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Show INTER-MOUNTAI- INTER-MOUNTA- IN MINING review. Devoted to the Mining and Smelting Interests of the Inter-Mounta- in West. by C. T. HARTE, Room Published Weekly 223 Atlas Block. TERMS: (Payable in Advance.) One Year Six Months Three Months To England, Mexico and Canada, 50 per year, postage prepaid. Entered at the Salt Lake City Postoffice as second-clas- s the list. This simply shows that people are turning their attention from stock gambling to legitimate mining operations. If the Utah companies offer only sufficient stock to provide development funds, and concentrate their energies upon the development of their properties, the State will receive more enduring benefit than ever followed a mining stock boom. Mining Camp Civilization. $2.00 1.00 $3 matter. San Francisco Office : 64 and 65 Merchants Exchange, where this paper is kept on file. Advertising contracts can be made with E. C. Dake, Agent. Salt Lake City, April 2, 1896 Mining Incorporations. The cessation of the mining incor- MINING REVIEW. N The glamour and the romance and the deviltry of the Western mining camp are fast fading into history. The scenes that inspired Bret rip-roari- 3 ingmen. Prospectors lay the foundations of the newer camps, and the prospector of today is a man of intelligence and good sense, with little money to spend on dissipation and riotous living. When his labors are finally rewarded by a rich discovery and he desires to spend his money on a good time, he usually seeks one of the larger cities. And thus the romance and barbarism of Western mining camps have given busiway to a spirit of Sabbath-observing ness and cold-blood- ed Now a Law. ng Hartes ballads will soon, like the Argonauts, be but memories of a golden dream, when all men were rich, when fortunes were made and lost and regained in a day, when life was cheap and mining communities were ruled by savage chivalry, vigilantes and redThe tenderfoot who, from histoeye. ries of the early days in the West, has gained the impression that a mining camp is made up chiefly of dance-hall- s, sombreros and and that life is one lurid round of killings, hangings, dissipation and disorder, is now astounded, upon coming to the mines, to find himself in a quiet, and peaceable community, as well supplied with churches and schools and all the outward signs of Christian civilization as any New England village. While Satan has not been entirely banished from the mining camp, he is kept quite as closely in restraint as in the average agricultural community. Saloons still flourish and the tiger is sometimes exposed to public view, and gilded palaces of sin are tolerated, as elsewhere. But the bad man from Bitter Creek no longer kills a man each morning for breakfast; no longer is the strangers silk hat made the target of in camp, nor the tenevery derfoot compelled to dance the double-shuffl- e poration flood simultaneously with the approval of the incorporation fee bill was so abrupt and complete as to be And it was quite almost ludicrous. time the incorporators ceased capitalizing. During the month of March there were incorporated in Utah 110 mining companies, with an aggregate of these capital of $119,6G0,000. Sixty-si- x companies, with a capital of $73,900,000, were organized for the purpose of operating in the Camp Floyd and adjacent districts, and forty-fou- r companies, with a capital of $45,760,000, are to operate in other portions of Utah and neighIf each one of these boring States. companies gives employment to an average of six men during the summer, they will furnish work for G60 miners. If each company spends $25 per day upon development work during the next six months, $500,000 will be disbursed. It is hoped that each company was organized for business, and while the floor about that it will now proceed to that busi- his feet is being plugged full of bullet-hole- s. ness. The bad man of the early this Notwithstanding great number days long ago passed in his checks, of incorporations, there is no such flood and the drunken tough who now goes of cheap mining stocks upon the mar- forth to terrorize a mining camp is ket as many seemed to fear. Many promptly thrown into the claim owners incorporated simply in like any other unruly tramp. order to forestall the impending tax, An old forty-ninreturned from and with no intention of offering their Mercur the other day, downcast and stock upon the market at the present dejected. It may be a good camp, he time. Others had arranged for the explained, as he squirted tobacco-juic- e sale of treasury stock before incorpor- at a y cuspidor, but it's too ating and others have raised sufficient gol durned quiet and peaceable. None funds for development work among of the mining camps aint so lively as their friends and associates. Such they was when I was mining. And stock as is now offered is, in the main, this old man actually sighed regretfully held at good figures and based upon over the changes that have been property of actual merit and worth. days. wrought by these The experience of Colorado affords a The old boys will never again witvaluable lesson for Utah. It Is now ad- ness the excitement of mitted that Cripple Creek has been over the days that are gone. Although there capitalized and the stocks over boomed. is occasionally some new camp in which Such a tremendous deluge of cheap the old spirit of reckless abandon holds Cripple Creek stocks have been let sway for a brief period, it is quickly loose over the country that Eastern in- suppressed by the encroachments of vestors have grown suspicious. The civilization. Mining camps are no Colorado exchanges are receiving few longer made up of bands of reckless, outside orders and the transactions roving adventurers, in quest of sudden suffer a consequent shrinkage. But riches and ready for deeds of darkness while the wild and feverish excitement and daring. In the older camps the upon the exchanges has subsided, con- bulk of the population is composed of ditions at the mines show constant img miners, many of them provement, the output is increasing men of families, who are as frugal and and new producers are being added to industrious as any other class of work six-shoote- rs, well-behav- six-shoot- ed er bar-roo- m The eight-hobill has been approved by the Governor and will now become a law. It limits the period of labor in mines and smelters to eight hours per day and provides a penalty for its violation by any employer. This bill was supported by the employees and their friends, apparently under the delusive hope that they would continue to receive ten hours pay for eight hours work. The Review pointed out last week that the measure was one calculated to work injury to those it aimed to benefit, and it still believes it to be an piece of legislation. The employers will at once take steps to test the constitutionality of the law, and should it be upheld by the courts many of them will reduce wages to correspond with the reduction in hours. Some mines will be compelled to do this and others can well afford to continue the present scale of wages, but it seems probable that a general and uniform reduction will be made by the mines and smelters. The miners are now receiving from $2.50 to $3.00 per day for ten hours work, and any material reduction would work hardship upon those with families depending upon them for support. With some of the mines it will simply be a question of reducing wages or closing ur ill-advis- ed down. However, the courts have yet to pass upon the law, and eminent lawyers seem confident that It will be defeated. The law becomes effective June 5th. bug-hous- e, er far-awa- God-feari- ng higli-pressu- wage-earnin- re Very rich samples of ore exhibited in this city last week were represented to have come from the Uintah reservation. If these representations were true, which some seem to doubt, they indicate that certain favored parties are permitted to prospect the reservation lands, while all others are excluded. If the alleged discoveries were made by trespassers, then the acting Indian agent has been guilty of negligence. In either case it is a serious matter, and the circumstances seem to justify an investigation. In this connection, the Review trusts there is no foundation for the reports that certain sick friends of the agent, who came out from the East for their health, have been prospecting the Uncompah-gr- e asphaltum lands and making locations. The statement is also made to the Review that it Is proposed to change the boundaries of the Uncom-pahgreservation by establishing a new surtey, or rather by the of an old survey. When this is done, it is said, the locations made by these sick people will be found to be re re-establis- |