The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 11, 1898, Page 25

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1898. 25 VICKEDEST dTY IN THE WEST: iy, “QUICKER THAN IT TAKES Special to The Sunday Call. is going the rounds of spapers to the effect that there are more active church members in Tombstone in pro- portion to the population than in any community in Arizona or the temper- r there than tory. Y 1bstone is a mod moral Christian con ity now,” said ex- Senator Harvey Williar of B m to th riter the other day. “It is the most wonderful transformation in pub- y town I ever knew. ¥y that the very wicked dest wild West town that I ever w (and I have been in all of them except Bodie and Deadwood) was that mining town of Tombstone seventeen ago this season. Whew! but that was a tough plac Dodge City, Kan: never so generally depravel. Lead- had some horrible shooting but none that ever compared at Tombstone. Sherman, tough along touched Tomb- stone ars later. Crip- ple Creek was said to be tough, but it was a model town by the .ide of Tomb- stone. No, there’ll never be another )ing -town so recklessly bad and oughly lawless as Tombstone. The conditions, you know, were just right to make Tombstone the abandoned, ened community it was for two believe there were twenty-two men shot down in cold blood while I was there from June to September.” Tombstone, Arizona, is now one of the quietest and sedatest little villages in the land. The visitor there these da; . who leoks for landmarks that will remind him of the thrilling scenes of sixteen or seventeen years ago finds but a few gaunt, weather-beaten old buildings, where bats and owls abide, and a little graveyard among the sun- baked hills where some s ‘y bodies of n and women who died tragic deaths find their first genuine rest. Tombstc is in the southern part of utheast from the old Mexi- an pue of Tucson, and a few miles from the bounda between Sonora, Mexico, and the United States. There are now about 1200 people in Tomb- stone, and but little mining is done there. In 1880 Tombstone and her mines were in every one’s mouth in the West. The newspapers everywhere—East and West—published columns about the marvelous gold and silver finds in the | Tombstone district, and newspaper sto- ries of the hard life in the town went everywhere. Seven men there were | each having an income of over $1300 a day from the mines, and they had been »ar before. There were 10,000 men and about 300 women in the town and its suburbs. The reports of the extreme wealth of the ledges at Tombstone set the whole West crazy. The news went abroad that the Gird and Schaeffelin crowd were taking out 500 pounds of silver from the rocks besides a dozen pounds of gold every day. Could there be any- thing that would inflame more the minds of eager, restless men? Dodge City and Newton, Xans., the hard towns in Texas and the depraved camps in Colorado. were dwindling away then by the advancement of the railroads, so when Tombstone became the new El Dorado the most spontane- ous stampede of all the murderers, out- laws, ex-convicts, hardened frontiers- men and tough gamblers of the plains set in, with Tombstone as the objective point. In two months the town gained 3000 male Inhabitants. The mining district poor as Job's proverbial turkey a | | being near the boundary line between | the United States and Mexico, fugi- tives from justice both from ; Mexico and the United States went to Tomb- stone, while several hundred of the meanest and lowest half-breed Mexi- cans and Indians flocked to the new | town to prey upon the tenderfeet there. Cowboys quit cowpunching and went to Tombstone to live on their wits and hard names. Saloon-keepers went there from all over California and every State and Territory along the Rocky Moutains. There was no prison or pe- nal institution worthy the name in the whol d , and whatever there was of police "m was at once demoralized upon | the discovery of enormous wealth in the Santa Rita Mountains. What man | would serve as constable or marshal for a few hundred dollars a year, and risk his life every hour in the day with the most desperate characters in the world, when there seemed a possibility | of finding a gold or silver mine there with a fortune? “rom January, 1880, to March, 1881, it was a never-ending battle between | these lawbreakers on one side and the men who knew no law on the other. From first to last, forty-seven men were killed with their boots on. Ex-Govern- or Filkins saw nine men shot down be- fore his eyes at that time. At least thirty-five gambling houses had places on the main street, keeping their doors wide open day time and night time, Sunday and all time. One of them, the Gold Room, was capable of holding 500 or 600 people. Every known kind of | gambling was practiced. A sight was seen in this place one Sunday night | that is not often witnessed. A Meth- | odist preacher went to the boss of the | place, Jack Trowbridge, and requested permission to hold divine services. It was granted, and with every gambling | table running, the bar sending out its liquid hell, that preacher, the Rev. Mr. Hahn, stood up and told the story of | the man of Nazareth. Before he had | finished h's sermon a quarrel arose at { one of the card tables, and a man was | shot. A detailed account of the killing | and murders is not intended. If & gang | of Mexican vaqueros rode into town | the smallest provocation would set their guns going, and going to kill. Mike Fitzpatrick kept a dive he called | the “Side Door.” The unlucky chap | that got in there found himself “side- | doored” untll his money was gone. | Some of the decent people were bold | enough to protest against some of his robberies, among others a prominent merchant. Mike did not like any inter- | ferenee with his business, and one | morning he loaded himself a little fuller | than usual with his vile whisky and started out to do a iittle slaughtering. The merchant was sought, but hap- pened to be out of his store, Mike went up the street, terrorizing every- body, and walked into a saloon. There he saw the city’s Police Judge, George Halliday, and without the slightest provocation or a word of Warning he ghot him through the heart. The Mar- shal, Jack Johnson, had been advised that Mike was on a raid and had started to capture him. Seeing Mike coming out of the saloon Johnson took a rest for his Winchester rifle on the well curb and shot him down. This was Tombstone’s last killing., In an hour afterward the citizens had formed a league and the suspiclous characters were notified to leave. They left. Only a few incidents are men- tioned; only a few of the shootings de- taijled. Tom Carson, a nephew of old Kit Carson, was sent for and came to take the marshalship of the town. He stayed three weeks. The toughs had it in for him, and to save his life he skipped. All life in Tombstone centered about the saloons and dance halls. If one lwnnted to see-a mining boss, a pros- pector, an editor, a ranchman or a /\ AW United States Marshal he would almost always find him of an evening in some saloon and gambling place. These in- stitutions were worthy an artist’s| study. They were always crowded from sunset till dawn with human be- ings. Bars extended nearly the entire length of the deep halls, over which Arizona whisky was freely dealt out at 25 cents (“two bits”) a glass. A score or more of gambling tables were in operation Iin each place. At the bar was a maudlin crowd, subject to no moral restraint, pouring without stint flery liquid down its throat. Pro- Territory of Arizona in those | fessional gamblers, cool and calculating, presided at the gaming tables. Among these were red-faced women wearing derby hats, dealing faro. The players sat around the table, silent and with anxious faces, and a sympathizing crowd looked on. Mexican musicians sat on elevated seats discoursing mu- sic, that drowned the chinking of gold and silver coins. The harvest was usu- ally reaped between Saturday night and Monday morning. A thousand miners flocked from the hills to spend these intervals in the city and to try their luck at the gaming tables. Hun- dreds were left without money enough on Monday morning to pay for a drink before starting for the mountains. It was In these weekly intervals that mur- der was rife among the gamblers. But affrays in Tombstone were of not much account at that time. If a report of a pistol was heard and some one was wounded or even killed, the game was interrupted only for a few minutes. Many a time the little Tombstone daily newspaper dismissed a murder with four or five lines. Men who have been in every mining camp in the West and have lived along the frontier for a generation say that the dance houses at Tombstone were the worst of all. There were nine dance halls in full blast seven nights in the week at Tombstone in 1880. They were N ) {3‘. o W= Wy | 11\‘\\ \\\; W \\\\\ \ B ) A N\ \ VK TO TELL IT HE HAD SHOT HENDERSON THROUGH THE SHOULDER.” recruited from all the human pest spots from New Orleans to San Francisco, and the hardened managers of the dance halls kept agents comstantly scouring the cities for female recruits. The dance halls were all in great barn- like structures, that covered an area of 60 feet wide by 150 feet long. A fancy bar 70 feet long ran along one sige of the hall. Benches of pine wood served as seats along the walls. The men there who would not treat the women to drinks several times every evening were marked as unfit for association with the society of Tombstone. On many a night the bar at a dance house has taken in over $200. On Sundays it would always be $250 to $300. The dancing was free, but the man who did not respond frequently to the manager’s stentorian call of ‘‘all parties waltz to the bar,” at two-bits a head, became unpopular. The females danced more than fifty times a night. As they could not possibly drink every time they danced, those who abstained were given tickets which were afterward cashed at b cents apiece at the bar. These wild orgies beggar description. It seemed as though there never could be more reckless depravity. When death occurred among the unfortunate wo- men the newspapers ¢ ntained eulogis- tic and touching obituaries. The greater part of the shooting affairs in Tombstone started either in a gambiing saloon or a dance hall. In July, 1880, a rather good-looking Mexi- can girl named Ponchita came to Tombstone from Sonora. Hank Allen, who was running the town about this time, by virtue of having killed Biil Emmons, the boss of the toughs, a few weeks before, fell in love with Pon- chita. Hank was a six-footer about 40 years old, and had been a refugee fruui justice In the Panhandle of Texas for ten years before he struck Tombs'cne, and had become a wonderfully expert $25000 SPEN] ON A PEJ DOG. WO thousand seven hundred and fitty dollars isy a great deal to spend on a dog’s collar, but the lucky canine possessing this cost- ly bauble—an ornament that a belle at the Metropolitan during the opera season might have been proud to wear about her white throat—had $25,000 spent upon him. His kennel was marble and his platter, on which his bone was put, was solid gold. This king of dogdom lived in London in 1806, and was fhe property, if such a term can be applied to so wealthy and aristocratic a dog, of a peer. Fifteen thousand dollars is the high- est price, probably, ever peid for a dog collar, which was ordered in London in 1832 by Lady Mackin for her pet pug. The collar was made in India, and was a marvel of art. It was inlaid in gold, silver and ivory and heavily incrusted with diamonds that a rajah of old might have coveted. Lady Mack.n called her pet Stars and Stripes, because he was the gift of an attache of the American Lega- tion. No matter how formal a dinner party this charming hostess gave—and she gecured the chef that made the Coldstreams, the crack regiment of England, famous—whether at her town house or at her castle, Stars and Stripes was in evidence. With great ceremony the butler admitted the pug as coffee was served, and before the assembled company he took his daily quota of bonbons. Only upon one occasion was the order given to absent Stars and Stripes. The ' Prime Minister was the guest of honor this evening. Lady Mackin, who was a power in politics, was opposed to the foreign pollcy of the Minister. The wily diplomat saw a way to remove his great stumbling block and he proceed- ed to do so, much to the disgust of the opposition. He requested his hostess not to allow Stars and Stripes to hold him responsible for the banishment, and tactfully hinted that even he, with all his honors, would not care to win the enmity of such a personage as Stars and Stripes. The pug was admitted, and deserted the velvet cushions at his mistress’ side to eat bonbons from the plate of the grand old man of the hour. Lady Mackin and the members of her salon, whom she influenced by her tact and diplomacy, went over to the Min- ister, and the opposition cursed Stars and Stripes not only loudly but deeply. So the girls of to-day, who go into ecstacies over doggie, may learn that they are not creating a fad, and though they squander from $10 to $200 on the bracelets all dogs of fashion wear on their left forepaws, or invest enormous sums in collars, or put their pretty eyes out embroidering costly blankets and cushions for his dogship to wear and rest upon, it has all been done before. In other times there have been other silly ones. ———————— The rate at which ships of war take in coal nowadays is simply marvelous. Recently one of Britain's first-class bat- tleships inthe Mediterranean, the Magnifi- cent, averaged over 160 toms an hour, that is at the rate of nearly three tons a min- ute! Officers turn to and work like nig- ers, as well as the men, and they cer- o»;l:l]y look like them when the i’ob is TOMBSTONE AT ITS WORST and AT ITS BEST. fellow with a pistol. He had a half- interest in a roulette gambling device, and he went about town with two op three revolvers in his belt. He always went in the middle of the street, so that he could better see any one who lay in wait for him, and that he mign: have an unimpeded view in case he was attacked. Fortunately for the general community he was seldom intoxicated, for then he was very cross and ugly, and would shoot on the least provoca- tion. His favorite amusement wita a tenderfoot whom he did not like was to fire buliets a yard or two from the ter- | rified person’s head, “just to give him some music,” so Hank said. Hank was not slow in telling Pon- chita that he loved her and that she must love him, that he was boss of Tombstone at that time, and that it would not only be an honor to her to have his attentions at the Golden Eagle dance hall, but safer for other admirers to keep their distance when he was about. But Ponchita had eyes for a young man of good family named Henderson, just out from Michigan. For some time Hank never suspected he had a secret rival in Ponchita's affections. One night when Hank had gone over to a neighboring camp, Hen- derson could not resist the onmartunity to drink and dance with the Mexican girl at the dance hall. About midnight Hank suddenly strode into the place. He was mad in a moment and several dancers who saw him draw his gun got out of the way. Quicker than it takes to tell it he had shot Henderson through the shoulder. The dancing stopped, and upon Ponchita’s assur- ance of her affection for Hank he put up his weapon. Henderson went out | with some friends, apparently to hunt | up a physician, while Hank Allen called the house up to the bar to drink vith him, never giving a second thought to how his shooting might result. Once out of the dance hall Henderson's an- ger became violent. He went and bor- rowed a sawed-off shotgun from a gambler down the street, and while dripping with blood from his wound he loaded it with buckshot. Then, with two companions, he was on his way around a rear window to the Jance hall, where he could draw aim on Hank Allen. Some one must have hastened to the later and warned him of the impending assassination, for just as Headerson and his companions were creeping past the dance hall Allen hastened out. He drew one of his pistols just as Hender« son raised to shoot him. The gun and pistol went off exactly at the same mo- ment. Henderson staggered and fell, and Allen staggered into the arms of a by- stander. Although Hank Allen’s caest was pierced by seven buckshot, he raised himself sufficiently to shoot eight times at the fallen Henderson. Both men were dead in a minute more. In June, 1880, the Elephant saloon and dance house was opened by Bill Watson and Jake Jacobs, two old-time sports, who had made money in Deni- son, Texas. They decided to run a high-toned place, where the rich mine owners and the moneyed men from Cal- ifornia could have a good time at gam- bling and drinking and flirting with the blondes that danced there. It was thought that this was to fill a long-felt want, and in a measure would separate the sheep from the goats among the masculine population of Tombstone. Around the walls of the hall were showbill pictures. At one side were smaller rooms where faro, poker, stud- poker and roulette were played. Everything went well at Watson & Jacob’s Elephant for a few days. The place did a land office business. Four bartenders were kept on the jump half | the time, and the fiddlers sank from the dance girls struck and declared that they would not lend their presence to the Elephant, if Mexicans were al- lowed to come there. They claimed that the agent who had hired them in San Francisco had said there were only white gc._.tlemen n the new mining camp. Jake Jacobs issued an order to doorkeepers to permit none but good white men to enter, no matter how much gold they might display. There was no serious trouble result- ing from this refusal /to admit all of the citizens of Tombstone until the fol- lowing . aturday evening when the miners had been paid off, and the town was unusually hilarious. A dozen men attempted to enter the Elephant and were told to keep out. They held a consultation. That always meant in those days a quiet talk as to their re- spective armaments. In a twinkling the Elephant was fired upon with pistols from the out- side. The place was in fuil blast at the time. The dance girls went shrieking behind the bar. The gamblers at the tables snatched their money and chips and huddled in groups for protection behind one anoth while the men dancers drcw their own shooting irons. The outsiders were careful not to shoot an ' men on the inside, but one stray shot did kill & barke: The mirrors behind the bar were ruined by bullets through the windows. The lamps were extinguished b- bullets. The fancy woodwork in front of the bar was bat- tered by lead, and the big bass viol in the orchestra was shot through sev- eral times. The scare was so great to many peo- ple in the Elephant that it never re- gained its popularity, and dancing went back to the other and earlier saloons in the town. The people of Tombstone. in spite of all their shooting proclivities, had a great time. There was a killing every day or two, but that did not check the prevailing hilarity. They were at jokers. A favorite joke on angers was to take them out hunting antelope. Mayor Robinson had a fine pack of hounds and two horses, one called Ca- lamity and Greyhound. Calamity could only go a few miles when he was wind- ed and almost useless. He was ved for the stranger. On the way Robinson would incidentally talk of hostile Apa- ches and the po: bility of ° meeting them until the tenderfoot’'s hair began to raise. In a gulch a score of Tomb- stone fellows would be hid, all rigged up in complete Indian outfits. Robin- son would manage to lose all the hunt- ers and be alone with the - stranger when they reached the gulch. Then out would come the bogus Indians with a blood-curdling war whoop. “Fly for your life!”” Robinson would yell, and, sticking his spurs into Gray- hound, he would be out of sight in a minute. It was a sight to see the tenderfoot trying to mend the pace of Calamity with the Indians always.a little in the rear. The Indians would refreat at the edge of town, and all the town would be out to see the tenderfoot’s arrival and tell him with grave faces what a narrow escape he had had. They never gave the snap away and the game weunt right along by the year. Some of the tenderfeet told hair-raising stories, a ia Falstaff, of how they had slain a num- ber of the hostiles, but none ever told they had been hoaxed. ‘When the mines began to peter out, when the railroad built through South- ern Arizona, and when the ranches be- gan to be well-settled upon, new blood went to Tombstone and the town quick- 1y became an orderly, res.ectable busi- ness-like town. The hurdy-gurdys, the dance houses, faro banks, the cowboys with their red sashes, sombreros, high- heeled boots and clanking spurs, are gone forever, but for two years never a livelier town flourished in wealth and exhaustion in their chairs. Suddenly wickedness than Tombstone. Shall Cromuwell have a statue? An old question, often discussed in owr boyhood, and upon whiock Carlyle wrote most eloquently, has now been answered in the affirmative by the placing in Westminster Hall of this bust of the Great Protector. The statue is by Bernini, the fa- mous Florentine sculptor (1598-1680), who also executed several busts of Charles I. It has been presented to Parliament by Charles Wertheimer, in recognition of Cromwell’s kindness to the Jewish race.