The engineers, station-tender, pump-men, and the watchmen on the lower levels, all occupy positions to which are attached grave responsibilities, the lives of their fellow workmen being constantly in their hands. The miners receive their pay—$4 per day—regularly every month, from the first to the third day of the month. Pay-day is a happy day with the men. They go to the office of the time-keeper as they come up out of the mine, at the change of shifts, and “get their time” for the month—that is they get a slip of paper on which is an account of the number of days they have worked during the month. With this they go to the office of the secretary or head-clerk of the mine where they form in a line, as lines are sometimes formed in a post-office or at the polls on an election day, and each man in his turn receives his wages.
Over half a million dollars are paid out on the first of every month along the Comstock, to miners, mechanics, and others who are employed in and about the mines. The monthly pay-rolls of some of the leading companies are as follows: Consolidated Virginia, $90,000; Crown Point, $90,000; Belcher, $65,000; Ophir, $33,000; Savage, $22,000; Chollar-Potosi, $25,000; Hale & Norcross, $20,000; and a long list of companies whose pay-rolls amount to from $10,000 to $15,000 per month. Even at mines where they are merely sinking a prospecting-shaft, from ten to fifteen men are employed and there is paid out per month in the shape of wages from $1,500 to $2,000—as mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths, and engineers, receive from five to seven dollars per day.
Besides the money that is paid out monthly to the men about the mines, the wages of the men employed in the many mills about Virginia City, and Gold Hill, and along the Carson River amount to a large sum. There may be added to this the wages of the men employed on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, over which ore is sent to the mills, and lumber, timber, and wood are brought to the mines; also, the men employed in the saw-mills and in other branches of the lumbering business in the mountains are paid monthly, and all this money is expended in the towns along the Comstock.
Such large sums paid out every month to working men—who scatter it broadcast in the land—causes money to be quite plentiful in all the towns. In case of business being a little dull toward the close of any month, merchants, shopkeepers, and others do not grumble. They merely say: “Never mind, the pay-days are near at hand!” It is not as in agricultural communities, where when a bad crop is made all must wait for another year before good times can be expected.
Besides the money paid out every month in the shape of wages, dividends are paid each month by such companies as are in a sufficiently flourishing condition to thus gladden the hearts of their stockholders. The Consolidated Virginia alone pays $1,080,000 per month in dividends.
In many kinds of business the persons employed are paid every week, and the merchants, and business men in general, square all accounts of transactions among themselves every Monday; hence Monday in Virginia City is sometimes jocularly termed “steamer day,” as corresponding to the old “steamer day” of San Francisco—the day when the steamer sailed for New York, and when all business men were expected to make good all their coin contracts.
When the miners receive their wages the first business of the unmarried men is to pay the rent of their lodging room, and the next is to pay their bill at the restaurant, while the married men settle their bills at the meat-markets, the grocery and provision stores, and the dry-goods stores. Happy is the man who can square up every month and have a few dollars to put by for a rainy day. Some, as in every country, are always behind, but the most miserable of the miners are those who gamble. Much of the time they are working to pay for a “dead horse,” for when they have lost their wages they borrow as long as they can find friends to lend. But whether gambled away or judiciously and economically expended, the money paid out each month to laboring men makes lively times for a fortnight or more—all have coin jingling in their pockets, even check guerillas and thieves.
CHAPTER LX.
THE HOTTEST PLACE IN THE MINE.
“Curbstone brokers” and many other dabblers in stocks rely a good deal upon “points” obtained from miners, in regard to what is going on in the lower levels of the mines. It probably happens once in a while that a miner gives some friend on the “outside” early news of a rich strike in the mine in which he is employed, but it is generally on condition that the “outsider” purchase and carry for him a considerable amount of the stock of the mine.