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About The Wickes Pioneer (Wickes, Mont.) 1895-1896 | View This Issue
The Wickes Pioneer (Wickes, Mont.), 14 Sept. 1895, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/sn85053310/1895-09-14/ed-1/seq-1/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
.90 z VOL. I. WICKES PIONEER.' \Free Coinage of Gold and Silver at the Ratio of 16 to 1.\ WICKES, MONTANA, SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 14,1895. NO. 6 EN DIAMOND MINES. AMERICAN BRINGS PROSPERITY TO KIMBERLEY. His Salary •I00,000 a YearTAIs Well Known in California -- Ironclad De- tective System Which He Has In- augurated In the Fields. ARDNER WILL - jams --a Californi- an to the backbone of him—is, odd though it may seem, .the manag- ing director of the greatest diamond mines in the world, says the San Fran- cisco Chronicle. As far ahead as a Man with ordinary eyes can see, the Kimberley diggings in South Africa will continue to be the chief producers af the gem of gems. The methods of 1880-81 in the Kim- berley fields have passed away entirely. The individual claims have all been amalgamated under the title of the De Beers Diamond and Mining Company, with Cecil Rhodes, premier of Cape Colony, as chairman, and Mr. Williams as general manager. Mr. Williams was born in 1842 at Saginaw, Mich. His parents came to California while he was a mere lad, and he received his education here, graduating at the California College, now the state university. He is a brother of Mrs. T. C. Van Ness, of this city, and Mrs. E. B. Clement, of Oakland. His interest in California is unaffected by his long absenee. He has lately sent his two boys all the way from Kimberley to attend the state uni- versity at Berkeley. Mr. Williams took charge of the Kim- berley mines as general manager in May, 1887. Before that the mines were in a bad condition. The output of dia- monds had materially lessened, shafts and tunnels were caving in, the negroes smuggled out diamonds in large quan- tities, and illicit diamond buyers— known as I. D. B.'s—piled their trade with impunity. It is mainly due to his efforts that the mines have been brought to their present prosperous condition. The company values his services to such an extent that they stay him the princely salary of $100,000 a year. I arrived at Kimberley early last October. From the moment I stepped out of the depot I was \shadowed\ con- stantly, as is every visitor and many a resident. The place fairly swarms with detectives, who are in the employ of the Cape government, but whose salaries are paid by the De Beers Dia- mond Company. Upon presenting a special permit and a letter from the general manager at the entrance to the Kimberley mine I was taken in charge by one of the time- keepers, supplied with a heavy rubber suit and an extra strong pair of rubber shoes. A cup of tea or, coffee is al- ways drank before the journey below Is attempted. We were placed on an overhead, inclined trolley antl whirled rapidly down to the entrance of the old Kimberley shaft. From this we felt our way down the narrow, perpedicular ladders of shaft after shaft for a dis- tance of 800 feet. The Kimberley mine is one network of tunneling and tim- bers. Hundreds of negroes were at work here; some were filling the pe- culiar iron trucks with the blue ground ore, others were running trucks along to the main shaft, where the contents rattle down a chute to the 1,000-foot level. The negroes, with their flicker- ing candles and shining black bodies, made it seem like some infernal region. Some of the negroes are lucky enough to find occasional diamonds in the loose dirt, and, upon turning them over, they are presented with a bottle of Cape brandy as a reward for their faithfulness reward enough, seeing that a south African native will do anything for a drink, and everything for a bottle. Should a white man find a diamond and be honest enough to hand it over he is paid one tenth of its market. value. The detective system of Kimberley • Is e most rigid in the world. Should a person find a loose, uncut diamond the streets of Kimberley it must be reported at once to the detective de- partment. The diamond Is then registered by a process of weighing, noting the tint and taking its measurement. The finders address Is also recorded. At certain intervals these diamonde are sold at guction, the finder receiving half of the proceeds. There is another system which het; received a great deal of criticism, viz , \the trapping system.\ One of the tie tectivea In disguise or a trusted negro will approach a persen who is sus- pected of being a diamond dealer and offer to sell him a stone. Should the person addressed be fool- ish enough to buy it he is arrested on the spot, and will probably receive ar mentence of from five to ten years for pains. • common bean was cultivated by ancient Bfryptlana, but their priests • It as \tratIlMitti.'\' NO MORE THRASHING DINNERS. Farmers' Wives of Cass and 'Wand Counties, Indians, Isaugurate a Reform. Farmers' wives of Cass and Miami counties, Indiana, have voted to abolish the old-fashioned thrashing dinners, which have been in vogue in rural dine tricts from time immemorial. As a rule It has heretofore taken from three to five women almost a week to prepare the viands necessary to properly enter- tain the twenty or thirty men that usually constituted a thrashing crew, and the task of placing things in order after their departure has been almost as great. By the new system all this work and bother will be done away with. Each man will eat his breakfast and supper at home. His dinner will also be taken there, if the distance will permit. If not, it will be taken wilJi him in a basket. His horse feed *ill also be carried along in a bag, and there will thus be nothing to discom- mode either the farmer or his wife. Another change necessitated by the in- troduction of this plan is the substitu- tion of shorter hours for the old-time day, which consisted of as many hours as the farmer or thrasher chose to crowd into it. The new arrangement appears to give satisfaction and will probably come into general usage. It THE CHANGED RUBIES. Was a Clever Substitution and Offender Was Never Discovered. There seems no end to the curious stories about jewels lost and stolen. One of the latest is that of Mrs. A -, who recently took a pair of large ruby solitaires to be reset at — 's, where they had been purchased. The morning after, the maid brought her the card of the firm, saying a gentleman wished to see her, and on going down tb the drawing room she found one of the clerks who told her that the stones, which were apparently of great value, were in reality false and worthless. Very much agitated over the intelli- gence, Mrs. A-- asserted that the jewels had never left her posaassion since their purchase, and claimed that the fraud must have been perpetrated before she received them. This, of course, the firm denied, but the feeling on the subject became very bitter on both sides and detectives were employed by both to ferret out the mystery. When a former butler of Mrs. A---- was proved to be a discharged clerk of the well-known jewelers, the inference was obvious, al- though no proof agginst the man has been found anti the Newels have never been recovered the Inconveniently Popular. At one time the Duke of Wellington's extreme popularity was rather embar- rassing. For instance, on leaving home each day he was always intercepted by an affectionate mob, who insisted on hoisting hlm on their shoulders and asking where they should carry him. It was not always convenient for him to say where he was going, so he used to say: \Carry me home, carry me home,\ anti so he used to be brought home half a dozen times a day a few minutes after leaving' -his own door.-- , Life of Gen. Sir E. B. Harnley. ODDITIES. PROBLEM OF FINANCE. In thirty-six prisons In the United State solitary confinement is used as a punishment. Th.- new Siberian railway traverses regions where game Is so abundant that the project of establishing canneries Is being considered. The largest pyramid in the world Is the pyramid of Cheops; four hundred /111 , 1 sixty-one feet high and covering thirteen acres of ground. Jewish guides In Rome never pass tin- der the arch of Titus hut walk around It. The reason Is It conmiemorated a victory o‘er their race. Chlinnog were unknown to the anclents. and are not mentioned by any Greek or iteman architect. A hole in the roof let out the amoke Ti,\ amallent salary paid to a head of a civilized got ,•rnmont is fifteen (toilers a year to the President of the Republic 46,4 Andora In the Pyrenees. The only two Utz,' countries in the world in which it white man is not per- mitted to acquire rights or own ,iroperty are Liberia and Hayti Japan is actrroptIon of the Chinese word Shipenkno. which Means \root of day,\ or \airoise kingdom,\ because Japan is directly ••ast of China. iine of the now rifles used by tbo Ital- ian soldiers ReIll1/4 a ball with force enough to g, thrmigh five inches of solid oak at a nstance of four thousand feet i-leveral Egyptian harps have been recovered from tombs. In P.M,* the siting. are intaet, and give forth die- tinct SI,1111.14 aftor a silents , of three tholientol vents Cambric Was ft - at introduced into England during the reign of Queon Elizabeth The first piece imported WAR' pregonfrqj lo the virgin queen to Make a ruff for her neck The tensile atrength of wrought iron rode varies as the square of the diameter. A one inch rod will support seven thousand pounds, and a two inch rod twenty eight thotimend pound' In excavating the itemen villa at Derenth. Kent, a pane of wIndew-giais wain disooyered. the first found In Eng- lend It was broken, but the pieces show that iii size was nine Inches by twelve. gpeetaelea were worn only by people of means in the sixteenth ceetury, as they coot net less than fifteen dollars a pair, and the larger the lenses and the heavier the Aso% the more they were sought after. EX -SENATOR FARWELL WOULD SOLVE IT. Campaign for International Bimetallism Should Be Inaugurated and Kept 117p Until Public Sentiment Is Thoroughly Awakened. (John V. Farwell, in Chicago Record.) \The crime of 1873\ became a veri- table Mr -nets' nest in the recent long debate. The \immaculate conception\ of financial wisdom and honesty brought forth a gold standard, says Horr, and the child, says Harvey, has been the incarnation of monetary vil- lainy, and each is applauded to the echo. The Congressional Record has be- come a financial bible, in that any mon- etary' sect can turn over its pages and prove anything to suit all the high priests of finance. Even the saintly Tribune's columns have been subsi- dized by the \Harveyized steel process\ into saying things on both sides of the criminal indictment against congress— hardened sinner that she is --it Harvey is to be believed. Horr is horrified by Harvey's sug- gestion that any criminal intent lurked in silver demonetization through the child -like and bland Messrs. Sherman and Hooper, who acted as wet nurses for the innocent gold -standard coinage law. The idea that it was coined In villainy and issued in deception eo tried his nerves that 14e had to have a vacation for recruiting purposes. It was a most innocent law—assur- edly--- for \we only had greenbacks in circulation when it was passed.\ How could it affect us? True, we owed a $3,000,000,000 war debt, made on a bi- metallic standard. Who in congress could be such a fool as not to want to pay it in gold if the creditors wanted It, or such a knave as to ask our gener- ous creditors to take their pay In silver, then worth a premium of 3 per cent? Monstrous' This is all very plain. Of course, it is arrant nonsense to affirm that a law reducing the world's money more than one-half would make the other fraction that was left any harder to get when pay day came around. Only fools can hold to such an idea. They are not Tribunized. That's what's the matter with them. The idea that silver demonetization has made any difference in its real value, by destroying the most aggres- sive and constant dentand for it, or in the value of gold by doubling the de- mand, is only a child's fancy. Full - Bons that could turn filthy rags into money, have passed away forever. The confidence genie Is now on top. Only Make the people believe that free trade Is the philosopher's stone in na- tional prosperity and you have it. True, when its ghost rose out of a Democratic victory, that precious stone was only skunk meat, kept a trifle too long - made the people sick Only make the people believe that a promise to pay gold (with none to pay with) is the ladder Jacob saw that reached up to heaven, when he was seeking a fortune under a bargain with the Almighty that if he would only make him rich he would give him back a tenth of the proceeds, and you have the key to all kinds of prosperity; but twenty years' experience has demon- strated that while Jacob has been get- ting rich Laban has been shorn of his wealth in exchange for gold. The ser- vant has become the master of all val- ues, from turnips to church steeples. Mr. llorr infornis its that Newton anti Copernicus foresaw the fall of silver and the coining revolution in many mat- ters. It must have been when Newton saw the apple fall. And so the law of gravitation simply means that silver and all other products oC labor must fall when gold was discovered to be the best metal to corner this business of falling. Copernicus, when he discov- ered the revolution of the earth on its axis, simply foresaw that the power of gold as the best money metal—only a little scarce—would work a revolution in all commercial affairs. Why should- n't these antediluvians forsee the Wis- dom that a Tow centuries would store up in the brain of Sherman and Hooper to construct a law that would do a thing that no one supposed was being done In 1873, but the wise men who dis- covered gold as the only metal fit for legal money to run corners with on other products of labor—the law of gravitation must of necessity attract everything of the nature of value to „the center of the universe of trade, which Is, of course. gold. The law of revolution on its own axis for mother earth is only another way of saying that everything worth a cent must immediately revolve around the gold axis of commerce to conform to human reason and an holiest imagin- ation which with our own supply of confidence can make money of paper rags equal to gold until the bottom drops out of confidence. Truly, Broth- er Horr, this is \an age of wonderful progress,\ when the shadow of gold can be turned into bullion by printing pa- , per and a high-toned fancy. I The congress of 1873 cannot plead guilty to an indictment of ignorance grown men know better, and retain self-respect, but they can No wonder that Brother Horr is hot-- claim the wisdom of Newton and Co - rifted when Brother Harvey even hints pernicus and the moral honee - ...y of vial -- that any one has not been elevated into table Josephus, tempted, it may be, by the third financial heaven by the last a wicked lobby—not Potlphar's wife— twenty-five years of a beneficent gold it as Copernicus and Newton believed standard. III a gold standard to liquidate debts True, we have had a few labor strikes made on a silver standard they could and a few failures in the manufacturing not have been wrong In doing what world on account of a decline of 50 per they lid, anti therefore they were cent in the value of their products In neither ignorant nor vile. Can't any exchanging them for gold but this one see that such reasoning beats does not prove that gold has risen in exchangeable value for such property. Of course. It don't only fools claim that. This is dne only . to the overpro- the contention at once it would be so dueller, of silver since It was demone- tized, and to the expansive power of nice to believe that no one Is wanting brains or honesty, now that Col. steam on the brain Any one 1001111 , .--trong anti Gen. George B. Swift are see that without a financial telescope eiyors of the two great cities which Haven't university professors said so tiitve been ruled with such unimpeach- time and again, if not oftener? Dare ible honesty for so many years, that any one dispute their dictum? Verily. ne may well wonder that \the crime verily we have fallen on evil times e• 1873\ was ever invented by fertile when gola spectacles cannot make even imaginations. There could have been blind people see the folly td' wanting it, motive for revolutionizing the more real money. True. our property monetary system of the world but to wealth has increased many hundred -liable the laboring man to get gold to times since silver WAR relegated to the buy beer with —certain') not. Then kitchen into the spoon business, which. why should not liar VPV .1.11(1 all good together with property accumulations tiristians request that the imngress of of the last twenty five years. and of the 1673 be voted a gold mod il every one centuries. must now is` Ineasilfell lutllY of them' If this had been done In with gold. But who ti ff1(11 ( - mough to Queen Victoria's country they would believe that this alters the exchange - all have been knighted before night. able value of gold or the demand for it when bank hills, thecks and eredits that their fame might have been per - can be printed by steam and any one can imagine that those can supply the pin c, -t tf gold, which must be admitted is a little scarre, when the Imagination falls to make good its wonderful Wu e lords wit l'tah silver mine. the stork lons in the light of a panic which ev , •hange remarked. \The queen may Makes comniorce see stars of the firs: giant titles. hut a title witheut honor Is magnitude. while bankers call in their loans in the vain hunt for golden a Baron Grant and presto. change . iron Grant'a mate:len wa. prized and eagles, \gone where t woodbine sahl. but the wirchaser could not flit the twineth. - Into the wilderneas of sin. Lowed dwelling place of a baron, and while Sinai thunders the law. npaN had to tear It down becati.o the said that thou °west,\ not In checks and 1,11I111 WAR a barren field In %hid!, to bank hills. but in gold vatilahed into find honor or an )thing eke a Vallle in burglar proof vaults and old WOIllell'S Blackstone on the law of evidence in criminal practice? We advise Brother Harvey to give tip parties out, by the public paying thi bills, as in the sale of \Coin's Financial School\? Barnum was wont to say, \The public like to be humbugged, and I am givine them what they want for pay.\ Will the public pay the bills and be less qualified to vote than they were before? Horr's humbug of commercial ratios having given us a gold standard with- out laws is intended to get votes for a gold standard. Harvey's humbug that the l'nited States alone can make 16 to 1 the legal ratio the world over is also intended to get votes for a silver basis. The Pop- ulist humbug that printing presses can make money by law so that every tramp can pick it up anti go into the banking business without work is in- tended to get votes Will the voters be humbugged and pay all the bills, as in the past, in the next election? Will either party rise tcathe occasion and with sound and consecrated com- mon sense give us a currency law that the people can indorse. when the de- bates are closed, at the polls? A com- promise with the people is the only way out anti it should be based on the ex- perience of the past In the use of greenbacks, as well as silver anti gold. The bankers of Europe and the United States should inaugurate it instead of sending liorr to demolish one humbug In the interest of another, and \let its have peace\ instead of panics for the next 100 years. A campaign in the In- terest of international bimetallism should be Inaugurated and kept up un- til public sentiment shall demand the only world-wide solution of a problem which for twenty-five years has vexed the ocean Of commerce, with more storms than all other centuries of con- flicts, In the destruction of values, in- stead of wars, without any rOmpcnaa- tion whatever in the demonetization of silver, stockings it-tee Eccles on Panics not In his newapaper are light articles on the beauties of a gold standard. but In his tour of Inspection of national banks. In the panic of 1R93. looking for the Ineation of said \woodbine\ and a chemical that would turn pictures into gold I Away with bimetallism It has been bleeeted and diamected for twenty years by our financial university surgeons until no one in his senses believes it possible in this wonderful age of rev- olutions and evolutlone. Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon. Caesar of the Roman empire, and Jef- ferson and Hamilton, of the stars and stripes, with their centuries of financial ignorance which had no printing prommerrun by steam, and no hemline- petuated for the benefit or beermakers and the dear laboring classes Gold medals, however are better' than empty titles for I remember when Baron Grant took in a bevy of English the markets of the arto Id Honest In- dian. has not the gold standard proved mammoth pall of the public to the gold barons who advitwal it for their own purposes of deceit as to results' Burr says commerce has settled the seeetion and not law' Harvey says law settled it for rentorl09, so that gold and slitter were legal money until 1571 Who hi eight oh thlt poottion It la 111 hard to find Would it not be eell to find out ratios of property to money. that is, to monit- or , ' it—past prevent-- and see whether the products of labor In both are properly protected? Ttils is the basis of any ratio that can be conald- erect honeet and fair to all. Who paid for this famous debate' Will it, tell In book form to let' both WITHOUT SWITCHES. A Railroad should Be Built to Be Ab- solutely Safe. A serious trouble, causing many rail- road accidents, is that our rail is not continuous, being broken In a number of places by switches and frogs. Per- haps only a higher wisdom than ours can tell us how to avoid accidents caused by open switches, as long as these dangerous devices are not elimi- nated front the track. This should be done, even if the cost of otherwise set- ting off the cars be more expensive. Let its make our rails absolutely con- tinuous and transfer cars bodily to adjacent tracks by the use of hoisting machinery. Such devices are used in England --of course under the control of a block system—and are found very safe and satisfactory. Particularly should tracks on which very fast trains are run be made continuous. as acci- dents to such trains are much more serious that , those that happen to slow trains. 44 0 An Ape's Superstition. Chief Man. the auburn -haired orare.,•- outang at the Zoo, is very superstitious anti his convictions with regard to Straws are not limited to the mere fact that they tell how the wind blows, says Philadelphia Record Tho Chief be- lieves that hewing a straw with cer- tain supernatural qualitlea will brine his dinner hour around before 1 o'clock, the regular tirpe, and he daily tries to Pitt this theory Into practice. From among the heap of straws in his cage he selects with great are the longest and straightest. and after having placed It in his mouth he goes to the glass front of the cage, and, shading his eyes with his hand, peers to the right and left In search of the keeper with his dinner If the keeper Is not in sight the Chief throws the straw away as not pneseesing sufficient \charm\ and selects }moth. r Thla performance iS repeated over and over with the utmost gravity until the meal arrives. A Cr...at Water rt.vrer The utilization of the power of the Nile cataracts is propospd by et Prompt. inspector-general of roads .1114 bridges iii Egypt lie v.andil begin by securing a fail ?if forty ft, e to fifty feet at Aasitan. and from the station, tlero created he would expect to obtain aboet 40.0(5) horse power. Ile woeld dam tho river again near Cairo aring a Of - \on foot fall, and with the ele(trio pOWef generated at these points he would furnish light to Cairo anti power to operate large cotton mills. He ale° proposes to utilize the water this stored for irrigation put poses. an I es- timatea the total expenditure at less th ti $11,, , tee A Vrevalent Iii Mrs RW1110%110 WaterbefflI %AS tell- ing her neighbor. Mr e Mt lien yne, About her stuns illness What did de dortah ',ay was de mat- ter wit! hint '\ the last named lady naked 'Say he done had de apple -piety pow'fill had \ 11•11 , de apple-plexy, what dal\ - \Mrs Mernryne, l's s'prised at ye' knowledge of such things apple -piety am tie desease yn' gets when yO' been eatIn' too ninny green apples, like Moses done.' Seem in your ads will being dollars THE Wickes Hotel, Wickes, Montana. We have recently secured control of this house and have fitted it up with new fur- niture from topsto bottom. CLEAN ROOMS, NEW BEDDING, Table Surpassed By None. The only place between Helena and Butte where a first class meal can be had for 50c. RATES: 1.50 Per Day. Special terms made to those desiring reg- ular board. • THE Wickes Hotel. Wickes, Montaas.
