One man, the chief owner there, threatened the bold rascals; but they said they would build their house upon a raft and defy him. He said, "I will cut you loose." They snapped their fingers at him, burnt his hotel, and shot him. Did this go on in the dark? No; the Chicago and Minneapolis and St. Paul's newspapers wrote it up. I spoke of it until warned I must not tell such awful things: it would be too shocking.
Into such awful places our minute-man goes, and takes his family too. It is hard work at first, but little by little sin must give way before righteousness. It is strange that Christian men and women can draw incomes from these mines, and feel no duty towards the poor men who work for them. I met one such man upon the steamer coming from Europe. He had been over twice that season. He had made his thousands, and was going back with his family to travel in Egypt, and leave his children with their nurses at Cairo.
He admitted everything I told him about the condition of things on his own property; and in answer as to whether he would help, said, "No; it's none of my funeral." How any man could walk those streets, and see fair young girls drunk at nine A.M., and in company with some of the worst characters that ever disgraced humanity, and not feel his obligations to his Lord and fellow-man, is more than I can understand.
The awful cheapness of human life, the grim jokes upon the most solemn things, could only be matched in the French Revolution. I saw in one store, devoted to furniture and picture-frames, a deep frame with a glass front, and inside a knotted rope, and written underneath, "Deputy-sheriff's necktie, worn by —— for murdering Mollie ——" on such a date. This was for the sheriff's parlor.
Hard times have made a great change since I walked those streets. The roar of traffic has given place to the howl of hungry wolves that have prowled among the deserted shanties in midday in search of food; and the State has had to supply food and clothing to the poor, while my man, who had made his thousands, was studying the cuneiform inscription, in Egypt. It ought to make him think, when he sees the mummies of dead kings being shipped to England to raise turnips, that some day he will have a funeral all his own.
BREAKING NEW GROUND.
Page 262.