but, on the whole, they were all
honest labourers out of a job, and only seeking food.
For this they were willing to work, and the city put
enormous gangs to work cleaning snow off the streets,
so that the feeding, &c., should not look like charity.
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
Of course this attitude of the railway was exceptional.
Stowaways, when discovered, are generally thrown out
promptly. They are accustomed to it, so seldom
come to harm. Out West, freight trainsmen are
sometimes very civil in picking up persons who “flag”
them on the prairie. They will not, however, always
stop to “set-down,” but at ordinary “freight” pace
on the prairie lines it is possible to jump without
affording the trainsmen the fun of somersaults.
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VIII
.pm start_summary
Hard Times—Health restored—Rabbit-catching—Hunting in
Iowa—A Gentleman Tramp—The Hobo Business—Free
Travelling.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
It was certainly a hard struggle which ended in my
breakdown in Chicago and going to Iowa, but I have
never regretted going through it. I got small helps—first
and last $150—and to be sure they came at
opportune times. For instance, one of the remittances
came just after the incident I mentioned about
the penny saving-bank. We never starved, but I
have eaten free lunches once in a while—that is, a
good lunch you can get in most saloons, with a glass
of beer, which you purchase for 5 cents.
I have borne these things in mind since I became
an employer, and I can feel for poor fellows who are
clamouring for work; for man must eat, and, if he is
willing to work, he will have work, or some one will
suffer. I have really once or twice had the thought
flash through my mind to take my pistol and hold
up the first man I met, if things got any worse than
they were at the time. However, God has been very
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
good to me, and I have always pulled through when
things looked their blackest. It is in moments like
this that one thinks of one’s family, and would die
rather than bring disgrace on them. How any man
with experience such as I have had could deny the
existence of a God is more than I can understand, and
yet lots of them pretend to do so.
My wife’s uncle had a farm a couple of miles from
Iowa City; he had also a vineyard. The family
consisted of himself, wife, and five children, all grown
up. Most of their grapes they made into wine, of
which they kept a liberal supply for home consumption,
and the old man believed it to be a cure for
everything. The first thing when we drove up
to the door, he was there to welcome us with a jug
of wine and some glasses. For the first month I was
there it used to be, every couple of hours, “You are
looking pale or tired; you must have a glass of wine,”
and, willy-nilly, I had to down a tumblerful, as he
did not believe in wineglasses. I drank more wine
in the three months we stayed at his house than I
have ever drunk before or since in my life. Under
this treatment, plenty of good food, and no worry, I
was strong as a mule in no time. The boys were all
great hunters, and, as work is very slack in wintertime
on a farm, they had plenty of time to indulge
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
themselves. At first I used to walk out about a mile
and then go slowly home, but it was not long before
I could carry my gun and keep up my end with any
of them over ten or fifteen miles of heavy walking in
the snow. My wife, too, bloomed out (she was much
pulled down with looking after me), having nothing
to do but eat and sleep and amuse herself. Here I
was initiated into the method of catching a rabbit
alive in the snow. In the winter, after a rabbit has
fed, he hunts up a nice place to keep warm and take
his siesta. His method is as follows: After reaching
the neighbourhood where he wishes to camp, he will
stop in his tracks, crouch, and take a prodigious leap
off to one side or the other; this he will continue till
he has made eight or ten such jumps and reaches the
place he had in his mind, when he will burrow a hole
in the snow parallel with the surface and only about
a foot underneath it, coil up, and go to sleep. This
jumping business is to throw any coyote or fox off
the track, and makes it a hard job even for a man
to track him. We would come to one of these tracks,
follow it, and, when we came to the jumping-off place,
look carefully for the place he landed, and so on to
his hole. Now if the hole was very long and the
snow loose, you generally had to get your rabbit
with a gun as he bolted; but if there was a slight
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
crust to the snow, and the hole fairly short, you quietly
inserted your hand in the hole. Then with a rush
you followed up the hole with your hand and arm, and
you had the rabbit by the hind-legs before he could
kick his way out. I have seen the boys catch half-a-dozen
rabbits in succession in this way, and even got
pretty good at it myself. It is quite exciting, and
should you miss him, you still have a chance with
your gun.
The hunting of small game round Iowa was very
good—quail, rabbit, squirrels (red and black), and duck
in the fall of the year. There was also excellent
fishing to be had in the river, and splendid skating in
the winter. We also had some luck with pole-cats,
or skunks, as they are called, but skinning a skunk
is worth all one gets for the hide. My uncle-in-law
had a very fine colt, which had thrown all his boys,
and when they found out I had broken horses on a
ranch, they asked me to break him. I took him out
into the deep snow, saddled and mounted him against
his protests, but he could not do much in the way of
bucking on account of the snow. After I had galloped
him a mile or two through the drifts, he was as gentle
as a cat, and I rode him back to the house. When
I arrived, the boys were outside waiting for me; and
to show them how quiet he was, I threw one leg over
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
the horn of the saddle and joked them a little about
their horsemanship. This was more than one of the
boys could stand, so he threw a snowball at the horse
from behind, which hit him on the inside of the flank.
How I got my leg back into position I don’t know,
for things were lively for a minute; but I managed
to stick to him, though I wrenched my leg pretty
severely, so as to stop my hunting for a few days.
It was here I met my first genuine hobo (tramp) in
a social way, though I have met a few of the same
breed since. He was a young man about twenty-three
years of age, the only son of a wealthy widow,
who loved the road for the road’s sake, though he
would periodically come home for a breath of civilisation;
and it was because of this I happened to meet
him. His mother idolised him, and would have supplied
him with all the money he needed to travel as
a gentleman and see the world. But, as he used to
tell me, it was such a relief to take off a white collar
and dress like a tramp, besides the excitement and
danger of the life. The only intimation his mother
would get would be a note left on his pillow. He
would walk down to the railroad water-tank some night
dressed in his old clothes, and ride the truss-rods, or
coupler, of the first freight which stopped for water,
out of town to wherever it might happen to take him.
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
For he told me he never planned his route beforehand.
So he travelled, seeing many towns, where he stopped
as fancy took him, and kept moving till his money
gave out; then he went to work till he had a few
dollars saved up, and then on the move again. He
would write to his mother from different places,
and when finally tired would head home. He had
been coal-passer on the “whale-back” at the Chicago
Fair, had herded sheep in the west, been barkeeper,
and a hundred other things. He would talk hobo-talk,
so that I could hardly understand a word he
said; but, withal, he was as well-dressed, well-mannered,
well-educated a young fellow as you will meet
anywhere in the West. I met him again five years
later, when he had gone broke on a tramp, and had
got a job as chainman on a railroad survey in Mexico.
This hobo business is not all cream, as my hobo
friends have all told me. There is little fun in getting
turned out of an empty box-car by an irate conductor
at some water-tank twenty miles from the nearest
town where you can get food; still less fun when,
hanging on the ladder on the side of a box-car at night,
trying to argue with a brakeman, he cuts short the
argument by the simple expedient of stamping on
your fingers, and you perforce have to take a wild
jump off the moving train, hoping and praying that
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
the landing may be soft. But in all this lies the fascination
and excitement. Even when all goes well, and
you are carefully laid out on a plank across the truss-rods
under a car, the flying gravel and sand make
travelling, when rapid, uncomfortable. There is also
always the danger (when you travel without knowing
your destination) of running into some large terminal
and being arrested by the police. Still, there must
be a huge fascination in the life to attract young
fellows of this man’s position in life. It is not the
loafing, as hoboes of this description are ready to
work when they are out of funds, and do not steal for
a living as some tramps will do.
It is always, of course, a point of honour with railroad
men not to let a hobo travel on their train unless
he is willing to pay something, and this a hobo will
never do unless in the direst extremity. I once was
witness of a rather amusing thing at a little wayside
station in West Texas. A freight pulled in while I
was chatting with the station agent, and side-tracked
to let the passenger train go by. When they stopped,
besides the train crew three tramps got off, and when
they first came in sight, the hind-brakeman and the
station agent got into an argument as to where they
had come from, the agent affirming that they had
come in on the freight, and the brakeman sticking
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
out that it was impossible, or he would have seen them,
and that they must have walked. Finally, they each
bet some money, handing it to me, and decided to
leave the matter with the tramps. When the latter
came up, the brakeman asked them how they had
come in, and one of them answered they “had come
in on the train, and intended going out on it.” This
answer, coming on top of the fact that he had lost the
bet, so angered the brakeman that he started in to
lick the tramp spokesman; but to our amusement
and delight the tramp did him up brown. He was
mad as a wet hen; and the last I saw of him, as the
train pulled out, he was sitting on top of the caboose
(guard’s van) threatening to kill the first tramp who
got on the train. But what he had not seen,
which added to our amusement, was the three
tramps climb into an empty box-car before the train
started.
Some of these tramps are really “bad-men,” and
will kill a trainman before they allow themselves to
be ditched; but most of them are either like my
hobo friend, or are working men out of employment
and cash, moving to where work is more plentiful.
Most freight conductors carry these last for a small
sum (contrary to railroad regulations), and I have seen
twenty or thirty cotton-pickers in one empty car on
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
their way to the cotton-fields. If you can convince
the conductor that you are really destitute and hunting
work, more likely than not he will not only carry
you free, but feed you on the road as well. I have
heard of this being done in many cases.
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IX
.pm start_summary
Toronto—An Interest in a Mine—The Railway Strike of 1894—Stranded
at La Junta, Colorado—Strike Incidents—Troops
called out.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
This young hobo friend of mine was about the
smoothest card-sharp I ever came across. He never
played for money, as a man does not live long cheating
at cards in the west or south. He could deal from
any part of the pack of cards, and could shuffle the
cards into any position he wished. My wife’s uncle
considered himself a champion player, and one night
this young fellow proposed to me that he and I should
play the old man and one of his sons, and that we
would not let them win one single game. We started
about 8 P.M.; at 6 A.M. we were still playing, and
had won every game.
My health was now all right again, and I had no
excuse for further lingering. I had written to Mr.
Townsley in Toronto, to whom I had a letter of introduction,
asking him about work. He wrote back
inviting us to stay with him, and said he could get
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
me a position in the Canadian Public Works Department.
So off we started for Toronto.
I found the Townsleys very hospitable, but the
promised job did not materialise. Mr. Townsley was
a general broker, buying and selling anything on
which he could make a profit, and into every sort of
scheme. He was also financing an inventor who could
invent more useless things of rare mechanical ingenuity
than any man I ever came across.
Mr. Townsley was much interested in a mine in
British Columbia; he had not, however, the necessary
funds to carry it through alone, and there was another
gentleman, a Mr. Sayers, interested with him.
On Mr. Townsley’s suggestion I wrote for funds to
buy an interest, and also went down to Guelph to
see a college chum of mine who had recently fallen
heir to a small fortune. When the money arrived I
bought an interest, and Cursin, my Guelph friend,
invested some $11,000.
Meanwhile, however, I had received a letter from
my friend Bole in New York advising me to go slow.
It was decided that I should go and take a look at
the mine, and take out samples myself, and have them
assayed. Mr. Townsley and the lawyer Sayers thought
they would go too, as they wished to see personally
the work that was being done at the mine. I was to
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
go on ahead to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I was
to go up into the Espinola Valley to look at a Bucyrus
dredge, at work there on a placer field, that Mr.
Townsley and some associates were thinking of buying
if it turned out all right. There Townsley and
Sayers were to join me later.
Everything went well till I reached La Junta,
Colorado. Here, at the division terminus, the engineer
and fireman refused to go on, as the great railroad
strike of 1894 was in progress; and there our train
and six others were stuck for ten days. The railway
company issued us meal-tickets free, and we ate at
the station restaurant. We certainly kept them busy,
as they had to serve meals in three detachments, there
being so many of us that there was not the necessary
seating accommodation; for, besides the passengers,
there were some 350 deputy United States marshals
guarding the trains and the mails, which were stacked
up in a mountain on the platform. At night it was
like war times, for when you stepped out of your car
you were challenged at every turn by pickets, and
had to show your railroad tickets. The strikers did
not try to molest any one or anything at first, but
instead gave dances and entertainments in their lodge
hall to raise funds to help their cause. To these the
passengers used to go, as they were glad to break
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
the monotony of sitting in the cars reading and playing
cards all day.
But one night there was a terrific thunderstorm,
such as they have in Colorado, and in the morning it
was found that the strikers had been busy; for they
had cut off the rubber hose connections of the air-brakes
from every car, while our noble guards were
hunting cover from the rain. These guards were a
queer conglomeration, and had the greatest assortment
of weapons I ever saw—from the 32-calibre
bulldog to the 45-calibre frontier sixshooter with its
7-inch barrel, from the sawed-off double-barrelled
shot-gun to the latest thing in pump-guns. Most of
the men were college students out for excitement,
and glad to earn something at the same time during
the long vacation; but there was a sprinkling of
Western gun-men amongst them.
At Trinidad, a little farther down the line, the
strikers turned some loaded coal-cars loose down the
long incline through the tunnel. Luckily, the railroad
officials got wind of it, and were able to throw a
switch and ditch the runaway cars before they had a
chance to crash into the passenger trains which were
held up there. When news of this reached La Junta,
150 deputy marshals were put aboard a train and
run down to Trinidad, officials acting as firemen and
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
engineer. They were a noble band of bad-men when
they started out, telling us what they would do to
the strikers; but it was a sorry-looking crew that returned
next morning minus their guns. The strikers
at Trinidad had got news of their coming, and, reinforced
by some miners from Cripple Creek, they, some
2000 strong, surrounded the train of deputies when
it arrived, disarmed them, but allowed them to return
to La Junta unhurt. If there had not been a sprinkling
of older heads amongst the deputies, who had
sense enough to know that they had bitten off more
than they could chew, there would have been some
shooting, and probably a massacre.
This victory, however, was the finish of the fight in
Colorado; for when it was discovered that deputy
marshals could not handle the situation and give the
necessary protection to the mails, two companies of
United States regulars were sent down from Denver
to La Junta, and from there we all moved on together
to Trinidad, where, after a delay of one day, we went
on through to our destinations, and the strike was
broken.
When we reached Trinidad, the platform was
covered with strikers and sympathisers, and many
of us got off the cars or went to points of vantage
to see the fun. The major commanding the troops
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
detrained his men, and lined them up on the platform.
He made a little speech to the strikers and passengers
on the platform, saying he had to have the platform
clear, and would give so many minutes for every one
to clear out; and as he could not distinguish between
passengers and strikers, all the former must get back
into their cars, or they would be treated as strikers.
At the end of the time stated he closed his watch,
put it in his pocket, and the fun began. The soldiers,
using the butts of their rifles as tampers, went up
and down the line dropping them on people’s toes,
and the platform was clear in a few minutes. Not a
shot was fired, as the strikers knew better than to
tackle the regulars, though they outnumbered them
ten to one.
The next day we went on to Lamy, where I took
the train to Santa Fe, and from there on to Espinola.
While we were tied up at La Junta, there happened
to be a poor woman, wife of one of the strikers, who
was travelling on a pass, and in consequence the
railway company refused to issue her a meal-ticket,
more especially as her husband was one of the strikers
living in Trinidad. As soon as the local lodge heard
of the matter, and that she was without funds, they
took her over to their hall, fed her, and, hiring a buggy,
took her overland to Trinidad.
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
The Bucyrus dredging operations turned out a
fiasco; for, though the gold is there, and probably
millions of it, the sand running from 25 cents to 75
cents per cubic yard, it is fine flake gold, so fine and
thin that it just floated on the water over the amalgam
tables, and the plates caught nothing.
I stayed there about three weeks, and then, being
joined by Townsley and Sayers, we went on to San
Francisco. There we took boat to Vancouver and on
to Golden over the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the trip
being well worth many days’ travel; but one may
read all this in the guide-books issued by the Canadian
Pacific Railway. From Golden we had to make
arrangements for pack and riding animals to take us
over to the mines, a distance of about eighty-five miles.
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER X
.pm start_summary
Golden—Pack-horse Difficulties—Camping out—Prospecting
in British Columbia—On an Asphaltum Mine in Texas.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
At that time (1894) Golden consisted of three frame
hotels, a smelter, post-office, a sawmill, the usual
quota of saloons and dance-halls, and probably fifteen
houses. Still, all the land was staked out into town
lots and streets, and lots were valued at $250 up. I
met a friend a short time ago who had just come
from there, and he told me it was now a city of about
3000 people. It had three churches, a baseball club,
chamber of commerce, mayor, aldermen, and all the
appurtenances of civilisation.
We were met in Golden by Mr. Townsley’s younger
brother, who had been out at the mines overseeing
the work. We hired seven horses—four to ride, and
three to pack—and started off. I wanted to take
along a rifle I had borrowed, but was voted down on
the ground that if I took the rifle I should want to
hunt, and this was solely a business expedition. I
also wanted to take along a skilled packer to look
after the horses, but I was again voted down, on
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
the score that it was a needless expense, and that
there were enough able-bodied men in the crowd to
do all that was needed. I was completely ignorant
about packing, and knew it, but the rest of the party
were blissfully ignorant of even their ignorance.
After this second defeat I swore I would only go
along as passenger, and would not be in any way
held responsible for the lack of the necessaries I had
wished to take along, nor would I assist in the packing,
all of which was agreed to; and so the rest of the trip
was pure enjoyment to me, whatever it was to the
others.
We arrived at Carbonate landing the first night,
over level roads, without any mishaps, about twenty
miles by land, and thirty-two by water, from Golden.
But here we struck off into prospectors’ trails up the
mountains. They adjusted the packs for us at the
hotel before we started, and we all stood around to
see how it was done, and thought we knew all about
it and could tie a diamond hitch with any one. The
first afternoon after leaving the landing we saw a bear
down in the valley below us, and there was much
regret that we had not brought the rifle. That night
we camped at a deserted hut, and everybody was
tired; for twenty-five miles’ riding behind pack-animals
at a walk in the hills is tiring work. The
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
next morning we repacked and started off, but had not
gone a mile when we saw another bear—and more regrets.
There seemed to be something lacking in our knowledge
about packing, for every few miles the packs
would slide round underneath the horses’ bellies.
Luckily the horses were quiet, and really seemed quite
accustomed to having packs do this, for they would
stop at once and commence eating till some one came
and readjusted the load. The work fell on the two
Townsleys, who were riding one in front and one
behind the pack-animals; and amidst much cussing
and reviling of one another, the horses, the packs, and
everything connected with the expedition, they would
get the packs back, and we would travel a few more
miles, when the same scene would be repeated. On
one occasion I offered the suggestion that they should
put the pack-saddle on top and hang the goods underneath,
but they seemed to take it too seriously. The
job was not so easy as it looks on paper, as the trail
was narrow, and the cliffs very steep in case a man
slipped; so each new halt called forth choicer language
than had been used at the last, and what one
could not think of the other said.
We camped out the second night on a large plateau,
but as poor Sayers could not sleep himself, he annoyed
the rest of us by gathering wood all night and keeping
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
up an enormous fire. The bears and coyotes seemed
to have got on his nerves, also portions of his anatomy
had acquired saddle-galls. The next day we intended
making the mine, but it took hard and late riding to
do it, owing to the constant stops to fix packs, which
seemed to be harder to handle each time they were
unloaded. The only thing that disturbed my complete
enjoyment was that I could not enjoy a hearty
laugh in peace, as relations were beginning to get
strained. Whenever they had breath left over from
cussing the pack and the horse, they cussed me,
simply because I suggested that they should not
undress the pack-animals at night. However, by
riding late, we made the mine-camp that night, and
none of us were sorry to reach it.
Next morning, bright and early, we started over to
see the mine, which was about half a mile from the
camp. Considerable work had been done. Two tunnels
had been driven at right angles to one another—one
about 130 feet long and the other about 50 feet—besides
three vertical shafts, or prospect holes, on
different parts of the ledge. About a mile above the
mine site there was a good-sized glacier, from the
foot of which ran quite a respectable stream of water,
which could be utilised for water-power by installing
a turbine and dynamo.
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
To get from the camp to the mine we had to cross
a ravine filled with frozen snow with a pitch of about
45°, and across this a narrow path about 16 inches
wide had been cut. Here Sayers baulked, until he
found that there was absolutely no other way to get
across, when he gave in. It turned out that he had
one glass eye (which I had not known till then), and
so, being blind in one eye and lame in the other (he
wore glasses), he could not see very well, poor fellow.
Coming back, we decided to go another way to look
at a new outcrop that had been discovered. This
brought us above the camp, and we could, by scrambling
down a pretty steep cliff, save a long walk round.
We got a rope round Sayers, which was held by a man
above him, and with another man below to place his
feet, we managed to get him down, though he protested
strongly. This was the first and last trip
Sayers took with us, as he decided he was not cut
out for mountaineering; and he was at least convinced
that there was a mine, which was all he had
come to see.
We stayed about a week; then I collected my
samples, and we started back for Golden. On the
second day, as we were coming round a bend, we
ran full into a she-bear and two half-grown cubs. She
certainly looked mean as she barred our way, while
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
the cubs fled up the hillside. I told Sayers I was
going to take a shot at her with my revolver (of which
I had not really the least intention), and he nearly
died of fright. I should not have felt like joking had
I not known that the bear would have to eat Sayers
before it could begin on me.
We got down to Carbonate landing without mishap,
and there, as we were all heartily sick of riding Indian
file, we sent our horses in with a man from the hotel,
and, getting a boat, we rowed down to Golden, thirty-two
miles, in something like three hours, assisted by
a current like a mill-race. Here I sorted out my
samples, and shipping half to Vancouver for assay,
I brought the rest back with me to Toronto for the
same purpose. We had bought the property—part
cash and part time-notes—but, owing to bad management,
and, I am afraid, considerable crooked work, our
funds ran out and we could not meet payments. I
went to every friend I had in Guelph and Toronto and
tried to borrow money to tide us over, and Townsley
did the same, as we were preparing to float a company
on the good reports of the mining engineers and the different
assays I had had made. But we were a year or
two too early, as no one would touch West Kootenay
mines or advance a dollar on them. Later on, every
one was scrambling to buy stock in any hole in the
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
ground up there, and some of the very men who refused
me in 1894 sank thousands in 1895 and 1896
in worthless prospects. The end of it was we lost the
mine, which was afterwards taken up by wealthy
Hamilton men, who are making money out of it
to-day. I believe, however, if it had been decently
and honestly managed we might have just scraped
through.
I returned to Guelph, broke and disgusted, and tried
to get something to do, but did not succeed that winter.
In the spring of 1895 I received a letter from Bole in
New York, saying he was interested in developing an
asphaltum mine in Texas, and if I wished I could
get work there. But I should have to start at the
bottom as a labourer and work my way up, if I had
it in me. He was very sore at my not taking his
advice in regard to the mine. My wife’s health needed
my remaining a few weeks longer, if possible, but I
was told that I could not expect the offer to remain
open. So, on the 12th of April, with a heavy heart I
started off for Texas to make another effort to recoup
my fortunes and make a living for my family. My
friend, Cursin of Guelph, was just starting on a trip to
Mexico, and we decided to travel together. I arrived
in San Antonio, and took my letter of introduction
to the company’s office. There I was duly hired at
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
$1.25 (5s. 2½d.) per day, and told to report to the
superintendent at Cline, 118 miles west of San Antonio.
Young Cursin wanted to see the mine, and I got
permission for him to go out and stay a couple of
days. We arrived at Cline station, which is seven
miles from the mines, but luckily a freight wagon
of the company’s was there, and I got the Mexicans
to take our trunks, while Cursin and I walked. This
Kootenay mine, above mentioned, is an example of
the fact that the western states and provinces of
America thrive on our “thousand-pounders.” I put
in £1000, and, as I have said, my English friend Cursin
put in £2270; total, a present of £3270 to the Hamilton
men! That is how the “thousand-pounders” nourish
the West. Nor did the experience lead to much, for
we both lost largely in subsequent investments.
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XI
.pm start_summary
Cline—Bunk-houses—Work on a Rock-crusher—Mexican
Dancing and Music.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Immediately on arrival I reported to the superintendent
in charge of the mines at Cline. He told me
to go to the men’s boarding-house and take any cot
I found vacant, and also one for my friend.
The men’s boarding-house was a two-storey frame
building, of which the upper part was divided into
three dormitories, and the lower into dining-room and
kitchen. It was built so shakily that any one walking
upstairs shook the whole building, and was so roughly
put together that the wind whistled through the walls
everywhere. It was terribly hot in summer, having
only a light shingle roof; and when a norther was
blowing, the cold was intense in the winter.
Besides this bunk-house there was an office building,
above which the office force slept, a house for the
chief engineer, one for the foreman, and one for the
superintendent. The latter was an old Confederate
colonel, once a slave-owner, who could not get over
the slave-time idea that a “gentleman” should not
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
work, and really must not be bothered with “details.”
I heard him say once, in answer to a query as to
whether he had time to come and look at something:
“Sir, I want you to understand that a gentleman
always has time.” He really had so much time that
about a month after I arrived the company decided
to give him an indefinite holiday. They tell a story
in the south about the old Confederate veterans. A
farmer, who was showing a visitor over his farm,
made the remark that all of his hands were old soldiers.
Said the visitor, "You don’t tell me! Are any of
them officers?" “Two of them,” said the farmer.
“That one there is a private, the man beyond is a
major, and the man way yonder is a colonel.” “Are
they all good men?” asked the visitor. "Well, I
ain’t going to say anything against any man who
fought for the South," said the farmer. "That
private is a first-class man; but I’ve made up my
mind to one thing—I ain’t going to hire any brigadier-generals."
The Cline foreman was what is known as “poor
white trash” in the south, and his failing was drink,
in which his wife often joined him. When on these
sprees they used to quarrel, and sometimes he threw
her out of the house, and sometimes she threw him.
But as he did not bother the superintendent with
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
“details,” the colonel overlooked these matters. Of
course I found out all this later, but describe it here
to give an idea of the class of men I worked
under.
The mattresses and beds in the bunk-house were
indescribable, and dust was everywhere, as the men
were supposed to clean out their own rooms, and tired
men of their stamp are not over-particular. I and
Cursin spent a good part of the night fighting pests—winged
and otherwise—but he was sleeping when I
got up to get my breakfast before going to work
at 6 A.M. the next morning. The food was good and
plentiful, and the cook was good as camp cooks go.
I was ordered to go to one of the rock-crushers, of
which there were two, and was handed a crowbar and
sledge-hammer as the working tools of my trade. My
work consisted of putting, unaided, forty-five tons of
rock per day through the crusher. When the rock
stuck, I had the bar to push it through with; and if
the pieces were too big to go into the mouth of the
crusher, I had the hammer to break them. The rock
came up out of the pit in one-ton cars on an incline
railway over my head, and were there dumped on to
my platform, from which I had to pick them by hand
and put them into the crusher mouth, which was
about waist-high to me standing on the platform.
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
This extra and unnecessary work was simply owing
to the bad design, or rather absence of any design,
when the plant was laid out.
Across, on the other side of an endless chain-bucket
elevator, was my shift-mate, who, owing to his having
a 6o-ton capacity crusher, had a Mexican assistant.
Both crushers dumped into the same elevator, which
carried the crushed rock up into an elevated bin, from
which it was distributed to the extractors, which I
shall describe later.
I worked all the morning, wondering what young
Cursin could be doing with himself that he had not
come round to visit me. But when I went to dinner,
at noon, I found a note from him, saying he could
stand it no longer, and he had gone off to catch the
morning train.
I got out a pair of dogskin gloves from my trunk
at noon, as my hands were nearly raw from the rough
rock, and, as they were good English leather, by the
time they wore out my hands were tough enough to
stand the strain. By night I ached in every muscle,
and I had cramp in my hands and wrists from the jar
of the crusher, because, owing to lack of knowledge
and unskilfulness, I would, when jamming down a
rock, get the bar between the rock and the moving
jaw, and get all the jar of the machine stiff-armed.
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
After a few days, however, I and my shift-mate got
on friendly terms, and he would come over to show
me how to do things right, so that the work became
much easier. Each night I went to bed almost convinced
that I could not stand more, and that I would
have to quit in the morning. But in the morning I
felt I could stand it one more day; and so it went on,
all the time getting easier, till the idea of quitting
went out of my mind entirely.
There were thirty odd white men working at the
mine, and about one hundred Mexicans, when I first
went there, and it was certainly a tough camp. There
was a barbed-wire fence dividing the Mexican camp,
which was known as “Mexico,” from the rest of the
buildings where the boarding-houses and the rest of the
factory were. Over in Mexico they had a dance hall
with a saloon attachment, and most of the men went
over there when off duty. Fights were frequent and
gun-plays occasional, but as a drunken man is seldom
dangerous with a gun, no one got seriously hurt.
The man (an American) who ran the dance hall was
the son of the man in charge of the company’s freight
wagons. He was called “Bud” Towser, and had
the makings of a “bad-man” minus the “sand,”
or pluck. Sober, he was very quiet and generally
polite, but drunk, or even partly so, he was very
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
quarrelsome, and the Mexicans were in deadly fear
of him; and most of the white men gave him the
road.
One night two of the boys started a “rough-house”
in his dance hall, thinking he had gone to town, but he
had returned and was back in his room. When he
burst out they made a bee-line for home, and as his
gun barked after them in the dark they carried away
most of the barbed-wire fence in their hurry.
On the 5th of May (one of the Mexican national
holidays) I heard that there was to be a big dance about
a mile from the mines, at a fence-rider’s house, and I
went up with some of the boys to look on. The dance
was held on a big levelled piece of ground in front of
the house, and round this piece, which was laid out for
the dancing-floor (just mud wetted and well packed),
there was a ring of posts on which were hung lamps
and lanterns to light the dancers. Outside of this again
were rows of benches for the dancers to rest on and for
the onlookers; the side of the circle towards the house,
however, was left open, so that there was a free passage
to the refreshments, which were served inside, and consisted
of tamales, enchiladas, and unlimited quantities
of mescal. Mescal, or tequila, is spirit distilled from
the sap of the large cactus known as the century plant
in the States, and called maguey by the Mexicans.
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
It was a great surprise to me to see how gracefully
these Mexican labourers danced; in spite of the fact
that they were dancing on a mud floor and wearing
heavy work shoes. Waltzing seemed the favourite,
though occasionally they danced Mexican dances.
The music was furnished by a string band—all the
members of which were labourers in the mines—and
was remarkably good. The whole scene was one to be
remembered for years. The bright colours of the girls’
dresses, the young men dressed in their Sunday best,
with silver-plated buttons on their short jackets and
down the outside seam of their tight-fitting trousers,
their bright-coloured sashes and enormous felt hats,
with which they reserved their partners’ seats while
dancing; the ring of lamps, and the circle of spectators
blanketed like Indians; the background of oak and
mesquite; the cry of the whip-poor-will mixing occasionally
with the plaintive wail of the violin, while
from the surrounding hills the coyotes joined in
chorus.
A young Mexican, when he asks a girl to dance,
comes up, hat in hand, to make his request, and if
it is granted lays his hat in her seat to hold it for her.
The minute the dance is over he brings her right back
to her seat, picks up his hat and retires. There are no
cozy corners, and no talking and walking about, the
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
etiquette being very strict, even amongst the labouring
classes.
Nearly all Mexican music is sad, but very beautiful,
and they all seem to be born musicians. I have seldom
met in Texas a Mexican who could not sing or play
on some musical instrument, if it were only a mouth-organ.
Their singing I cannot admire, at least that
of the men. Their main object seems to be to sing in
as high-pitched a tenor voice as they can accomplish,
and as slowly as possible. They seem to have only
two kinds of songs: either very mournful—sung
slowly; or very vulgar—sung very rapidly. Of course,
all the above only applies to the Peon, or labouring
class.
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XII
.pm start_summary
Trouble at the Dance—A New Superintendent—Shots in
the dark—Arrest of Bud—With a Surveying Party.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I was absorbed in the beauty and strangeness of the
scene when suddenly the peacefulness was broken
by the “bang-bang” of a pistol, almost in our ears.
Everybody jumped, but it was only a young Mexican,
who had been “turned down” by his girl, and, having
loaded up on mescal, was amusing himself by trying to
stampede the crowd. Unfortunately, however, there
were other young fellows in the crowd, back of the
benches, who, happening to be in the same predicament,
decided to assist him, and soon there was “bang-banging”
all around the outer circle.
There was a Mexican deputy-sheriff on the ground
to keep order, who, when things were getting pretty
lively, got up on a stump and made a short speech.
He begged the young fellows to keep quiet, as things
had gone as far as decency would permit, and said he
would have to arrest the next man who fired a gun.
While he was speaking a young Mexican, with more
mescal than brains in his head, crept up behind him
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
and fired off his pistol almost in his ear. The deputy
turned like a flash, and before the young fellow could use
his gun again he dived under his extended arm, caught
him by the throat and wrist, pinned him to the ground
and took his gun away from him. The minute the
deputy had his prisoner down half a dozen young
Mexicans ran up to rescue him, but the host and the
deputy’s two half-brothers ran to his assistance, and
for a minute or two things looked bad. I beat a hasty
retreat behind a convenient oak-tree from whence I
could observe progress in safety. There was a young
German lad at the mines who stood over six feet, and
weighed close on 200 lbs., and was “Muy bravo” with
his fists. Just as I reached the shelter of my friendly
tree he came dashing by me, saying, “Let me in to this!
Let me in!” as if I were trying to keep him out. As
he ran up to the crowd some one stuck a "Colt’s
Frontier 45" under his nose, and he literally fell out
backwards.
The determined attitude of the deputy and his
friends stopped the trouble, though the dance was
broken up. But as the crowd was moving away and
the deputy was taking off his prisoner, Padilla, one
of his half-brothers, gave a yell and clapped his hands
to his stomach. Some one had taken his revenge, as
Padilla had a cut which extended from his left hip
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
almost to his right lower ribs, done from behind;
the man who did it was never discovered. They
carried him back to camp, and within a month he was
back at his old job, running the car-hoist out of the
mine.
Of course this kind of business was not conducive
to good work, and so, in May 1895, a little more than a
month after I started work, the new superintendent
arrived, bringing with him a new foreman and a
shipping clerk. The new superintendent was exactly
the opposite of the colonel. He was a short, heavily
built Northerner, born in Nantucket. “Details,” so
repugnant to the colonel, were just what he was after,
and he did not take kindly to drinking and dance halls
on the company’s property. He put a stop to the
dance hall, and no liquor of any kind was allowed on
the company’s land, which comprised 27,000 acres.
He caused the sheriff of Uvalde County to appoint
him as deputy, so that he could enforce his own orders,
and the place began to quiet down.
As the company had no house to give me, I got
funds from home to build a three-roomed house. I
bought some furniture from the company, and sending
for my wife and boy we started housekeeping in a
small way. Meanwhile I had been changed from the
crusher to fireman on the three stationary boilers.
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
It was promotion in so far as it was considered to need
more skill, but it only carried with it harder work and
no higher pay. It was terrible work during the months
of June, July, and part of August, under a Texas sun,
firing three 80 H.P. boilers with mesquite wood.
There was no cover over the boilers, and the fireman
stood out in the open with the heat of the sun on his
back, and the heat of the fires in his face whenever
he opened a fire-door to put in wood. Here I first
found out what was meant by the saying, “A man
does not know what heat is till he shivers from it.”
I had always thought this a foolish thing until I found
out that a man can actually get so heated that he has
cold chills run over him till he shivers. The only
relief we could get was to go under the water-tank
between times, while the steam held, and then before
starting out douse our heads under the tap. I had
two Mexican assistants to wheel wood from the pile
to the boiler, and to wheel away the ashes. The reason
there was no shed over the boilers was simply bad
management and bad plans; later on all this was
changed.
One night in July my wife, the boy, and I were sitting
out on the front porch of my house trying to keep cool,
when “whee-whee,” two bullets came over the house.
I could not imagine what was the trouble, but hustled
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
them into the house, got my shot-gun, and went to
investigate. As I came down the hill I could hear
voices in altercation down at the stable, and when I
reached it I found the elder Towser trying to take
a rifle away from Bud, who, it seems, was drunk, and
had been trying to shoot out the lights on our porch. I
was mad enough to have given him both barrels, but
the old man talked me out of it. Later on, the same
evening, after taking a few more drinks from his private
stock, he went over to Mexico and, getting angry with
a Mexican, took a few shots at him, but luckily missed,
and then he started home again. Meanwhile, Mr.
Brooks, the superintendent, had been notified that
Bud was on the rampage, and started out to find
him. He met Bud on his way home from Mexico,
and said, “Bud, I want your pistol, and you are under
arrest.” Bud promptly and forcibly refused. Brooks
said, "Bud, if I don’t have that gun in a couple of
minutes, I shall have to take it from you." There was
silence for a minute, then Bud took out his gun and
handed it over, saying: “All right, if you want it so
d——d badly as all that.” Bud was sent into town
the next day and fined $60. It is a peculiar thing
how a man, with the law behind him, can cow one
of these would-be “bad-men.” Brooks told me years
afterwards that he was in a great stew while Bud
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
hesitated; but as he had put up the bluff he intended
carrying it through, even to killing Bud, if he could,
before Bud killed him. Bud’s day was over, and
shortly after he left the camp.
Towards the end of August the company decided
to build a spur railroad connecting the mines with the
Southern Pacific Railway at Cline Station. As I
had some little experience in surveying, I was taken
off the boilers and sent as rod-man with Himan the
engineer, who was to be in charge of the work. This
was a very nice change, and Himan was a fine fellow
to work for, and willing to explain and teach all he
could as the work went along. He was, however,
very hot-headed, which got him into trouble while
I was with him, and nearly cost him his life some years
later. We were measuring one day on the dump
(earth-fill), when a Mexican came along with a wheel-scraper.
Himan called to the Mexican to stop, but
the latter either did not hear or paid no attention, and
drove his scraper over the tape. Himan cursed him
in Spanish and English for his carelessness. The
Mexican promptly turned loose his team, saying in
Spanish, "You can’t curse me," drew his knife and
came at Himan. My rod was lying at my side, and I
grabbed it and made a lunge for the Mexican, which
distracted his attention, and the axeman coming up
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
at the time, his ardour cooled a little. He went off
after his team, and that night drew his pay and quit.
The rest of us persuaded Himan to carry a pistol,
as Mexicans will hold a grudge for months and get
even if they can. About a week later I was helping
Himan in the office, when he pulled out his pistol and
laid it on the table. I picked it up, and found the
hammer so rusted in the seat, from carrying it in the
hip pocket without a holster, that I could not cock it.
I advised Himan either not to carry a gun, or else to
keep it in working condition.
Some two years later he was building a railway out
of St. Luis Potosi, in Mexico. He had a strike amongst
his men, and was advised to leave camp till the men
quieted down. He started off, much against his will,
and the men, seeing him go, started after him, calling
him a coward, and daring him to come back and fight;
at last one or two threw stones at him. He restrained
himself as long as he could, but at this last insult he
lost his head, jumped off his horse, drew his pistol, and
ran back at the crowd. When he got close enough to
shoot he found, to his horror and disgust, that his gun
was jammed with rust. While he was looking at it and
trying to cock it a Mexican made a stab at his throat.
He saw the flash and ducked, and the knife took him
in the cheek, the point passing out the other side, and
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
loosening some of his teeth. Before the Mexican
could use his knife again he was shot and dropped dead,
and another Mexican who was in the act of stabbing
Himan in the back was also shot. At this the rest of
them ran, and Himan turned to find his rescuer was a
little Spanish “cabo,” or foreman, who had followed
with a Winchester to see that Himan got safely out
of the camp. Himan and his cabo had the usual
trouble with the Mexican authorities, and lay in jail
for some time, but finally got clear. When I next
met Himan he told me that he had learned his lesson,
and would never be caught napping again, as he cleaned
and oiled his gun every day. He wanted me to go
back and work for him, but at that time I had no idea
that I wanted anything to do with Mexico.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIII
.pm start_summary
Swimming-holes—Hunting in West Texas—Fishing in Nueces
River—Jim Conners—Foreman Betner—A runaway car.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
About a mile above the Cline mines there used to be a
splendid swimming-hole, some 12 or 14 feet deep, with
a sandy bottom, and a large flat rock on the bank to
dress on. Many an exciting game of catch and water
polo we had there during my first year at the mines.
But I shall never forget my first swim in this hole.
A week or so after I arrived, I asked where a man could
get a swim, as the creek at the mines was shallow, with
a muddy bottom. A young fellow offered to show
me a good place, and, as no one else seemed to want
to go, we started off together, and he took me to
the hole I have mentioned. When we arrived, he
“guessed” he would not go in, so I stripped and
dived in by myself, while he sat on the rock and watched
me. After I had been in some ten minutes he drawled
out, “Say! do you know why I and the other boys
do not want to go in swimming?” “No,” I said.
“Why?” “Well,” he said, "we’re some scared of
the alligators." I was out of the water in a flash,
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
and then he began to laugh, and laughed all the way
back to camp, where he told all the other boys, and
they certainly had lots of fun at my expense. It
turned out that there was not an alligator nearer than
100 miles of us.
But “water-moccassins” (a species of snake that
lives in the water and is claimed to be poisonous) there
are in plenty, though I never saw one bother anybody.
They tell a story about a New York tourist in Florida
who wanted to go swimming. His guide took him
to a pool where there were lots of moccassins. The
Northerner, in spite of his guide assuring him that they
would not touch him, refused to go in, and demanded
to be taken to some place where there were no snakes.
The guide then took him over to a bayou, where there
was not a snake to be seen. Here the Yank was
satisfied, stripped, and went in for his swim. When
he got out, he asked the guide if he could account for
the fact that there were no snakes in the bayou when
there were so many in the first pool. "How come
there ain’t no snakes in hyah? Why, the ’gators
keeps them et up!" the guide replied.
Later on the company built two large dams, with a
capacity of about five million gallons each, one below
and one above the camp. The upper dam then became
our swimming-hole, as it was closer to the works, and
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
on it we also used to sail canvas boats or canoes that
some of us made. Fish were very plentiful, mostly
catfish, rock-bass, perch, and sunfish; though some
years later I got black-bass from the government
hatchery, and stocked the entire river with them.
This part of West Texas is an ideal hunting country
for small game. There are plenty of rabbits, both the
cotton-tail and the jack-rabbit, or hare; quail in
thousands, both the Mexican and bob-white varieties,
also at certain seasons of the year wild pigeon and duck
of all kind abound; deer are plentiful of the “white-tail”
variety, and a few “black-tail,” and these are
increasing, owing to the new protection laws passed by
the state, whereby the sale of game is practically prohibited.
Coyotes, javelines (the small wild boar),
wild cat, fox, coons, and possum are plentiful in the
lower part of the country, and up in the cedar brakes
and hills in the northern part of the country there are
still bear and panther to be found; these sometimes
come down into the plains, one of the latter being shot
about two miles below the mines, and on another
occasion I saw two. Of turkey there are still a few
left, but they are very wild, wilder even than the
coyote, which is saying a good deal.
The fishing on the Nueces (Nut) River, about nine
miles from the mines, is very good, and the water is of
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
crystal clearness; there I have caught bass up to
12 lbs., and alligator char up to 4 feet in length,
and have seen others over 6 feet long. Although
these latte are no good for the table, they are well
worth trying for, as they are one of the gamest freshwater
fish I have ever hooked; they have given me
splendid sport, much to the disgust of my camp
partner, who could not see the sense of catching fish
that were not good for the pot, and then throwing
them back again. They are a species of pike, with a
much longer mouth, like an alligator, hence the name.
Catfish also have been caught, weighing as much as
45 lbs., and a blue cat of that size will give a man all
he can handle on a light rod.
Our new foreman, Betner, was a well-built man of
about forty-five years of age, of the stamp known as
“raw-hider” in the States, and his boast was that he
could get more work out of a gang of men than any
man he had met. He was of the stamp of the famous
Jim Conners. Conners was put as boss of a gang of
rough longshoremen in Buffalo; before he started
work he decided to call his men altogether and give
them a talk. When he had them all there he roared
out, "Now yez are to work for me, and I want every
man to understand what’s what. What I sez goes,
and whin I spake I want yez to jomp, for I kin lick
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
any man in the gang!" There was silence for a
minute, then one burly fellow stepped out and said,
"You can’t lick me, Jim Conners." "I can’t, can’t
I?" bellowed Conners. "No, you can’t," was the
reply. “Oh, thin go to the office and get your money,”
said Conners, "fer I’ll have no man in me gang that
I can’t lick." So it was with Betner; he would not
have any man in his gang who would not lick his boots.
His history will give some idea of the man
himself, and also of what extraordinary chances
some men get in this extraordinary country. Betner
started life as a bell-boy in a hotel that used to be
the stopping-place of Flagler, the great Standard Oil
magnate, who tried later to build up Florida. He
was a good-looking lad, quick and cheerful, and
Flagler took an interest in him, and asked him one day
if he would not like to quit the hotel and come and
work for the Standard. Betner jumped at the chance,
and Flagler gave him a job, kept his eye on him, and
pushed him along all he could stand. After some
years, when Betner was a grown man, he had charge
of a small barrel repair shop for the Standard. Then
Flagler came forward with the capital and started
Betner in a cooper shop for himself, and at the same
time gave him part of the Standard’s contracts for
barrels. He was clearing over $10,000 a year, when he
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
got the idea that all his rise was solely due to his own
wonderful business ability and efforts, and that he did
not need Mr. Flagler any longer. He began drinking
and gambling, and became a man about town—-all of
which were Mr. Flagler’s pet aversions. He sent for
Betner and remonstrated with him, and was practically
told to mind his own business. After this the end
came quickly, as Flagler broke him much quicker than
he had raised him up. Then our superintendent, who
had also been a Standard man before he came to us,
and knew Betner in those days, gave him a job, and
brought him to the mines.
Betner fell foul of me shortly after he arrived, and
did his best to make things so unpleasant for me that
I should quit; and this he kept up till the day he left,
though he did not seem to have nerve enough to fire
me. And I walked the chalk line as closely as I could,
and tried to give him no opportunity. I found out
later that the reason he was after my scalp was because
he had got wind of the fact that I had been sent down
by Bole of New York, who was at that time president of
the company, and he thought I was there as a spy on
the rest of them. But in any case it came natural to
him to rawhide all the men, as he had been accustomed
to do in the east, where men will either stand it or quit.
Besides, he had been mostly handling submissive
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
foreign emigrants, and now had a different class to deal
with, and did not realise it. The Southern boys will
not stand it except from some one they look up to and
respect or fear. There used to be a man named Kipp
Kinney at the mines, who really was a genuine gunfighter.
He had killed a man in Uvalde some years
before, and had lived in the hills till the affair blew over.
He had been with the sheriff, Pat Garrett (the most
noted sheriff in the South at that time), when they had
to kill the notorious Billy the Kid, who had killed
nineteen men by the time he was nineteen years old.
One has seen pictures of the typical Texas cow-boy,
tall, ungainly, all bones apparently, with heavy eyebrows
and a long drooping moustache. Well, add to
this pale grey eyes, deeply set, dark reddish-brown
skin, with little hair-like veins close to the surface,
and a pronounced Roman nose, and you have Kipp.
Kipp told me one day he was going to quit, and on
my asking him why, said, "Well, you know that
man Betner and I cannot just naturally get along.
I guess he cannot help being as he is, but if I stay
I shure’ll have to kill him, and I am getting too
old to have any more trouble." Betner was quite
unaware of the risks he was taking with men of this
stamp, for I proved later he had very little courage to
back his bluffs.
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
He never learned much Spanish, but he had the
Mexicans scared to death of him, and they jumped
when he spoke, whether they understood clearly what
he wanted done or not. One day Betner was raising
a three-foot steel stack, forty feet long, up to its base
on top of a boiler. He had it swung up on a block
and tackle from a gin-pole, with three or four Mexicans
on each guy-wire holding it perpendicular. He had it
almost ready to place and lower away, when he found
he needed one more man to assist him at the foot of
the stack. Without turning round to indicate any
particular man, he called out, in broken Spanish,
“One man come here quick.” Mexicans of this class
are natural born fools, and each poor frightened man
thought that he must mean him individually, so let
go his guy-wire and ran to Betner. It is a wonder no
one was squashed, as down came the stack and flattened
out.
On one occasion Himan the engineer wanted to
lower three flat cars loaded with bridge-timbers down
the track that led to the mine, a 2½ per cent. grade.
He put me on the first car ahead, took the last himself,
and the axeman climbed on the middle one. When I
slacked up my brake away we went, and in about
100 feet we were going fairly fast, so I jammed on my
brake, and turned round in time to see the other two
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
fellows jumping off. My brake had practically no
effect on the speed, and they yelled to me to jump.
But by the time I was ready we were close to the pit,
and there were buildings so near the track on both sides,
that I could not jump for fear of striking them. However,
just as we passed the corner of the warehouse,
there was a small clear space, and I jumped. As I
picked myself up, I saw the last car going over the edge
into the quarry. Also there was Mr. Betner, who asked
me what I meant by jumping off and letting the cars go.
I told him that I had done all I could, but could not
hold them. He said no one but a born fool would
attempt to move cars on that grade (thinking that I
had been the one to move them), and just then the
engineer arrived on the scene. He asked Betner if
he were alluding to him, as he had ordered the cars
moved, and then they had it out. It turned out that
the middle car’s brake was broken, and that on the
last car the chain had come unhooked from the rod
when Himan released it, so that my brake was the only
one holding the three heavily loaded cars.
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIV
.pm start_summary
A Sunday fishing party—"Bad-men"—Ben Thompson and
other desperadoes—The story of a hot spring.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
A few weeks after I arrived at the mines, some of the
men wanted to get up a fishing party one Sunday to
go over to the Nueces River, and I was asked to make
one of the number.
It was arranged that we should leave the mines on
Saturday night, camp out, and come home on Sunday
afternoon. We started at 6.30 P.M., got over to the
river by eight o’clock, and by eleven o’clock I and a
young electrician named Burnet were the only two
sober men in the crowd. Luckily for me Burnet was
a giant in strength and a “Long-horn” (as native-born
Texans are called); for it was not long before the
others started wrangling, and finally one of them said
he could lick any one in the crowd, bare hands or with
a knife. I and Burnet suppressed him and took away
his knife, then Burnet told the rest of the men he would
lick any one who started trouble, and we all rolled up
in our blankets and tried to get some sleep. But
every few minutes the first man would stick his head
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
out of his blankets and say, “I can lick any one in the
crowd.” Finally, this got monotonous, and Burnet
told him he would sit him on the fire to cool off. This
subdued him for a while, and I was beginning to think
for good, when, just as I was dropping asleep, out
popped his head with the same remark, which he
repeated again after a short interval. Not getting
called down by Burnet, he finally got quite brave,
crawled out of his blankets, and kept getting louder
and louder in his remarks. Just as I was beginning
to think Burnet must be asleep, and was preparing to
try a fall with him myself, up jumped Burnet and,
grabbing his man, threw him bodily into the fire.
Luckily for the poor devil, he staggered as he fell,
and consequently dropped mostly on the far side of
the fire, with only his legs in it. He soon jerked them
out, and escaped with no worse hurt than singed pants.
After this we had peace for the rest of the night.
Next morning they started drinking again (we had
not destroyed the liquor as we could not fight the whole
crowd), but by noon we got them started home. Most
of these young fellows would have been quiet enough
in different surroundings. But the little town of
Uvalde had turned out more “bad-men” than any
town of its size in the West, and the fathers of these
young men had been handy with a gun and mixed up
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
in some shooting or other, so the sons thought it behoved
them to keep up the family reputation. One young
fellow, John Garnet (who was later my shift mate in
the extracting house), was the only survivor of a
large family, every member of which had died by
violence. His father was a large sheep-owner and
very brutal to his Mexican herders. One night the
boys, coming home from a barbecue in town, found
the old man tied in his arm-chair with his throat cut,
and every herder on the place gone. There and then
the eldest boy made a vow to kill every Mexican he
met. He went over to C. P. Diaz, across the Mexican
line from Eagle Pass, and shot two or three Mexicans
who, he thought, had been implicated in his father’s
killing. The Rurales tried to arrest him, and he killed
two and wounded three before they finally killed him.
John himself I saw once in Uvalde, some years later,
have a fight with his Cousin Joe, whom he licked.
Joe said, "John, you are too big for me to fight with
my fists, but I’ll get my gun and fix you." The rest
of us got round John, and finally got him into his
buggy and started off to his ranch, but fifteen minutes
later I saw him drive round the plaza with a shot-gun
across his knees. We remonstrated with him, but
all he would say was, "Boys, it’s no use; I cannot
leave town as long as Joe is looking for me." Luckily,
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
some other friends had worked on Joe by telling him
how bad it looked for the last two members of the
family to be fighting, and got him to go home. It is
this feeling that they cannot back down that makes so
many young fellows who are naturally decent enough
become killers and bad-men. For once you had killed
some one and got a reputation as a fighter, your gun
had to guard your life, for there were plenty of would-be
fighters willing to try you out, and if they killed you
they got the reputation you had and their own as well.
The reader wonders probably why the city marshal or
the sheriff did not interfere in a case like this. The
reason is twofold: in the first place, whoever moved
would make an enemy of both men if he interfered
before there was any shooting done, and it would hurt
his chances at elections; in the second place, because
a fair, square “shooting-scrape” was even at that
time not thought a very serious matter in West Texas.
And how could it be otherwise in a community like
Uvalde, where the man who was sheriff while I was
there, and had held the office for twenty-two years,
had killed more than one man in his youth in a
private feud which his father had started; in a community
where they still speak of Ben Thompson as
a hero?
Ben Thompson was a noted character of San Antonio
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
some years ago—a man utterly without fear, a good
shot and quick on the draw. He was a bad-man of
a peculiar type, insomuch as he never bothered any
but bad-men, and therein lay his immunity from the
law, as the men he killed were all practically outlaws,
and he could always plead self-defence. When he
heard of any really tough man in his neighbourhood
who was wild and woolly, he would hunt him up, pick
a quarrel with him, and generally shoot him. He
finally fell out with the men who kept a gambling
and dance hall in San Antonio, and in a row one night
shot up the furniture and the lights. Subsequently,
on two or three occasions when the thought of how
he had been robbed there rankled in his breast, or
perhaps just for excitement, he used to go in and kick
up a row. Finally, this got monotonous, and they
summoned up courage to call his bluff. They sent
him word that he was not to come to their place again,
as every man in the house would take a hand and kill
him. When the message was brought to Ben Thompson,
he said, "I wonder if they really have the nerve?
Anyway, I’ll just go and see about it," and over he
went. The signal was passed from the door-keeper,
and, as Ben opened the swinging doors, eight or ten
pistols cracked at the same time, and Ben’s days were
over. They had the nerve all right when there were
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
enough of them. I knew one of the men implicated
in this killing some years later, and I never knew him
to turn his back to anybody or to a door or window.
He was not at that time scared of any one, but it had
become a habit from years of watching for some of Ben’s
friends to avenge him.
Billy the Kid, of whom I made mention before, was
a noted desperado, but of quite a different stamp.
He never fought fair like Thompson, and never gave
the other man a ghost of a show if he could help it.
He was a half-breed Indian, or at least had Indian blood
in him. When he was finally killed, it was proved that
he had killed more than one man for every year he had
lived. He is supposed to have originated, or at least
brought to perfection, the art of whirling a gun and
shooting. On two occasions when arrested, he pulled
out his gun and handed it butt first to the sheriff,
holding it by the barrel with the butt up and with his
first finger in the trigger guard. As the sheriff on each
occasion reached for the gun, the Kid would whirl it
on his finger, and, as the butt reached his palm,
shoot. Finally, as I said before, Sheriff Pat Garrett
(a product of Uvalde) and Kipp Kinney went after
him. They found out a Mexican girl whom the Kid
used to visit, and lay in wait for him there after tying
and gagging her. Garrett stayed in the house behind
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
a sofa, and Kipp was to stay outside to see that the
Kid did not get to his horse again after the shooting
commenced. The Kid rode up when night fell and
walked into the house; but, like all hunted animals,
his suspicions were easily aroused, for he had hardly
entered the dark room when he drew his pistol and
asked who was there. As he called out, Garrett rose
from behind the sofa, and, sighting the Kid against the
light of the doorway, fired twice, killing him instantly.
This was not showing much sporting spirit in Garrett,
but the man was a murderer of the worst type, killing
men just for the sport of it.
While I am on the subject of bad-men, I may tell
a story of Luke Short, another of that ilk. Luke had
been arrested by two deputies, who were taking him to
the county seat, handcuffed, in a buggy. They stopped
at a wayside saloon to get some refreshment, and, for
security, left Luke handcuffed to the buggy wheel.
While they were inside taking a drink or two, the door
opened and in walked Luke Short with the wheel of
the buggy to which he was still handcuffed. He went
up to the barkeeper and said, "Colonel, these two
snakes left me out there to die of thirst. I haven’t any
money in my pocket with which to pay, but how many
drinks will you give me on this?" and he slapped the
wheel down on the bar. How many drinks he got,
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
or how he got the axlenut off, the narrator did not
explain.
The same raconteur told me this other tale, which
he also swore was true. He and a partner once found
a hot spring and mud-bath of wonderful curative
properties. A New Yorker, who was suffering from some
complication of diseases, heard of it, and offered that, if
they would take him out and it would cure him, he would
not only pay them for their trouble, but buy their rights
in the spring and bath as well. The money was payable
on their return if he was cured, but said the narrator,
“I never got the money.” On being pressed, he told
the following tale: “We took him out with ten
pack-mules carrying fancy canned goods and other
truck. When we arrived and pitched our camp,
it was arranged that we should bury him in the mud
every morning up to his neck and dig him out again
every night. Well, after a week he was so much
better that one night he opened up a bottle of champagne
for a celebration. The next morning, after we
had buried him, we were feeling pretty thirsty from
the celebration, so my partner and I decided to
sample some more of the fizz. One bottle led to
another, so that by night we were too drunk to
remember to dig him out. In the morning, when
we came to life again, we went to see how he was
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
getting along, and we found that the blamed coyotes
had eaten his head off, so we lost our money.”
The Pat Garrett above mentioned got such a reputation
as a killer of bad-men that they paid him $10,000
to come up to New Mexico to be sheriff of a county
there where the bad-man flourished. Later, he was
with Roosevelt’s rough-riders in the Spanish American
War, and, when Teddy was elected president, he appointed
Pat to be the head of the Customs Department
in El Paso, Texas.
Some time ago he got into a private row with some
farmer over irrigation rights, and the farmer killed him.
“How are the mighty fallen!”
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XV
.pm start_summary
Coyotes—Wild turkeys—Lynching and Jury Trial in Texas—Pistol-shooting—Negro
vitality.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I was telling a coyote story for which I cannot vouch,
but I myself had an experience with a coyote one night
when I was on a fishing trip on the Nueces River.
I and Ed Anderson, my pit boss, hired a wagon, and
taking along a Mexican and his twelve-year-old boy
(to cook and look after the horses), we drove down to
the ranch, about forty miles below the mines, for a
couple of weeks’ fishing. One night we were all sleeping
soundly, when I was awakened by Anderson’s dog
fighting with something at my feet. I sat up, and in
the bright moonlight saw it was a coyote. As I
jumped to my feet I instinctively lifted my blankets
up with me, and I was lucky in doing so, for just then
the brute made a dash at me. I threw the blankets
over him, and, calling to the others, made for the
wagon where my gun and rifle were. While I was
hunting for them under the litter of camp stuff, Ed and
the Mexican jumped up into the wagon. Then we
discovered that the boy was still sleeping through the
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
racket. The father kept holloaing, “Save my boy,
oh, save my boy!” but not making any effort or move
to get out of the wagon and do anything himself.
However, by this time I had found my gun and
some shells, and, waiting my chance till the dog and
coyote got separated for a minute, I soon killed the
latter.
In the morning we examined the coyote and came
to the conclusion that it had hydrophobia, so we kept
the dog tied up the rest of the trip as Ed would not let
me shoot it. They told us at the ranch that quite a
number of coyotes had been killed lately, one having run
into a cow camp in broad daylight and attacked some
of the men. But it was really funny for the rest of
the trip, for, whenever a coyote howled close to the
camp, out would pop four heads from the different
blankets. One night I nearly scared the Mexican to
death by hitting him with a clod of dirt just as he was
dropping asleep. The howl he let out would have
made a coyote envious. Nevertheless, we had a most
enjoyable trip, and were not disturbed any more. It
is a curious thing that although I have slept on the
ground hundreds of times in Texas, rolled in my
blankets, when hunting or fishing, I have never been
bothered by tarantula, centipede, scorpion, rattlesnake,
or any other of the reptiles with which the country
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
abounds; and this was the sole occasion on which my
sleep was disturbed in any way.
The Nueces River is so called from the immense
quantities of pecan trees which line both banks from
the head to the mouth, making delightful shade to
camp under and a great feeding-ground for wild
turkeys. The nut is something like a walnut, though
about half the size. The wild turkey is probably the
wildest thing to be found in the United States. I only
killed three during my eight years in Texas, one with
my revolver by a fluke shot, and two sitting roosting
at night. Years ago they were in thousands both on
the Nueces River and on Turkey Creek (the creek that
ran through the mines)—were in fact so plentiful that
Pinchot, who used to have a rest-house on the California
trail that ran through Cline, told me he only
used to bring home the breasts of the birds he killed to
feed his guests. They were so plentiful on the market
in San Antonio that people got tired of them and
would pay a higher price for tame turkeys. A gentleman
in San Antonio once asked his nigger to go out and
buy him a tame turkey. “Now,” he said, "don’t
you try and palm off any wild turkey on me." The
man swore that he would not, and that evening the
turkey arrived. When eating it the next day, the
gentleman came across some shot in the turkey’s breast.
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
He sent for the negro and said, “Sam, you promised
you would not try and cheat me, but would bring me
a tame turkey, and here I find shot in it.” "’Deed,
Boss," the man replied, "dat war a tame turkey all
right, but de fact is, I’se goin’ to tell you in confidence,
dat dem shot war intended for me." This wholesale
slaughter has made the turkey like the buffalo—very
scarce where once they were to be found in thousands.
One hears a good deal about lynching, but of course
it is not only negroes that get lynched. A few years
ago it often happened that a town would get tired of
one of its bad white men and take him out and hang
him. But this is getting rarer and rarer, especially
now when the law officers are starting prosecutions for
manslaughter against every known member of a
lynching mob. A few years ago, though, lynchings
were very common. They tell a story about a lynching
party riding up to a house, and the spokesman said,
“Madam, we are sorry to report that we hanged your
husband. We admit that we got the wrong man,
so you sure have the laugh on us there.”
Texas is different, I believe, from any other state in
the Union in its methods of jury trial. Here the jury
not only decides the innocence or guilt of the defendant
but also assesses the punishment, and all the judge has
to do apparently is to instruct the jury on points of law,
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
and tell them the limits of punishment for the offence
under trial. He also does the actual sentencing after
the jury have brought in their verdict. I have seen
myself, in a civil case, a lawyer rolling and smoking
cigarettes while addressing the court, so one can
imagine there is little of the majesty and dignity of the
law in some Texas courts. A jury is said once to have
sent the following note to the judge: "If you don’t
send us in something to eat we will have to find the
defendant guilty; but if you send in plenty to eat and
drink we will stay here till he is innocent." They tell
about a J.P. up in Pecos county who had a man before
him on the charge of shooting a Chinaman. He said,
“I have carefully gone over the statutes of the state
of Texas, and I cannot find it anywhere stated that it
is a crime to kill a Chinaman. I therefore declare the
prisoner free.”
Henry Burns, our sheriff, was a fine-looking man, well
over six feet in height. He did more than any one man
to make Uvalde a law-abiding place during the twenty-two
years he was sheriff. He was far from a good shot
(I myself have beaten him pistol-shooting), but he was
a man of wonderful nerve, which is what really counts.
For a man may hit a target every shot at 30 yards, and
yet cannot hit a man at 30 feet if the man is also doing
some shooting. In my wanderings I have met one
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
really wonderful shot who could, with a Colt’s 44 frontier
7-inch barrel, hit a tomato can almost every shot
at 40 yards. I have also known men, who were considered
very good shots, stand at a distance of fifteen
paces and empty their guns at one another without
either getting a scratch. There is a saying throughout
the South that the best weapon made is a double-barrelled
shot-gun and buck-shot. I have heard and
read a great deal about the wonderful pistol shots,
but have, with the above exception, never met one who
came up to the standards I have read of. The general
advantage the bad-man had over the rest of the community
was twofold: first, he practised drawing his
pistol as quick as a flash, and then he always knew
when he intended to shoot, while the other fellow was
still thinking over the pros and cons. The first shot
always counts in these affrays, as most of the shooting
is done in a saloon or gambling-hall at a distance of a
few feet when it is impossible to miss.
Henry Burns was considered a good, steady shot
because of his nerve, but I have seen him miss a
whisky bottle two or three times at a distance of about
ten paces. He could shoot to kill, however, as the
following instance will show. He used to relate this
to show the wonderful vitality and grit of the negro.
Henry had put this man in jail for some offence, and
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
the man had sworn revenge and promised to kill Henry
on sight after he was let out. One day Henry was
standing at the corner of the Court House, when he saw
the man with a pistol in his hand crossing the street
toward him. Henry pulled out his own gun and called
to the man to halt. The man made no reply, and
Henry fired and kept it up till his gun was empty, the
man still advancing. When the man was within two
or three paces of Henry he raised his pistol, pointed it
at Henry, made two or three attempts to pull the
trigger, and collapsed almost at Henry’s feet. When
they picked him up he had five 41-calibre balls through
his body, so Henry had only missed him once. With
modern weapons, such as the Colt’s, Luger, or Mauser
automatic pistols, shooting becomes much easier, but
with the old-time Colt there were few men who could
be sure of hitting their man at 25 or 30 yards.
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVI
.pm start_summary
A "Periodical"—Italian treachery—Bitumen extractors—The
Mexican disregard for orders—In charge of the stills—A
vote canvasser.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Henry Burns had once to arrest a man who was a
“periodical.” He would not touch a drink for weeks,
even months, at a time, then he would go on an awful
spree, paint the town red, and end by shooting up
the saloon. After one of these strenuous sprees,
Henry told him that he had reached the limit, and that
he would be arrested the next time he caused any
trouble. A month later the man went on another spree
and started in to enliven the town. After a while he
heard that Henry was after him, so he went over to
his office in the Court House (he was county clerk)
and locked himself in, sending word to Henry not to
disturb him or he would shoot him. Henry picked up
two or three deputies and went to make the arrest.
When they reached the locked door Henry made his
deputies stand on either side, while he broke it down.
“Now,” he said, “boys, I will go in alone and try to
arrest him quietly; but, if he shoots me, take no
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
chances, but kill him.” As he broke in the door, the
man, who sat behind his desk with a shot-gun resting
on it and pointing at the door, called out, “Henry,
I will have to kill you if you come in.” Henry did not
even draw his pistol, but walked quietly up to the desk
and took the gun away. The man’s nerve failed at
the last minute, and, as Henry laid his hand on the gun,
he turned and jumped out of the window, with Henry
after him. The drop was slight, with grass below, and
he was arrested and put in jail. A month or so later
he was again arrested and locked up, got into a fight
with another prisoner, and was killed by the latter.
His son ever after claimed that Henry had hired the
man to kill him, which was manifestly absurd.
Texans, as a rule, will give a man a fair fight and some
chance for his life, but all the men at the mines were not
Texans, not even Americans. There were two Italians
from New York, expert mastic-makers, who were sent
down by the company to instal a mastic plant. One
of them had trouble with the foreman and laid a trap
for him. On the third storey of the mastic-house there
was a balcony exactly over the main entrance. Here
the Italian took his stand, leaning on the rail, and at
his feet a piece of plank. When the foreman passed
underneath, he timed things very nicely, tipped the
plank over the edge with his foot as he turned, and went
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
into the building, not stopping to see the result.
Fortunately, some one saw the whole performance and
yelled. The foreman ducked, and the plank struck
him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Of course it was
“an accident”; but both Italians were discharged at
once.
The branch railroad on which I was employed being
completed, I was put in the extractor house as apprentice
to learn the work. After the rock is crushed
to about two inches in diameter, it is put into large
steam-jacketed extractors holding five tons each. The
top is sealed down and naphtha pumped in on the rock
till the extractors are full; then steam is turned into
the jacket, and the hot naphtha extracts all the bitumen
from the rock. After a while the asphalt-laden naphtha
is drawn off; the rock is then washed with fresh naphtha,
which, in turn, is drawn off. The live steam is turned
in on the rock and drawn off through condensers,
carrying with it the last of the naphtha. The condensed
steam and naphtha are run through a settler
having two pipes, one at the top to carry off the naphtha
to its tank, and one at the bottom for the water. Two
or three days after I started in the extractor house the
man in charge let the water run too low, and thus some
naphtha got out through the water-pipe into the creek,
for which he was discharged. I was then put in charge,
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
and though I hardly knew anything about the business,
I dared not let the opportunity for advancement slip
by me.
There were five of these extractors and two pumps
to look after, and it kept me on the move. The second
or third day one of the pumps went on strike, and I
had to take it down and get it working again. When
I got through I went my rounds, and found to my horror
that I also had let the water get too low in one of the
settlers. Here was an opportunity to get rid of me,
and I very soon got my “time.” Then Providence
took a hand in my behalf, for my predecessor had left
the camp and the day man got sick. The night man
took one of his shifts, and then tried to take his own, but
gave out; and so at 12 P.M. the foreman came and
woke me up to go back again. We had the naphtha
stored in overhead tanks, and the orders were most
strict against smoking or carrying matches near the
works; yet one day we caught one of the extractor
loaders sitting on top of the overhead naphtha tanks
smoking a cigarette, endangering not only his own life
but that of every man on the place.
It seems natural to Mexicans to disobey orders if
they think there is the bare chance of their not getting
caught; and the more danger there is the more they
seem to like it. There used to be a standing order that
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
no one was to ride on the ore cars that ran on the incline
down into the pit. One day while I was still
working on the crusher I saw a rather amusing thing
occur through a man disobeying this order. One of
the Padillas, brother of the hoister man, was riding the
car down to the pit, when his brother, thinking to have
some fun with him, slipped the clutch, and let the car
go at a tremendous pace. When, however, it neared
the switch at the bottom of the incline, where the cars
branched off to the different parts of the pit, the
hoister man got scared and lost his head; instead of
gently slipping the clutch in, he jammed it down hard
and stopped the car dead, standing his brother on his
head in the car. Talking of car accidents, another
happened a couple of years later, when we had enlarged
the plant and built a new extractor house up
on the hill. To get the crushed rock up to this house
we built a double track incline 900 feet long, with a
rise of about 70 feet. The ore bin was set up over
these tracks, and behind the bin was a platform on
struts, on which was placed a double drum hoisting
engine. One day I had just come out of the pit when
I heard some one shout, and, looking up, I saw that the
cable had parted and the car with two tons of rock
in it had started down the incline from near the top.
I shouted to the hoisting man to get down out of the
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
way, but he seemed fascinated by that car, and stood
there with his mouth open watching it come. By the
time it reached the bottom it was going like an express
train, and the way it took the struts out from under
the engineer’s platform was a sight to see. Down came
the engineer, but he was up and dusting himself by the
time I reached him; and all he said was, “H—l!
she was sure travelling!”
I was working with Himan, the civil engineer, when
we built this incline. We built the bents on the
ground, marked a centre, then hoisted them upright,
and while Mexicans held it steady with guy-ropes, I
climbed on top and gave Himan a “sight” with a
pencil, while the men moved it on the mud-sill, with
bars, one way or another as he directed. I did not
relish the job, as I had a very poor head for working
on heights, and had little faith in the men on the guy-ropes.
Himan used to laugh at me, but one day we
were up in the extractor house and he walked out on a
2-inch by 12-inch plank that was laid out to the first
bent. A 2-inch plank over a 15-foot span bends considerably
under a man. However, he got out all
right on the bent, and, after looking at the placing of
some sheave wheels, he started back. He had already
begun to get giddy, and, when he stepped on the plank
and it bent, he lost his nerve so much that in spite of
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
my laughing at him he crawled in on his hands and
knees. After the incline was completed, we put up a
4-inch by 12-inch plank “run-way” the whole length
between the tracks for the men to go up and oil the
sheaves. Working on heights is all a matter of practice,
and few men can do it the first time, though of
course there are exceptions. Once when shingling a
very steep roof I worked the first two days sitting in a
sling and expecting every few minutes to fall off; but
after a while, with three or four pair of heavy woollen
socks to keep me from slipping, I was running all over
the same roof and never thought of falling. I have
won many bets from cow-punchers who came to the
mine that they could not run up the 900-foot incline
in two minutes. They would start away at racing
gait, then, as the incline left the ground, they would
slow down to a walk, and finally they could be seen
carefully placing one foot in front of the other, till
generally they gave up and came back. As one fellow
said, “Down here that plank is wide enough for me to
ride my horse on, but up there it is like walking a
tight-rope.”
After some time in the extractor house I was given
charge of the stills, where the naphtha was driven off,
cooled, and returned to its tank, and the pure bitumen
left, which was run into barrels. A short while after
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
I got this move, a firm in New York contracted to
take our entire output to make into paint and varnish.
They were looking for a local agent, and I got the
position. I had to see that all the output was up to a
certain grade, and when stored in the warehouse or
shipped I gave receipts for it on which the company
got their money. One day when I was at work a man
came out to the warehouse, got into conversation, and
after a while offered me a cigar. I told him I could
not smoke there, but he insisted on my taking it anyway
and smoking it later. He and I had quite a chat,
and after a long while he finally drew a card out of his
pocket and asked for my vote, as he was running for
some county office. The look of disgust that spread
over his face when I informed him that I was a
British subject and had no vote was truly ludicrous, as
he thought of his wasted time and cigar. On railway
journeys sometimes this canvassing is a nuisance;
moreover, the excuse that you are a Britisher is not
always cordially accepted. I said in an early part of
these reminiscences that I had been roasted by
Americans for many years, and now had a chance when
they could not reply to me of getting back a little.
But it is a fact that among a certain class of people
in the States that the instant they find you are English
they immediately drop all other topics of conversation
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
to refer to the time “we licked you badly,” or to
discuss the degeneracy of the House of Lords, or some
other topic which they think will be of interest to you.
At first I used to get very angry and try to argue
with them, but later I gave this up, and found the
only position to take was one of superiority, and say
in so many words, “How can people be so ignorant of
facts, so dense as to talk such utter rot? Yet they
look intelligent.”
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVII
.pm start_summary
Elections in Texas—Feuds and shooting affrays—Family
pride—Local Prohibition.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Elections used to be exciting events in Uvalde, Texas,
during the first few years I was there, as the Mexican
vote controlled the county, and the rival candidates
used to give dances for them, where there was plenty
of liquor and cigars. But for the past few years this
has all been stopped, as the Mexican vote has fallen
to practically nothing, owing to a law that was passed
by which every voter had to show his poll tax receipt
when registering, and a Mexican will die sooner than
pay poll tax—in fact will never pay any tax if he can
get out of it. In order to stop the candidates (in a
close election) paying the tax for them, the law said
that the receipt must be dated at least six months
before the election. It is curious in the States how
in certain localities certain nationalities control the
elections; in some places it is the negro vote, in others,
the Mexican, or it may be the German vote. I heard of
an election once for county officers in a county where
Swedes predominated, where all the officers on the
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
list but the sheriff were named Oleson or Paulson or
other such name, but the sheriff’s name was Brown.
A visitor said, “I see that all your county officers but
the sheriff have Swedish names; his sounds American.”
“Yes,” was the answer, “they are all Swedes but him,
and we only put him up to catch the American vote.”
I know towns in South-west Texas where one will
not hear a word of any language but German spoken
from dawn to dark, unless one does not happen to know
the language and they have to address you, when they
will speak English. Yet all the Germans there were
born in Texas and never saw their native land. The
trouble with these Mexican voters is that they will
promise you anything while at your dance drinking
your liquor; but they promise the same to the other
man at his dance; so you never can tell what they will
do at the polls, unless you have them under your thumb
as we had them at the mines. For instance, we, for
years, only employed Mexicans who brought us a
paper from Henry Burns the sheriff, saying they were
all right (meaning they would vote for him); yet later,
when I was in charge of the mines and was fighting
against Henry’s election, these same men, with only
one exception, voted against Henry under instructions
from me.
It was at one of these elections that the son of the
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
county clerk (before mentioned as a “periodical”)
and Henry Burns’ son John met in the Horseshoe
saloon in Uvalde. After a few words the clerk’s son
pulled a knife, bent John Burns over the bar, and tried
to kill him, in revenge for the supposed killing of his
father by the orders of Henry Burns. Luckily, the
knife struck the brass support of the bar-rail and the
blade broke half-way up, and at the same time one of
Henry’s deputies tried to get the boy off John by
stunning him from behind with brass knuckles. The
boy had grit, however, and while his own head was
being cut open with the knuckles he was doing all he
could for John with the stub of his knife, and they were
both a sight to see for weeks after. Henry himself,
when a boy, was the cause of starting the big feud
which kept Uvalde stirred up for quite a while. It
started in a fist fight between him and young Gilchrist
in the Uvalde camp yard.
Gilchrist’s father and uncle were there cheering their
boy on. When he finally got Henry down they were
so worked up they were calling to their boy to kill
Henry. The old man was dancing round, holloaing,
“Kill him, Bud, kill him,” when Henry Burns’ father
(who had been a general in the confederate army)
came out of Piper’s store. He took in the situation at
a glance, and, whipping out a bowie-knife, he ran at the
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
elder Gilchrist and with one stroke cut him almost in
two. The uncle and son made their escape for the time
being and the feud was on.
One incident of this trouble seemed to me characteristic
of the grit and coolness of these men. One
member of the Gilchrist faction (a man considerably
over sixty) was upstairs in the old Uvalde Hotel when
Henry Burns passed and stopped to speak to some one
under the balcony.
The old man picked up his shot gun and, leaning
over the balcony with the muzzle of the gun about six
feet from Henry’s head, pulled both triggers. The
gun missed fire, but Henry hearing the clicks whirled
round, and had the old man covered before he could
move. He held him so for a few moments, then he
said, “I ought to kill you, you old scoundrel, but I
guess I will let you off this time.” Then he turned and
walked off.
On another occasion a deputy-sheriff, who was on
the Burns’ side, had arrested one of the opposite faction
for being drunk and disorderly. He had taken him
by surprise, disarmed him, and was escorting him to jail.
On the way to the lock-up, the boy (for he was nothing
but a lad), feeling keenly the disgrace of being so
arrested without fight, taunted the officer with taking
him by surprise. He told him that he dared not have
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
arrested him in any other manner, and dared the officer
to return his gun and then try and rearrest him. The
officer was about to accept the challenge, when one of
the boy’s friends rode up and warned the deputy.
Said he, "The kid’s drunk, and has no show against you
who are sober, so if you give him back his gun and then
kill him, I will sure kill you." However, the deputy
had been so annoyed by the boy’s taunts that he
handed him his gun and the shooting commenced.
Of course the boy was shot, but at the same time the
man on the horse shot the deputy, and left town at a
gallop.
A man who will receive a gun in this manner has no
chance, even if sober, unless he is like lightning, because
as his hand touches the butt the other man shoots.
Not necessarily because he wishes to take any advantage
of the other, but because he is all keyed up
and shoots involuntarily the moment he sees the other
man is armed: somewhat the same impulse that
causes false starts in square racing. I saw a case in the
Silver King Saloon in San Antonio one night. Two
men had a row, and one slapped the other’s face and
then immediately drew his gun. (It is generally safer
to kill a man first, and slap him afterwards.) The man
who had been slapped said: “You cur, you only dare
strike me because I am unarmed, and you have a gun.”
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
"Don’t let that worry you," said the other; “I will
lend you a gun,” and with his left hand he drew a
second gun and offered it to the man, butt first. The
other, however, was too wise even to put out his hand,
and by this time the “lookouts” of the gambling hall
and the barkeepers got around the armed man and
hustled him out, for it hurts business to have any
shooting in the house, besides the inconvenience of
the trial, &c. It is a bad business to be an “innocent
bystander” in cases of this kind, as they are the ones
that generally get hit. But, unfortunately, I had no
place to go to, as the negro porter had, who was a
witness at the trial of a killing which occurred in the
hotel where he worked. He was asked how many
shots were fired, and he answered “two.” “At what
intervals of time?” “About one second.” “Where
were you when the shots were fired?” "Well, boss,
when the first shot was fired I was in the hall shining
a gentleman’s shoes, but when the second shot was
fired I was passing the depot!"
Texas is different from most other southern states,
where pride of family is very strong. In Texas, a
few years ago, it was not considered good form to dig
into a man’s antecedents or family record, as you were
liable to come across the bar sinister in the shape of a
noose at the end of a rope.
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
Consequently, rank and family were not much considered,
and a man had to stand on his own record.
An English “remittance-man” in one of the small
Texas towns had two titled friends come to visit
him. One day in the hotel he thought he would
impress the natives, so he said to the clerk, “Jim, this
gentleman is a viscount in England, and this other
gentleman is an earl.”
But Jim had never heard of such things, and asked
what it all meant. It was explained that these were
marks of distinction by which you could tell a man’s
social standing. “Oh,” he said, "now I see; but
there are only two kinds of people here—those that
call for soda in their whisky, and the others that aren’t
so darned particular." On the other hand, war
records are very much prized and brought forward on
all occasions. More especially at elections, where, if
the record is very good, it is almost sure to capture
the votes. But that this is not always the case the
following instance will show. An old veteran on the
stump was giving his record as follows:—
“Fellow-citizens, I have fought and bled for my
country. I have fought the savage Indian; I have
slept on the field of battle with no covering but the
heavens; I have marched barefoot till every footstep
was marked with blood!”
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
At the close of his oration one of the leading citizens
approached him, wiping the tears from his eyes, and
in a voice broken with emotion said:
"My dear man, if you have done all you claim, I’m
afeered I’ll have to vote for your opponent, for I’ll
be gosh darned if you ain’t done enough for your
country already."
The first election in which I took any active part
occurred when I was in charge of the mines, and was
fought over the question of prohibition. A retired
cattleman, who owned a saloon in Uvalde, had been
of much assistance to the company and to me personally,
and we were under many obligations to him.
I had promised him in my own and the company’s
name to return favours when called upon. He wired
me one day to come in to town, and when I drove over
he told me that there was to be an election to vote
the county “dry,” and he needed our help. This
I promised, and when the election came off the county
went “wet” by thirty-five majority, and as our box
gave some forty-five “wet” votes, we had been the
means of carrying the election. At first there was
some talk of throwing out our box on the ground of
undue influence, but finally they decided to accept
defeat for the present. Uvalde since then has voted
“dry,” and in fact the large majority of Texas counties
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
have local prohibition, though the liquor interests
have so far kept “dryness” out of State elections.
Local prohibition is, however, becoming each year a
more prominent factor, and in a few years Texas is
sure to be a “dry” State. Last election I was told
the fight turned almost entirely on the liquor question,
and each candidate, for even trivial positions, was
asked where he stood. One candidate, on being asked,
as he stepped down from the platform, “Do you
drink?” said: “Before I can answer that question
truthfully I must know is this meant as an inquiry
or an invitation?” I may give the impression from
the above that I am in favour of the liquor business.
But nothing is further from the truth, as I am a great
believer not so much in local prohibition as in national.
But with me it was a case of carrying out a promise
made, at no matter what cost to my personal views.
Texas is not in all respects so lawless as one might
suppose from what I have written; for instance, my
father and sister visited me for six weeks in 1896,
and they rode about everywhere in perfect safety.
On the other hand, while he was there, the superintendent
twice borrowed money from him, for petty
cash. They, of the staff, were four men in one house,
well armed, but “they were not paid to fight,” so they
kept no money. Everything was paid by cheques
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
on Uvalde, eighteen miles distant! Nor was this
without reason, for twice in that year even town banks
were attacked. In one case the employees beat off
the robbers; in the other the citizens pursued and
hanged them.
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVIII
.pm start_summary
A "Grandstander"—The Sheriff takes possession—Night
Watchman—Monte Jim—Further trouble.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Besides Henry Burns, the sheriff, there was also
another man whose re-election I opposed. He was
the city marshal of Uvalde, and a regular “grandstander,”
as they call a man who is always striking
poses. The young man before mentioned as having
caused so much trouble on my first fishing trip, got
drunk and disorderly once in Uvalde, and some one
told the city marshal. Instead of quietly arresting the
young fellow, he walked up pompously, drew his pistol,
and sticking it in Jim’s face arrested him in the name
of the State. To his astonishment Jim made a snatch
and took the gun away before the marshal was quite
through posing, which was manifestly taking a mean
advantage of him. Then Jim said, "Run, you coyote,
or I’ll kill you," and run the marshal did, with Jim
after him; and at every jump he would shout "Don’t
shoot, Jim." Finally Jim tired and let him go, and
the marshal never had the nerve to lay any complaint.
So at the next election we ran him out.
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
While I was working on the branch railway to the
mine, there was a gang of nine men putting up small
bridges and culverts. All the members of this gang
were relations, except one man, and he was made the
butt of all the jokes and horseplay; and some of
them were pretty rough. Finally one day the worm
turned and said to his tormentors that he had stood
all he was going to stand, then walked off towards
their camp, about two miles away. They passed it
off with a laugh, thinking they could smooth him down
in the evening when they returned to camp. But
to their astonishment he turned up again, in about an
hour, armed with a shot-gun, and aiming it at his principal
tormentor he told him he would give him a
minute to say anything he wished to, or to pray if
he so desired. The bridgeman told him, at the end
of the time, to go ahead and shoot if he intended to,
as he was ready. The man stood for a minute hesitating,
then turned and walked down to the mines. I
had rather liked the fellow, and felt sorry for him,
and when I heard of the trouble I went and had a
talk with him before he left. I asked him why he
had walked four miles for a gun and then not used
it. He said, “I intended to kill him up to the last
second, and then to wipe out as many of the rest of
them as I could. But I could not shoot him while
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
he stood still. If he had come at me, or run away,
or if any of the others had moved, I should have fired,
but I could not as things were.”
About this time there occurred a rather amusing
shooting case in Uvalde. Our head book-keeper was
a Texan, the shipping clerk was a New Yorker. They
went to town together to celebrate. When they were
both half drunk, the Texan asked the other if he had
a gun, and on his replying “No” he seemed much
shocked, and said he would borrow one for him. This
he proceeded to do from a bar-keeper, and handed it to
Tom the New Yorker, who, however, was too drunk
to put it away in his pocket, and for the rest of the
time carried it in his hand. After a few more drinks
they got into some argument on the street, and the
next minute the Texan was emptying his gun at Tom.
The latter was so far gone that he had actually forgotten
the gun in his hand, and never used it at all;
in fact, he did not know that the Texan was firing at
him at all—so he said the next morning in court.
Luckily no one was hit, but the book-keeper was fined
fifty dollars for “shooting in the city limits.”
While I was agent for the New York paint firm the
company began to get into difficulties, but the first
intimation we had of it was when the sheriff drove
out one day and seized the property in the name of
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
the bondholders. This threw us all out of our jobs,
and the place was closed down. This was tough, as
I was a shareholder, and my father was a bondholder;
however, I got an offer of a few days’ surveying of some
boundary lines for a man, but it turned out a poor
job for me; for while I was away the court appointed
watchmen, and I lost the chance of this. There were
four watchmen appointed, one from Uvalde, and the
other three were the superintendent, the foreman,
and the shipping clerk I mentioned above. I certainly
was disappointed when I got back and found
out what I had missed. I had to send my wife and
boy off to Vancouver, B.C., to her mother, and settled
down to wait till the court proceedings were over.
After a few weeks the shipping clerk got sick and I
was put as night watchman in his place, which job
I shared with Betner the foreman. He watched the
far buildings on the hill and I watched the main
buildings and the offices. At midnight I cooked
supper and then whistled for him to come in and eat.
He used to order me about more than I thought was
justified in our present positions, so one night I “called
his bluff” and told him I would have no more. The
next morning Mr. Brown, the superintendent, sent
for me and told me that I had been reported by
Betner for reading on my watch instead of attending
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
to my duties. We were entitled to an hour for
supper, but it seldom took us over ten or fifteen minutes
to eat. As soon as Betner was through he used to take
a nap for the balance of the hour near the stove, and
I used to read. I used to wake him when the hour
was up and we went back to work. This was the reading
he tried to make Mr. Brown believe I did all night.
I explained this to Mr. Brown, and he said it was all
right. This last straw put me in fighting trim, and
that night I cooked my own supper and ate it, and
when Betner came in I gave him my opinion of him
in language he could understand. I told him also
that in future he could cook his own meals, as I would
have nothing further to do with him. But if he
bothered me again I would beat him, and if he bluffed
with his gun I would kill him. He then showed the
stuff that was in him, for at first he blustered and
finally crawled.
Some few months afterwards, when the receivership
was done away with, Betner and Brown quarrelled,
and Betner was dismissed. We were none of us
sorry to see him go. It was a case like the bad man
who was dying. A clergyman went to see if he could
make him repent. He pictured the future in such
glowing terms that he had the man convinced. At
last he said, “Brother, are you not ready to go?”
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
and the bad man replied, “Yes, I am very glad.”
“Thank Heaven,” said the pastor, “because that
makes it unanimous.” I don’t think, however, Betner
was glad to go, though I can swear that the rest of
us were unanimous.
The bondholders now took hold of the property,
and we started up again and I sent for my family.
The shipping clerk had left in the meantime, and I
was appointed shipping and material clerk, and also
had charge of the company’s commissary store, in
which I had two assistants. A new foreman was
brought in from San Antonio. He was known by the
name of “Monte Jim,” having been at one time a
professional gambler (Monte being a Mexican gambling
game). How Mr. Brown ever came to hire him I
don’t know, as the man was a crook of the worst kind.
The first trouble I had with him was when I found
out he was playing poker with one of my store boys,
and that the latter in order to pay his debts was
stealing from the store. I stopped this by firing the
boy and warning Monte that he had to stop this business.
Later we clashed again on the question of
authority. Mr. Brown had told me that in the
commissary and material storeroom I was supreme,
and laid down certain hours during which they were to
be open. Monte disputed my authority one day, and
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
ordered me to close the store and open the storeroom
for him out of hours; we had an argument, and I
ran him out of the store, and after this we had no
more trouble. He was, I knew, taking rebates from
the men (that is, the men paid him part of their pay
to be easy on them). I was not hunting trouble,
however, so kept my knowledge to myself, especially
as it would have been practically impossible to prove
a case against him. The men would naturally all
have sworn that it was not so, if inquiry had been
made. He was also, I heard, bringing liquor into the
place and selling it to the men, besides increasing
his income playing poker. One day he came to me
and asked me to lend him my pistol, as he was going
to town in company with the pit-foreman, the latter’s
daughter, and the pumper; and was taking in a good
deal of money to the bank. I refused to lend my gun
(as I did not want it confiscated in case of trouble),
but lent him a 44 rifle carbine, which would serve
better to protect the cash but could hardly be carried
round town for trouble purposes—at least so I then
thought. I did not like the idea of the girl going, as
the men were all hard drinkers, and her father I knew
had already killed two men. He had got into a fight
with them in a saloon, and one of them had knocked
him down. As he fell he drew his gun and killed them
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
both, getting off, of course, on the ground of self-defence.
However, I could not say anything, and anyway it was
none of my business, so off they started. In the evening
the girl walked past the office by herself. I asked her
where her father, Monte, and the pumper were. She
told me her father had driven round by the back gate,
so she had got out and cut across; that the pumper
had fallen out of the wagon about half a mile back;
and Monte was riding in by himself on horseback.
I went out to see about the pumper, and on my
way passed the pit-foreman in the wagon trying to
drive the team across the pit, and the unhappy owner
of the wagon running like mad to save his team from
destruction!
The pumper I found sleeping in a sage brush where
he had fallen, and had him brought in. After a while,
Monte came in and I got my rifle away from him. It
seemed that they had quarrelled in town, and that
the pit-boss, his daughter, and the pumper had driven
off in the wagon, leaving Monte to walk. The latter
had hired a horse and started in pursuit; when he came
in sight of the wagon he started shooting with my
rifle to stop them. On this the pit-boss said he would
go back and kill him. But as he was getting out of
the wagon his daughter slipped his pistol out of the
holster. Luckily for the unarmed pit-boss, Monte
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
did not await his arrival, but rode off when he saw him
climb out of the wagon. The rest of them came on
home, but as they were rounding a corner the pumper,
who had stood up to make a speech (on the evils of
drink, I presume), fell out, and slept peacefully till I
rescued him. This escapade was the end of Monte
Jim and the others, and I was put in charge of the
works as foreman, still retaining my other jobs.
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIX
.pm start_summary
Promoted to Foreman—Overwork and Eyestrain—Mexican
Traits—Amateur Doctor—A rival Asphalt Company—Its
Failure.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I had plenty to attend to when I was promoted to
be foreman, but was so pleased that I tried to do the
whole job by myself; I succeeded for some three or
four months, nearly breaking myself down in the
attempt, and later found out that I got no thanks
from the company either. I used to be at the office
at 6.30 each morning to lay out the day’s work and
to issue time checks to the men who were to go to
work. During the day I was over the plant and in
the pit on practically continuous rounds, and between
times I was in the office attending to my correspondence,
making out reports for the head office, and posting
my books, as I had no office help at all. At 6 P.M.,
when the day-shift came off duty, I opened up the
commissary, and with the help of a Mexican assistant
I issued to the men the food, &c., they wished
to buy. This generally took till 7.30 P.M., then to
supper, and back to the office with a round or two
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
over the works to see what the night-shift were doing;
and then to bed at 10.30, sometimes midnight.
Finally my eyes gave out from doing so much office
work under an electric light, and I practically broke
down from overwork. A man can stand long hours
for a short time; I myself have often stood thirty-six
and forty-eight hour shifts in the extractor house,
two such shifts in one week but with a rest between;
it is the long, steady grind that wears one out. I
had to get leave and go into San Antonio to see an
oculist, who gave me glasses and fixed me up so that
I could return to work, but under orders to do no
reading or writing at night for some months. The
name of the eye trouble I was suffering from I have
forgotten, but it was not the same as that of the man
I heard of who, when the oculist had fitted on a number
of different glasses said, in reply to the question as
to how he could see with the last pair, “Well, the
green giraffe I can shee firsh rate, but the red elephant
and the purple trantula still look kinder—kinder
blurred.” I wrote to the company that I either must
have assistance, or an immediate rise of salary to
warrant doing the work and taking chances. They
replied that the salary I was receiving was all that
the position I held was worth, but they sent me a
man to take charge of the commissary, and let me
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
get a book-keeper to do the office work, so that I had
little night work to do.
I was practically the law and the prophets among
the Mexicans at the mines, and they soon learned that
I would carry out anything I said. Of course they
had to prove this by a course of experiments, for the
Mexicans hate to take anything for granted. I remember,
once, two of them having an argument in
the pit as to whether an electric fulminate cap could
be exploded by a blow or only by the electric spark,
one of them must needs experiment by striking the
cap with a stone; it took him the rest of the day to
get the pieces of stone out of his hand. I had issued
an order that any man coming drunk on to the work
would be discharged, and my best “hand driller”
tried the experiment and went herding goats for a
change. So things went on till they were convinced.
This confidence that I could and would do what I
said got me out of a hole once. There was a young
Mexican at the mines who had been ill-treating his
wife, and finally one evening he decided to kill her.
She managed to escape from him, and ran over to the
house of the head fireman, whose wife gave her shelter,
the fireman himself turning out and running the husband
off with a rifle. I heard about it the next
morning, and that the husband was still full of threats.
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
So I sent for him, his wife, and the fireman, and held
court. The wife refused to return to the husband,
as she said he would certainly kill her, and the fireman
and his wife also refused to give her up. The
husband of course denied all the charges, and said he
could not return to Mexico without his wife, as suspicion
would be aroused. I was in a quandary, for
I knew that unless I could get the young fellow away
either he or the fireman would get killed, and I could
not afford to lose the fireman. Finally I gave the
young fellow the alternative of either leaving the
place at once, and leaving his wife in the care of the
fireman and his wife, or I would take him into town
and turn him over to the sheriff. It did not take him
long to make up his mind that he did not want to
make the acquaintance of the sheriff, and so he
skipped out. The story somehow leaked out, and
the next time I met Henry Burns the sheriff he joked
me unmercifully about my divorce court. On another
occasion an old woman, who ran a sort of restaurant
for the bachelor Mexicans at the mines, came rushing
to the office to tell me that two drunken Mexicans
had run her out and were tearing her house to pieces;
then just as I started off she warned me to be careful,
as they both had pistols.
I went over to Mexico (as we called the Mexican
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
part of the camp), and as I approached the old woman’s
house, I saw the two men standing outside the door,
but as soon as they saw me they went inside. It
scared me for a minute, for I expected they would
take a shot at me from some crack or other, but,
just as I reached the door, they both stepped out
again. I then searched them and found neither of
them armed, and they denied that they had done
anything or bothered the old woman, though they
were both pretty drunk, so I let them go, thinking the
old hen had lied. Then as I started to go back to the
office I thought I would take a look in the house and
see if any damage had been done, and there in a corner
lay the two pistols. I had no real authority either
to make arrests or even carry a pistol, as I was not
a deputy-sheriff, nor could I be made one, as I was not
an American citizen; but Henry Burns had told me
to carry a gun and try and keep the peace unofficially,
which I did to the best of my ability. Once a Mexican
came running to tell me that a man and a woman
were lying dead on the road from the mines to Uvalde,
about half a mile from the mine. I hurried over
and found the woman sure enough dead, shot through
the heart from behind, but the man was still alive,
though a horrible sight to see. I used to keep a
medicine chest and plenty of lint and bandages, as,
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
having no doctor nearer than eighteen miles, I used
to attend to all hurts, and even prescribed remedies
in simple cases, till my wife protested at the string of
sick babies that used to be brought up for my inspection.
As was proved at the subsequent trial, the man
had killed the woman and then attempted suicide.
He had stuck his Winchester under his chin and
kicked the trigger. The bullet broke his jawbone
and came out over his right eye. I washed out the
wound and tied his face back into place, and just
then Henry Burns arrived on the scene and I turned
the whole business over to him. He was on his way
over to the mines about another case. They carted
the Mexican over to his house and put a guard over
him; just as they were laying him on the bed he
mumbled something, turned over, and pulled a pistol
out of the back of his waistband, that was hurting him
as he lay. Henry laughed at me for not searching
my prisoner. The man was a poor half-witted chopper
working for our firewood contractor. He got a ten-year
sentence, and died later in the penitentiary.
A rival asphalt company started to open up another
deposit two miles below our mine, and began to haul
their product to the Cline station through our land.
Under orders from the head office I went out, took
down all gates, and fenced all roads up solid, so
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
that they could not haul through the company’s
pasture.
The law in the State of Texas makes it a felony to
cut a man’s pasture fence, and the punishment is up
to five years in the penitentiary. A couple of days
after I had fixed the fences the station agent at Cline
telephoned me that the wagons were up there again
unloading. I got on my horse, and soon found where
they had torn down the fence and come through. I
wired the sheriff to send me out a deputy at once,
and on his arrival went out with him and a gang of
men, rebuilt the fence, and the lot of us sat down to
await results. Soon the wagons arrived, and on the
first one sat the president of the rival company and
his lawyer. The former, whom I knew, called out
to me and asked me why I had built the fences so
strong, as it only gave his men unnecessary trouble.
The deputy then warned him that he was breaking
the law in touching the fence, but he gave his men
orders to pull it down, and they came on through.
I wanted the deputy to arrest him, and I and my
men would help, but he refused, for fear, as he said,
of trouble; but his real reason, I found out later,
was that his orders from Henry Burns were not to
make any arrests. The case came up for trial, and
Henry Bums turned us down, getting an unfriendly
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
jury who threw the case out of court. He had been
bought by the opposition, and this was the main ground
on which I fought him later at elections. We got an
injunction in the federal court, prohibiting them from
crossing our grounds, and they had to haul to Uvalde,
twenty miles, instead of Cline, eight miles. The whole
thing, however, had been a bluff, as their deposit was
worthless, and they were simply trying to scare us
into selling our product at a low price to them. Their
bluff not working, they finally had to buy material
from us at our own price, as they had a large paving
contract to fill and nothing to fill it with. The way
these bluffs are worked in some of the States, regardless
of law, is simply astounding.
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XX
.pm start_summary
More American Business Methods—Trip to Corpus Christi—Trouble
at the Mine—West Texas as a Health Resort—Expenses
of the Simple Life.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I mentioned some of the lawless and extraordinary
things done in American business. When I was in
California an oil company was building a pipe line
to carry their product to market. Whenever they
could they bought the right of way over private
lands that they had to cross, but whenever they could
not buy at a price satisfactory to them, they simply
surprised the owner by building over his land at night,
and let him wake up in the morning to find the line
an accomplished fact. Then it was up to him either
to fight a long-drawn-out suit (during which the company
would be pumping oil over his land) or to give
in gracefully and take what he could get. One old
farmer, however, hired armed guards to watch his
land, and the pipe line company, after first trying to
intimidate his men and then to trick them, finally
gave it up in disgust and paid him his price, besides
what he had expended on his guards.
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
The price of refined asphalt taking a big drop,
owing to the successful refining of asphalt from crude
oil in California, the refinery at Cline was shut down,
and the pit and crushers only were worked, to get out
material for street paving. All American help was
dispensed with, and the only white men left on the
place were the pit-foreman, the book-keeper, and
myself. The book-keeper I had was the same young
English friend who had gone into the mining deal
with me in Canada in 1894, when we lost our mine and
our money. He had subsequently lost every penny
that remained to him in one deal after another, and
he wrote me from New York that he was broke. As
I was under many obligations to him I sent him the
funds, and he came to Cline and took charge of the
office work. He seemed just as happy without a cent
as he had been before with plenty, and I never heard
him utter a single complaint about his lost fortune:
he had real grit. Just before his arrival I had obtained
three weeks’ leave to go on a fishing trip, and
I was to leave the pit-foreman in charge. I took my
wife and boys to Corpus Christi, south of San Antonio
on the Mexican Gulf, intending to leave them there
for a few months’ change of air. I had some misgivings
about leaving the pit-foreman in charge, as
he was a “periodical” drunkard; and as I had liquor
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
in my house I locked it up before leaving, and gave
the key to the Mexican store-clerk, with instructions
to give it to no one except on a written order from
me. I had been at Corpus Christi only three days
when I got a wire from the general manager, “Return
immediately.” When I met him in San Antonio he
told me that he had received a wire from the store-clerk,
“Had bad accident, foreman drunk,” and as
he was too busy to go out to the mines himself he had
wired for me.
The store-clerk met me at the station with a conveyance,
and told me the pit-boss was armed and crazy
drunk and had every one terrorised, also that there
had been an accident in the pit in which a man was
nearly killed. I met the pit-boss on the steps of the
manager’s house, and he wanted to know what I had
come back for. I noticed that he had the company’s
45 Colt buckled on him, the gun that was supposed
to lie on my desk in the office. This I proceeded to
take from him, and then went over to my house. It
turned out that one of the men (disobeying strict
orders), while unloading a “missed shot,” started to
dig out the dynamite with his iron spoon, instead of
loading on top of it and so discharging the shot.
When the spoon reached the cap it exploded, the charge
tearing off one of his arms at the elbow and the other
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
at the wrist. They had sent him into town in the
hack, and wired for a doctor to meet him on the road.
After attending to this the pit-foreman’s nerve failed
him, and he asked the storekeeper for the key of my
house, so that he could get a drink, as he felt sick. He
had found out about the liquor by the storekeeper
running up to my house for a drink for the injured
man. Having once started he went at it in good
shape, for in four days he consumed a bottle of whisky
and three gallons of Californian wine, besides about
three dozen pint bottles of beer. The men in the pit
got scared and refused to go to work, as there was a
rumour that there were some more shots that might
go off. This so enraged the foreman that he went to
the office, got a Colt’s 45, and going down to the pit
threatened to kill any man who did not go back to
work at once. In his frenzied state they were more
afraid of him than they were of any possible explosion,
so they went back in a hurry.
It took me some days to get things working smoothly
again, and in the meantime the pit-foreman sobered
up. One rainy night I had occasion to go over to
the Mexican quarters to see one of the men I
needed for the morrow. On my way over I saw a
flash of light in the second storey of the extractor
house, which went out so quickly that I thought I
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
must have been mistaken. Still, I went over and
climbed the staircase quietly, as I could hear a low
murmur of voices, and wanted to catch them unawares
if there was any “monkey work” going on. When
I got inside, without their hearing me, I struck a
match and found about twenty Mexicans, men, women,
and children, camped up there, and, what was worse,
smoking cigarettes. It had been the flash of a match
I saw. There was a wild scramble, but I rounded
them all up, and then they told me in the most artless
way that the roofs of their houses leaked and so they
had moved up there; utterly ignoring the fact that
they were smoking in a building in which were stored
16,000 gallons of naphtha, and about 50 tons of excelsior
(a sort of wood shavings) with which they had
made themselves beds. This is the sort of recklessness
with which one has to cope when employing Mexicans.
To show how inflammable and explosive this “63”
naphtha is, I will mention what I saw once. We had
been emptying all the extractors of rock out of which
the naphtha had not been properly distilled. We
had taken out about seventy-five tons and run it out
on the dump pile in cars. While unloading a car one
of the men, who had a pair of O.K. shoes (miner’s
shoes with the soles studded with nails), jumped down
the pile to get a hoe that he had dropped. There
.bn 186.png
.pn +1
was a puff and the whole pile was on fire; he had
struck a spark with his shoe. He looked for a minute
like an understudy for the devil in “Faust,” then
beating the world’s record for high and long jumps
he was out with nothing worse than a singed whisker
and a wholesome respect for naphtha.
West Texas is noted as a health resort for consumptives
as the air is so dry, and I myself have seen
some wonderful cures. One young fellow I saw helped
off the train, who I thought could not live over a
week or two, was, within a year, one of the best cow-punchers
in the county, and could stay all day in the
saddle without trouble. His case was one of perhaps
fifty that I have personally known. The idea seems
to be to buy a camp wagon and a couple of horses,
a gun, a rifle, and fishing tackle, and go wandering
round the country hunting and fishing and leading
the simple life. The initial expense for a first-class
outfit would not be over £50, and after that you can
live for £3 to £4 per month, provided you cook for yourself.
If, however, from weakness or lack of knowledge
one cannot do for oneself, a man can be hired to go
along, and the expense account would not pass £15,
including his wages and keep. This of course does
not include any luxuries, it only allows of the absolute
necessaries, such as flour, bacon, salt, sugar, coffee,
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
lard, canned milk, dried apples, and rice. Meat, fish,
&c., your gun and rod supply. I and a friend once
lived for three weeks, and lived well, on £1 worth of
provisions. As I have before said, the country is well
stocked with game, and there are fish for the catching.
Lots of young fellows with weak lungs and small
capital, who cannot afford to loaf, buy a few stands
of bees and make a decent living, while getting well.
The work is light and keeps one out of doors, as most
of these bee-men live in tents. £100 will buy one
hundred stands of bees, the profit of which is sufficient
to keep a man in food and necessaries. It is a
solitary sort of life, but if a man has sporting instincts
and a longing to get well he can stand it for a year
or so, by which time he is fit for harder work. The
heat is great in summer, but, being very dry, does
not affect one’s health, and the springs, falls, and
winters are delightful, all except the “Northers,”
of which I shall have more to say.
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXI
.pm start_summary
"Northers"—Almost frozen—The Mexican Indian—Cold-blooded
Ingratitude—Mexican untrustworthiness.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
The chief drawback to the fine Texas climate is the
“Norther” or cold north wind, that is really sometimes
pretty bad. You can hear the wind roar for minutes
before it reaches you, and when it strikes the temperature
goes down and down. I heard a norther coming
once about four o’clock in the afternoon, and ran out
to the porch to look at the thermometer. It stood at
106° F., and within fifteen minutes it was 70° F. and
still dropping, and by morning it was freezing. These
northers seldom last over three days at a time, and they
are generally followed by beautiful weather. There
are about a dozen or so of them in a winter, but unless
accompanied by rain they are not so bad as one might
think. I was fishing on the Nueces river one Saturday
night about ten o’clock for cat-fish, when I was
surprised by a wet norther. I crawled with my saddle,
&c., under a shelving rock and waited for the rain and
hail to let up a bit. After a while I noticed that the
river was rising, and as I happened to be on the wrong
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
side from home, and the river sometimes stays up for
three or four days, I had perforce to saddle up and
get across while I could. When I got to the other
side I could find no shelter, and as I had a good mess
of fish I thought I might as well strike out for home.
I did not feel the full force of the wind till I got out
of the bottoms, but it was bitter when I reached the
hills. I was so nearly frozen when I got home, about
2 A.M., that I could not unsaddle my horse till I had
gone into the house, got a hot whisky, and warmed up.
On another occasion I was deer-hunting with a
friend. We drove out in the evening in my buggy
and pitched camp on a little rise where there was dry
firewood, and after cooking supper we rolled up in
our blankets and went to sleep. In the night a dry
norther came up, and it was one of the worst I ever
saw. Each pretended to be asleep so that the other
should light a fire, but at last we could stand it no
longer, so we both got up and built a fire. The only
way we could keep from freezing was to pull the buggy
up to the windward side of the fire and make a wind-brake
of some of our blankets tied to the wheels, so
that we could sit between this and the fire. But the
windbreak also acted as a chimney and sucked the
smoke into our faces. When day broke we had to
give up the idea of hunting. Our faces were the colour
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
of a well-smoked ham, and our eyes so bloodshot that
we could not see a deer at fifty yards. But curiously
enough, one never seems to be the worse for being
caught in one of these storms, and one seldom takes
cold.
The average Mexican Indian is a peculiar man,
and one rarely can tell what his real feelings are.
They are not dependable; a man may be your friend
for years and then for some slight cause or supposed
insult may turn and kill you. The only real personal
trouble I had at the mines came about in this way.
There were two young fellows who had started with us
as water-boys, and finding them intelligent I had
finally raised them to drillers, and given them each
charge of an Ingersoll drill. Their father was a
hand-driller, and also owned a couple of wagons doing
freighting for us. The family considered themselves
under obligations to me, and I thought I could depend
on them. One day the old man came to me (accompanied
by his two boys) and said the timekeeper had
made some mistake in his time, and asked me to have
it rectified. Instead of sending for the timekeeper I
thought I would straighten up the matter personally,
as I was not very busy at the moment, and I took
them into the office. While I and the old man were
going over the time slips and wagon reports, the
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
younger boy kept interrupting and putting in remarks,
till he aggravated me into telling him sharply to shut
up. He answered me in an insolent manner that he
had come to see his father get justice and intended to
do so. His father and brother tried to shut him up,
and I told him that if he spoke to me like that again
I would throw him out. “You will, will you?” he
said, jerked out his knife, and came for me. As I
reached for my gun his brother took a flying leap on
to his back, and down they came at my feet struggling
for the knife, which finally the elder brother took
from him. When they got up I told the young man
he was discharged, and would have to leave the company’s
property at once. The father and elder brother
begged me to let him off this time. But I said to them,
“You know that Manuel now has a grudge against
me. I have a lot of night walking to do. Life is too
short for me to have to live in fear of, or have to pull
a gun on, every man who walks up behind me in the
dark, so when the nervous strain reaches a certain
pitch I shall either kill Manuel or he will kill me. Is
it not so?” The brother and father had to agree
that I was right, and I never saw Manuel again. It
was a case of a mountain out of a molehill, but I could
not afford to take chances, and now, after sixteen
years’ experience of Mexican ways, I am still convinced
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
that I did the only thing that I could do under the
circumstances.
A case of really cold-blooded ingratitude happened
near Uvalde to a young fellow that I knew. There
was an elderly American couple with one son, who
had adopted a Mexican boy, bringing him up as a
member of the family. The old man died when the
boys were about nineteen years of age, leaving all he
had to his wife. They had a small ranch on which
they raised goats, besides having a few stands of bees.
A short while after the father’s death they decided
to sell out their Uvalde ranch and move to Devil’s
River in North-west Texas, where they could get a
larger ranch for their increasing flocks. They sold
the ranch and were to move the next day by camp
wagon, driving the goats, and taking the money
(about $800) with them. The party was to consist
of the mother, the son John, the Mexican boy Juan,
and an old Mexican goat-herd who had worked for
the family for years. The day before they were to
start John went into town to get some supplies and the
money, but before leaving the ranch he asked Juan
if there was anything he could bring him out from
town. Juan said he wanted a good bowie knife.
When John, on his return, drove up to the house he
handed the sheath-knife to Juan, whom he met out
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
at the corral, and then carried the money and the
things he had bought into the house. Amongst the
things was a new rifle which he had bought at the last
moment, and which he now loaded and put up on
two nails over the lintel of the door: this act saved
his life. For while he was inside, Juan went to the
old goat-herd with the proposition that they two
should go in and kill the two Americans, take the
money, wagon, goats, and pull out for the border.
“Every one will think they are gone, and there will be
no hunt for them till we are safe,” he said. At first
the old herder thought it was all a grim joke, but when
he saw it was really meant in earnest, he started for
the house to warn them. The younger man was too
quick for him, however, and stabbed him twice in
the back before he could reach the door of the house.
His cry brought John to the door, where he was met
by a stab in the chest from the Mexican, who reached
there at the same time. John fell in the doorway,
and Juan jumped over him and made for his adoptive
mother. She, however, had seen John stabbed, and,
being an old frontier woman, was quick to act and
full of fight. As Juan came for her she grabbed an
old shot-gun from its hooks on the wall, which he also
had to seize with both hands to keep its muzzle pointing
away from him, and so could not make use of his
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
knife. The old woman was strong, and the fight was
desperate for possession of the old gun.
The grim joke of the thing, if joke there can be in
such a tragedy, was that neither of them knew that
the gun was unloaded and useless.
Meanwhile John had managed to get to his feet
and reach down his Winchester, then, dropping again
to the floor from weakness, he was ready for action.
“Turn him loose, mother,” he called, and the old
lady without question turned Juan and the gun
loose and got out of the line of fire. As soon as Juan
saw that the tables were turned, and that John,
instead of being helpless as he had thought, was armed,
he dropped on his knees and prayed for his life. But
all the answer he got was ten shots from the Winchester;
John believed in making a good job of it.
The old lady went out, caught one of the horses, and
rode into town for the doctor and the sheriff. The
old herder only just lived long enough to tell his tale,
but John recovered. As for Juan, I think he was
lucky in receiving death from the Winchester, instead
of at the hands of the Uvalde citizens when they heard
of the tragedy.
I have lived nearly seventeen years in daily contact
with Mexicans, and I can truthfully say that there
is not one of them that I know of (of the lower or
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
working classes) with whom I would go into the hills
alone with $500 in my possession, if the Mexican
knew I had it and thought he could get away with it
after disposing of me. Yet I like them as workmen,
and get along very well with them. So I do not
utterly condemn them, nor would I go as far as the
clergyman who made a tour of Mexico. He was a
very literal and truthful man, and on his return to
the States he was asked what he thought of the Mexicans.
“Is it true,” he was asked, “that all the
women are immoral and all the men liars and thieves?”
“Well,” said he, “I would hardly go as far as that,
because, you see, I did not meet all of them!”
It must be remembered that the Mexican lower
classes are Indians, either pure or with slight European
admixture. Naturally they retain the moral code
of their nation, by which the first duty is revenge
for injury, however small. Ingratitude and greed are
defects, perhaps, by that code, but too common to
be reckoned as vices. When “wild in woods the
noble savage ran,” he seems from contemporary
accounts to have been much like the Pathans of
India’s border.
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXII
.pm start_summary
Employed by a Paving Company—The Growth of Los
Angeles—Its Land Values—A Centre for Tourists.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
The Uvalde Asphalt Company started a paving company
to use up their products, and, as I was getting
very tired of the mines, and also seemed to have reached
the maximum salary that the Company would pay
for my position, I applied for a job on the paving end,
where I should have a pleasanter life and possibly a
chance of promotion, besides learning another side
of the work. The head office, however, told me that
they needed me where I was, and therefore could not
transfer me; and then put a green man into the
position I had asked for, paying him $125 per month,
while I was only getting $75! I wrote to a number
of different paving companies, and the asphalt trust
offered me a place as yard foreman in Los Angeles at
three dollars per day, provided the Uvalde Company
would give me a good letter of recommendation. The
Uvalde Company then made me some vague promises
as to the future, but I refused to stay, and finally
they gave me a really very good letter.
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
So on the 26th October 1902 I left Cline, Texas
(where I had worked seven years and seven months)
for California. My people thought me foolish in
leaving a company where I was known, and had made
some small record, and in which I also held a good
share, to go to another concern where I was unknown
and had no friends. This may apply to England,
where long service is appreciated, but it does not apply
to America. Here a new man has as good or really
a better show than one long in the firm’s employ;
in fact, when I arrived in Los Angeles, I found that
I was to supersede a man who had been sixteen years
in the Barber Company, and who was acting yard
foreman till my arrival.
My own experience has been that if a man starts
in a concern at a very low salary, he can never work
up past a certain figure. I suppose it is natural to
think—“This man used to work for so much a day,
and we have more than doubled his salary since he
has been with us, and he is an ungrateful hog if he
wants more.” And even if they are forced to give
the amount asked for, sooner than lose the man, there
is a feeling of soreness at the man’s ingratitude. People
rarely consider that they cannot get another man to
do the same work for the same money. When I first
went to Cline the foreman’s salary was $125 per month,
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
and he had no office work whatsoever to do. I started
as labourer at $1.25 per day and worked up to twice
that rate, or $75 per month, as foreman; at which
figure I was doing not only the foreman’s regular
work but most of the office work as well, yet because
I had started at low wages the company thought I
was well paid. When I arrived in Los Angeles and
reported for duty, the general manager took me over
the works and introduced me to the men who were
to work under me; then we returned to the office
and he posted me as to my men and duties. The chief
engineer (who had been acting foreman) was, he told
me, an old man and trusted employee, whom, however,
he could not use as foreman as he had not the ability
to handle men. The manager said, “As to him, I
would like you to try and get along with him, bearing
in mind that he will be angry with you for taking the
position which he thinks should have been his; but
if you cannot get along I shall have to find another
place for him.” Of course I know that in such cases a
new foreman has to prove himself to his men before they
will look up to him and readily recognise his authority.
I was young, and the men would begin to take liberties
unless I could show them that “I knew where I was
at,” as they said in Texas. Luckily for me, my opportunity
came at once, for I had noticed on going over
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
the plant with the manager, one improvement that
would do away with a lot of unnecessary work in
connection with the screening of the different grades
of gravel and sand. I made my proposal of a change
to Mr. Arthur, the general manager, and he asked the
opinion of the chief engineer, who happened to be
near. The latter at once laughed at the idea and said
it was impracticable. I insisted, and said I would
stake my job on the result, and then Mr. Arthur
told me to go ahead. I took some of the men and
tore down the screens and rigged one the way I had
proposed, and it turned out the success I had predicted.
This was sufficient for all the men, except the prejudiced
engineer, that I knew my business; and they
all seemed friendly disposed with the exception of
him and the mixer-man (the man who had charge of
the mixing of the paving material). One day one of
the men said to me, "I guess you are all right, so I
want to warn you to look out for Harry Kern (the
engineer) and 'Old George' (the mixer-man), who
are doing all they can against you; the former at
the office and the latter amongst the men." I soon
had proof of this, for one day the cashier (a great
friend of Harry’s) came out of the office and spoke
to me most offensively about some reports which he
wanted me to make at once for him. I told him to
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
get back to his office, that I allowed nobody to boss
me in my own yard so long as I was foreman; that
seemed to settle him, and then I took the bull
by the horns and went to see Harry, to whom
I talked like a “Dutch uncle.” I told him it could
do him no good if they made it unpleasant enough
to make me resign, as he would never get the job of
foreman; that I had not known of the state of affairs
when I came or might have stayed out; but, as I
had come, we must work together in harmony or he
would have to go somewhere else. He took it well,
and we afterwards became great friends. Old George,
of course, I had to handle in a different way, so I
jumped him on the first pretext, and, as I expected,
he gave me impudence in order to show off before the
other men. I had a monkey wrench in my hand, and
I told him that he would apologise or I would beat
him good and plenty and then fire him. He owned
up that he had been hasty, and so we let it go at that.
Old George was one of the best men I had on the place
after we got to understand one another, and after I
left the company and came to Mexico he wanted to
come along with me.
Los Angeles is one of the most wonderful towns in
the United States, and the growth is phenomenal.
It is essentially a tourist town, being practically
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
supported by the tourists who come there to spend
the winter, and by men who have retired from business
and wish to end their days in a decent climate. It
is estimated to have over 60,000 transient population.
In 1900 the real estate men put up “prophecy boards”
all over the town saying “in 1910 Los Angeles will
have a population of 250,000,” and every one laughed
at them. In 1907 they scratched out the “2” and
put a “3” over it, as the population was then about
275,000, and is to-day over 350,000. In 1893 a German
bought for $800 a tract of sage brush and sand in
what is now “Boyle Heights,” and went to work at
his trade of carpenter to make a living and pay the
taxes. He had grit and held on, finally selling out
for some $200,000. One of our men in the Barber
Yard bought a small cottage for $1400 and within
six months was offered $2000 for it, which I advised
him to refuse; judging from the value of other
property in the same neighbourhood, it is worth
to-day at least $8000.
Fortunes have been lost in real estate in Los Angeles,
but for the past eleven years it has been going up by
leaps and bounds. Yet all wonder what keeps it up,
as there are practically no manufactures, and though
it is surrounded by orange and lemon orchards, those
fruits are taken by buyers from the east and shipped
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
there direct, so that there are few, if any, local middlemen.
But there is, as I said before, a large influx of
the wealthy class of tourists, and these leave an immense
amount of money in the city. Besides, there
are a number of the millionaire class from the eastern
states who winter there. One striking feature is the
great number of small detached cottages, with beautiful
gardens, owned chiefly by the mechanics and
labouring men of the city. Los Angeles is sometimes
called the city of cottages. Most of these small five-and
six-roomed cottages, quite up-to-date with all
the latest conveniences and improvements, and costing
from $1200 to $2000 each, are being or have been
paid for on the instalment plan. Of course they are
sometimes forfeited, but if one has paid enough to
make it worth while, one can generally sell one’s
equity if unwilling or unable to continue the payments.
I knew a labouring man who in this way acquired
three houses. He earned $2.50 per day in our yard
as blacksmith, and his wife earned about the same
amount as seamstress; they were childless and were
saving for old age. As soon as they had a house paid
for they rented it out, and with this rent and their
savings commenced to buy another one. They expect,
when they have enough houses, to retire and
live on their rentals, looking after their property. As
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
Los Angeles caters for the tourist trade, one can hire
hundreds of houses of all sizes and prices, completely
furnished even to bed and table linen, table and
kitchen ware.
Another thing that strikes the visitor is the street
car system, claimed—and rightly, I think—to be the
finest in the world. One can get a car to any part of
the city, or to any of the suburban towns or seaside
resorts (called beaches), at intervals of from three
to ten minutes, according to the importance of the
line. There are good roads out of Los Angeles,
and in fact all over California, and the city itself has
very fine asphalt streets. In consequence, the wealthy
bring their automobiles, and also almost every labouring
man has his bicycle to take him to and from his work.
At 6 P.M. Spring Street and Broadway are a sight to
see with the streams of bicycles and motor cycles
wending their way homewards. In the evenings, in
front of the cheap five and ten cent theatres (where
really good vaudeville entertainments are given), the
library, and the Y.M.C.A. rooms, I have seen bicycles
five and six deep against the curb; it is quite a job
to pick out your own amongst the hundreds of others.
These cheap theatres are a great institution and
play to crowded houses all night long. They tried
to start a palm garden theatre where one could smoke,
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
but it did not turn out a success owing to the chill
of the evening making it unpleasant to sit outside.
In the other houses they prohibit smoking.
During the winter, too, the horse races, which last
for a couple of months, bring lots of people and money
to the town, which has also become quite a centre
of boxing. Boating, fishing, and sea bathing are
to be had at any of the numerous beaches about
twenty minutes’ car ride from the centre of the city,
so that forms of amusement are plentiful.
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIII
.pm start_summary
"Graft"—Seeking Contracts in Los Angeles—In Charge of
Street Work—Crooked Business.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Winston Churchill’s Coniston and Mr. Crewe’s
Career explain the methods of bosses and railway
presidents, and their conflicts or combinations for
the robbing of the public in America. For the railways
it may perhaps be said that they have to protect
themselves against the “Bosses,” and for the
“Bosses” that they are what the people make them:
at any rate, I need not discuss the forms of that
business immorality against which Mr. Roosevelt has
struggled. But I will try to give some idea of the
rottenness of the contracting business and the city
officials, and truly it was awful. But what can be
expected when contractors make their men scoundrels
in order to hold their jobs, and teach them to rob the
public, and then are horrified when they are robbed
or cheated by their own men! Then the men, many
of whom have no idea of honour, are all the time trying
to hurt one another in order to show up well with the
company; of this I shall say more later on. Those who
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
are inclined to seek fortune in America must reckon
with such difficulties.
Los Angeles is a very expensive town to live in,
and I soon found that financially I had not made a
change for the better. But I was gaining in experience
in my business, and being in a city, had a better
chance to look for openings than I had when cut off
from the world, as I was out at the Uvalde Mines.
A good part of my work consisted in going round
town keeping track of all building and improvement
work going on, and trying to get contracts for paving
cellars, driveways, and warehouse floors; in fact, anything
I could obtain. For this purpose the company
gave me the use of a horse and dog-cart. I would
see a fine house going up, try to find the architect,
get the specifications, and, if asphalt was mentioned,
would put in a bid on the spot. I was given a free
hand as to prices, the only condition being that the
work should show some profit, and, in case the other
companies had put in a bid, I was to cut their bid if
I could do it without showing a decided loss. In the
case of a very big job, or something that might lead to
more work, I referred to Mr. Arthur, who would sometimes
take the work even at a loss, to keep the other
fellow from getting it. This does not sound like good
business, but our company was the largest, and could
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
stand a small loss if Mr. Arthur could keep the other
fellow without work, so that his pay-roll should eat
him up. We could stand the game longer than they
except for politics. Of this and our final downfall I
shall write in another chapter.
After I had been some months with the company
my salary was raised to $3.50 per day, and I was put
in charge of the work on the street, and turned the
yard over to a man who came down from a branch
in San Francisco. The company employed at this
time in Los Angeles, beside the general manager, two
superintendents, myself as foreman of the asphalt
gang, and a yard foreman to whom I had given over
charge of that job. Some weeks after the change
this man Bister asked me to come up to his room as
he wanted to see me about something important.
One night I did go, and he informed me that he had
heard that the company was going to cut operating
expenses, and some of us would be let out as soon as
the present rush of work was over. One of the superintendents,
Mr. Weber, was drinking, he said, and he
proposed that I should join himself and the other
superintendent, Cressfield, to get Weber discharged;
in return for which Cressfield would guarantee our
jobs to Bister and me. I never found out if he had
any authority from Cressfield to make me such a proposition,
.bn 208.png
.pn +1
but in order to clinch me, he said that Weber
had been speaking rather disparagingly about my
work. I laughed at him and told him that I wanted
no hand in the fight as I was not interested enough,
and that when the company wanted my job back
they could have it. Finally, however, they dragged
me into the fight against my will, but on the opposite
side to that he wanted me to join.
Weber and Cressfield were each in charge of a contract,
and my gang did the asphalt work for both of
them, so that I worked part of the week for one and
part of the week for the other. Cressfield asked me
to put his brother on as a skilled tamperman at $2.25
per day, but after he had worked a few days I found
that he was not skilled, and the other men would have
kicked if I had paid him as a skilled tamperman. I
told Cressfield that I could not keep him on as tamperman,
but would keep him as a labourer, if he wished,
at $1.75. Cressfield did not seem much put out, but
told me I was too particular. He took his brother
on his concrete gang, where, of course, he had nothing
to do with me, though I had made an enemy of him,
a fact I was made to feel in a hundred different ways.
Weber, on the other hand, tried to help me in as
many ways, even when I refused to join him in some
of the schemes he was working. Mr. Arthur seemed
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
to be the only man who really was absolutely square,
and his principles were such as do not help a man in
contracting business in the States.
Some time before I came to the company the foreman
of one of the street railway companies in the city
had come to Mr. Arthur with a proposition to turn
over to him the contract for all the company’s business
for a term of two years if Arthur would give him
$2000 as a bonus. Arthur replied that he had already
put up a bid lower than any other company, and if
he could not get the work by a fair bid he did not want
it at all; and, furthermore, that he (Arthur) would
report the conversation to the owners of the railway
line. He did so, but the owners would not listen to
him; they said that it was impossible: the man had
been in their employ for a number of years, and they
trusted him completely. Later on this man was
found out and discharged, but through political pull
he got the position of chief inspector of the Public
Works Department. This occurred shortly after I
went on to the street business. The first intimation
I got was when we had a new inspector sent out to
stay with my gang, and this man from the very first
day proceeded to condemn our material, our work,
me, and my men; we could do nothing right. I had
a great friend in the Public Works Department, a
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
member of my Order, and to him I went at once to
see what it all meant. He told me, “You had better
get out from under, as the word is out to kill Arthur
(in a business sense), and we can only hit him through
you fellows. There is nothing personal to you in this,
but move while you can.” I could not of course
repeat this to Arthur, but I went and told him that
the inspector was most unreasonable, and asked him
what I should do about it. He told me not to give
way to the inspector, and that he would back me in
anything reasonable.
I went back to the street and told the inspector
that he must not interfere with my men any more,
but, if he had complaints to make, to make them to
me. He got impudent, and I requested him to take
off his spectacles (in California and some other states
it is a most serious offence to strike a man with glasses
on his nose); he dashed off to a telephone and sent
for the street superintendent; I went to another
telephone and sent for Arthur. When they both
arrived on the scene the inspector stated that I had
threatened to assault him for doing his duty. I told
the street superintendent that the man was interfering
with my men, contrary to rules, and had been
abusive to me. The upshot of it was that the superintendent
told me that if I could not get along with
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
the man from his office he would “Call me off public
work” (the law gives this power to the street superintendent,
and any man called off can work on no
further public work in that city). During all this
Arthur sat in his buggy and never said a word. After
it was over I went across to him and offered my resignation,
but he asked me to stay on till the job in hand
was through.
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIV
.pm start_summary
Bribery and corruption—The Good Government League—Servant
problem in California—The climate and its effect
on wages—Off to Guadalajara.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
My resignation being refused, I decided to stay and
finish up the streets we were on. Of course after this
the inspector had it all his own way, and he certainly
led us a dance. I continued to look out for other
work, and one day the chief sewer inspector told me
that he could give us all the repaving work in connection
with the sewers if there was anything in it for
him. I reported this to my superintendent, and was
told to give the inspector ten per cent., and the
cashier told me the same thing. Arthur, I knew,
would not have allowed it had he known it, but I was
ordered not to report to him. The barefaced bribery,
robbery, and swindling that went on in Los Angeles,
in fact, in any town I knew anything about in the
United States, was really surprising. However, I
understand that so far as California is concerned all
this has been changed since the prosecution and conviction
of Reuff and Smidt, Mayor of San Francisco,
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
and the formation of the Good Government League.
A contractor was at the absolute mercy of the city
officials and dared not say them nay; it was not that he
wished to bribe but it was forced upon him if he hoped
to remain in business at all. The same applied to
his superintendents and foremen; if they were not
ready to supply cigars and drinks for the inspectors
their work would turn out so unsatisfactory that they
did not hold their jobs long.
Between the city officials and the labour unions the
contractor had a bad time. Los Angeles had not much
trouble as far as the labour unions were concerned,
but San Francisco was practically run by the unions
during Mayor Smidt’s time (the man mentioned above),
he himself being a union man. I do not mean to infer
that I am against organised labour, for in many cases
that is their sole defence against starvation wages.
But when the unions allow such men as the Macnamara
brothers (just convicted of the Times Building dynamiting)
to guide their destinies, they cannot expect
the outsider to sort the sheep from the goats. In
“Frisco” a delegate came every day from the Labour
Council to visit your gangs, and would order you to
discharge any man who did not belong to their Order;
if you complied they sent you men in the place of those
discharged, and if you refused they posted you as
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
“unfair,” and you could not get men. They called
off the union bricklayers on a building once because
we were working non-union men laying asphalt in
the cellar. We told them that there was no such thing
as an asphalt union in Los Angeles, so that the men
could not belong to it, but this made no difference to
them. So we had to wait till the building was completed,
and then go back and finish the asphalt work.
I have heard of some extraordinary lengths to which
they would carry their “unfair list,” though I will
not vouch for the following story, but tell it as it
was told to me: A walking delegate came to notify
a doctor that he was on the “unfair list.” The doctor
was surprised, as he had always been most careful to
deal in stores with union clerks, to pay his servants
union wages, &c. The delegate said, “You have
been attending Martin Brady who is ill with pneumonia.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but I found out
first that he was in good standing with the union.”
The delegate replied that "Brady got his cold through
getting wet at a farmer’s pump, and we have found
out that the pump was not union made."
The servant-girl problem is worse in California
than in any other place I have ever been to; they
get wages running from $25 to $50 per month, and
in consequence are as independent as can be. My
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
wife got ill, so I went to one of the employment
bureaus to see about a girl, and passed through the
ordeal of my life. One woman I spoke to asked me
how many there were in the family, and what I did
for a living, and then, when I told her the house had
only five rooms (as an inducement, I thought), she
turned to me and said, “Five rooms, indeed, and I
would like to know where you could put a girl!”
One girl that came said, “I am so glad to see you
have a piano as I do love to play in the evenings.”
They tell of a Swedish girl whose mistress asked her,
the first morning after she had arrived, if the table
was laid for breakfast. The girl replied, "Everytang
bane laid but the aigs, and I don’t tank dat bane part
of ma job."
The climate of Los Angeles is much better than that
of San Francisco, but it is not all that it is cracked up
to be. The winters are much damper than in Texas,
and though the summers are fine there are very bad
dust storms at times, and it gets very hot indeed.
But the residents resent complaint of their weather, as
they think it is the finest on earth, and you can hardly
blame them, for the climate is what brings most of
the money to the town. And certainly it produced
some of the finest and healthiest-looking men and
women it has ever been my luck to see. This question
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
of climate has a curious effect on the labour market.
So many young fellows of large brain but weak bodies
have flocked to the town that an office man cannot
approach the wages paid to a labourer or a mechanic;
good office men could be got for from $40 to $50 per
month at the time when labourers could get $1.75 per
day, carpenters $3.50 for eight hours’ work, and masons
$6.50 per day. I had a negro raker working under
me who was getting the same salary as myself, and we
had a cement sidewalk finisher who was drawing more
pay per week than the superintendent.
The yard foreman and I soon fell out, for the inspector
was condemning the material he sent up, and,
as I could not say anything, it was sent back to the
yard. The yard foreman, to get even, would report
more stuff sent up than I had received, and finally
things got to such a pass that when we got the first
of the streets finished I left. The day after I resigned
I was riding up town on my bicycle when I met the
manager of our big rival company. He stopped me
and asked if it was true that I had left the Barber
people. When I told him so he asked me if I would
work for him. I refused, saying that I was sick of
Los Angeles and the trouble with the street department,
and had the offer of a position in Boston. He
told me that if I worked for them I would have no
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
further trouble with the street department, and he
would give me the same salary as I had been getting,
besides a bonus on any exceptionally good work. So
the next day found me at work for the rival concern,
and it was like coming into a harbour from a storm
at sea. This concern had been making friends with
the powers that ruled while Arthur had been making
enemies, and the inspectors helped instead of hindering
the work. If any of us were called away for
a time the inspector would take hold of the gang
and look after things till one returned. I was surprised,
till I found out that they were one and all on
the company’s pay-roll, besides what the city paid
them for looking after the city’s interests. Thus the
public was robbed; but this form of robbery is so
common that the public seems to expect it, and can
hardly realise such a thing as an honest contractor or
honest public officials.
I was getting pretty sick of all this trickery, and was
glad, a couple of months later, to hear of a new company
formed in Los Angeles who were looking for a man
to go down to Mexico to take charge of a contract they
had there. I reckoned that conditions would be so
different there that things might be run on the square.
I went to the manager and president of the new company
and applied for the position of superintendent.
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
He took me in his auto and we went over the different
jobs I had done, with which he seemed satisfied.
So we signed a contract for six months at $4.50
per day, which was to be raised at the end of six
months if everything was satisfactory. I then went
to see the manager of the company I was with and
told him of the offer. He told me he did not wish
to stand in my way if I wished to go, and that if I
did not like Mexico he would try to place me again if
I cared to come back; but that owing to the keen
competition in Los Angeles they could not offer me
a higher salary. So on 4th September 1904 I left
Los Angeles for Guadalajara, Mexico, the second
largest city in the republic (population 130,000).
Poor Arthur, they got him a few months after I left
the city, as, being an honourable man, he was unable
to make a single contract pay; so the Barber Company
dismissed him to make way for a new man who had
no enemies in the city. Arthur followed in my footsteps,
and went to work for the company which he
had been fighting for so many years. A few months
later came the elections, and the street superintendent
was himself turned out of office (if only Arthur
could have outlasted him!), and immediately started
a paving company of his own to fight the other two;
and owing to his general crookedness and knowledge
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
of the political ropes of the town he seems to be making
a success of it. The Barber Company is an immense
corporation with hundreds of branches and dozens
of different names to work under, but its most desperate
fight has always been with its own men, who turn and
rend it.
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXV
.pm start_summary
The Barber Company—Guadalajara—Mexican mendacity—Don
Miguel Ahumada—His humanity and justice.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I think I can safely say that twenty per cent. of the
opposition the Barber Company gets in the States is
from men who were formerly in its employ. This is
right enough in most cases, but in some that I have
known it was done in a most underhand way. A manager
of one of the branches gets well acquainted with all
the politicians in his town or district by the judicious
use of the company’s entertainment fund, then, when
there is some exceptional contract coming up, he gets
some of these politicians to go into a new company,
obtains funds from his friends, and the Barber Company
not only loses the contract but there is an opposition
formed with strong political backing which must
eventually be beaten or bought out. Somehow this
sort of thing is not looked down upon by business
men as it should be, who will pardon almost anything
if it is “cute.” Here are two stories which
illustrate cute business methods. A certain lawyer
was suing the city for damages for his client, who had
fallen through a defective culvert and injured himself.
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
He won his case, and sent word to his client to come
and get the money. When his client arrived he handed
him $1, and told him the jury had awarded $1000.
“What is this?” asked the client. “That is what
is left after deducting cost of appeal, my fee, and some
other expenses,” returned the lawyer. “Yes, I understand
that,” said the client, who was a business man,
“but what was wrong with this dollar that you have
given it to me?” They tell of the Yankee salesman
during slavery times who was travelling through the
South. A southern planter lent him a horse to ride
on to the next town, and sent along a negro boy to
bring the horse back. Some time later, neither the
horse nor the boy having returned, he sent in to town
to see what had happened. His messenger met the
boy on the street and asked him why he had not
brought the horse back yet. The boy replied that
the Yank had sold the horse. “Well, why did not you
come back and let us know?” asked the messenger.
“Cause he done sold me too!” So any trickery,
if it is clever and works successfully, is never thought
much of, but is laughed at as a good joke. Of course
this is only my particular experience of business
methods. I may have been unfortunate in having
met a certain class, those interested in contracting, and
city and government officials.
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
I was glad to leave Los Angeles, which I did in
company with the assistant manager of the new
company I had joined, and my new yard foreman.
Before going further, I must say that the views stated
above have changed much since coming to Mexico and
meeting American gentlemen in the contracting business.
I have never been asked to do crooked work, and, on
the contrary, my orders have always been to do the
best work possible under the specifications.
After passing the Mexican border at El Paso the
journey lies for the first hundred miles or so through
a dreary sandy waste till one reaches Torreon, which,
owing to its irrigation canals, is the centre of a very
fine farming district. The town possesses large
smelters, a white-lead works, and a glycerine and
dynamite factory. And this is the town where in
Madero’s late revolution 303 poor unhappy Chinamen
were slaughtered in cold blood! The next place of
importance is Zacatecas, one of the largest mining
centres in the Mexican republic, with mines, now
being worked, that were worked by the Spaniards
some three hundred years ago. Its cathedral, perched
up on the top of the mountain, was all lighted up for
some great church fiesta; a very pretty sight, visible for
miles after we had passed the town. From Irapuata
a branch line runs to Guadalajara. The country here
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
changes entirely as one enters the State of Jalisco,
known as the granary of Mexico. Guadalajara itself
is a fine old Mexican city, in the centre of an immense
fertile plain, at an elevation of 5200 feet. It is a
town that has always been against the Liberals, being
the great centre of the Clerical Party, and consequently
the Federal Government under Diaz never did much
to help it. Juarez was nearly assassinated here,
and General Diaz was hissed by the people when he
went up there some twelve years ago. It has a beautiful
cathedral, and churches are to be found in almost
every block of the centre of the town. It is a very
sleepy place, distinguished for this even in a land where
the people are accustomed to take life easily; things
have, however, changed much in the last eight
years.
There are certain ways hard to get accustomed to
in this country. One is the habit of lying, not maliciously,
but that lying to keep you in a good humour
which is practised by all classes. For instance, you
go into an office and ask for a certain person who
happens to be out. You ask when he will be back,
and the reply is invariably, “Please sit down, he will
be back in a moment.” In fact, they lead you to
suppose that they are astonished that he has not
already returned. And all the time they know that
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
he has gone home, and left word that he would not
return! I have been to a foundry to get delivery
of work promised me by the owner on his “word
of a gentleman,” by the following day (which he knew,
and I knew, could not possibly be done), and I have
finally got the work delivered three weeks later, after
going up and cursing him twice a week. I have asked
for work long overdue, been met at the door and told
that I must have missed it on the way there as it
had just left for the factory, while all the time it
was still unfinished. Then there is the siesta habit
indulged in by all Mexicans, though foreigners do not
follow the custom or find it at all necessary to health.
From 1 P.M. till 3 P.M. all business is stopped, not a
store is open or an office. Another trouble is stealing;
it seems to come natural to a Mexican of the lower
classes to steal. Then, if he can, the Mexican does
everything in the opposite way to any one else. I
have heard it said that the only thing they do the
same as other people is digging a well, because they
do not know how to start at the bottom; but this is
an exaggeration. When a Mexican gives his address
he puts the street first and the number afterwards;
their exclamation marks are used upside down, and
the query mark is like this ¿. If they are going to
pull down an old house and build a new one, they
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
build the new one inside the old one, and only pull
down as it becomes necessary; they saw with the
teeth of the saw away from them, and other things
too numerous to mention.
Guadalajara claims to have the cheapest electrical
power on the continent (six cents the kilowatt hour),
and in consequence it is an important manufacturing
town, having cotton mills, flour mills, two or three
foundries, soap factory, a smelter, sugar refineries,
three breweries, whisky distillery, and other industries.
The schools also are good, and it has an engineering
and medical college and two industrial schools, one
for boys and one for girls. The city was founded
in 1541 by Nuño de Guzman. It has a climate far
surpassing that of Los Angeles, and, if it were only
known, it would become a great centre of tourist travel.
Now that the line is built to Manzanillo on the Pacific
coast, it is easy to reach Guadalajara from any of the
Pacific coast ports in the United States or Canada.
Close to Guadalajara are the falls of Juanacatlan,
called the Niagara of Mexico (575 feet long and 400
feet high). Within twenty miles is Lake Chapala,
about fifty miles long and five to ten broad, which
affords good duck, goose, and snipe shooting, though
practically no fishing, as the only fish are German
carp and catfish, neither of which are game fish.
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
There are also a few deer, bear, and mountain lion to
be had, if one has time and patience and is a good
climber. The quail have been practically exterminated,
as have also the rabbits.
The government of the country has been a benevolent
despotism; and as this was the method of the
Federal Government while in the hands of General
Diaz, so also it was that of each governor in his particular
state. It has not as yet had time to change
much under Madero, but I think it will do so gradually,
as the people get accustomed to their civic rights and
demand them. They have a congress, it is true,
both in the States and the Federal one, but these are
more for show than anything else. The Mexicans
have a story they are fond of telling in regard to this.
A woman once went to see the governor to get an
appointment for her son. The governor said, “I will
put him in as a clerk.” “But,” said the woman,
“he cannot read or write.” The governor then said
he would make him a captain of police. Said the
woman, “He cannot ride, and the truth is he is a
little feeble-minded.” “Then,” asked the governor,
“what do you want me to make him, and what is he
fitted for?” The woman replied, “I thought he
would make a good congressman!”
This form of government seems just suited to the
people, and I have heard Mexicans of standing, even
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
since the revolution, say that they were not fitted
to govern themselves, but needed a strong man at
the head, and this is the main cry against Madero,
the present president. Every Thursday afternoon
the governor holds a public audience, at which any
one can attend, and if he has a grievance he can state
it; the governor will look into it and, if possible, set
it right, sometimes even overruling police magistrates’
or judges’ orders. It is an experience to attend one
of these audiences and see people of every grade who
come for justice or to have some grievance attended
to. It is the Nousherwan ideal of Asia, but as little
capable of being realised there as here; better, nevertheless,
than India’s Vakil ka Raj (lawyers’ rule),
according to the Bengali writer, Mr. Mitra. Of course
the whole system hinges on having an honest governor
like Don Miguel Ahumada of Guadalajara, as in the
hands of a dishonest man it is a great lever for blackmail.
Such men as our governor, Colonel Don Miguel
Ahumada, are hard to find in this country—in fact any
country might be proud to claim him. He was a
man of about six feet four inches tall, with chest and
shoulders in proportion, wore a black imperial and
large curled-up moustache, his forehead was high and
broad, and, though his face was a trifle hard, there
were lines of humour round his eyes and mouth. He
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
was a man of the old school, like his great leader Diaz.
He was honest, absolutely just (rich and poor looked
alike to him), had a keen sense of humour, very proud,
but a thorough democrat. I have seen him walking
the streets in the early morning, unattended, and
stopping to chat and ask questions of the street-sweepers,
the small street-corner vendors, beggars,
and whomsoever he met who he thought might have
information of use to him. Thus he kept in touch with
the needs of the poor, and heard of abuses and petty
thievery amongst the city’s employees. I could give
hundreds of instances of his humanity and justice,
but will content myself with one. On one occasion
a widow came to him with the following tale: Her
husband when dying had left all the property to her,
but had asked a trusted friend of his to arrange all
the details of succession and so forth. This friend,
through one excuse or another, kept affairs strung
out for a year or more, and then demanded sundry
thousands of dollars for his work. Don Miguel (as
every one called him) sent for the fellow and told him
to bring all the deeds, inventories, &c., with him.
When he arrived, Don Miguel took all the papers,
&c., and, after putting a fair valuation on the work
done, paid the man as many hundreds as he had
demanded thousands, and turned everything else
over to the widow.
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVI
.pm start_summary
The Mexican workman—His remembrance of a grudge—The
Commissaria—Private feuds—American versus English.
.pm end_summary
As a workman the Mexican is surprisingly good, considering
the poor food they are able to buy with the
small wages they get. They have not much initiative,
but can be taught to do almost anything and do it
well. A few years ago American mechanics could
command almost any salary in Mexico, but now
Mexicans can do for themselves, and Americans would
starve on the salary. When I arrived I had not one
single man who had ever seen asphalt laid before, or
knew anything about a plant. I had plans with me,
and we went to work and put up the plant. Then
I had to teach my yard foreman (an American) the
first principles of the asphalt business. I got up at
three each morning and started up the plant, then
went to the street with the first load and showed the
men how to lay it, and did the rolling myself. I soon
found, though, that I could not keep this up, so we
wired to the States for a roller-man and a raker.
And with these two men, who understood their branch
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
of the work, I managed to get through the first season
and complete a contract for $84,000. The yard foreman
picked up his end in an astonishing short time,
and after the first job that end gave me very little
trouble.
We were about two-thirds through the work when
I noticed that my two Americans were acting sulkily
and hanging back, till finally it came one day to a
climax and they both went on strike. The cause of
the strike was so trivial that I thought there must be
something more behind, but did not find it out till
some months afterwards. A short while after I came
here the company had got a superintendent for their
Mexico City branch from New York, and this roller-man
and raker were men who had worked for him
there. It seems that he had arranged with them to
make trouble for me so that I should not finish the
work, and then he could get a man of his own in my
place. However, in the middle of the trouble he was
caught padding the company’s pay-roll, and just
escaped arrest by getting out of the country. This
broke up the strike, and I was able to finish up and
get rid of my men, who had done one good thing for
me—and that was to break in a crew of Mexicans, with
whom I have done the work ever since.
I early had trouble with the men stealing tools, and
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
soon found that the only way was to charge whatever
tools were missing amongst the whole crew. This kept
the thieving within bounds, as the innocent men watched
the guilty, though they would never tell on them, as
this was against their code of honour. This does not
hold good in every case, and lucky for us it did not.
We had a gatekeeper whom we trusted implicitly,
giving him duplicate keys for the office, storerooms,
&c. Well, he and the night-watchman fell out. One
morning the latter came to me and asked me to make
the portero give him back $3 that he had of his. I
told him that I could not interfere with their private
quarrels. He said, “But he stole the money from
me.” I still told him that I would not interfere.
“But,” said he, “he is stealing from you also.” I
think this really slipped out in the heat of anger. I
asked him who else knew about the matter, and had
all witnesses at once taken to the Commissaria. There
they were forced to tell their tale and sign their names
to their declaration. We then had the portero tried,
convicted, and sentenced to six years and four months
in the penitentiary.
A Mexican seldom forgets a grudge, and the day he
got out this man found and tried to kill the old night-watchman,
and I later met him in Chihuahua dressed
as a soldier, and he told me he had got a five-year
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
term in the army. I have known of cases of men
getting stabbed, and yet denying that they knew the
man who had done it, hoping when well to be able to
revenge themselves, as they only believe in personal
vengeance and dislike the law to step in. One of my
stable hands had trouble with some man, and one
night there was a tap at the stable door (he slept in
the grain-room); when he poked out his head to see
who it was he was slashed with a knife from ear to
ear. He recovered, but never would tell who did it,
saying that he had not seen; yet I have no doubt
that matter has been settled ere now. Another of
our men had a fight to which there were two eye-witnesses,
one of whom told me how the whole affair
came off. Yet when the man was arrested both swore
that they knew nothing about it and had never
seen any fight. The man was held four months for
evidence and then turned out. I suppose, morally,
I should have told what I knew, but it is a good axiom
in this country never to volunteer information to the
police, as you will surely be held in jail as an important
witness. As a very friendly judge once said to a
friend of mine, “My dear sir, you know too much.”
My friend at once took the hint and immediately
forgot everything he had been trying to tell.
Americans seem to have an idea that Englishmen
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
have no sense of humour, and are very fond of telling
stories at our expense. To illustrate the cleverness
of an American over an Englishman, they tell of the
American over in England who insisted in smoking in
a “non-smoking,” first-class carriage. An Englishman
in the carriage, who had protested in vain, finally
called the guard. When the guard arrived the American
quickly spoke first. “Guard,” he said, “this
gentleman is riding in a first-class carriage on a third-class
ticket.” Investigation proved this to be true,
and the irate Englishman was ejected. One of the
spectators asked the American how he had known that
the Englishman only had a third-class ticket. “Well,”
said the American, “I happened to see a corner of it
sticking out of his waistcoat pocket and noticed that
it was the same colour as my own.” But I have
also heard a story of an American from the interior,
unfamiliar with crustacea, who was doing England.
By way of seeing life he lunched at the Savoy on the
day of his arrival, and, settling himself at a table,
prepared to enjoy a hearty meal. Some celery in a
glass was placed before him, which he ate whole without
much satisfaction. But the second course—a crab
in mayonnaise—was too much for him. Beckoning
the waiter to him, he said, "Say, I’ve eaten your
bouquet, but I’m damned if I’ll eat that bug." Mexicans
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
also are great story-tellers, but their humour is
so peculiar that one has to be a Mexican to understand
and appreciate it. But then their way of looking at
things is so different from ours. They think a boxing
match a most brutalising sport, and will hardly allow
even amateur boxing exhibitions in the country;
yet they think bull-fighting is elevating, and can see
absolutely no harm in it. Whereas to most foreigners
one bull-fight is all that they can stand.
Neither Americans nor Mexicans here show much
interest in any but local affairs. Of course educated
men know something of European matters, but the
ignorance of some Americans on such a subject as
India is surprising. A doctor here argued with me
the other day that “Hindu” simply meant the race,
and “Mohammedan” was their religion; and he
tried to prove it by saying they got the name “Hindu”
from “Hindustan,” the name of the country, as
Englishman from England, and that the religion of
the Hindu race was Mohammedan. Yet he is an
educated American professional man!
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVII
.pm start_summary
Bull-fighting—Mexican etiquette—The police department and
its difficulties—Treatment of habitual criminals—The
army.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
There is one kind of bull-fighting that I have often
attended and thoroughly enjoyed. In the first act
they bring out a young bull, or steer, which is then
roped and thrown, and a thick rope is put around its
body just behind its forelegs. A man mounts it
while it is on the ground (barebacked) and holds on
to this rope. The bull is then allowed to get up,
and the idea is to see how long the rider can stick on.
I have seen many horses buck, but a fighting bull can
give a horse points, as he has some steps that are
entirely his own, and few men stay with him very
long. When the rider is thrown, others rush in with
capas (red capes) and attract the bull away from his
fallen foe before he can do any damage. In the next
act they set up a sort of a "giant’s stride" right in
front of the bull-chute. A bull is then turned in,
and when he charges the man makes a run, swings
out, and over the bull. It is certainly exciting and
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
pretty risky work. One time I was there the bull
charged, and as the man started for him and sailed
up into the air, the bull stopped in astonishment
right in the man’s descending course. There was
nothing for it, so the man stiffened himself, stuck out
his feet, and landed square on the side of the bull’s
head, turning him head over heels. They both got
on their feet about the same time, and the bull chased
the man round the pole so rapidly that it was some
time ere he could make use of his rope to swing again.
Another form in which they do this act is using a
pole and pole-vaulting over the charging bull. In
the next act they have an enormous Mexican, all
padded out like an American football player. The
bull is turned in (generally a young two-year-old), and
he plays with it for a while with the capa, till he gets
his distance; then he suddenly lunges forward and,
with his chest against the bull’s horns, leans over and
grabs the animal round the neck. Then there is a
tussle indeed, but the man seems easily to hold his
own, and finally, when he has tired the bull, he
lies down on his back, pulling the bull’s head down
with him, and, taking off his hat, waves it at the crowd.
This also is not so easy as it sounds, and is sometimes
dangerous, for I once saw a young bull scratch with
his hind-legs like a cat, and he was not long in pulling
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
the stuffing off his opponent. He probably would
have killed the man, but assistants are always ready,
and they dashed in and pulled the bull off by main
strength. In other cases, when the man is through
his act he suddenly releases the bull, springs to one
side, and waves the capa in the bull’s face. The show
ends with acrobatic and other performances, and is
well worth seeing. On one occasion they let any of
the public who wished to do so go in and play with the
bull; when the bugle blew about one hundred peons
jumped into the ring with their red blankets, and the
fun was furious for a short time, as the bull would
charge one and then another, finally tossing two or
three of them who could not get out of his way, but
without serious consequences. Most Mexicans of
the lower classes are would-be bull-fighters, and the
great game amongst the Mexican children is “bull-fighting”;
one boy represents the bull and the others
the matadores, picadores, &c., and when the bull
pokes one of the others in the ribs he is supposed to
be out. An American lady here had a very cross
Jersey bull in a corral. Some lads from sixteen to
eighteen years were baiting him, but, as they were
not experts, he killed three of them before they
decided to leave him alone.
Mexicans in some ways are very polite and look
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
upon Americans as boors; and truly a great many of
them are so, especially the tourists, whom I have
seen going into the churches here with their cameras,
when mass was being said, and other things equally
outrageous. The Mexican takes off his hat to his
gentlemen friends as well as to the ladies; he shakes
hands with everybody (whether known to him or not)
when entering or leaving an office, and does not put
on his hat till he leaves the building; he will generally
give you the inside of the side-walk if he meets you
on the street (always to a lady). I have seen two of
them arguing for quite a while on meeting as to who
was to give the other the inside. All this to his men
acquaintances; on the other hand, he will stare in
the rudest way at any pretty woman he may meet in
the street or in a street-car, and I have often been
tempted to punch their heads. He will stand on the
street-corner with a knot of friends taking up the whole
side-walk and making everybody who passes walk
round them in the street. Their ideas of politeness
are so contradictory that I have never been quite
able to make them out. When they have a row it
is considered quite gentlemanly to beat your opponent
over the head and shoulders with your cane, but to
strike him with your fist is a deadly insult. The following
are a few of the main rules of Mexican etiquette,
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
for the benefit of those who might visit this country:
Ladies do not attend funerals. Children kiss the
hands of their parents. The hostess is served first
at a Mexican table. The bridegroom purchases his
bride’s trousseau. Women friends kiss on both
cheeks when greeting or taking leave. Gentlemen
bow first when passing lady acquaintances in the
street. The sofa is the seat of honour, and a guest
waits to be invited to occupy it. Men and women
in the same social circles call each other by their first
names. When a Mexican speaks to you of his home
he refers to it as “your house.” When you move
into a new locality, it is your duty to make the first
neighbourhood calls. When friends pass each other
in the street without stopping they say adios (good-bye).
Young ladies do not receive calls from young
men, and are not escorted to entertainments by them.
Daily inquiry is made for a sick friend, and cards
are left, or the name written in a book, with the porter.
Dinner calls are not customary, but upon rising from
the table the guest thanks his host for the entertainment.
Mexican gentlemen remove their hats as
scrupulously on entering a business office as in a
private residence. If in riding costume one must
remove one’s spurs—this applies more especially to
government offices. Often on entering a house the
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
owner will ask you to keep on your hat (this, however,
you are not supposed to agree to), and this is meant
to make you feel as much at home as if you were the
owner. After a dance a gentleman returns his partner
to the seat beside her parents or chaperon and at
once leaves her side. Never allow a caller to carry a
package of any size from your house; always send it
to his home: Mexicans do not carry parcels. If you
change your residence you must notify your Mexican
friends by card, otherwise they will not feel at liberty
to enter your new home. The fashionable call of a
few minutes is unknown. A lady who arrives at four
o’clock will remain until six or seven. The calls of
intimate friends are half-day visits. Gentlemen raise
their hats to each other, or at least salute in passing,
and shake hands both at meeting and parting, though
the interview may have lasted only two minutes.
I have been in contact with the police department
a good deal, owing to our men getting into trouble, or
to other people causing us trouble in our work. Paving
was such a new thing that the people would congregate
in crowds to see the work progress and how
Gringoes did things. Thus they would not only block
up the side-walks but crowd into the street so that we
could hardly work. The first year, when I was rolling,
I had to ask for police protection to keep the people
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
out of my way so that I should not run over any one.
(Our rollerman in Mexico City did run over and kill
a man who slipped and fell in front of the roller when
trying to get out of the way.) But as the police were
as much interested as any one else, and spent most
of the time gaping themselves, they were not of much
use. There are said to be over 900 police (including
detectives and mounted men) in this city, and they are
certainly to be found at every street corner except
in the “Colonias,” or foreign colonies. But they are
a bedraggled lot, undersized, with ill-fitting uniforms,
armed with clubs, and pistols of every size and calibre.
The mounted men who, as a rule, are a better built
lot, have no club, but carry a sabre and a rifle (of very
antiquated pattern) as well as a pistol. Nobody
pays much attention to the foot police, but the mounted
men make themselves respected, as the following
instance will show. On the 16th of September 1905
(the great national holiday) some of the mounted men
were clearing the streets by the simple expedient
of backing their horses into the crowds. The horse
of one of these was crowding a big burly peon (farm
labourer) and occasionally stepping on his feet, till
in desperation the man put his hands under the horse’s
flank and gave such a push that he nearly sent horse
and rider over. Immediately he did so he ran, and
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
directly the policeman recovered himself he pulled
out his sabre and went after him. As far as I could
see them the policeman was belabouring the poor
fellow over the head and shoulders with his heavy
sword, until the man found an opening where he
could duck into the crowd and was safe.
Of the foot police in Mexico city, some time ago,
it took nine to arrest a drunken Irishman, and then
they had to carry him bodily to jail. Last year, here,
I saw an American hobo who had just licked four of
them, and was feeling so proud that it finally took a
whole squad to land him in the commissaria. He reminded
me of a farmer in Guelph, whose boast it was
that, whenever he got drunk, it took the whole police
force of the city to lock him up. There were only the
chief and four constables in Guelph at the time, and
they certainly hated to see him get drunk.
The police here, however, are at a great disadvantage.
For if they should club a man who has any friends or
influence they are sure to lose their jobs, and are lucky
if they don’t get locked up as well. And if they should
shoot under almost any circumstances, they are certain
to land in the penitentiary. I saw a prisoner once
being escorted by three guards armed with rifles and
bayonets from the penitentiary to one of the barracks (to
become a soldier) when he suddenly made a dash, got
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
free, and ran up the street like a shot. The guards
were hampered by their weapons and could not catch
him, yet not one of them offered to shoot. The man
finally ran into the arms of a policeman at a corner,
who happened to be awake. In the States, on the other
hand, the police are too free with their guns altogether,
and will club a man on the slightest pretext.
The custom in this country is to put habitual
drunkards, criminals, or loafers into the army for a
term of years. So that nearly all the infantry regiments
are composed of at least one-third of this class,
the balance being volunteers. Within the last few
months the Congress passed a new law regarding the
army, to the effect that the soldiers should be drawn
by lot, one man out of every hundred of the inhabitants.
This law went into effect, and the first
drawing was to be made on the fifteenth day of
January 1912. From this date no more criminals
are to be drafted into the ranks. There is considerable
opposition to this law in some parts of the country,
and I have not heard how the drawings came off.
The volunteers I mentioned above are intended
to see that the criminal element do not run away.
The barracks are always surrounded by a high wall
like a prison, and have iron gates at which an officer and
the guard always stand. No one goes in or out without
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
a permit. When the wives of married soldiers bring
their food (the Mexican soldier feeds himself) all the
baskets are searched by the officer for prohibited
articles. I have seen them at drill with a line of armed
guards thrown out around the drill grounds to watch
over the rest. It can be imagined what a round-shouldered,
unkempt looking lot the majority of the
troops are. The cavalry are a good deal better as a
whole, as they are mostly volunteers. About five
years ago, when there was some talk of war between
Mexico and Guatemala, the police rounded up all
the saloons and captured every one inside them to
fill up the “Volunteer” regiments that this state
was raising as its quota. They got some of my men,
and I had to go up and identify them so as to get
them out.
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVIII
.pm start_summary
Federal Rurales—Robbery by servants—Wholesale thieving—Lack
of police discipline—A story of Roosevelt.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
What I have said about the Mexican troops does
not apply to the regiments of Federal Rurales (Irregular
Horse), who are an entirely different class of men.
Originally they were recruited from captured bandits,
for the purpose of hunting down others. Now they
are mostly recruited from the cowboy or vaquero class.
They have good uniforms, fine horses and arms, are
splendid riders, and have almost unlimited authority
in the capture and even execution of bandits or road-agents.
They are the men who are used in most of
the Indian fighting and in local uprisings such as
happened some years ago on the Texas border.
A few years ago a bullion train, between here and
Tepic, was attacked by bandits and all but one of the
guards were killed. He managed to stampede the
mules, and get away with the bullion to safety. The
Rurales were ordered out, overtook the bandits and
arrested them; nearly thirty were shot without trial,
on the spot where the attack had been made. Mexican
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
justice, in cases of this kind, or in labour strikes, is
very prompt, though to an outsider it may seem rather
cruel. In the great strike in the cotton mills in
Orizaba a few years ago, the strikers, after some rioting,
burned down one of the mills. The Rurales captured
the president, vice-president, secretary, and
treasurer of the local union who had instigated the
trouble, and shot them on the site of the burned mill.
This seems pretty rough on the leaders, but strike
disorders will not be tolerated in this country. If
by shooting four of the ringleaders the disorders can
be stopped at once it is cheap at the price, considering
the loss of life that would ultimately ensue if the
disorders were allowed to continue. Look at the
number of men killed and crippled for life in the
teamsters’ strike in Chicago, or in the street-car men’s
strike in San Francisco, and that was in a Saxon
country. In a Latin country it would start in a
strike and end in revolution.
The first year we were here the servants robbed us
of nearly everything we possessed, and managed to
get away without being caught. On one occasion,
however, my wife caught one of the girls trying to
sneak out with some of the children’s clothes. She
stopped her in time, and, locking the front door, she
told the girl she would have to wait till I came home
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
at noon, it then being about 11.30 A.M. A few minutes
later I happened to return, and my wife told me of
the circumstances. I went to get the girl before I
called a policeman, but she was not in the house.
All the houses in Guadalajara, and in fact in the
greater part of Mexico except in some of the foreign
colonies, are built in continuous blocks. The front
windows on the streets have iron bars covering them,
and they all have double front doors; the outer
one of wood and the inner one of steel bars, with a
short hallway between them. The garden is in the
centre of the house and is called the patio, so there is
no outlet except through the front door. The girl, however,
had taken a small ladder we had in the house,
and with its assistance had got up on the roof of a
small wash-house. From here it was nearly seven feet
to the roof of the house, a straight wall without footholds,
yet she had managed to make this climb taking
her bundle of clothes with her, and had gone from roof
to roof (they are all flat) till she found a way to get
down to the street and to safety.
The police never make any very strenuous attempts
to catch a criminal if the offence is committed against
a foreigner, for they are regarded as lawful prey.
Another girl stole my wife’s watch and chain, and
though I laid complaint within an hour of the occurrence,
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
the police declared that they could not find her,
and she must have left the city. We had at our yard
an old man as night-watchman who had spent most
of his life in the secret service here. I went to see
him, and told him that I would give him $5 if he could
catch the girl, and within three hours he had her in
jail. We never recovered the watch, but the girl
got a sentence of four years. One woman robbed us
in rather a funny way. We had taken her in without
a recommendation, and my wife was watching her
closely the first day she was in the house. About
ten o’clock she came to my wife and asked if she
could take out the “basura” (rubbish for the garbage
wagon); she came from the back of the house with
the basket on her head, walked right past my wife,
who opened the door for her and then went into the
parlour. As the girl was a long time in returning my
wife went out to the zaguan (the hall between the inner
and outer doors), and there lay an empty basket but
no girl. She then went to the back of the house,
and there on the kitchen floor lay the basura; and
the wash-line was empty of all the clothes that had
been out there drying.
A friend of mine had his house completely stripped
of everything of value (by his servants) while the family
were out; the thieves were never caught, though one
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
of the girls had two gold front teeth (a most uncommon
thing amongst Mexicans). Most people when they
leave their houses, and no member of the family stays
at home, either turn out all the servants and lock the
doors, or lock the servants in the house while they are
away. An American ore-buying concern here had its
office in front of the railway station, the busiest part
of the city. One Sunday afternoon four men drove
up in a wagon, opened the door with a key, loaded
the cash-safe on to the wagon, locked the door, and
neither they nor the safe have ever been seen since.
The police saw them at work, but thought they were
employees of the house and so did not interfere. I
went into a billiard hall a few days ago in Acambaro
(while waiting between trains) to play a game; the
proprietor said he was sorry but some one had stolen
all the balls. A few weeks ago I was in a street car in
Morelia; when we got to a cross-over the conductor
cussed, for some one had stolen the switch (tie rods
and all) during the night.
In Guanaguato, a mining town near here, there
used to live a mine manager who was in the habit of
keeping rather large sums of money in his house.
His servant girl told some of her friends of this, and
also that he would be out at the mine on a certain
night. She was, however, mistaken about the latter,
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
as he happened to stay at home. During the night
Mrs. Rose woke up and found four men in her room.
When she called to her husband one of them struck
her across the back with a machete (cane knife),
then her husband woke up and grappled with them
though quite unarmed. While the poor fellow was
putting up a most unequal fight his wife, though
badly hurt, ran to the bureau, got out his revolver and
handed it to him. But he was so terribly wounded
that though he was able to empty the gun and scare
off the robbers he could not shoot well enough to get
any of them. His wife recovered, but poor Rose
died the next day from his wounds. I am glad to
say that the murderers were all caught later and shot.
But there is a moral to this which many of us have
learned: if you have a revolver keep it under your
pillow and not in a bureau drawer.
A few years ago a poor old American market-gardener
here was killed a most brutal way, being first tortured
to try to make him show where he had hidden money
that did not exist; he was well over seventy years old,
rather childish, but liked and admired by the entire
American colony here. Some of this bandit element
then decided to hold up the owner of one of the largest
hardware (ironmonger’s) stores here; but his wife and
fourteen-year-old boy happened to overhear some of
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
the conversation from the porch of their house (not
one hundred yards from where the old man had been
killed), and one with a shotgun and the other with a
22 calibre rifle went out and so peppered them that
they fled with what lead they had received. It was
lucky for them that they did so, for, on another occasion,
a man did actually hold up this same gentleman,
and when Kipper finally got through with him, he was
glad to get into the hands of a policeman alive. I
have said enough to show that the people are thieves,
and at times dangerous. As I said before, there are
plenty of policemen, but they are on actual duty
twelve hours per day, and then have to sleep in the
police station, ready to be called out in case they
are needed; therefore they put in most of their duty-time
getting cat-naps in doorways or wherever they
can find a place. Besides this, they are recruited from
the peon class, and get very little pay. During my
first year’s work, when I used to go to the yard at
3 A.M., I have seen a dozen of them asleep on the
benches in San Francisco park as I passed through.
Discipline is almost unknown, and I have seen policemen
on duty sitting on the curb shining their shoes.
Of course they smoke all the time on duty, and very
frequently drink more than is good for them.
What they need is a Roosevelt for police commissioner.
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
They tell a story of Roosevelt when he was
police commissioner in New York. One evening he
saw a policeman standing before a saloon back
entrance about to take a drink of beer. “What is
your name?” asked Roosevelt. “It is none of your
business; what is your name?” said the cop. “My
name is Roosevelt,” was the answer. The policeman
finished his beer, wiped his mouth on his sleeve,
and said, “If your name is really Roosevelt then I
guess my name is Dennis” (a slang phrase in America,
used in the sense that he was discharged). The quick
reply saved him from more than a reprimand. This
reminds me of a story of the judge in Kentucky who
had a man up for making illicit whisky. “What is
your name?” he asked the prisoner, and was answered,
“Joshua.” The judge smiled on the court, and said,
“Joshua, Joshua, it seems to me that I have heard
that name before. Oh yes! you are the fellow who
made the sun stand still.” “No,” replied the prisoner,
“I am that Joshua who made the moonshine still”
(the name given to an illicit distillery).
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIX
.pm start_summary
Tequila—Mexican respect for the white man—Personal vengeance
preferred to Law—Mexican stoicism—Victims of red
tape.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Tequila, which is the common drink in Guadalajara,
is fermented and distilled pulque. Pulque is the fresh
sap of the maguey or “century” plant (one of the
big-leafed cacti), tasting something like sweet cider.
Like “tari” in India, it is practically non-intoxicating
when fresh, but when fermented is very much so,
and when distilled into tequila it is something like
Indian “arrak,” and has the effect of driving most
men fighting-crazy. An ordinary tumblerful sells for
six cents, so the very poorest can afford it, and practically
every one, men and women, drink it. The
police are very indulgent with drunks, and generally
leave them alone if they can zig-zag within the
confines of the street. Even when they do have to
arrest them they handle them tenderly. For instance,
one night I saw a drunk, on his way to the lock-up,
sit down in the middle of the street and swear by all
the calendar that he would go no farther until he had
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
another drink. After remonstrating and arguing in
vain one of the police went and got him a drink, when
he arose and went peaceably along.
Only on two occasions have I seen the police club
a man, which in the States is no uncommon sight.
Once was when two police were taking off a man by
his arms pulled over their necks; he took a bite out of
one of the necks, and they had to club him off. The
other case shows the respect of the average Mexican
for a white man. On one occasion two men started
to fight near where I was working. One of them had
a knife and the other a blocksetter’s spike. I noticed
that one of them was wounded and, being the smaller,
would probably be killed by the other. They were
not my men, but I hated to see an unevenly matched
fight, so I ran up, and on my demand (I am afraid I
spoke rather roughly) they both gave up their weapons.
One had a stab in the stomach, and I told him I
would send him to the hospital, at which he broke and
ran. I followed, but to all my arguments he would
reply that he had a family to support and would be
sent directly from the hospital to the jail for fighting,
so preferred to cure himself. Finally I let him go,
and when I got back to the work I found a policeman
whom one of my men had run to fetch when I started
to take a hand. To him I turned over the weapons
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
of war, and, on his insisting, I also gave him a description
of the men, telling him about the wounded
man. As he was returning to the police station to
make his report he ran into my wounded friend who
was on his way home, and with the assistance of
another officer tried to take him to the hospital.
Then this man, who had given up his weapon to me
without a fight, now, though unarmed, put up such
a fight that they had to club him into submission
before they could take him. On another occasion a
man who formerly had worked for us got into a fight
on the Paseo, and with two policemen after him,
shooting at him, he ran into our gate, and getting
behind some barrels of asphalt defied the police.
They did not seem anxious at all to come to close
quarters with him, and so things rather hung fire. Our
yard foreman, who was an old miner and prospector
in the early days of Colorado, told the police to hurry
up as his men were doing no work owing to the excitement.
Then, seeing that the police were stuck, he
walked up to the man, took him by the wrist, and
jerked him out from his barricade and turned him over
to the police out in the street.
The police in Mexico carry open lanterns at night,
I suppose it is to warn evildoers to get out of their
way! I saw three of them once hunting for a man
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
among the vacant lots of the Colonia Francesa, and
they looked like three fireflies whom any one could
easily elude in the darkness. Once one of my men
disappeared for a few days, and when he returned to
work I asked him what he had been up to. He told
me that he had got into a fight, and a policeman in
trying to arrest him had hit him over the head with
his lantern and broken it, and that he had to lie in jail
till he could pay his fine, besides paying for a new
lantern.
The Mexicans hate the law to step in to settle their
differences, as they believe only in personal vengeance.
I was in the commissaria once when a man was brought
in badly hurt, and, as he refused to tell the judge who
had done it, he was sent to jail till he should tell. On
a recurring sentence or, as the judge said, “trenta
days y vuelta” (thirty days and return); this is a
very common way of prolonging a sentence when the
law distinctly lays down the limit of sentence for the
offence. I said to the judge, who is a good friend of
mine, that this seemed queer justice. “Well,” said he,
"it is the only means I have to deal with these people,
and to avert murder. If I can only find out who the
other man is I can put him out of harm’s way till this
fellow cools down and forgets his wrongs." I heard
of another case of a man brought in as a drunk, who
was set in one corner to wait his turn at examination.
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
When his turn finally came, they tried to prod him
up when he did not answer, thinking he was shamming,
but they found he was dead from a bad stab
in the chest. He had kept himself so covered with
his blanket that they had not known he was wounded,
trusting, I suppose, that it would not be discovered,
and that later he could settle with his opponent in
his own way.
Mexicans are of a stoical Indian blood, and pain
that they understand they can bear without a murmur.
But a headache or other pain that they cannot account
for makes them think they are going to die. One of
our men slipped into a melting-tank containing
liquid asphalt at between 300° and 400° Fahrenheit.
He fell in up to his armpits, yet never made a
sound either then or when he was pulled out, but
actually assisted us in getting his clothes off. We
rolled him in oiled cloths, got him into a hack, gave
him half a bottle of tequila, and prepared to start him
off to the hospital when a priest came up, running,
confessed him, and gave him the last rites of the church.
Through it all he never made a moan, though his teeth
were chattering with the shock. The law in this
country said that in case of an accident one must not
touch the person until the police have had a chance
to investigate, and had this happened with only
Mexicans around, they would have telephoned the
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
police, and then sat idle till they came, with the man
still in the kettle: this law has since been changed.
I, however, took chances, and ordered a hack, then
I telephoned to the Jefe Politico (mayor and chief
magistrate) asking permission to send the man direct
to the hospital without waiting for the police investigation.
He consented on my assuring him that
it was an accident. So I sent a man with the poor
fellow and a note to the director of the hospital, but
I found out later that when the director saw that the
man was certain to die, he refused to receive him
without a permit from the police captain of our precinct.
So the poor devil was driven one and one-half
miles back to the police station and from there back
to the hospital, and it was nearly two hours from the
time of the accident before he got medical attention.
At the police station the man, half crazy with pain
and tequila, accused the man who had pulled him
out of having pushed him in, so down came the police
and arrested him. The judge of the first criminal
court was a good friend of the company, and we went
up to see him so as to have an immediate trial if
possible. He took our depositions, and as luckily half
a dozen of us had seen the accident, he turned the accused
man loose in a very few hours, though it caused
us some trouble. I told the judge about the hospital
business, and he severely reprimanded the director.
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXX
.pm start_summary
Accidents at the mines—Mexico City—Peculiar laws—"Evidence"—A
theft of straw.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Mexicans, like the natives of India, have a great
dread of hospitals. During our first year’s work one
of the men got his finger caught in the roller and had
the end joint cut off. As I was writing a note to the
doctor the police came up and insisted on taking the
man to the police station, whence he was taken to the
hospital. Three months later I saw him when he had
just come out, and he had lost the use of the entire
hand through blood-poisoning. They tell me that
the young students of the medical college do most of
the operating on the poor, and, if this was a sample,
I am not surprised at the prevalent dread of the
hospitals.
As I said when writing about Texas, Mexicans are
most careless and take desperate chances, generally
through ignorance. One day two gangs of men that
I had moving some heavy rock crusher parts began
racing with the flywheels (weighing 1200 kilos each)
which they were wheeling along on the rims. I
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
warned them, but the words were hardly out of my
mouth when one of the wheels toppled over on the
foot of one of the men. He did not complain much
beyond some grimaces, and when we lifted the wheel
he staggered off, limping. I thought that the soft earth
had saved his foot, but the doctor later pronounced
some bones broken. One year we were piling up
some crushed rock near where our electric power
wires entered the motor-house; these wires carried
2000 volts. I had noticed the men on top of the
rock pile touching these wires (the rock being
absolutely dry and the insulation on the wires fairly
good, they received no shock), and warned them that
they would get a shock some day that would kill
some one. I found that they paid no attention, so
I had a board stuck up warning them of their danger,
and stating that the company would not be responsible
for any accidents. The next day or so the
government inspector, the general manager, and myself
were down at the yard on inspection. We heard a
yell, and there was a man hung on the wire, kicking
like a galvanised frog. Another Mexican, with more
presence of mind than the average, ran up with a stick,
knocked the wire loose, and the man fell down as if
dead. We telephoned for a doctor, and meanwhile
tried artificial respiration. The doctor soon arrived,
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
and within an hour or so the man was all right but
for a very badly burned arm and hand. There had
been slight rain which had wetted both the insulation
and the rock pile under their feet, thus forming a
ground circuit.
Mexicans are very good to their poor, but seem to
have very little sympathy for any one hurt in an
accident. They are much like children in many
ways and can only see the funny side of a serious
matter. There was a fire in Mexico City in a lumber
company’s yard, and two fire companies were attacking
it from the roofs of houses on different sides. In
moving a hose one of the firemen accidentally directed
it on the firemen across the way. They immediately
retaliated, and for the next few minutes the fire was
entirely forgotten by the two companies, who were
busy pumping on each other amidst much laughter.
Finally, one of the men, in trying to reach a vantage
point, slipped and fell into the burning yard, at which
a perfect howl of laughter went up from all the spectators.
He was luckily rescued with only a few
bruises, and a trifle singed, but the moral remains the
same. In Guadalajara fire protection is a farce.
The fire-engine consists of a tank on wheels with a
pump attached, which is worked by hand and throws a
one-inch stream. Luckily, the city is practically fire-proof,
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
being almost entirely built out of adobe (sun-dried
brick), with some few modern buildings made
out of stone, brick, or steel.
The city water-supply is insufficient, though the
sewerage system is good and modern. The city now
has some twenty kilometres of asphalt-paved streets,
with cement curbs and side-walks built by our company
in the past eight years, and we shall probably do as
much more. Mexico City has about 200 kilometres
of asphalt pavement, about half belonging to our
company, Puebla, twenty-five kilometres, Durango,
thirty-two kilometres, Chihuahua, four kilometres,
Tampico, nine kilometres, Morelia, eight kilometres, all
of the last-named cities having been laid by our company,
and the majority of it by myself, apart from the
work done in Mexico City. All have good sewer
systems and water-works, so Mexico is not so far
behind the times in some things. Every property
owner or lessee has to sweep and water twice daily the
street in front of his property, except in the business
districts, where the city supplies sprinkling carts and
sweepers. The police see that these rules are carried
out; if you are behind time in doing your part the
policeman hustles you; if you are warned repeatedly,
then the government sends a man and you are charged
an exorbitant rate for his work. In this way the
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
streets are kept better than those of many cities I
have known in the States.
Mexican law is a thing to leave strictly alone if
you can. The procedure in some respects follows
that of the French courts. The stamp law no
one pretends to understand. Our company was
fined $600 in the Federal district for something,
in regard to stamping contracts, which they had
done under the advice of the most noted lawyer
in the republic, the late ambassador from Mexico
to the United States. Once our night-watchman
captured a thief trying to steal some tools and the
anvil from our smithy. He trussed him up, and then
for further security tied the anvil to his feet. The
police insisted on taking along the anvil as “evidence,”
and we, being inexperienced, allowed them to
do so. It took seven days to try the case, and, until
the man was convicted, the court would not give us
back the “evidence.” On another occasion one of
our carters ran over a child with his wagon and killed
it. He at once disappeared, but the police arrested
the wagon, and it was nearly two weeks before we
could get it back.
In a complaint of theft you have to appear with
two independent witnesses who can vouch, not that
you owned the article stolen, but that you are a man
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
of means sufficient to have owned such an article;
public repute is not sufficient evidence. For instance,
I appeared for the company once in the case of a theft
of about $50 of straw. I was told to bring the necessary
witnesses. I asked the judge if this was necessary
as every one knew our company, and he himself knew
that we were handling contracts for hundreds of
thousands of dollars. It made no difference; so I
went out and got two clerks, who earned possibly £4 per
month each in a neighbouring store, and took them
up to vouch for the company. In all my cases I have
never employed a lawyer. In the court-room there
sit the judge and his secretary at ordinary desks,
each witness is brought in by himself, and neither the
accused nor any one else is in the room, unless you wish
for an interpreter, whom you either supply yourself
or the court provides. The judge offers you a chair
and you sit down near him. You are not sworn, but
the judge inquires if you intend to tell the truth,
your age, nationality, &c., and then asks you to tell
him all you know about the case, which his clerk
takes down. Your statement is then read over to
you, signed, and out you go.
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXI
.pm start_summary
Solitary confinement—Mexican rogues—The humorous side—A
member of the smart set—The milkmen.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Incomunicado (solitary confinement) is one of the bad
features of Mexican law. The accused is placed thus for
the first forty-eight hours (in some cases up to seventy-two
hours), and during this time the investigating
judge is trying his best to wring a confession out of
him, or to confound him by constant interrogations.
Another bad feature is the length of time the officials can
hold a man without trial while they are trying to get
evidence against him; but this is not done so much
now as formerly. I have known men held thus for
over a year in jail without trial, and then turned loose
when the case could not be proved against them.
Another peculiarity is the length of time a man condemned
to death can delay the execution by appeals,
&c. All this is now under discussion by the new
government, and the consensus of opinion is that
changes for the better will be made in the laws. There
was a man shot here in the penitentiary a year ago
who was condemned six years previously for the
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
murder of his wife. Woman murder is about the only
thing they seem to execute a man for in Mexico. For
any ordinary killing in a fight, eight years is the longest
sentence I have seen recorded, though some have been
condemned to death and their sentence afterwards
reduced to this amount. Yet I have seen sentences
ranging from two years to twelve years for robbery
with breach of trust.
Mexican rogues work out some clever schemes;
for instance, the following was worked successfully
in San Luis Potosi, and the perpetrator has not yet
been caught: A man dressed as a wealthy hacendado
(ranch-owner) walked into the largest implement
house there, and, after looking over their stock, picked
out and bought $15,000 worth of machinery. He
said, “As you do not know me, I will pay in cash,”
and pulled out his pocket-book. “Oh,” said he, "I
forgot to cash this draft, and find I have only about
$1000 in cash with me, but here is a sight draft for
$30,000, made out to me by the Bank of London and
Mexico; which I will endorse over to you. When you
have cashed the draft, please send the balance to this
address." The owner of the store was delighted to
meet a customer who bought such large orders without
beating down the price, and who also paid cash, and
was bowing him out with much ceremony when they
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
encountered coming in another presumably wealthy
hacendado. “Why, old fellow, what are you doing
here?” said No. 2. “Just buying a few things for the
ranch,” said No. 1; and then, laughing, “Do you know,
I found myself without ready money to pay for them,
and so had to leave my draft here for these people
to collect.” "If it is not more than $50,000 I will
settle for you, old friend, but that is all the money I
have with me," and he pulled out a pocket-book
filled with bills of $500 and $1000. So they marched
back, and No. 2 paid the balance of $14,000. “Now,”
said No. 1 to the store proprietor, “if you will kindly
endorse back my draft to me, I think we have the
business closed up; please ship the goods as soon as
possible.” The check was endorsed back, and the two
old friends went out arm-in-arm. To his disgust the
storekeeper found next day that No. 1 had been to
the bank with the draft, which the bank had cashed
on the storekeeper’s endorsement.
They also show some humour in their thefts. A
Mexican lawyer who lived near me in the French
colony had some friends to his house one evening,
who sat out with him on the porch. They went in to
supper, and when they returned found all the chairs
had been stolen. The lawyer decided not to call in
the police but to catch the robbers himself, so after
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
his guests were gone he brought out some more chairs
and then hid in the shrubbery with a gun. There he sat
till 3 A.M., when he made up his mind that they would
not come again, so he went into the house to put away
the gun. When he returned to bring in the chairs the
rest of them were gone also. How the thieves must
have enjoyed watching him as he watched for them,
and then stealing his chairs from under his nose!
The town has hardly got over laughing about it yet.
As we did not have very much success with the police
protection afforded us by the government during our
first year’s work, we asked permission to have two
or three police turned over to us, whom we would pay.
The government refused, but said we could put on
any of our own men and buy them uniforms and clubs,
and that then the government would give them
authority as regular police. So the second year we
put two of our own men in uniform, and I picked out
two of the cheekiest young cubs we had. One day
a young man of the gente fine (smart set) started
to walk across some fresh-laid pavement, which
had not yet cooled and set, when the policeman
interfered and requested him not to cross. The young
fellow gave him a withering glance and started forward
again; the policeman again interfered with the same
result. When he started the third time the policeman
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
grabbed him by the coat tails and pulled him
back. This took the dude by surprise; he tripped
over the curb and sat down rather forcibly on the sidewalk.
I was standing about one hundred feet away,
and ran forward as soon as I saw that there would be
trouble. I reached them just as the dude was unmercifully
hammering my policeman, who did not
dare to retaliate. I grabbed him by the wrist and
gave it a twist (the old schoolboy trick), and soon
had him marching along. He struggled furiously,
and in a few minutes we had a crowd of about one
thousand people around us, and I was glad to see
three city policemen coming up on the run, to whom
I turned him over. He spent the rest of the day in
the lock-up, and, the story going round, we had very
little more trouble with this class. On one or two occasions
we had trouble with the police themselves trying
to cross our work. On the first occasion a mounted
officer started to ride across some fresh concrete in
spite of the protests of the concrete foreman, who
was an American; then the latter lost his temper
and jerked the officer’s horse off the concrete. When
I heard of the occurrence, which was only a few
minutes later, I dashed off to the Jefe Politico to put
our case before him before any exaggerated version
could reach him. On the second occasion a police
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
captain ordered me to remove some barricades I had
across a street so that the carriage of some big-wig
could drive across. I refused, and told the captain
he could remove it himself if he were willing to take
the consequences. He rode off, threatening all sorts
of things, but I never saw him again.
My pet aversions are the milkmen, who have caused
me more trouble than all the rest put together. The
milkmen in Mexico ride on horseback and carry the milk
in four large cans, hung two on each side of the saddle,
one in front and one behind the leg; thus they gallop
from house to house making their deliveries. They
and the hack-drivers are the toughest element in the
city. On one occasion I warned two of them not to
cross the street on which I was working, but the
minute my back was turned they galloped across,
thinking that I could not catch them on foot. But I
happened to have my horse at the next corner, and I
mounted and galloped the block, caught up to them,
and grabbed one man’s horse by the bridle. After a
little argument, finding I was determined to take him
to the commissaria, he suddenly leaned forward,
slipped the headstall over the horse’s head, and dashed
off, leaving the bridle in my hands. His companion,
though, thought he would put up a fight, demanded
the bridle, and on my refusal started for me. I
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
generally carry on the work a Luger automatic pistol
in a holster slung from the shoulder, so that the gun
hangs just under the left armpit. When the man
came forward I jerked my coat open instinctively,
on which he turned and fled. The joke of the thing
was that I had no pistol with me at the time, though
I had forgotten the fact when I reached for it. On
another occasion one of them galloped past my concrete
foreman, who made a snatch at him, and at the
same time the man put out his hand to push him away.
The foreman’s hand closed on his wrist, and off he
came over his horse’s tail, while his steed galloped on.
I was standing a few feet away, and the man’s face,
as he felt himself going, was really too funny. Of
course we had no right to take the law into our own
hands in this way, but we had to do so in self-defence,
or we should have got no work done at all. I told
the foreman he must be more careful, which he promised
to be, and a day or two later he told me a
dairykeeper had ridden over the work with two of
his milkmen, and when called to had cursed him for
his pains. He described the man, and, as I knew him,
I looked him up and told him that he must not do it
again, and that I thought he owed the foreman an
apology. He was the black sheep of one of the best
families in town, and was consequently very uppish.
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
He told me he would ride where he pleased and would
go the same route the following day, and, to show me
that I could not stop him, if I were not there when he
passed he would wait for me. So I said I would be
there. Our manager, however, heard of it, and went
to the Jefe Politico, who insisted on sending up a
large squad of police to arrest the man should he
attempt to pass. But it was trouble wasted, as the
man was only bluffing and never appeared again on
the work. The Jefe told me that I had the right to
arrest and hold offenders till a policeman arrived.
At first I carried no gun, but when our yard foreman
narrowly escaped being stabbed by one of his men,
and I myself got into one or two rows of this sort, I
decided to carry my Luger like the rest. Any one
can get a permit to carry a pistol here who will pay
the $1.50 for the licence.
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXII
.pm start_summary
Carrying firearms—The business of Mexico—Its management
by foreigners—Real-estate and mining booms—Foreign
capital—Imports and exports.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
I spoke of carrying pistols; I am not in favour of it,
but when working a large body of men, as we do here,
and of the class of these people, I think it wise, as
the very fact that you are known to have one will
often keep you out of trouble. For the people are
treacherous, and you can never tell at what moment
some man with whom you have had trouble will decide
to take his revenge, generally when he has you at
a disadvantage. Here is an instance from the Mexican
Herald: "George T. Jennings, superintendent for the
Pacific Lumber Company, was shot and instantly killed
by a Mexican workman at one of the company’s camps
in the Culiacan district of the state of Michoacan on
19th March.... The shooting was done by a workman
just discharged.... A second telegram states that
the murderer has been captured, seriously wounded."
Probably Mr. Jennings managed to shoot as he fell.
They do not understand fair play, but think a man
who does not take all the advantage he can get is a
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
fool. Even in affairs of honour some of them will take
all they can get, though the following is an exceptional
case: Some time ago Burns, an American, had a
quarrel with Martinez, a Mexican, son of a wealthy
hacendado (ranchman) of Guadalajara. Burns was
manager for a mining company at Ayutla, a town near
here, and young Martinez had charge of his father’s
ranch at that place. They were in love with the
same girl, quarrelled over her one evening, and decided
to fight a duel. They were both armed, and
agreed to walk together to a secluded place on some
side-street and shoot it out. On the way Martinez,
who was walking a little behind the other, drew his
pistol and shot Burns twice in the back, and then
fled; Burns, though badly wounded, turned and
emptied his pistol at the fleeing man without effect.
This was Burns’ dying statement. Martinez lay out
in the hills for a few days, then came in and gave
himself up as soon as he heard that Burns was dead.
His family moved heaven and earth, and he is now out
a free man. Yet this is the second man he has killed
by shooting in the back, as it became known later.
Though we overstepped our rights in defending our
work, it is nothing to the way the gente fino treat the
peon class. I was once after duck near here, on a
ranch where I had a permit to shoot. At the lake
there was a Mexican of the peon class shooting mud-hens,
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
and unconsciously aiding us as he kept the ducks
moving. The owner of the ranch and his foreman
happened to come riding by, and asked if the peon
was of our party; when we said “no” the owner
told the foreman to run him off. The foreman rode
up to the man and ordered him off, telling him to run;
then, as he was not going fast enough, he rode over
the man, knocking him down. The poor fellow picked
himself up and fled for his life, but in Texas that
foreman would have been a poor insurance risk.
Mexicans of the lower class, in spite of their poverty,
are great spendthrifts. We have a man who has
been with us four years. He started at 45 cents per
day, and has worked up to $2.75 per day, which he
has been getting now for over two years. I asked
him one day if he had any money saved up. He
replied, "I have $10." I asked him why he did
not lay by $1 per day, which he could easily do,
having no one but himself and one sister to support,
and that he would have nearly $400 at interest by
the end of the year. He replied, "If I had $400 all
at one time I would go crazy."
Mexicans control very little of the business of their
own country except that of agriculture. The mining
is nearly all in the hands of English and American
companies, with a few mines in the hands of other
foreigners, notably the French. The street railways
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
and electric power and light companies are also in
the hands of Canadians, Englishmen, and Americans,
except one belonging to a Chinese company. What
is called in the States the drygoods (clothing, &c.)
business is almost entirely in the hands of Frenchmen,
as also are nearly all the cotton mills. The hardware
business, including that of agricultural implements,
the foundries and the machine shops are
nearly all in the hands of Germans, with a sprinkling
of Americans and Spaniards. The Spaniards run
most of the small stores, and you generally find
Spaniards as managers of the big ranches, so that the
Mexican cuts a very small figure in the industry of
his own country. They own, of course, most of the
land, fill all the government offices, and for the rest
are the clerks and labourers of the country; and
this is what makes them dislike the foreigner who
comes into their country to take all the good things
which they consider as their own, though they will
not make use of them themselves, and will not invest
their money in new undertakings; but when a business
is sure, then they want it all for themselves, and
howl that the foreigner is stealing their country.
All real-estate and mining booms are handled by
Americans, who are, I suppose, the greatest boomers
on earth. But when the bottom drops out of the boom,
as often happens, you rarely see the wily American
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
holding the sack, for he generally manages to unload
on the natives whom he has succeeded in getting all
stirred up. The latter hold on too long and get
caught—like the southerner whose slave before the
war had tried to buy his freedom with some money
he had saved up, but as he was a good man his master
was loth to part with him. Then the war broke out,
and as it approached its end the master changed his
mind. He sent for the slave and said, “Sam, you
remember you asked to buy your freedom some time
ago. I have been thinking the matter over, and I
have come to the conclusion that I did not act right
by you. You have been such a good and faithful
servant that I have decided to accede to your request.”
The nigger scratched his head, rubbed one leg with the
other, and finally said, "Massa, I did want to buy
myself, but Ah been studying erbout it lately too,
an Ah come to de clusion dat niggah prop’ty am not
good investment just at present."
The way real estate has jumped in this city during
the last eight years is simply astounding. Land that
could be bought once for 17 cents a square metre sold
within four years for $8 per metre, though I must
say that the promoters had spent $1 per metre on
improvements before they sold. Since the revolution
prices have fallen badly, but will pick up again as
soon as confidence is restored.
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
The day for selling and booming unimproved
suburban property seems to have passed here as well
as in Los Angeles. Nowadays, if one wants to start
a new subdivision, or colonia, as it is called here, one
has to lay out the streets and pave them with asphalt,
or something nearly as good, put in cement side-walks,
instal a complete water and sewer system, and when that
is done you are ready to sell lots; but with a well-picked
site and plenty of capital it is a most profitable
undertaking even to-day in Mexico. I have seen in
Los Angeles men laying out cement side-walks and
paving the streets in the middle of an orange orchard,
the lots of which would be sold later, snapped up,
and the entire place built upon within the course of
a few months. I have seen the same thing here, all
but the building, in the Colonia Moderna, the land I
spoke of above. The lots were nearly all sold within a
year, but the building has been slow, as most of the land
was bought for still further speculation at even higher
prices. I mentioned above that foreigners own the
greater part of the industries of the country, and the
following few figures will give a clearer idea of what I
mean. The Mexican Government having no Statistical
Department, it is hard to get really accurate figures as
to foreign investments in the country. The following
figures, however, are most reliable, being compiled
partly by the Canadian Bank of Commerce (for the
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
benefit of its directors and stockholders), and published
in its annual report, and partly from other trustworthy
sources. The foreign capital (which is over seventy
per cent. of the entire capital of the country) invested
in this republic is drawn from the following sources.
British, including Canadian, $350,000,000, about
60 per cent. being invested in railways, 15 per cent.
in mining, and 25 per cent. in agricultural and other
enterprises.
The United States about $500,000,000, about 35 per
cent. invested in railways, 45 per cent. in mining,
and the balance in other industries.
German, French, Austrian, Spanish, Italian, Belgian,
and Dutch (in the order named) about $150,000,000,
invested largely in bank stocks, in manufactures, and
in wholesale and retail trade. The United States, of
course, leads, being such a close neighbour, but England,
with the help of Canada, has nothing to be ashamed
of. Still there is a large and profitable market for
England to investigate more fully, as her exports
to this country are not in the same proportion.
The last figures available of the imports and exports
of this country are, the former, $97,428,500,
and the latter, $130,028,000. Mexico produces many
minerals, and the report last year of this production
shows: gold, $22,507,477; silver, $38,555,000;
copper, $10,191,500; other minerals, $9,946,000.
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
Guadalajara is bound eventually to become a great
manufacturing city, owing to the cheap electrical
power which can be generated from the river close by.
Up till last year 9500 horse-power was brought into
the city, and the company charged from two cents to
seven cents per kilowatt, according to the amount
used, but it has been estimated that the river can
supply power up to 200,000 horse-power, and a plant
has just been completed which adds 50,000 horse-power
to the 9500 horse-power we had before. Another
industry which should bring great wealth to the
country is the raising of eucalyptus trees for use in
making railroad ties, mine timbers, and for furniture.
In California the Santa Fe Railroad has planted
40,000 acres with these trees, and now the Mexican
Central Railway and the Amparo Mining Company
have followed suit, and the business is also being
taken up by private parties. It is claimed that in
three years a tree grown here is fit for telegraph poles,
and in five years is big enough for railroad ties. As
there is no timber in this section suitable for ties, this
alone will give a good market. The Southern Pacific
Railway, which is building a road from Mazatlan to
Guadalajara, had to import the ties it needed from
California and from Japan. It is stated that eucalyptus
makes a growth of three inches in diameter and fifteen
feet in height each year for the first five years or so,
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
and needs very little care after the first year; an
acre yields $4500 in seven years, or nearly $643 per
acre per year, and the trees can be raised on soil
that is not suitable for any other crop. Even supposing
this estimate as much as threefold sanguine,
still eucalyptus is even better than strawberries
(which are grown all the year round, and sold
here), though a man here who has a thirty-acre
tract, part in berries and part in alfalfa, clears
$5000 net per year off it. A man with brains, a fair
amount of capital, and energy should do well here,
and the climate is the finest that I have encountered
in twenty years’ wanderings in Canada and the
States, even superior to that of California either in
winter or summer. During the rainy season, which
is from about the middle of June till the end of September,
the rainfall is about thirty-five inches, but,
curiously enough, during this entire season there will
not be more than half-a-dozen days in which it will
rain during the daylight hours. The days are sunshiny,
bright, and delightfully cool; then about four
or five P.M. it will begin to cloud over, and the rain
will commence about seven to nine P.M., and continue
a steady downpour till sunrise, when it will clear up
as if by magic.
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXIII
.pm start_summary
Climate of Guadalajara—American tramps—Courtship under
difficulties—Influence of the priesthood—The Metayer
system.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
During June and July the average mean temperature
in Guadalajara is 68.85° F. in the sun; the average
maximum for these months is 88.52°, the average
minimum is 56.48°, and the highest recorded temperature
was 95° on 1st July 1908. All these records
are officially taken on the top of the Degollado Theatre.
In August the mean for the month is 69.26°. During
November it ranges from 63.5° to 72.8°. During
December and January the average mean is 57.5°.
It sometimes freezes in the winter, but never enough
to hurt flowers or fruit if protected from the wind.
Violets grow out-of-doors all through the winter.
Except during the rainy season it rains,
though we do have occasional showers in the spring.
The country is truly a paradise, and if only the big
holdings were broken up among small farmers, all
Mexico could be supplied with food grains, instead of
having, as now, to import them. The reason for this
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
is that the hacendados, like squatters in Australia,
hold tracts of from one thousand to one or more
million acres, and of this they only cultivate probably
one per cent. The Government of Madero is at
present trying to borrow $100,000,000 for the purpose
of buying out these large holdings and selling them on
long-term annual payments to the actual cultivators.
If the plan succeeds, the country is bound to go ahead
at a wonderful rate. As in India, the chief industry
is agriculture, but Guadalajara, Aguas Calientes, and
Celaya are noted for drawn-work lace and embroidery;
the work is certainly beautiful. The Mexicans also
are no mean decorative painters, sculptors, and
builders. In buildings they put in “flat arches,”
which never sag or crack when the supports are removed,
and they can hang masonry stairways up in
the air, apparently without supports, if they can build
them in a long curve. I have asked American builders
how it is done, and have not received any clear answer
yet.
There are at present but two ways of getting to
Guadalajara by rail—either by branching off at
Irapuata from the main line of the Mexican Central,
which runs from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City, or
coming by steamer to Manzanillo, and from there by
rail, passing en route the volcano of Colima, which is
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
in eruption. This latter route, from the Pacific
coast, is by far the best and pleasantest, as you
thereby miss the northern desert of Mexico, and see,
besides, some beautiful wild scenery. There is also a
third road, which the Southern Pacific are building
into Guadalajara from Mazatlan, but this will not be
completed for a year or two.
Every winter Mexico is filled with American tramps
who come to escape the cold up north, and they are
a perfect pest at times. The Mexican police will
never touch them unless some American or Englishman
makes a complaint, in which case they run them
out of town. Seven years ago we had such a bad lot
here that the colony made complaint, and the police
cleaned them up. Two of the most impudent, who
returned, I had the pleasure later of seeing do some
honest work on the city streets. In Mexico City the
Saxon colony has a committee whose business it is
to investigate the case of every tramp who arrives;
if he is a good man in hard luck he is helped; if, on
the other hand, he is a professional tramp, the police
are at once notified, and he has to move out.
One of the things that strike a visitor to this country
is the method of courtship. A Mexican girl of good
family is never seen on the street with a man till she
is married to him. When a young man wishes to court
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
a girl, he walks up and down daily before the windows
of her house. If she reciprocates, she comes to the
window after a decent interval, the length of which
is according to how highly she values herself, and
smiles on him. As he gets bolder he comes nearer
and nearer, till finally they get on speaking terms.
All this may have taken some weeks. When matters
have progressed far enough for the couple to arrive
at an understanding, he makes a call on the family,
and if they approve of him he is invited to call again.
After this he calls as frequently as he can; the girl
is present at these state calls, but it is not considered
etiquette for him to speak to her directly till they are
officially engaged. He must converse with the other
members of the family so that they can size him up.
Imagine what intellectual conversation a man would
“get off” under the inspection of the whole family,
and what endurance the family must have to stand
it night after night. As soon as he has stayed the
length of time that etiquette demands (or as long as
the family can stand him), he retires to the street,
she comes to her window, and they talk nonsense
through the bars for the rest of the evening. It is
amusing to take a walk through the residential district
from eight till ten P.M. and see the hundreds of young
fellows hanging on the bars courting their lady-loves.
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
But it is still more amusing when the lady happens
to live on the second storey and he has to shout all
his pretty speeches up to her! In most Mexican
houses the first floor is one abode and the second floor
a separate one, with different entrances and owned
by different people. I often wondered what they
would do when they built five and six storey flats,
till I went to Puebla and saw small telephones in use,
which the lady let down to her Romeo. In the case
of the idle rich this form of courting goes on all through
the day, the young fellow only going home for his
meals.
In the evenings the band plays in the Plaza de
Armes, the central garden in front of the governor’s
palace, and all the young folk turn out. The girls
all walk in pairs in a long line one way, and the young
men in pairs also walk in an outer ring the other way,
so that at every round they can see and make eyes
at the particular fair one. Only in Chihuahua is this
rule relaxed, and the young men and women are
allowed to walk together. But then Chihuahua is
near the American border, and most of the boys and
girls are placed in American schools, so that it is almost
an American city with American customs. The
architecture of the new part of the city is American,
and the houses of the rich are built on large plots
surrounded by gardens and trees. As the Mexican
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
law does not recognise a religious marriage, it is always
necessary to have two ceremonies—one before the
judge and one before the priest, but the only binding
one is that performed by the judge. Another custom
which I think is peculiar to this country, at least I
have never seen it in Catholic Canada, is that of
kissing the priests’ hands on the street. This is not
only done by the poor but by almost all classes.
The church, though not recognised by law in this
country, has yet an enormous power, especially amongst
the poorer classes. Our labourers are always willing
to work on a national holiday in case of necessity,
but they cannot be persuaded to do so on any saint’s
day, and the number of these days is considerable.
One reason for this hold that the clergy have on the
Indian is the way that they have grafted the Catholic
faith on the superstitions and beliefs of the Indians,
instead of combating them. For instance, you can
always tell the advent of a feast day, because the
evening preceding it bombs are fired from all the
church towers. Ask any Indian what it is done for,
and he will tell you it is to drive away the devil.
On All Souls’ Day images of Judas Iscariot, filled with
powder, are sold by thousands, and at midday are all
blown up. Few Indians can tell you who Judas was,
and they believe it is the devil who is being so treated.
Whatever the cause, the government has failed in
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
its object of breaking the hold of the priesthood over
the country.
I wrote before of a thirty-acre farmer who makes
$5000 net per annum in strawberries and alfalfa.
Another with only three acres of strawberries, near
Guadalajara, cleared in 1901 $1500 as his half share
of the sale of the produce (on the metayer system)
from April to August. There are seven wells on the
farm, with an average lift of fifteen feet, and ten cultivators,
on half shares, plant, water, tend, and sell the
crop.
Agricultural labour is cheap—thirty cents per day—but
land is dear, as the great landholders stick to it,
and it is only gradually coming into the market. To
get it, one has to know the owners and be familiar with
the language, the country, and local circumstances.
The system of cultivation is everywhere metayer;
the great landholders furnish the stock, implements,
and seed to their Indian peons (the “ryot” of British
India), and make advances for their maintenance.
The peon takes half of the crop that he raises, less
the amount he has borrowed for maintenance while
raising it, and is cheated at every turn and transaction.
Of course on such terms much of these great
estates remains uncultivated, and no doubt the owners
will gradually be persuaded to sell land.
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXIV
.pm start_summary
Curious customs—The abuse of concessions—Flagrant examples—Prospects
for foreigners in Mexico—President Diaz—Mr.
Denny’s Life-story.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
One of the curious customs in Mexico is the blessing
of animals on the 17th of January, the feast of Saint
Anthony. On this day at the Merced (Mercy) Church
of this city, from four o’clock in the afternoon
till dark, the people bring all their animals to be
sprinkled with holy water and blessed by the priest.
All the animals are highly decorated (I have seen dogs
painted all the colours of the rainbow and covered with
ribbons for this occasion), and every kind, horses,
chickens, goats, pigs, cats, cows, all are brought to
the street in front of the church, when the priest
comes out and walks down the line, sprinkling them.
In some matters Mexico keeps abreast of the times,
and possibly is ahead of India and even England.
For instance, a dirigible balloon was brought here
from the States and run by an American, who could
handle it perfectly, going wherever he wished and
sailing or swooping at will. It was brought by a
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
Mexican tobacco firm to advertise their cigarettes!
I doubt if India or England has yet begun to advertise
with dirigibles. It was also, incidentally, a godsend
to the rateros, pickpockets and thieves, who
reaped a harvest while every one was gaping at the
heavens.
One of the things which militate against the growth
and prosperity of the country is the custom of granting
concessions for every imaginable purpose. When
these concessions are asked for by people who intend
to invest money in the country and develop a new
industry it is bad enough, but the trouble is that
many of these concessions are obtained by concession
hunters who have barely enough money to put up as
the necessary guarantee. These people, hearing of
the possibility of some company starting a new industry
here, immediately ask for a concession covering
the industry, put up the few hundreds or thousands
necessary to secure the concession, and then sell out
at an enormous profit to the prospective manufacturer.
These holdup methods do not always succeed, however,
as in the following case. The men at the head of our
concern contemplated putting up gas plants in most
of the big cities of the republic to supply light and
power and heat, and to consume part of the immense
production of oil from their field—gas here and in
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
California being now made from oil instead of coal.
A lawyer here, hearing of this, asked for the gas concession
for this city, put up the $1500 asked as a
guarantee, and was granted the concession. With
this in his pocket he went to Los Angeles and tried to
sell it to our company, who, however, only laughed
at him, told him to go ahead and put up his plant,
and that they would sell him oil when he was ready.
In the meantime they had secured the concession for
Mexico City. After this rebuff he tried to get other
people to take up the concession, and only after
much expense and two years’ time succeeded in getting
people who would buy his concession and build the
plant which is now in operation in Guadalajara. Some
of these concessions are a robbery of the community
at large. One granted to a dynamite concern gives
them the sole right to manufacture this article, so
vital to the mining industry of the country. To
protect them, a duty of $90 per ton was placed on
the import of the foreign dynamite, but the concession
states that, if the company cannot manufacture sufficient
to meet the demand, they may import free of
duty the balance necessary. The outcome of this is
that the company manufactures enough to protect
their concession and import all they need, and the
entire industry is in their hands. Another concession
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
granted to a young Mexican of this city was ostensibly
for irrigation of waste lands, and it reads in part as
follows: He is allowed to take all the water he needs
from Lake Chapala to irrigate these federal lands
(some 400,000 acres), and is paid by the government
$5 for each acre so irrigated. He is allowed to build
hydro-electric works on the canal, and transmit and
sell power wherever he likes; it is estimated that he
can generate 50,000 horse-power on the works he has
installed, and was first a competitor, and later, combined
with the light and power company of the city.
Then comes this small, innocent-looking clause: the
land round the borders of Lake Chapala, between the
present high-water mark and whatever point he
succeeds in lowering the lake to, is given to him.
Just imagine a strip from 10 to 50, possibly 100, feet
wide round the border of a lake that has about 130 miles,
more or less, of border! Besides, he cut every landholder
off from a water-front. One wealthy hacendado,
realising what it meant to his ranch, paid him
$500,000 not to touch his borders. A German company
offered him $2,500,000 in cash for the bare
concession.
Foreigners, as a rule, are fairly welcome in this
country, as they bring in money and start new industries.
The upper class and the labourers appreciate this, but
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
the middle class and the skilled mechanics do not, as
the latter are crowded out. The Mexican railroad men
some time ago agitated for a law which would practically
prohibit Americans working at this business,
as at that time there were very few Mexicans holding
responsible positions on the railroads of the country—few
indeed got to be engineers or conductors. When
they could not get their law passed they started anti-foreign
agitations all over the country, and were
backed by all who were “agin the government,” till
finally, five years ago last September, the word went
round that all foreigners would either be killed or run
out of the country. Notices were posted in this and
other towns (and immediately torn down by the
police) warning us what was to happen if we did not
leave, and things began to look serious. Of course
few of us looked for any general rising, but for isolated
attacks on individuals. Lots of people found it necessary
to leave for the States on business (?), and I
think most that remained went armed. However, the
government was not idle. On the 14th September
they ordered all the saloons to be closed and stay
closed till the 17th. On the 15th they started making
arrests of persons known to be disaffected, and some
five hundred from this city and about seven hundred
from surrounding towns found themselves in the
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
penitentiary that night. On the nights of the 15th
and 16th (the great national holiday) soldiers in small
squads patrolled the city till morning, and any one
who even shouted “Abajo los Gringoes” (down with the
foreigners) was immediately carried off to the Quartel.
It was the quietest 16th of September we have had
since I have been in the country; on the 17th the
prisoners were all released, and the crisis was over,
without a single case of assault in the entire republic.
This is the way Diaz handled revolutionary talk.
Now, since Madero’s successful revolution, all this is
changed, and the country is trying to become a real
democracy, and may succeed unless some other Diaz
arises. The railroads have been taken over by the
government, they buying a controlling interest, and
Americans are gradually being eliminated and Mexicans
pushed to the front as fast as they can find
suitable men for the higher positions.
I have not till now described the vice-president
and real head of our company, Mr. E. L. Denny, and
yet he is worth mentioning as well as some of the incidents
of his life. A handsome man, well read, with
a low, soft voice, and as well dressed a man as I have
ever met; all of which sounds incongruous with his
early life. He was, till a few years ago, a “prospector,”
who did not have much luck in his prospecting. His
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
partners at different times were Harry Carter, who at
the time was our yard foreman, Tom Grand, who is
here on a prospecting trip for Denny, and Charles
Canrod, who is his partner now in all his big undertakings.
Twenty years ago Mr. Denny joined forces
with Charlie Canrod, who had also been a prospector,
and who had once made a strike and invested his money
in a livery stable and hotel, which cost him $35,000,
and which he later lost; for these men are rich one
day and poor the next. Eighteen years ago they were
both broke and came to Los Angeles to find work in
order to earn enough money to go back prospecting.
This a miner calls earning “a grub-stake.” Denny
had been working for the city, but took contracts to
paint some houses, and while working on the outskirts
of the town, near what is now “Westlake Park,”
found some oil exudes. He asked some one what it
was (for he had taken a sample as a prospector does),
and was told it was “Brea.” He remembered that
when he was in Mexico that was the Spanish name
for asphalt, and also having heard that where there
was an asphalt deposit there was or had been oil. He
got his partner Canrod, and they clubbed together
what money they had and what they could beg or
borrow, and took options on all the land in the Westlake
district that they could get their hands on. The
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
two began to sink a shaft, 6 feet by 4 feet, down to find
the oil. This shows how much either of them knew
at that time about oil; for if they had found a gusher
they would certainly have been killed. As it was,
they were both overcome once or twice by gas
fumes, but did not know what it was. Luckily, they
only found a very little “seep” of oil, but sufficient
to peddle round for painting and other purposes,
and to convince the capitalists (whom they later
interested) that they really had something. Thus,
getting a start with the aid of borrowed capital, they
interested a well-driller, who knew his business, to
go in with them and sink proper wells, and they soon
had a paying proposition. From Los Angeles they
went to Bakersfield, where they got hold of oil properties,
and when they cleaned up there they had
about one million dollars each. Then they came to
Mexico, bought up a tract of land, which they had
personally investigated, some 500,000 acres, which
showed oil indications, and invested over $1,000,000
in works, tanks, drilling rigs, &c. This field and
others later purchased, of which only a small portion
has so far been developed, is producing 57,000 barrels
of oil per day; and this production can be doubled by
opening wells already drilled and capped, as soon as the
market is enlarged. Mr. Denny is now worth probably
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
over $30,000,000, and Charlie Canrod not much, if
any, less. They started the asphalt company to use
up some of the by-product, and have installed a gas
company in Mexico City for the same purpose, and
will probably instal them in other cities as conditions
warrant. They also own oil fields at Sherman and
other places in California, and are interested in a
dozen different ventures. Such are the men who
have made the Western States what they are to-day—men
not afraid to take a chance and with the brains
and ability to carry their schemes through.
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXV
.pm start_summary
Mr. Denny and a mining claim—A wholesale killing averted—Stories
of shooting escapades.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Any one seeing Mr. Denny (the vice-president and
biggest stockholder of our company) now would think
him only a quiet man of affairs, yet some years ago he
was known as one of the finest fighting men of New
Mexico or Colorado. While working a prospect he
had near Silver City, New Mexico, he decided to
study law, did so successfully, and was called to the
bar; but his ideas of practice were peculiar. He was
employed by a mining company to protect a mining
claim that was in litigation and which the opposing
parties were about to take possession of while
court was not in session. He put in an injunction of
his own devising; he laid in a stock of provisions
and water, built a barricade of dynamite boxes in the
mouth of the tunnel, took up his position with a
Winchester, and defied the sheriff and posse to oust
him till the case could be tried; and the sheriff, not
seeing any way to dissolve the injunction, left him
strictly alone. Later, the court found for his clients.
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
In the same city he had heard that an Italian named
Carrera had made some slanderous remarks about
him. Though this Carrera weighed nearly 200 lbs. and
Denny at that time only about 125 lbs., he went up
to the former’s office with a paper for him to sign,
retracting what he had formerly said. Carrera refused,
and Denny beat him till he signed. Then Denny took
the document to the office of the daily paper and asked
them to publish Carrera’s free and full retractation.
But as the document had accumulated much blood
during the progress of negotiations, the editor refused
to publish it on the ground that “Carrera did not
sign that of his own free will and volition.” “Sure
he did,” said Denny; “I made him.”
Silver City had the reputation of being a camp in
which more men were killed than any other in the United
States. On one occasion a young fellow was shot
in a billiard hall and was laid upon one of the tables
to pass away in comfort. He had been what is known
as a “grandstander” all his life (playing to the gallery),
and as he lay there dying he suddenly raised himself
on his elbow and said to the assembled crowd, "Boys,
ain’t I dying brave"—a grandstander to the last!
Kingston, New Mexico, was divided into two factions,
Denny at the head of one and a man named Bill Langly
at the head of the other. One day Denny was walking
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
down the street, and happened to be unarmed, when
Bill Langly stepped out of a saloon and emptied
his pistol at Denny across the street. Denny, who
was walking towards Bill when he started shooting,
did not increase his pace by the fraction of a
second, but calmly walked on past Langly down to
the blacksmith’s shop that Harry Carter owned at
the time. Though Bill was a good shot he had been
drinking, and so missed Denny with all six shots.
Just as Harry Carter, who had heard and seen the
shooting, ran out with a Winchester, which he handed
to Denny, the sheriff came and arrested Langly.
Denny walked out into the middle of the road, dropped
on his knee, and, just as he was about to shoot, a
woman happened to step into the line of fire; by the
time she moved out of the way Langly and the sheriff
had turned the corner and were out of sight. That
woman unconsciously averted a wholesale killing, for
while Denny knelt in the street some of the opposing
faction had him covered from the door of a saloon,
and Harry Carter and some of Denny’s friends were
covering these men from the doorway of the smithy.
Denny does not forget the friends of his days of
poverty now that he is a millionaire, for though Harry
Carter has been working here as yard foreman it is
simply of his own wish, because he preferred to feel independent.
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
But Harry knows that his wife and children
are provided for, no matter what may happen to him.
Denny has offered to start him in business, but he does
not care for this. Another friend and old-time partner
is Tom Grand, whom I mentioned before as being down
here prospecting for Denny. He is doing so under
the following terms: Denny pays all expenses, and
will put up the money necessary to develop any mine
that is found, and the proceeds will be divided evenly.
This also leaves a man feeling fairly independent,
more so than if he were a mere pensioner.
Grand is a very good friend of mine, and as nice a
man as one would wish to meet anywhere, yet he
has the record of having killed three men in fights
and seriously wounded four others; and at one time
he was hunted over the hills of New Mexico by the
state militia. He was generally very quiet, though
full of fun, and I never could get him to tell me of any
of his shooting scrapes, but on one occasion I saw
even a drunken man realise that he was a bad man to
fool with. A party of us were standing talking in
front of the railway station in Guadalajara when a
man we all knew came along just drunk enough to
be aggressive, and began to make himself objectionable.
Tom Grand had just come in from the mountains,
and the clothes he had on were rough and dusty,
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
and this attracted Mr. Drunk. He walked up to Tom and
said, “My heaven, Grand, you look tough” (i.e. rough
and dirty). “Yes,” said Tom, putting his face close
up to the other, "and I'm just as tough as I look"
(i.e. bad customer). The other understood the play
on the words and the look on Tom’s face, and backed
away full of apologies and did not bother us any more.
The life some of these prospectors lead would kill
any man who was not made of iron and had not
courage to spare. Tom Grand was telling me of one
experience of his when he was opening up a tunnel
one winter all by himself, forty miles from the nearest
habitation. It was 15° F. below zero, and he could
find nothing to burn but sage brush. Any one who
knows or has seen sage brush can imagine what a
delightfully cheerful fire it would make! Then the
loneliness would drive most men crazy. On another
occasion Grand, Denny, and another man were up
in Colorado prospecting in the Grand Canyon, when
the third man fell over the bluff to a ledge 150 feet
below. They had no means of getting up the body
for burial, and all they could do was to lower a red
blanket by strings till it covered the body; and so they
had to leave him, trusting that nothing would touch
the body for fear of the blanket. It is hard to get
these men to talk of the past—they live in the present
.bn 303.png
.pn +1
and the future. Harry Carter once told me of a
narrow escape he had years ago at Kingston, New
Mexico. I was mentioning a case of a policeman and
he said, “Why, I had just such a thing happen to me.”
He had got into an argument with a friend of his who
was pretty drunk at the time. The argument waxed
warm, when suddenly this man jerked out his gun and
swore he would kill Carter. Harry was taken by
surprise and was unarmed. He was leaning against the
open door, and as he told it to me in his own words,
“Right back of the door at my elbow there was a
Winchester rifle leaning against the wall, which I
had noticed as I came in. When the drunken idiot
threw his gun down on me, I remembered it, and it
flashed across my mind that I would jump back, grab
the rifle, and take my chances. All that kept me
from doing it was the thought that the darned thing
might be empty, in which case I would have looked
like a fool and been killed sure. I found out later
that it was not only loaded but had a cartridge in the
barrel” (he meant he would not have had to work the
lever to throw one in the barrel). “Still, as things
turned out, it was just as well I did not get hold of
it. While I was debating what to do, Jack was
getting himself all worked up to the shooting point,
and the madder he got the nearer he came to me,
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
cursing all the time like a trooper. I was expecting
him to shoot any minute, when he stepped too close
and I saw my chance. I made a quick grab for the
gun, and, as luck would have it, my hand slid down
the barrel and the hammer fell on the fork here between
the thumb and first finger; that was all that
saved me.” “Well,” I said, as he stopped, “what
did you do to him?” "Do to him? why, I didn’t
do anything to him; he was a friend of mine, and would
never have thought of hurting me if he had been sober."
After a few minutes’ thought, he said, "Oh yes I did,
too—I kept the gun, and it was a fine Colt’s 45."
One day I was telling Harry Carter of what I had
seen in the Silver King Saloon in San Antonio. He
said, "Well, once I saw a thing like that in Kingston,
which at that time was a very small camp, but it
turned out different from what you described. Jim
and Ben had trouble down in a saloon. Jim said to Ben,
‘I’ve got no show because I’m not heeled.’ 'Don’t
let that bother you,' said Ben; ‘come on up to my
cabin and I’ll heel you.’ So up they went, and, while
Jim stayed outside, Ben went in and brought him
out a pistol. They agreed to back off five paces
and then empty their guns. But at the very first
shot Jim shot Ben square between the eyes with the
borrowed gun."
Harry Carter left the company last year and went
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
back to California, where he has bought a ranch and
is farming, and I have certainly missed him, both as
a great help in the business, and as a good fellow out
of working hours.
I mentioned that since my arrival in Mexico some
of my views had been changed as regards American
business methods. Rather I should say that I have
at last come in contact with American gentlemen in
business, and not the class I had heretofore met. I will
now try and describe our manager in Mexico, Mr. H.
Wilkin, and his assistant, Mr. P. H. Harway, under
whom directly I worked for the first six years I was
with the company. Mr. H. Wilkin is a young man,
probably two or three years younger than myself,
standing some two inches over six feet in his socks,
with shoulders to correspond, fair hair and blue eyes.
He is a lawyer by profession, and a born diplomat: he
would have made a great success if he had entered the
United States Diplomatic Service. I have seen him
take a hostile board of aldermen and have them all
agreeing with him in an hour’s talk. When we had
some trouble in Chihuahua I saw him talk suggestions
into the governor’s head in such a way that the
governor really believed that he had originated them
himself, and felt quite proud in consequence. To show
his kindness to those under him I will mention two
instances where I was the beneficiary. When in
.bn 306.png
.pn +1
Tampico I broke down from climate and overwork, and
the doctor ordered me off the job. I was in such a
nervous condition that, seeing that I could not hold
down the job, and wishing to make the way clear for
the company, I sent in my resignation. As soon as Mr.
Wilkin received my letter he got on the train, came down
to Tampico, and came to see me. He said, “Let
me have your leggings and your horse, then go home,
forget the job, forget you wrote me, and rest. I will
take your job off your hands!” This he did till I
was fit to take up the reins again. Later, in Morelia,
I had my room in the hotel looted; besides all my
clothes, I lost some of the company’s money, all in
small silver, that I had there for safe keeping (it
is very hard to get change here, so when one gets it
one holds on to it to pay the men). When Mr. Wilkin
heard of the robbery he immediately wrote me to
reimburse myself out of company funds for the entire
loss, and so charge it upon the books. These are things
a man with any red blood in his veins does not forget.
Mr. P. H. Harway is also a man well over six feet,
about the same age as the manager, and took his degree
as mining engineer. I worked directly under
his orders for the first six years, but he left our company
to take charge of Mr. Denny’s gas company in
Mexico city, as vice-president and general manager.
I never think of him without the kindliest feelings
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
and deep gratitude for the thousands of kindnesses
he has shown me during the years we worked together.
At first there was some little friction before we understood
one another’s peculiarities, and before I appreciated
his great business ability. Most heads of jobs
take all the credit to themselves, but Paul Harway,
in a report to the directors in California, gave most
of the credit for our good showing to Harry Carter
and myself. This at the time meant $25 per month
more salary to each of us. Paul Harway was the
practical man of affairs of the company, and he and
Mr. Wilkin made a team which was bound to force
any business ahead, and we have been much crippled
since he left. These two young fellows represent one
of the best traits of American character. They are
both sons of wealthy fathers, yet neither of them would
be content to loaf at home. Paul Harway once said
to me, “I want in later life to feel that I have done
something, and made my mark, no matter how small.”
If only all wealthy men’s sons were like that, more
especially in England, how the world would go ahead.
But it is more often that the man with push lacks
capital, and the young fellow with capital lacks push.
Harry Carter was fond of telling me that "An Englishman
says, ‘Thank God, I have a father’; while the
American and German say, 'Thank God, I have a son.'"
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXVI
.pm start_summary
Macdonald Institute at Guelph—Agricultural College—Their
value to students—Back to work through Texas.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In March 1908 the doctor advised me to send my
wife north for a change, as she had lived too many
years in a southern climate, so I sent her back to
Guelph, Canada, where she was born. In October
of the same year I got leave from the company, and
went to bring the family back, my first holiday in
four years. On my way up I stopped some hours
in St. Louis, where I saw Taft, the president-elect,
who was then on a stumping-tour, and was speaking
in St. Louis. The country was election crazy, and all
that men could talk about was the elections, and, as
is always the case in America, election stories were
on everybody’s lips. Two that I heard I will give
here. A republican orator was holding forth in New
York, and after his speech he said he would be glad
to answer any arguments brought by the other side.
After two or three men had made remarks and been
answered, an old Irish-American got up and said,
"Eight years ago they told us to vote for Bryan and
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
that we would be prosperous. Oi did vote for Bryan,
and Oi’ve niver been so prosperous in all my loife, so
now, begory, Oi’m going to vote for Bryan again."
For the benefit of those who do not understand
American politics I may say that Bryan was the
Democratic candidate who ran against Taft, and had run
each time for the eight years previously and been beaten
each time. The other story relates to a Democratic
big gun who was to speak in a small Texas town where
the people were mostly prohibitionists. He arrived
on the speakers’ stand pretty intoxicated; not incapable
of making his speech, but his unsteady walk
and flushed face told the tale to the people, and the
audience hissed and howled. He held up his hand
for silence, and when it was restored he said, “Ladies
and gentlemen, when a statesman of my prominence
consents to appear in such a small one-horse town as
this is, he must be either drunk or crazy. I prefer
to be considered an inebriate.”
When I arrived in Guelph, which I had not seen for
nearly fourteen years, I found it wonderfully changed
for the better, and as for the old college I should hardly
have known it. Since I was there they had built,
with money bestowed by Sir William C. Macdonald
(the tobacco millionaire of Canada), a woman’s institute
called the Macdonald Institute. Here young women
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
are taught domestic science, which includes—elementary
chemistry, and chemistry of foods, cooking, sanitation,
household administration, laundry work, sewing,
child-study, biology, bacteriology, home nursing, and
emergency nursing. Then there are also many short
courses, one teaching advanced sewing, which takes
in dressmaking, millinery, embroidery, textiles, colour
and design. After they have grasped all this they
should be ready to marry and make good housewives.
This Macdonald Institute and the various short
courses are simply crowded, girls coming from all
over the country to take them. Some to learn to
be housekeepers, some to prepare for marriage, and
even girls of wealthy families to learn to take proper
care of their homes. Attached to the Institute is
the Macdonald Hall, also given by the same gentleman,
where 110 students board and lodge at a charge
of from $3 to $3.50 per week. Those that cannot
be accommodated in the hall are found lodgings
round town in well-known, respectable boarding-houses.
For farmers’ daughters, and more especially
for young women whose families have come from
abroad to settle in the country, this Institute is invaluable,
as is the Agricultural College for young men.
I heard in Guelph of a case of an English widow,
her two daughters, and one son who had come to take
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
up land and settle in the country. The mother and
the two daughters went to the Institute while the son
took a course in the College. When they had all
graduated they moved west, bought a farm, and are
doing well. In the college, too, there have been many
changes. The course now is four years for the degree
of B.S.A. (Bachelor of the Science of Agriculture),
instead of three as formerly, and the range of studies
has been much extended. It now includes animal
husbandry, agriculture, arithmetic, book-keeping,
botany, chemistry, dairying, farm mechanics, field
husbandry, geology, zoology, bacteriology, horticulture,
poultry, veterinary, entomology, forestry,
French, or German. And under the head of physics:
agricultural engineering, electricity, surveying, and
drainage, calorimetry, cold storage, and meteorology.
This seems to cover the ground pretty well for a
farmer, but farming is now becoming a science as
much as other professions. The cost to a non-resident
student (i.e. one whose parents do not reside and pay
taxes in Ontario) is for tuition $40 per year, laboratory
fees $1.50 per year for the first two years, and $5 per
year for the last two years, and between $4 and $5 per
year for chemicals and other materials. The board is $3
per week, but the net cost for board and tuition during
the first two years need not pass $125 per year for a
.bn 312.png
.pn +1
non-resident student who works regularly and faithfully
in the outside departments.
One of the new rules practically does away with
what I before said was one of the handicaps of an
English student. He must now produce certificates
of having spent at least one year on a farm, and must
have a practical knowledge of ordinary farm operations,
such as harnessing and driving horses, ploughing,
harrowing, drilling, &c. And his knowledge will be
tested by an examination at entrance. The terms
are from 15th September to 22nd December, and
from 4th January to 15th April, thus allowing
farmers’ sons to go home for seeding, haying, and
harvesting, and non-resident students to get work on
a farm during these operations; or, if they prefer,
they can remain at the college and work on its farm,
for which they are paid. Since I was there the college
has made great improvements in its accommodation.
Mr. Massey built and presented to the college the
Massey Hall and Library, in which are held the literary
meetings, concerts, &c., and which has a seating
capacity for 450 people, while the library has room
for 80,000 volumes. They have also a fine gymnasium
with a swimming-bath in the basement, besides another
open-air swimming-bath. A new machinery hall,
146 feet by 64 feet, has been built, in which manual
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
training and farm mechanics are taught. There are
also other new buildings too numerous to mention.
Last year 367 students attended Macdonald’s Institute,
and 794 students attended the College, either taking
the entire course or the various short courses. To
show how the college is patronised by people from all
over the world I took this list of the hailing-places of
the foreign students: nine from the Argentine Republic,
Belgium one, England twenty-nine, Egypt one,
Scotland eight, France one, Germany one, Ireland three,
India two, Japan three, Jamaica two, Mexico one,
South Africa one, Spain two, United States twenty-four.
My old friend Creelman is now president of the college
through which he worked his way, and in his hands the
reputation of the college is spreading far and wide.
After spending a month in Guelph, we started back by
easy stages, and stopped one day in St. Louis, one day
in San Antonio, and two days at Cline, my old stamping-ground.
Texas has boomed in the past ten years,
and land that was selling there for $2.50 per acre at
the time I left in 1902 is now, 1912, worth from $60
to $100 per acre, and cotton is being raised on what
was considered rather poor grazing-land. And as
Texas is getting wealthy, it is also getting very moral.
No more gun-plays, no more gambling, and not even
any more whisky in the greater part of the state.
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
There is even a state-law prohibiting a man from taking
a drink out of his own bottle on the trains, or playing
a game of cards for fun in any public place, which
includes trains. They tell about Judge J——, of San
Antonio, going to the smoking-room on the Pullman
to get a drink of water. When he picked up the glass
he smelled whisky. He glared round the room, and
demanded who had been drinking whisky on the train
contrary to law. After he had repeated his question
a couple of times a young fellow said in a shaky voice,
“I did, judge.” “Well,” thundered the judge, “how
dare you hide the bottle?” They also tell a story
about this judge’s memory for faces. A prisoner
was before him who denied ever having been arrested
before, yet the judge was positive he knew him for an
old offender. Finally the judge said, "Oh, I know
you, and you can’t fool me; now, own up, have I not
seen you often before me?" “Yes,” finally replied
the prisoner, "I’m the bar-tender in the saloon across
the way."
Of course, these strict prohibition laws in some of the
counties have started every known scheme for secret
whisky selling. They tell about a secret-service man
who was trying to catch a nigger whom he suspected of
acting as distributor for the whisky men. He met him
on the street one day and asked him, in a whisper, if he
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
knew where he could get some whisky to drink. "I
specs I can get you some if you gimme $2," said the
nigger. The detective handed the $2 to the coon, who
said, “You hold this box of shoes till I come back,” and
hurried off round the corner. The detective waited
patiently for a couple of hours and no nigger. So he
decided he had been buncoed, and went up to the police
station with the box of shoes. When the box was
opened, inside it, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, was
a quart of whisky! I was telling a Texan about the
thieving qualities of the Mexican here, and he argued
that they could not be any worse than the negro in
the south. Said he, a nigger preacher was warning his
congregation against the evils of drinking, of theft,
against robbing chicken-coops, and stealing melons.
When he got to this part of his discourse up jumped
one of the members and started for the door. "Whar
am yer goin' brudder?" said the preacher. "I’se
goin' fer mah coat kase yo jes minds me whar I lef
it." They also tell about a lady who left $2 at the
cottage of a sick, coloured lady to buy a chicken to
make into broth. As she stepped out of the door she
heard the sick woman say to her boy, “Here, you
Mose, bring me dat money, and go get the chicken
in the natural way.”
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXXVII
.pm start_summary
Puebla, the misgoverned—Justice under Colonel Cabrera—Royal
Family of Chihuahua—Tampico—Presidents Diaz and Madero.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In 1909 I went to Puebla, to take charge of a large
contract there, and came in contact with another
kind of governor from our old friend Don Miguel
Ahumada. He also was an old-time soldier (friend
and supporter of Diaz), General Mucio Martinez, but
as different from Colonel Don Miguel Ahumada as
night is from day. Puebla was the most misgoverned
state in the country, and the barefaced robbery and
oppression openly carried on was a revelation to me.
All the butcher business, public coaches, the best of
the liquor business, and the theatre were in the hands
of a clique headed by the governor. The Jefe Politico
had bought from the state the right to all fines. The
effect of this was twofold; habitual offenders, drunks,
thieves, ladies of the Vida Alegro, &c., were turned
loose as soon as their friends paid the fines, and never
got jail sentences because they were such a profitable
source of revenue. They would soon err again, be
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
rearrested, and fined once more. I was told that any
policeman who did not make a certain number of
arrests in the month lost his job. On the other hand,
the casual offenders (more especially those with a
trade) always got jail sentences, which they worked
out on private jobs or contracts of the Jefe Politico.
This man made a fortune in less than six years, and
skipped for France when the revolution broke out.
The Jefe’s assistant, Colonel Cabrera, was the chief
of police till killed by one of the members of the Serdan
family at the outbreak of the revolution. I found
this was the man who could either be of much assistance
or annoyance to me on the contract, and I went
to call on him to find out what could be arranged.
I told him, in the course of conversation, that I needed
three watchmen on the job, and he at once offered
to get them for me. He asked as to pay, &c., and
then sent me three of the city’s secret-service men,
and, I presume, pocketed their pay, as he was more
than friendly to me during the time I was there. On
one occasion a man of some importance in the city
walked across the fresh asphalt and one of my men
spoke rather rudely to him about his lack of brains
and culture. He promptly had my foreman arrested,
and in the argument that followed two or three more
of the men got arrested for taking the foreman’s part.
.bn 318.png
.pn +1
As I was riding down the street I met them all on the
way to the commissaria, and had the matter explained
to me. I rode on ahead, and went to see Colonel
Cabrera. When I had finished explaining the matter
to him he called an assistant and told him to go down
and tell the judge to turn my men loose as soon as
they arrived without further investigation. I thanked
him and went down to see the order carried out.
When we arrived in the court-room the complainant
was in the middle of his speech, and the assistant,
instead of going up and whispering the order in the
judge’s ear, said, in a loud voice, "Colonel Cabrera’s
compliments, and you are to turn these men loose without
further investigation." Such was the justice one
could get under these men; but it was really comical to
see the complainant’s face at such summary methods.
On another occasion I went to see him about one of
my men that I had discharged, and who had gone up
to my office and scared my clerk nearly into a fit
by waving a pistol and saying he wanted to kill me.
Cabrera asked me if I had a pistol, and on my replying
in the affirmative he said, “Then it is very simple,
you shoot him the first time you see him near your
office, before he can shoot you.” I told him that
was all right, but I did not want to get into jail.
“No,” he said, “that need not bother you, as he has
.bn 319.png
.pn +1
threatened your life before witnesses.” I happened
to meet this man a day or two later on the street,
and went up to him and said I had heard he was looking
for trouble, and that Colonel Cabrera had told me
to shoot him if he came near my office. But he denied
all enmity, &c., &c. I have always found it best to
tackle these cases at once, for if you do not treat them
with a high hand you are liable to get shot in the back
some night.
From Puebla I went to Chihuahua to take charge of
a contract there. The town and state of Chihuahua
used to be run by what was known as the Royal Family.
The head of the family is Terrazas, who owns in ranches
almost the entire state, and the balance of the family
consists of the Creels, the Munoz, and the Quilty, and I
was told that there were 116 first cousins. All these, of
course, had to have a living, and they were all provided
for. One of them was building a large edifice at the time
I was there, and was using one of the principal streets as
his stoneyard to cut the stone for the building. He
had the street closed to traffic, and was getting along
very comfortably; unfortunately, this street was one
that was in our contract to be paved. When we had
completed nearly all the other streets we asked him to
please move out and let us in, and his answer was,
“I wish to get my work completed by a certain date.
.bn 320.png
.pn +1
Naturally it will inconvenience you, but that cannot
be helped. Of course if you think that you can have
me moved, why, go ahead and try, but I think you will
find that I am a man of some importance.” So the
interview closed, and we found that he was indeed
of some importance, and that nothing could be done.
I was told that the only way to go into business up
there was to get some member of the family in with
you, and the facts bear this out. They own the street
car-lines, the brewery, the lumber-yard, the brick-yard,
the biscuit company, the electric power and light
company, and the slaughterhouse, and if they missed
anything it was because it was not worth having.
Yet, with it all, possibly because of it, the town is a
very busy one, though it was this state of affairs,
and the way things were run in Puebla, that brought
about the revolution. The people had nothing to
lose, and might gain by a change of government.
From Chihuahua I went first to Durango, where I
only stayed a short time; and then to Tampico, where
we had another large contract. Tampico is only a
small town of possibly 35,000 people, but one of the
busiest towns in the republic, with an American
population of about 1000 people. The main industry,
of course, is oil, and most of the men are employed or
connected in some way with that industry. But of
.bn 321.png
.pn +1
late years many settlers have gone into the country
to buy farms, and cultivate tropical fruits, and
some, at least, seem to be doing well. But the
country has many drawbacks, at least for a Saxon;
for, though the climate is not at all bad, the insect-pests
are numerous, and keep one too active for such a warm
climate. The soil which is so good for the tropical
fruit is also good to raise tropical jungle, and the
jungle of the Tampico country is something that one
must see to believe. However, those that have taken
up farms seem to be well satisfied, and are making
money.
For sport, Tampico and the surrounding country
can hardly be beaten in the Republic, both for fishing,
hunting, and boating. While I was there the record
tarpon up to date was caught (7 feet 5 inches long);
but besides tarpon there are many other game fish—the
yellow tail, black and red snapper, various kinds
of rock-fish, and I caught one shark, 7 feet long, which
gave me plenty of fun. Tampico saw nothing of the
revolution, though after it was all over we had one
day, or rather night and day, of rioting, which kept
everybody in a state of anxiety. Of the revolution
every one has no doubt read in the papers more
than I could tell. On the whole, I think it passed
off very well, all except the horrible slaughter of helpless
.bn 322.png
.pn +1
Chinamen in Torreon, of whom 303 were killed
in cold blood for the money they were supposed to
have. One American there saved the lives of thirty-six
of them. He was the yard-master, and got that
number into an empty box-car, which he switched
round all day long while the rioters searched the trains
for them. For a little while the changes were rapid,
and both in Guadalajara and Morelia they had three
different governors in one day. Diaz was not beaten
when he finally decided to leave the country. He had
been kept in ignorance up till the last moment by his
friends (?) as to the true state of affairs, and when he
found out that the people as a whole were against
him, he resigned to save further bloodshed. Since
then we have had rumours of counter-revolution
after counter-revolution, but none has so far materialised,
except the fiasco of General Reyes, who could
only get together seven followers. He is another
“grandstander,” and when he gave himself up he
said he had decided not to go on with the “War.”
One hears much of the uprising of Zapata, but
Zapatism is not a revolution against any particular
government but against a condition. The people are
demanding that the land shall be divided up amongst
them, so that they will not be slaves of the hacendados,
and when once this is done we shall hear the last of
Zapata.
.bn 323.png
.pn +1
At first the feeling against Diaz was very strong in
the country, for the people did not understand, then,
that it was his so-called friends who were to blame,
and not he. Now, however, this feeling is dying out,
and you hear many people talking of Diaz, and agreeing
that he has done much for his country, for which
the country should be grateful to him. Many people
are fond of decrying Madero, saying he is not a man of
force, but if he had been a second Diaz they would,
on the other hand, have been crying, “We have exchanged
one tyrant for another.” It seems to me,
an outsider, that he will “make good” if allowed the
chance, but any man who tries to fill Diaz' clothes
will have a hard job of it.
I am still seeking fortune in America; I have
sought it in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, but
it appears as far off in 1912 as ever it did. America
is a land of great opportunities, but rarely for the
Briton or the man without capital. I have written
my life to date, attempting at the same time to depict
my surroundings, and if any one has got half the
pleasure out of reading these rambling reminiscences
that I have had in going back in spirit over the old
scenes, I am satisfied.
.nf c
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh & London
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.bn 324.png
.bn 325.png
.pb
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Travel
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Edited by Powell Millington, Author of ‘To Lhassa at Last.’
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H. Seymour, G.C.B., O.M., etc.
.nf-
Daily Telegraph.—‘Simple, straightforward, manly, and unadorned, this literary
record is a worthy tribute to the career which it describes. Admiral Seymour has to
his credit as distinguished a career as any officer in the British Navy.’
.hr 100%
.nf c
With 3 Photogravures and 20 pages of Illustrations. In 2 Vols.
Large medium 8vo. 31s. 6d. net.
.nf-
.nf l
The Family and Heirs of
Sir Francis Drake.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ By Lady Eliott-Drake.
.nf-
Observer.—‘The Drake records are rich and so excellently managed and arranged
by Lady Eliott-Drake that we get a very close and vivid picture of life in Devon and
in London for nearly two hundred years.’
.hr 100%
.ta l:55 r:15
With 2 Portraits in Photogravure and 2 Illustrations.| Large post 8vo.
| 7s. 6d. net.
.ta-
.nf l
‘Sylhet’ Thackeray.
By F. B. Bradley Birt, I.C.S., Author of ‘Chota Nagpore,’ &c.
.nf-
⁂ A biography of William Makepeace Thackeray, the grandfather of the Novelist.
Standard.—‘Mr. Bradley Birt’s knowledge of India, not only as it is now, but also
as it was in the latter part of the eighteenth century, has enabled him to give the story
a vividness which is not always found in Anglo-Indian Biography.’
.hr 100%
.ce
With 18 Portraits (2 in Photogravure). Small demy, 8vo. 2 vols. 21s. net.
.nf l
The Life of Edward,
Earl of Clarendon.
.nf-
.nf c
By Sir Henry Craik, K.C.B., M.P.,
Author of ‘A Century of Scottish History,’ &c.
.nf-
Times.—‘A life which in its greatness and variety of relief, no less than in the
picturesque abundance of detail available, yields to five or six alone in the whole
splendid gallery of seventeenth century biography.’
.hr 100%
.ce
London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
.hr 100%
.bn 327.png
.sp 2
.ce
Biography
.hr 100%
.ce
Large post 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
.ti 0
Leaves of the Tree: Studies in Biography.
.nf c
By Arthur C. Benson,
Author of ‘The Upton Letters,’ 'From a College Window,' &c.
.nf-
CONTENTS:—Introductory.—Bishop Westcott.—Henry Sidgwick.—J.
K. Stephen.—Bishop Wilkinson.—Professor Newton.—Frederic Myers.—Bishop
Lightfoot.—Henry Bradshaw.—Matthew Arnold.—Charles
Kingsley.—Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln.—Epilogue.
Daily Telegraph.—‘This may be accounted among the most valuable of all Mr.
Benson’s books.’
.hr 100%
.ce
With 9 Portraits (1 in Photogravure). Demy 8vo. 14s. net.
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Hannah More: A Biographical Study.
.nf c
By Annette M. B. Meakin,
Author of ‘A Ribbon of Iron,’ 'What America is Doing,' &c.
.nf-
Aberdeen Journal.—‘Miss Meakin writes with profound knowledge of her subject.
We have read the volume with deep interest and appreciation, and cordially recommend
it to our readers as a treasure of good things, as well as an admirable account of
Hannah More.’
.hr 100%
.ce
With 6 Portraits. Small demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
.ti 0
The Annals of the Irish Harpers.
.ce
By Charlotte Milligan Fox.
Standard.—‘This fascinating volume, Mrs. Milligan Fox writes excellently well
concerning the traditions of the harp in Ireland, and incidentally throws a flood of
light not merely on the bards of ancient Ireland but on historic harps which have
been preserved until the present time.’
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With 4 Photogravure Portraits. Large demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
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Memoirs and Memories. 2nd Impression.
.nf c
By Mrs. C. W. Earle,
Author of ‘Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden,’ &c.
.nf-
Daily News.—'There will always be a welcome among a multitude of readers for a
new book from the author of “Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden” ... book lovers
will find a good deal to their taste in her latest volume.'
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Chawton Manor and its Owners:
.nf c
A Family History.
With Portraits in Photogravure and numerous Illustrations.
Crown 4to. 21s. net.
By William Austen Leigh, Fellow of King’s College,
Cambridge, and Montagu George Knight, of Chawton.
.nf-
Times.—'Mr. Austen Leigh gives to his researches of the Old Hampshire Manor
a literary touch which lightens his extracts from the original documents. The
personal interest for the public centres mostly about Jane Austen, her home and her
family.
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London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
.hr 100%
.bn 328.png
.sp 2
.ce
Finance
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.ce
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
.ti 0
Lombard Street:
.rj
A Description of the Money Market.
.nf c
By the late Walter Bagehot.
15th Thousand. With a New Preface by Hartley Withers.
.nf-
Financial Times.—‘This well-known work representsggg a standard manual of the
Money Market, and the new edition, brought up to date, will be appreciated by those
who have derived help from the earlier editions.’
Financial News.—‘There is no city man, however ripe his experience, who could
not add to his knowledge from its pages.’
.hr 100%
.nf c
Works by Hartley Withers
.pm underline ‘Large post 8vo. 7s. 6d. net each.’
.nf-
.ti 0
The Meaning of Money.
.ce
9th Thousand. 3rd Edition.
Financial News.—‘There can be no doubt that Mr. Withers’ book will supersede
all other introductions to monetary science ... readers will find it a safe and indispensable
guide through the mazes of the Money Market.’
Daily Mail.—‘A book for the average man. Volumes upon volumes have been
written to explain and discuss our monetary system. Now we have a work worth all
the rest put together in clearness of exposition and elegance of diction.’
Manchester Guardian (leading article).—‘No common measure of literary accomplishment,
a lucid, forceful, and pointed style, and a great store of material for apt
and often amusing illustration have lent both grace and charm to a work of quite
exceptional utility.’
.hr 100%
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Stocks and Shares.
World.—'“Stocks and Shares” is attracting a lot of notice in the City. It is full
of information for both speculator and investor, and is written with a brightness and
humour that prove the possibility of dealing with the driest of subjects in an attractive
manner.'
Morning Post.—'It is a good book, it is sure of its public, and if the laymen who
read it will only follow Mr. Withers’ advice more than one “bucket-shop” will be
closed till further notice.'
Daily News.—'Should be of the greatest value to investors and all who take an
interest in City matters.... It is eminently readable, and the description of a
typical flotation, “Hygienic Toothpowder, Ltd.,” is a literary gem.'
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.ce
London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
.hr 100%
.pb
.dv class='tnotes'⁓—
.ce
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
.ta l:8 l:46 l:12 w=90%
| they can hold their own even now[.]| Added.
| Except during the rainy season it seldom[s] rains | Removed.
.ta-
.dv-