Then, after I had robbed New York of $100,000,000 a year, burnt 10
large towns and 45 small ones, wrecked 200 express trains, lynched
96 negroes in the South and murdered many men every night for 7
years in Chicago - he broke out:
"By golly, we are a-doing it. We are the people. We are a-moving
things now; and I tell you I give the worst of them there European
countries, the very worst of 'em, just 100 years to become
Americanised."
Think of that, ye polished Frenchmen; ye refined, courteous Swedes;
ye civilised Danes; you have 100 years to become truly Americanised!
All down the river route we came on relics of another class of
wanderers - the Klondikers of 1898. Sometimes these were empty winter
cabins; sometimes curious tools left at Hudson's Bay Posts, and in
some cases expensive provisions; in all cases we heard weird tales
of their madness.
There is, I am told, a shanty on the Mackenzie above Simpson, where
four of them made a strange record. Cooped up for months in tight
winter quarters, they soon quarrelled, and at length their partnership
was dissolved. Each took the articles he had contributed, and those
of common purchase they divided in four equal parts. The stove, the
canoe, the lamp, the spade, were broken relentlessly and savagely
into four parts - four piles of useless rubbish. The shanty was
divided in four. One man had some candles of his own bringing.
These he kept and carefully screened off his corner of the room so
no chance rays might reach the others to comfort them; they spent
the winter in darkness.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 21 of 252
Words from 5436 to 5713
of 67135
