CHAPTER VII
LIFE AT THE MINES
Fortunately, in that winter of '62-'63, there was a great deal of work to be done in the mining country, and men were in high demand. The ordinary wage was ten dollars a day, and men who could be trusted, and who were brave enough to pack the gold out to the coast, received twenty and even as high as fifty dollars a day. There is a letter, written by Sir Matthew Begbie, describing how the mountain trails were infested that winter by desperadoes lying in wait for the miners who came staggering over the trail literally weighted down with gold. The miners found what the great banks have always found, that the presence of unused gold is a nuisance and a curse. They had to lug the gold in leather sacks with them to their work, and back with them to their shacks, and they always carried firearms ready for use. There was very little shooting at the mines, but if a bad man 'turned up missing,' no one asked whether he had 'hoofed' it down the trail, or whether he hung as a sign of warning from a pole set horizontally at a proper height between two trees. In a mining camp there is no mercy for the crook. If the trail could have told tales, there would have been many a story of dead men washed up on the bars, of sneak-thieves given thirty-nine lashes and like the scapegoat turned out into the mountain wilds—a rough-and-ready justice administered without judge or jury.
But a woman was as safe on the trail as in her own home—a thing that civilization never understands about a wild mining camp. Mrs Cameron, wife of the famous Cariboo Cameron, lived with her husband on his claim till she died, and many other women lived in the camps with their husbands. When the road opened, there was a rush of hurdy-gurdy girls for dance-halls; but that did not modify the rough chivalry of an unwritten law. These hurdy-gurdy girls, who tiptoed to the concertina, the fiddle, and the hand-organ, were German; and if we may believe the poet of Cariboo, they were something like the Glasgow girls described by Wolfe as 'cold to everything but a bagpipe—I wrong them—there is not one that does not melt away at the sound of money.' Sings the poet of Cariboo:
They danced a' nicht in dresses licht
Fra' late until the early, O!
But O, their hearts were hard as flint,
Which vexed the laddies sairly, O!
The dollar was their only love,
And that they loved fu' dearly, O!
They dinna care a flea for men,
Let them court hooe'er sincerely, O!
Cariboo was what the miners call a 'he-camp.' Not unnaturally, the 'she-camps' heard 'the call from Macedonia.' The bishop of Oxford, the bishop of London, the lord mayor of London, and a colonial society in England gathered up some industrious young women as suitable wives for the British Columbia miners. Alack the day, there was no poet to send letters to the outside world on this handling of Cupid's bow and arrow! The comedy was pushed in the most business-like fashion. Threescore young girls came out under the auspices of the society and the Church, carefully shepherded by a clergyman and a stern matron. They reached Victoria in September of '62 and were housed in the barracks. Miners camped on every inch of ground from which the barracks could be watched; and when the girls passed to and from their temporary lodging, their progress was like a royal procession through a silent, gaping, but most respectful lane of whiskered faces. A man looking anything but respect would have been knocked down on the spot. We laugh now! Victoria did not laugh then. It was all taken very seriously. On the instant, every girl was offered some kind of situation, which she voluntarily and almost immediately exchanged for matrimony. In all, some ninety girls came out under these auspices in '62-'63. The respectable girls fitted in where they belonged. The disreputable also found their own places. And the mining camp began to take on an appearance of domesticity and home.
Matthew Begbie, later, like Douglas, given a title for his services to the Empire, had, as we have seen, first come out under direct appointment by the crown; and when parliamentary government was organized in British Columbia his position was confirmed as chief justice. He had less regard for red tape than most chief justices. Like Douglas, he first maintained law and order and then looked up to see if he had any authority for it. No man ever did more for a mining camp than Sir Matthew Begbie. He stood for the rights of the poorest miner. In private life he was fond of music, art, and literature; but in public life he was autocratic as a czar and sternly righteous as a prophet. He was a vigilance committee in himself through sheer force of personality. Crime did not flourish where Begbie went. Chinaman or Indian could be as sure of justice as the richest miner in Cariboo. From hating and fearing him, the camp came almost to worship him.
Many are the stories of his circuits. Once a jury persisted in bringing in a verdict of manslaughter in place of murder.
'Prisoner,' thundered Begbie, 'it is not a pleasant duty to me to sentence you only to prison for life. You deserve to be hanged. Had the jury performed their duty, I might have the painful satisfaction of condemning you to death. You, gentlemen of the jury, permit me to say that it would give me great pleasure to sentence you to be hanged each and every one of you, for bringing in a murderer guilty only of manslaughter.'