The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 31, 1897, Page 1

— S { “S— VOLUME LXXXIL.—NO. 92. SAN FRANCISCO, T UESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 31, 1897T. PRICE FIVE CENTS. APPEAL IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY Gold-SeekersNow at Skaguay Would Prevent Others Landing There. STORIES OF SUFFERING ON THE CROWDED TRAILS. Fifteen Men Who Went North to Enter the Klondike Country Return on the Utopia, Fearing to Face the Perils of the Overland Journey. :, WASH., Aug. 30.—The Seattle Chamber of Com- g to-night received the following letter from Skaguay, “We, the people located at Skaguay, wish to state to the public t the trail is simply blocked with men and horses and at present It will be impossible for the greater number now on the t over to the lakes before the cold season, and for the bene- d we would request that people be dissuaded from coming s it will be utterly impossible for them to reach the Yukon Mr. Moore, the oldest inhabitant here, has informed us that month of March it is practicable to take horses up the river to the summit. ‘We, the residents here, while wishing to have people come up, t y right to state as plainly as we can the difficulties to be We do this in justice to the public and as a humane act The officers'in charge of the Canadian customs and the ted police have informed us that clothing in use, blan- | 1 reasonable amount of food would go through free of duty, asi rses, In the face of this considerate arrangement the Customs officers are collecting $30 per head on every from Canadian ports. This will work an incalculable p on -the American people going into the Yukon, as the Cana- nment intends retaliating by restoring the duty on all nkind. 1d 1 utd Ii tes 10rses crossing the line. summit, which is about half the distance to the lakes, for every Canadian going through there are more than fifty Ameri- est that the Chamber of Ccmmerce of Seattle take diate action in having this matter rectified, believing in its so t it will be benefiting the American public principally, as the n will be from 50 to 100 to 1. Hoping upon the Chamber of ( merce to act in this at once, and also in giving publicity to the| ss of attempting the pass this fall, we, the committee chosen the people, throu our chairman and secretary, hereby sub- e ourselves, very respectfully yours, ““D. J. MCKINNEY, Chairman, ‘“W. F. SAPORTOS, Secretary.”’ The letter was referred to the Board of Trustees. GOLD-SEEKERS RETURN. Fifteen Men Disheartened by the Obstacles That Obstruct the Overland Route. | They did not have horses to pack their outfits over the summit via Chilcoot Pass, and found the dangers too great by way of the White Pass. The reports brought back indicate very little change in the WasH., Aug. 30. e steam- | condition of affairs at the northern points i port early this morn- | of entrance into tbe Yukon country. | bout fifteen pa 1gers from | While.a "large number of prospectors are ay. The returning gold- | succeeding in reaching Lake Linderman me disheartened at the seem- le obstacles Ly way of Dyes, yet it is only those with ingly mour that | horses who are meeting with any degree barred their entry into the land of golden | of success. The tide of humanity has promise, so decided to give up the task. | hurried to Skaguay because it is pre- VIEW ON WHITE PASS About Tea Mies From the Summit. e PROPOSED AERIAL CABLE 7k ‘TRAMWAY to Be Constructed to the Summit of Chilcoot Pass by the Dyea and Klondike Transportation Company. sumed to afford an easier and cheaper access to the Jake. The miners have made frequent con- centrated efforts to improve the White Trail, but rain has interfered with their work and a fecling would come over them that the others were not as much in- terested as they, so a relaxation of energy would soon follow. Percy Hamilton of the Utopia believes that Correspondent Sylvester Scovel of the New York Worid will solve the difficulty. He says that Scovel was authorized by the miners to complete a good trail from S8kaguay to the lake, in return for which it was to be known as the World Trail. He will pro- cure dynamite, employ a large number of miners at a low rate and personally push the work to completion. He will run his trail about 1000 feet lower than the White Trail and make it several miles shorter. Mr. Hamilton says that longshoremen demand $1 an hour for their servic:s in handling packs brought over from vessels, But few are making much progress on the White Pass, as the rains have been fre- quent for two or three weeks past, and when repairing has been done it went for naught. Many packers who have started from Skaguay have returned, and they may wait until the snow appeurs and maXes the trip a poesibility. There is a populaiion of about 5000 camped from the beach to the foot of the mountain. An occasional jam along the trail delays the pack train hours at a time. One of the Utopia’s passengers was A. F. Parker, who went over the trail from Skaguay to Lake Bennet for the purpose of viewing it and securing some definite information as to its condition. He takes a more hopeful view than the general ran of men who bave made an effort to get overthe trail. Hesaysthatany manaccus- tomed to hard work and who can command a horse will experience littls difficulty in getting over the forty-two miles via the White Pass. He realizes that it is a hard trip, slippery and rocky, but the expendi- ture of not much labor will make it a good road. Men who have no horses but bave money to pay’for packing are going by way of Dyea and the Chilcoot Pass, but many are getting over the White Passand doing their own packing. They pack a distance of from two to six miles, accord- ing to the trail, and then return for an- other load. They do not worry and fret, but keep steadily plodding along. The return trips rest them, and every day gets them so much farther along. Mr. Parker thinks that one trouble is that too many men and boys who are not L | certain distance, according to the grade of ‘An Unknown Man Put to Death on accustomed to hardshipsstartout without appreciating what is before them and soon grow discouraged and disconsolate. He further says that many men make poor selections in their horses and that lots of wortiless cayuses have been pressed into service and meet an early death. An ox is worth more on a trail than a horse, He can carry more and does not get excited. There are probably 1600 horses on the route. A good many of them are frac- tious and cause trouble for those men who have good horses. Oxen do not cut up in that way. There are probably fifty oxen on the trail. An ox iseasily worth -$300. One man had a pair and was several times offered $600 for them. Mr. Parker further said : “Most of the swampy country over the divide is corduroyed. The trailis narrow, and ofttimes a pack train going up will meet one coming back. The men will talk, quarrel and waste time as to who shall go back and give the other the road. Running across the trail are many small streams, caused by the melting glacier up the mountain. At these places the trail is slippery and causes a poorly packed horse to slip and fall down the mountain side. “Several of those now at Skaguay intend to stay until December, when the river will be frozen, and then go up on the ice to the summit and cross over. By this method the packing distance will e some- what shorter. Most of the men here have money and those who have none can readily get work. For clearing off the town site, unloading steamers, etc., wages are $5 a day. For pack'ng fifty pounds a the trail, a man can get §$10, and some men can make this in a day.” —_— SHOT FOR STEALING FLOUR the Skagusy Trail by a Vigi=- lance Committee. ] SEATTLE, Wasn, Aug. 29.—An un- known man has been shot on the Skaguay trail by a committee of vigilantes, and his bones are now rotting beneath a pile ot rocks within a few rods of the pass. This news was brought down by the steamer Utopia, whic arrived this morning at 3 o’clock from Skaguay. The story in gen- eral 15 all that can be learned, th+ details being unknown among the Utopia's six passengers. Some time agoa sack of flonr was stolen. Suspicion vointed to a man who was encamped near the summit. i A commitiee of six was chosen 1o ferret | out and punish the thief. These men went to the tent of the suspected man and found the missing sack. The man begged for mercy, but the committee, satisfied of his guilt, decreed that he be immediately killed. The man was dragged from the tent and tied right up to a pole. The eommitteemen stood off a short distance and at a word shot together. The thiet’s bodv was pierced in six places. Meeling their duty done and sick of their task, the vigilantes left at once, not even wait- ing to put the bleeding form beneath the ground. For three days it hung there, in full view of those passing with their packs. The odor emanating from the de- caying body became so offensive that two men cut it loose, and carrying it up a hill- side covered it with a pile of stones. ALL TELL A SAD STORY. Letters From Gold-Seekers Set Forth the Diff.cultles in Cross- ing the Tralils. VICTORIA, B. C., Aug. 30.—Of all the men heard of on the Skaguay trail, and a very large number of letters were received to-day, only three, and they had lighter outfits than the most of the parties, have got their goods through to the lakes and are. ready. to sail down the river to Klon- dike. Six thousard or more are camped at Skaguay or are fighting their way across with very poor chances of success in most cases. Here is an extract from a letter, which sizes up the situation: *Trails over which many now are pack- ing on fcot and horse are extremely diffi- calt and dangerous to men and beast; huge and steep rocks to climb over, and when the weather is wet deep mud to struggle through; paths so narrow, bor- dering in places on precipitous heights, where a slip means certain deatv. Nu- merous horses and mules have already been lost. A few days ago as maay as eleven animals perished either in lailing over or throuzh other accidents in cross- ing White Pass in one day alone. The loss of a pack animal invariably means to a man of slender capital an abandonment of the journey. Then, too, bow few seem to be able to realizs the effect of the rigor- ous Alaskan winter upon even men of hardy constitutions! “Those who intend wintering in Ska- guay must not forget that it will be a hard time, especially in tents, with a tempera- ture 60 degrees helow the freezing point. ‘Winter commences shortly, and the snow ,falls to a depth of three or four feet. With such a large population the unsanitary state will become ho-ribly bad; fresh water in the creek will become poliuted and disease will set in. Already numbers are return ing, sadder but wiser, and more will be coming back as the winter ap- proaches. Still, many are going even now to Dyea and Skazuay, and the cry is heard ‘More victims.’” All other letters and disheartened men who returned on the steamers Kingston, Islander and Bristol tell the same story. J. H. Escolme of the British Yukon Company says his company will do no more *.ork on the trail until they receive assurance from the United States Govern- ment that they will be reimbursed, but they will commence work this winter on their railway, and will have part of it completed by spring. Captain Moore, who agitated for the White Pass before the rush commenced, also came down. He said the trail was good before the rush of horses and men cut it up, but it is hard tounderstand how immense boulders ‘“grew up” in a day. In the Dyea Pass all the men are making slow progress, not being impeded by a rush. TO DOCK ON PUGET SOUND. = Request of the Own«rs of the Port- land Granted by the Navy Department. WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 30.—The Navy Department has received a tele- graphic request from the owners of the Alaskan steamer Portland, which has just arrived at Seattle, asking permission to dock the vessel in the Government dry- dock on Puget Sound. This permission is asked to avoid the delay which would resulf, if she were obliged to go to San Francisco to drydock, as her owners de- sire to make another tiip with her to Alaska before navigation on the Yukon River closes. The Navy Department granted the re- quest. SRl et Clean-Up at Caribou. VANCOUVER, B. C., Aug. 30.—A tele- gram was received vesterday from the superintendent of the Caribou Hydraulic Mining Company stating that the result of the clean-up which was completed on the 26th inst. is that the amalgam amounts to 5685 ounces, of the estimated value of $60,500. This is the product of forty-seven days' washing with two giants. It is thougit the total clean-up for the season will amount to not more than $150,000. WHAT 1S BECOME OF THE WEARE? Great Anxiety for the Safety of the Yukon Steamer. WITH PASSENGERS AND TREASURE. Belief That the Vesssl Was Wrecked on a River Bar After Leaving Dawson. HAMILTON, HOWEVER, IS NOT DISTURBED. The Secretary of the North Ameri- can Company Says the Delay Is Due to Repalirs. SEATTLE, WASH., Aug. 30.—Since the arrival of the steamer Portland, bringing news that the Yukon River steamer Weare was fifteen davs overdue at St. Michael when she sailed, the great- est anxiety has been felt for the Weare’s safety, for it is known she left Dawson with many passengers and a large amount of bullion on board. It has been the general belief that the Weare was wrecked on one of the numer- ous bars in the river and that all her bul- lion and possibly some, if not all, her passengers were lost. Charles H. Hamiiton, secretary of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, stated to-day that there was not the least grounds for these fears. ““The Weare is not lost,” he said, “but has merely been laid up for re- pairs. Some of her boiler flues were leaking badly, and the boat was tied up ear Circle City to put in new flues. This took considerable time, but the boat will have reached St. Michael in ample time to connect with the Cleve- land.” et LR FOUR DAYS WITHOUT FOOD Canadlan Customs Officers and Mounted Police Run Out of Provisions. VICTORIA, B. C., Aug. 30.—News was received here from the north to-day to the effect that Jobn Godson and party of the Canadian customs force had run short of provisions when six miles beyond Sum- mit and were for four days withous food. With them was a small detachment of mounted police, who had gone on in ad- vance of their packers, and had but one tent in the party. Part of their animals overtook them the second day, but none of those carrying provisions had arrived when, four days later, the men were seen by G. A. Knight, who was returning dis- gusted. The trail at that time was com- pletely blocked and little or mno ireight could be moved except on the backs of men. There were twenty 1n the party, and all were on their way to the lakes. Taings were begiuning to lcok serious for them, when a Tacoma party happening along shared up provisions with them, R ST MRS. JORY AND HER GUN. A Plucky San Jose Woman Trles to Shoot an Agent of a Steam- ship Company. SEATTLE, WasH., Aug. 30.—Mrs. Josie Jory of San Jose, Cal, a plucky little woman 21 years of age, came within a hair’s breadth of winning the distinction of shedding the first blood in Skaguay. Her inteuded victim was A. L. Parker of Seattle, formerly an Episcopal minister, but now the representative of the cbar- terer of thesteamer Utopia. Captain John O’Brien of the Utonia related the dra- matic incident to THE CALL correspondent to-day as follows: The Utopia arrived at Skaguay on Sun- day from Seattle, August 22. Among her passengers were Edward Jory of Sun Jose and his wife, who are s eking for- tune in the Klondike. Under the terms of agreement with the steamship com- pany the effects of the passengers were to ve landed at high-water mark, but when the steamer dropped anchor in Skaguay narbor Parker & Hamilton, the com- pany’s agents, who went north on the Utopia, refused to furnish lignters on which to transfer the freight anad bagzage to the shore. There was a great outery from the indignant passengers, but the agents were deaf to either their threats or entreaties, and finally an appeal was made to Captain O’Brien. He promised to give what money he had to charter lighters witp and also tendered the use of the ship’s boats to help land the effects. The work of discharging began, Captain O’Brien giving each passenger who hired lighters a half cent for each pound of freight he hud. Jory and his wife were exceedingly anxious to get their effects ashore. They bad 3000 pounds, but refused to hire a lighter, because the company had agreed to land tneir freight. Jory appealed to Captain O’Brien and was told he could have the use of one of the ship’s boats, but that did not satisfy bim. It wascom- ing on night, he said, and the boat could not carry all his goods, which he insisied must be landed before dark. Then the skipper offered to give him $5 to help pay for a lighter, but that offer was also re- jected. Just then Jory saw Parger stand= | ing on the deck near by and sprang upon