NEW USE FOR BINGLES
Ed (Casey) Armstrong, the beach
merchant has a scheme to make the
bingle work overtime, as a puller of
trade.
The bingle, it should be said for the
benefit of the lady readers of The
Sourdough, is a favor which is dis
tributed to the guests after each game
in the Front street social functions.
They are just as good as real money as
far as they go, but there their legal
tender qualities are limited. For a
gin fiz or a Douglas Henry Clay—both
mighty fine things in their way, a
couple of bingles will go as far as two
bits. They never were good for any
thing, however, but what’s passed
over the bar.
Armstrong has a grocery store on
the beach, and he also has a brilliant
idea now and then.
“If the bingle,” it occured to him
the other day, “is a good thing to pull
trade for a thirst parlor, wouldn’t it
work on a grocery store!”
Armstrong is having a back room
built in and he intends to install sev
eral card tables for social games. Af
ter each game, bingles will be distrib
uted, while the loser digs. But the
bingles cannot be exchanged for booze.
They can be passed over the counter
for sugar, beans and bacon, however,
and no man need be long on bingles
and short on grub, just because he has
been in a poker game the night be
fore.
Many a man has wished, in the cold
gray dawn of the morning after, that
he could trade a wad of bingles for a
mess of ham and eggs, and the beans
and bacon bingles may be a howling
success in a live town where the tem
perance saloon failed.
An Unusual Existence.
“On the whole, the Alaskan lives
an unusually blessed existence,”
thinks Captain F. E. Kleinschmidt.
“He may take liis politics very ser
iously indeed, but every-day existence
he carries lightly. He is not in terror
that economic conditions are going to
crush him, and in fear of physical con
ditions he is quite lacking.
“I have known him at home for 14
years, and I believe he is exceptional
in his opportunities (in spite of the
handicap of an absentee landlordism,
instead of representative government)
as wTell as initiative, resourcefulness,
loyalty, and in capacity for both work
and play. There is time and place
dustrial resources, but of its possibil
for both in this big, new land of his.
AVe know something of Alaska’s in
ities as a land to m‘e in, a breeding
ground for a new nation—a people of
sturdier stuff than our own—we have
hardly guessed. It is an Americanism
to call its 580,000 square miles a play
ground, yet in a very big and splendid
way it is so. It is the race’s newest
melting pot, and out of its fires and its
frosts will some day come a new and
virile type, and this new Alaskan’s
capacity for wholesome play will save
him for a manly destiny.”
UNDOUBTEDLY A FORGER
There may be some people in Alaska
•who believe that there is something
left intact of the Comptroller bay
scandal. Unquestionably the fingers of
the democracy in the house were burn
ed with it. There is hardly an anti
administration paper in the United
States, but has, at least tacitly, ad
mitted that the muckrakers failed to
make good. The evidence given be
fore the investigating committee was
so convincing, that it was impossible
for the house majority to make cam
paign capital out of the report, and
the committee lacked the courage to
bring the matter to the conclusion it
would have been forced to reach.
Says the P. I.:
One of the last things Congressman
Humphrey did before adjournment was
to peel the hide off the Graham com
mittee which was sidestepping the in
vestigation of the Dick-to-Dick letter.
After having given the muckrakers op
portunity to assail reputable men, the
committee quit its investigation with
out getting to the bottom of he scheme
which involved a conspiracy and a
forged letter.
“There is no question in my mind
but that the so-called Dick-to-Dick
letter was a forgery,” said Mr. Hum
phrey last night at the Hotel Wash
ington Annex. “Chairman Graham
would not put Miss Abbott, who gave
publicity to the letter, on the witness
stand or permit her to be examined.
Miss Abbott was frequently in the com
mittee room and there was no excuse
that she was not available. I took the
opportunity before the session closed
to tell Chairman Graham what I
thought about this system of investi
gation. ’ ’
ALASKA FOR SHEEP
The interior of Alaska is to succeed
Dakota and Montana as the great
sheep raising country, so thinks John
Rosene. In an interview in the Haines
Pioneer Press he says, speaking of the
country back of Haines:
Sheep thrive in that land. In fact
the possibilities of sheep raising struck
me most forcibly. No where have I
seen a land that has a more promising
future in this direction, now that this
great industry is being crowded out
of Dakota and Montana, owing to the
dry farming mat is taking its place.
The sustenance is there for many mil
lions of sheep; the supply is practically
inexhaustible—the food that they
thrive on in winter in Northern Eu
rope—alder and birch boughs dried—
is there in unlimited supply, and in
that country it is not even necessary
to cut and dry it as they do in the old
country, on account of the dryness of
the winter.
“Where this land is cleared,” con
tinued Mr. Rosene, “wild grass grows
up in a season, making pasture for
countless herds. I don’t know as much
about sheep raising as some, but I
shall soon know more, for I intend to
give this matter some study and I will
give the land a trial, and will place a
hundred or two head of sheep on this
land for a test. The summers are dry
and warm and the winters not nearly
so severe as in Dakota and Northern
Montana, and I am more than certain
that the trial will prove successful. In
those wonderful valleys, winter wheat
and rye will surely ripen and mature,
and were it not for the minerals that
abound, this alone would some day be
the <;ause of this country being settled.
The mineral wealth will draw them,
but they will see the agricultural pos
sibilities, and farms will spring up all
over these fertile valleys.
“The building of a railroad through
this territory would be an easy under
taking. No where have I seen an eas
ier grade, practically a water grade
all the way after passing Rainy Hol
low, and for stretches of 50 to 75
miles rails could be laid on a straight
line, no curves, and no grade for the
main line. For some of the side lines
perhaps the grade would be a factor
to contend with, but nothing difficult
whatever. With such a roadbed in the
future it will be but a three day trip
from Seattle to Fairbanks. writh fast
steamers to bring you to Haines in 48
hours, of course not making long stops
at other towns it w’ould be but a 24
hour trip from Haines to Fairbanks, a
distance of 750 miles.
“We wrill do considerable work next
year, just to what extent it is impos
sible tosay at this time, but we will
continue on a much larger scale than
during the present season.”
Ill 1^1X111 O VV All X 11X1 VV IV/ VV1*
Down on Prince of Wales island a
conflict between the chiefs and the
older Indians on one side, and the
young generation of natives on the
other has reached an acute stage. The
younger Indians are in a state of
peaceful revolt, and plans for secces
sion are about to be put in active op
eration.
According to the old tribal customs
of the Haidas, a young man cannot
build a house without permission of
the chiefs. The young men have been
growing farther and farther away from
the old tribal customs, and the chiefs,
when permission is sought to erect a
dwelling, take advantage of the oc
casion to enforce some of the tribal
regulations which are obnoxious to the
progressive young men of the tribe,
who wish and indeed have adopted the
habits of the white man. The young
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