CHAPTER IV
The Big Winnipeg Boom—Winnipeg the Wicked—A
Few Celebrated Cases—Some Prominent
Old-Timers—The Inside Story of a
Telegraph Deal—When Trouble
Arose and Other Incidents.
Then came the boom of 1881-2 and sealskin coats and cloaks and diamond pins and diamond brooches and diamond rings were greatly in evidence. The city was all ablaze with the excitement of prospective riches. Champagne replaced Scotch and soda, and game dinners were very common. Auction sales were held daily and nightly, and in the auction rooms of Jim Coolican, Walter Dufour and Joe Wolf people bought recklessly. Property changed hands quickly at greatly enhanced values. Certainly a land-office business was being done. The craze spread to the rural districts and land surveyors and map artists worked overtime to fill orders. Lots in Winnipeg were plotted for miles beyond the city limits. Some non-existing “cities” were placed on the eastern market, and some swamps were brazenly offered in Winnipeg. If there ever was a fool’s paradise, it sure was located in Winnipeg. Men made fortunes—mostly on paper—and life was one continuous joy-ride.
A lot of us boarded at the Queen’s Hotel, then run by Jim Ross, at whose table a quiet coterie sat. Amongst the personnel of the party was La Touche Tupper, as good a fellow as ever lived, but a little inclined to vain boasting. He was a fairly good barometer of the daily land values. Some days when he claimed to have made $10,000 or $15,000 everything was lovely. The next day, when he could only credit himself with $3,000 or $4,000 to the good, things were not as well, and when the profits dropped, as some days they did, to a paltry $500 or $600, the country was going to the dogs. We faithfully kept count of La Touche’s earnings, and in the spring he had accumulated nearly a million in his mind. There were others. And all went as merry as a marriage bell, with wealth and wine on every hand, until one day, when lots in Edmonton were placed on the market, the craze ran higher than ever before. It was a frightful frenzy. Without any knowledge of the locality of the property, people invested their money in lots at fabulous prices. Many overbought, some tried to unload and the next morning there was a slump, and you couldn’t give away property as a gift. The boom had busted. Where, the day previous, the immense throng had gathered in such numbers that window panes were smashed, in their eagerness to buy, only those who wanted to sell were seen. It was the morning after the night before. And a mighty sad one it was.
And Winnipeg came down to earth again.
For some time after the big boom busted, there was a decided sag in the finances of many a Winnipegger. Of course, I kept in the procession, and managed to worry along pretty well, as I had a very warm friend in the late Chief Justice Howell, then a partner in the law firm of Archibald & Howell. We kept flying kites with a good measure of success, for he had a high financial standing, and we never had a misunderstanding but once. It was all over a similarity of figures and a series of curious coincidences. We had a note for $175 in the bank, and it was overdue. A renewed note was promptly given—most of the promptness being due to the urgent request of the bank manager. It so happened that Mr. Howell’s current account had exactly $175 to his credit, and strange to say I was overdrawn just a similar amount. The bank at once wiped out my indebtedness with the note, and then took Mr. Howell’s $175 to pay it. When my good friend gave a small cheque the next day, it was returned to him with the ominous “N.S.F.” marked legibly upon it. My, but he was wrathy, and in his anger came to me. We were both dumbfounded, but finally it got through my wool how the thing was done, and we both looked at each other like two lost babes in the wood. So we went out and soundly cussed all financial institutions in existence, and were only reconciled to our fate after a prolonged visit to Clougher’s.