The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 30, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 189S. 23 THE LONG STRING OF CAMELS WERE LOADED WITH SACKS OF ORE AND SENT TRAMPING ACROSS THE DESERT FROM THE MINES TO THE MILLS. From the first it was apparent that the mule plan was not a success. In the summer it took about two mules to carry water for the one that carried ore. And all the while the animals kept dying. The intense heat and dry sandy air was too much for them and they fell by the wayside so fast that a e dava ey N P new band was required almost wee siais s R £ RNk But the ore had to be carried to HELT Asia Mirnor By VeSS a8 mill, for there was “millions in i es. At th some genius sug- ent gested t > miners buy camels for be the work. So the camels were bought - at great expense. Some of them were obtained from the veteran showman, P. T. Barnum, and about twenty came direct from Asia Minor under the care of an agent dispatched from Virginia City. From the first the camels did all that. was expected of them. Each morning they would eat a meager breakfast of any old weed that hap- pened in their way, drink a few gallons of water and were ready for business. killed t wa and one —Th America was the about other prom credence can little ) any them. fact remains that the camels were brought here. Om all the points ted with this part of the story of heartrending meaning when TWO bags of ore, each containing be- think of them e 0 and 500 pounds, were 0 happened that a ce group Strapped to the back over the hump of ; 1 each camel nty-fiv thirty tw at that thought ¢ onit of Virgints |Clty s paiiii When the train was ready all started L h ore. It was impossible Off at once, striking a good swinging x tlose to the mines on ait that was kept up until the mill f some doubt e¥don was reached. The drivers had nothing ith having to do but follow the train. No stopping for water, no urging, no beatings. The faithful beasts did their work willingly. When the ore was dumped the camels took another big drink and were turned nd dur- well, nd care for them was It must be un- Mules were ing the winter although to feed a te ing expens: TC i Cae t as dry, rocky and barren PhoRHas,n der s sere is on the face of the being permitted to make their said he was 2 Viienis O e ack to the mine at their own ise a vehicle of any pleasure. Very rarely did one of them tion, and so fail to be on hand the mext morning ready to take another load to the mill. The camel train was a strange sight the ore was car s slung over the of the animals, similar while en route across the desert. From a distance the general effect was that of a scene in Persia. There was noth- ing lacking, the intense blue sky, the blinding white sand and ‘the distant mountains showing dimly through a faint, purple haze. Many a traveler, seeing the sight for the first time, has stopped and rubbed his eyes, won- dering if he were ot suffering with some temporary mental aberration. But all this changed when the rail- road came. Then the camels’ work was over. The iron horse displaced them, and once more the owners began tc puzzle over a serious question. What was to be done with the camels? e herd had been increased by sev- eral young ones. Nearly all the in- fants, however, died the first winter. Then an effort was made to sell the whole lot. But Barnum did not want them and nobody else cared to load up on camels. For months the patient beasts waited around their old corral ready and will- ing to do any work that might be given them. But there was none for them to do and finally the owners turned them loose to get their living as best they could. It was several months before they ventured far from their old home, but in time they managed to wander all over the deserts of Arizona and even into Mexico and New Mexico. At first £ me of the bold cowboys thought to have fun with the meek, sad-looking camels that crossed their tracks. But they never tried it a sec- ond time. It was always somewhat dif- ficult to make a cow-pony get near enough to a camel to throw a rope over its neck. But the trick was often done and the cowboy settled back in his MA INDIANS ING BARBACUETE, omMST! 5 PP i (e saddle to have a good laugh at the antics of the beast. But about a moment later the cow- boy generally thought the country had been struck by a ¢yolone. His horse was jerked from under him and usualy dragged to déath unless the lariat fortunately broke. The cowboy bumped the ground pretty hard and in some cases came to in time to witness the end of his horse or possibly seethe bruised animal lying on the sand and the saddle following a camel into the distance. A cow-pony could no more hold one of the Comstock camels than it could a steam- engine, and the cow- boy who found this out by experience learned a lesson that he never forgot. As the years went by the camels de- creased in numbers and in spite of the fact that they were running wild the remaining ones always had a longing for human companionship. They would wander into the villages and frequently would let the children be lifted on their backs for a ride. Any village would gladly have taken care of one or two of the old camels, but they made it troublesome for the horses. For some reason a horse dislikes the smell of a camel and so after a few days, to the intense grief of the children, the ani- mals had to be driven out on the Should a prospector horse happen to be camping in a lonely spot and one of the camels come along it would exhibit all the signs of perfect friendliness. Unless the man drove the camel away it would remain around the camp for weeks. It always foraged for its own food and water, but simply yearned to be near some human being. Camels and dogs are nearly always good friends. years ago the original herd of thirty camels had dwindled down to - two as near as could be judged from the people who lived in the country where the animals made their home. That year one of the pair died and the other was left alone. He was very old even then because Be was at least ten years old when he worked on the Com- An old ex-showman who saw him when he last visited Phoenix placed his age at at least seventy years. Since then the beast' has wandered about, stopping as long as he was al- lowed at every place he could. His feeble condition no @oubt prompted the Indians at Yuma to kill and eat him. And so disappeared the last camel of the Comstock. 00000GOOOOO000000000000000000000000000000OOO000000000OOOOOOOOOOOOOGOO00OOOOOOOOOOOOOOGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00000000000000000000000000 SPANIARDS MAKING A “CLEAN-UP” IN CUBA Business in suspense; gambling and corruption on all sides. " DRAWING OF THE HAVANA LOTTERY Americans has ended Cuba’s big gambling institution. | AST have from | picture is a long, semi-circular tabie, Epecial to Th | both its prizes and income ; HAVA | time to time been paid in gold or silver | covered with crimson velvet. At the ases | or paper curre as the price of the | center of the table sat Senor Ramon e g different kinds of money was most ad- | Espinosa and the Conde de la Re- antageous for the Government. union, who, as representatives of the at the as a tants, of the muni ments of the Government. Although drawings invariably begin 0 o’clock in the morning, a crowd began to gather on the benches in front of the platform long before that hour and chatter over the tickets which ap- drawings. were dele- pal depart- the | The accounts were last kept on a gold | Treasurer, During that year the|Beside them amount of revenue paid into_the treas- ; from the lottery was $1,957,12 | ~Since then, according to the reports in the Treasury Department, the earn- i of the lottery, paid sometimes in and sometimes in paper, ha s follows: morning 1 wit- sed #hat will, in all probability, st drawing. According to the G m schedule the next draw should be held the first of next month, exact dat not been be 1, and it is accepted as a fore- | LSLSILE98 1506 parently each one had brought with by almost eve one | ... 1,588,744 1 1, him. 2 et e aes : 1 1218422 Senor Espinosa touched a bell on the i have interfered and driven wings usually took place three | table as a signal that the drawing had ke S times a month. For each 12,000 tickets | begun. A clerk unlocked a big wooden e were offered for sale at $1 box and from it took out six long utions which always | ty. entire ticket, or 50 strings of wooden marbles. Two pub- the.state of the public [ any one of the twenty tions into | lic criers announced to the crowd that character in Cuba were | which it was subdivided. Three- | the marbles were numbered and repre- the bull f nd lottery. quarters of the receipts were distrib- [ sented the tickets which had been is- While the bull fight was national and | uted in premiums and one-quarter was | sued. “If any one has any doubt as to retained by the Government, which took | the fairness of this distribution,” they also all prizes drawn on unsold tick- | sald, “let him come forward and ex- e The first prize at each drawing | amine the marbles; if not, let him com- was $50,000. From that amount they | plain of no unfairness.” No one ac- ranged down to 500 prizes of $60 each. cepted the invitation. Every one By a complicated tem of agencies|seemed convinced that the drawing ditiona er gov- existence ¥ a single edict. it was different, r 1l managed gam- Lling institution )f the chief | that reached to every village of Cuba, | was the model of fairness the criers & s of revenue for the Span- | lottery tickets were on sale every- | proclaimed it to be. S where. There agents hired sub-agents The marbles were taken off the sk WaE B o to peddle tickets in the streets and pub- | strings and deposited in a basket in a as a Lovernment s plade; : front of the velvet covered table. From st 48 much w the cus- One of the favorite methods for re- | gnothéer box several smaller strings ofi > or postoffice. Its profits were | concentrado children to earn a few | marbles were taken. Each one of them nfallible of the indirect ta ent and operation ¢ cents a day was to sell tickets for some 1 was marked with the amount of one of sub-agent. Their shrill voices crying, the premiums. These smaller strings Orphan Asylum were led out and sta- tioned by the two globes, The two attendants worked in con- cert. Every time a ticket marblé fell on one side of the room its correspond- ing prize marble would fall on the other. The boys would in turn shout out first the number of the marble and then, the amount that had been won by the ticket it represented, depositing the marbles on the de-k of a clerk, who sat in front of the table. Every fifteen minutes the globes would be turned over, in order to further mix their contents. The cool of the morning had passed by this time. The day was hot, as nearly all Havana days are. The men at the valves perspired and fanned. The boys' voices grew husky. The in- creasing crowd listened nervously and anxiously for the anncuncement of the number that had drawn the first prize. Finally the marble that represented it fell from the globe. A recess of ten minutes was taken. The boys were led away and two more took their places. The drawing was resumed until all the prize marbles had been exhsusted. “The last!” cried the man at the smaller globe. Senor Espinosa arose and said, as he rang the bell for the last time: “The day’s drawing of the Government lottery of Havana is over. You have seen that it was just and fair.” The prizes are distributed to the win- ners from the office of the Secretary of the Treasury on the day following the drawing. In speaking of the lottery, the Conde de la Reunion told me to-day that the receipts had fallen off very materially since the American occupation of East- ern Cuba. Santiago, he sald, was for- merly one of the best markets for the sale of lottery tickets. “I do not very well see,” sald the of the profits were haritable institutions. B llion pesos that were : d from the Hav lotte d over to the Sec which is. another way of ing that they were sent to Sp cause the idea of spending in Cuba any of the t came from th island has to the Spanish t The Havana lotte 1812 by a Government decree, which at same time prohibi private lot- teries and all other forms of gambling in Cuba. In a country where there were neither stock exchanges nor .bookmak- ers, the only vent far the gaming spirit, always strong in the Latin race, was the Government lottery, which has done a thriving business ever since it started. It is a difficult matter to ascertain the exact amount of revenue that has been obtained from the lottery, because n entirely foreign of governing. ; was founded in | tain in Havana than postag stamps. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that every one more than 15 years of age in Cuba played In the lottery. In every position of the mercantile, pro- fessional or social life of the island one found the same green and purple tickets with their big black numbers. Some years ago reports became cur- rent here of fraud and corruption in the administration of the lottery. As a re- sult an ingenious system of conducting the drawings was devised that is said to be the only one of its kind in the world. drawing on Monday took place in v, one-story shed in the courtyard of the Palace of the Treasury. The shed is plain enough on the outside, but is handsomely furnished. A large, high tribune, or platform, occupies about half the room. On the rear wall hangs a lifesize .portrait of the boy King of Spain, in the uniform of a Captain- General of Cuba. Directly beneath the of the'departments of the | “Good numbers; sure to win prizes,” | were counted in the presence d 1 administration. could be heard on every corner. Lot- | pudionce by the supervisors . of ihe | Conde, “how the United States Govern- the late Loulslana lot y tickets were far more easy to ob- | grawing. ment can dispense Wwith the lottery without causing great dissatisfaction throughout Cuba. We are as much ac- customed to buying lottery tickets as postage stamps. Savings banks have never been a success in the island. One was tried several years ago in Havana, but it failed miserably and its president committed suicide. Cubans are accus- tomed to putting their spare money into the lottery as an investment. Any man who plays continuously and per- severingly is almost certain to get back more money than he has paid into the lottery, besides always having a chance of winning a prize that will make him comfortably rich for life.” The Conde de la Reunion, who is a large plantation owner and one of the leading autonomists in Havana, voiced the Spanish and Cuban opinion of the lottery. A negro took his place in front of a large, odd looking apparatus that was not unlike an American spiral grain conveyer. The ticket marbles were thrown into it, and the negro began to turn a crank. The marbles rose higher and higher, jangling and clashing as they went, until they finally dropped into an enormous brass globe on one side of the platform. The prize marbles went by the same process into another globe on the other side of the platform. The object of this, Mr. Espinosa ex- plained to me, was to thoroughly mix the marbles, so that no one would have the slightest idea of their position in the globes, and thus preclude any pos- sibility of cheating. Attendants took their places in front of the two globes. By means of valves | attached tc each they allowed the marbles to fall out one at a time. | It is exceedingly doubtfu!l whether From an anteroom at the rear of the | American eyes will ever view this time platform two boys from the Havana k honored mzututlgn in the same light. Special to The Sunday Call. AVANA, Oct. ‘Business in Cuba is in a state of suspense, of complete stagnation. No progress in any branch is to be expected un- tii the political status of the island becomes fixed and stable. Cu- bans, Spanish and Americans, mer- chants of all nationalities, are simply Wwaiting for the Spanish troops to get out and the American soldlers to come in. Meanwhile the era of progress is being postponed by the eternal manana of the Spanish Evacuation Commigsion- ers. The American Commissioners find little to do except to go fishing and shark hunting, while the patriotic Span- ish officers of all ranks are.trying to| fill their pockets with the loot that is to be carried off when the final manana comes around. Robbing the people, cheating the Gov- ernment, stealing public funds, picking private pockets, fleecing the lambs called strangers, plucking the geese called premoters; these are the occupa- tions of the Spanish military officials, of the Spanish civil authorities and of Spanish and Cuban merchants at pres- ent. Corruption is practiced openly, even ostentatiously, like the charity of the hypocritical. If one dcubts this he has only to walk down to the machina, the Custom-house wharf, to find the proof. Here he may see, as the correspondent did the other day, blacks at work un- loading sacks from the lighters. The sacks were labeled “charcoal,” but the process of piling them in heaps on the wharf scattered a fine white dust. This does not mean that white charcoal has beeen invented, for when the corre- spondent dipped his fingers in the white dust and tasted it he tasted flour. The sacks were consigned to a Spanish im- porter in Manzanillo—a thousand sacks of flour marked as charcoal. The infer- ence was clear that some one was cheating the Government out of import duties, or that the Custom-house offi- cials were permitting the Government to be cheated. Later, on presenting a letter of intro- duction to a well-known Cuban mer- chant in Havana, the correspondent. mentioned the flour which had come.in as charcoal. “Tut,” said the merghant, “that is a mere {item. That ;;man in Manzanillo has been receivipg monthly industrial | ‘ment. shipments of that same charcoal for years. The thing is easy. You see my neighbor across the street. He cables | his buyer in New York to ship a thou- | | | sand tierces of lard. The buyer gets the consignment on board ship and mails to Havana a manifest calling for one thousand barrels of potatoes. Here the custom-house inspector allows the importer's drays to haul away the sup- posed barrels of potatoes, a cargo:upon which there has been this difference in tariff prices: A tierce of lard weighs five hundred pounds, and the duty is 5 cents a pound; a barrel of potatoes weighs only one hundred and fifty pounds, and the duty is only 2 cents a | pound. The duty on the cargo of lard | would have amounted to $25,000, but the | amount paid for the cargo of potatoes was only $3000, a saving of $22,000. In consideration of this saving the custom- house inspector, of course, receives his | reward.” | Such is the way business has been | conducted in Havana for years. Rob- bery of the Government has been so | systematized that it has become a s(‘i-l, ence. With a termination of this state | of affairs in sight, the extent of bribery now is almost beyond belief. In a stay of a week or so a man who keeps his eyes open can see a score of cases to be explained only on the hypothesis of bribery of officials. The largest and most valuable cargoes dwindle to al- most nothing under the skillful hand- ling of the importers and the officers of the port. The approaching end of va- rious sinecures is causing the partici- pants in benefits accruing from the present system to neglect no opportu- nity. It is a case of “steal quickly, srab everything in sight, for soon we will have to cut and run.” Meantime, port duties have been trebled, obsolete ruies have been revived and new rules created. Importers who do not or will not stand in with the custom-house inspectors have been obliged to suspend business. For instance, the port duties on a ton of flour, valued at $70, amount to $42 50. A case of a dozen cans of beans valued at 80 cents Is taxed $2 30. These exorbitant duties -have been imposed with the object of excluding, as far as possible, all shipments of food, the ulterior motive being one of which the world at large is ignorant, namely, the disposal of quantities of provisions in- the hands of the military govern- The statement that, during the war, the Spaniards in Cuba - had no supplies was quite erroneous. As a| matter of fact, the .Spanish military government, toreseelng the war, made L | for the purpose. immense shipments of food co all parts of the island, stocking every store, and consigning goods to all the importers and jobbers. And now, with the end of its domination in sight, the Spanish military government has still on hand about 25,000 sacks of flour, 15,000 barrels of beans, 10,000 boxes of Norwegian cod- fish and 1000 cases of condensed milk. These goods are offered at prices be- low cost, are sold, in fact, at any figure, with the idea of turning everything into cash before the time comes to give an accounting. At the same time the stock in the hands of private dealers is -spoiling for want of purchasers at even reasonable prices. And the Govern- ment, as long as it has a pound of food left, will continue to undersell the deal- ers. Thus the expulsion of a rotten gov- ernment is being marked by an epoch of shameful intrigue, of under-handed dealing and of wholesale lying an? cheating. Individuals are following the example set by the Government, and many a merchant in Havana, hon- est till now, will never be honest again. No one asks questions, and each sim- ply* pockets the money that comes his way. The feeding of the reconcentrados, has been a source of gain to nearly alf! who handle the money contributes During the blockade and up to the present time enough money has been contributed in Ha- vana alone to feed every one of the city’s 30,000 reconcentrados - three square meals a day. For instance, 8 cents a day buys enough food for each hungry one. It is sufficient to give each a quart of soup and half a pound of bread daily. The money was contributed by private subscrip- tions gathered by the Government's agents—enough money to spend $2400 daily in giving the 30,000 poor their 8 cents’ worth of food. But instead of a quart of soup and half a pound of bread daily, the reconcentrados re- ceived a quart of soup and half a pound of bread weekly. In other words, the 8 cents for egch starving one was expended once every seven days in- stead of every day. The balance, which was a magnificent amount; was put down as “expense.” This matter will probably never be investigated, although there are reliable witnesses in the city who will testify that one merchant alone has made $75,000-as his share of the profits of feeding the poor. Officials. .who were in poverty before the war are now buying city real es. tate GILSON WILLETS, /-