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Show As I Remember Them yames G. Fair By C. C. Goodwin BOUT Ave feet eight inches in height, welgh- , ing, say 210 pounds, massive every way; - a sovereign head; a splendid face; a soft , voice; a winsome personality a tiger satisfied in captivity and inclined to purr, and seldom "to un- r, sheath from his cushioned feet his curving I claws." A master mechanic who could do any- i thing in iron and steel, a perfect judge of any kind o machinery; a brain in which everything was t reduced to perfect order; one of the very shrewd- ( est of financiers; a mind that could reason from cause to effect with lightning-like rapidity and perfect certainty, and from early childhood more interested in the affairs of James G. Fair than of any other soul on earth. From childhood he knew, what so few men ever learn, the exact" value of a dollar, and was strong enough when his fortune climbed into the millions, never to forget the unit and what it was worth. Early in California quartz veins had the greatest great-est attraction for him. If a vein assayed $7 per ton, and if 80 per cent of the value could be savea, i that meant $5.60. If that could be mined and re duced for $2 per ton there would be $3.60 saved and one hundred tons per day would mean a saving sav-ing of $360, and that would be newly-created wealth. If 85 per cent could be extracted and the i cost reduced 50 cents per ton, then the profit could be $4.45 per ton or $450 per day. How to perfect machinery to save a higher percentage from the assay value, and how to adjust machinery and labor to reduce the cost of working, were his study for years in the Golden State. From it one can readily see how well prepared he was to wrestle with the problems that the Comstock presented. I believe it is fair to say that the "Wheeler grinding and amalgamating pan was the most important adjunct in tho working of Comstock Com-stock ores in the first twenty years in which those ores were worked. Mr. Fair always claimed that every feature of the pan was his original idea. 1 He went to the Comstock as. a machinist, but in California he had given much study to ore J presentations and in a brief time he understood 1 'perfectly, both the formation of the great lode and its peculiarities, for all great mines have habits of their own. When the mining stock board was established in San Francisco, and the dealing in stocks became be-came the great feature of that city, no one understood un-derstood better than Mr. Fair its possibilities. In the meantime he had learned to know John "W. Mackay well and both knew Flood and O'Brien In San Francisco, and a combine was made. Tho San Francisco firm had some means and when fi om the Comstock word was sent to buy or sell slocks, or to buy on a margin or to sell short, (Flood responded, and a good deal of money was made. They soon became a factor; then they began to get control of certain of the mines; they made one diversion and lost $300,000 In a Silver City, Idaho, mine, and thereafter clung with more tenacity to the great vein under Mount Davidson. By 1870 they had obtained control of tho California Califor-nia Consolidated Virginia, Best and Belcher and , Gould and Curry all adjoining. Their hope was to explore the old workings of the California and Con .-Virginia, believing that a good deal of moriey could be made from low-grade ores that had been 7 . left in the stopes, as .the cost of reduction and transportation had been much reduced. . They . orked with but indifferent' success for six months, I when one evening, Mr. Fair met Captain McKay, r who long had been in charge of the Gould and Curry, before the Bonanza lirm obtained possession. posses-sion. Captain McKay was a flnev geologist and scholar generally, besides being a perfect miner. iwpr ' ' ' ' iii.'i.iiwmw wwiHMinrnim-ii.riMw inii.an in Mil iwlimrt'nwM imh iii Mjiin.MlNwMavnMMWiW'- "W McKay said to Fair, "Why do you not go to the bottom of the Gould and Curry shaft and drift north? The shaft is 1,200 feet deep; a tunnel north from it would be below all the workings of the Best and Belcher, the Con. Virginia and California; Cali-fornia; it would be in virgin ground, and if there are any deep ore bodies on the Assure, the outcrop out-crop of which was the surface ore body of the Mexican and Ophir, by the trend of the vein you ought to strike them." "I don't think there is anything in it," was Uncle Jimmie's reply, but that night three shifts of men were set to work at the bottom of the Curry shaft. It was all blasting rock; it had to be run back to the Curry shaft, hoisted 1,200 feet and run out on the dump. It required a good deal of nerve and a great deal of money, but It was pushed out through the north end of the Curry, 150 feet, through the Best and Belcher 750 feet and 150 feet into the south end of the Con. Virginia, when tho great bonanza was struck ' about 30 feet below its apex. Had the shaft been only 1,100 instead of 1,200 feet deep, the drift would have passed over it and it might have remained undiscovered still. When I left Virginia City it had yielded $119,-000,000 $119,-000,000 and had paid in dividends $67,000,000. Of course Uncle Jimmle made some millions from it, but it did not change him, rather it made him as the boys on the Comstock said, more so. The anecdotes of him were numberless. When the big bonanza was fully opened it was 400 feet wide in places and was laid off in great galleries by wide drifts like the streets of a city. It was intensely hot, and so the timbers it iequired 3,000,000 feet per month for several years became as dry as tinder. A fire .started" In those depths would have made a volcano in an hour. Hence the strictest rules were enforced against everything that might start a fire. One rule forbade smoking. Uncle Jimmle went down in the mine one day and going to one of this slopes thought he detected the odor of tobacco smoke. He said nothing but went to other portions por-tions of the mine and in half an hour returned, sinking down on the floor of the drift with a deep sigh he said, "I am surely growing old, a little run through the mine tires me more than a day's work used to. I think if I had a few puffs of a pipe it would refresh me greatly."' A dozen pipes were presented in a moment. Uncle Jimmle toolc one, puffed away for a moment, then with many thanks handed It back, saying that it had greatly revived him and went to the surface. The next day going down Taylor street toward the mine, he met that whole shift of men going up the hill, "Why, how is this?" said he; "I thought this was your shift." One of them replied. "We have been laid off." "Laid off?" said' Fair. "That is John (Mackay). I never get a crew of men that just suit me, that John doesn't discharge them." And with a sigh he passed on. But the miners knew better and called him names as they climbed tho hill. One day a gentleman with his wife and grown lady daughter called at the Con.-Virginia office and the man asked If it was possible to visit the lower levels of the mine. The cleric called down to the lower shaft house, telling what was wanted. The reply came back to send the strangers down there at once. They put on the needed clothes and were shown to the cage. The man at the engine was told to stop at 16. When the party left the cage a miner received them and for an hour or more showed them 'round, explaining what was ore, what country rock, how ore was mined; how big mines were timbered, all the time talking H wisely of ore formations, the working and ventila- H tion and drainage of mines; the provisions made H for escape in case of a cave or a fire or other jH accident. , The party was charmed with the sturdy miner H who seemed so well Informed and so affable. When H they reached the cage and were about to be hoisted H from the depth, the Boston man tendered the H miner a bright new silver dollar. The miner H thanked him but declined the gift, remarking that H tho company paid him for his time and It was H easier to show strangers around than to swing a H pick. H "But," said the man, "this- is for you person- H ally." But still the miner declined, saying that H what he had done was no trouble, out rather a I pleasure. H But the Boston man persisted and said: "Now, H tell me honestly, my man, why you do not wish to take this dollar." The miner sighed and said: "Well, one reason I is that I have $600,000 up in the bank and it has I been bothering me all the morning to decide how I J had better invest it." H It was Uncle Jimmle and he smiled softly as I the cage shot up the shaft. I A man and his wife in San Francisco filed the I papers in a suit against Mr. Mackay, claiming I heavy damage for seeking to alienate the affec- I lions of the wife from her husband. It was a df- I reel attempt at blackmail and Mackay never rested until he landed both the man and his wife I in the penitentiary. But when the news of the I filing of the suit reached Mackay in Virginia, he I was lurious. No one had ever seen him so angry I before. He paced up and down the Con.-Vlrginia I office like a tiger and the old lines would have I fitted him: I We tore them limb from limb; I And the hungriest lion doubted I 'Ere he disputed with him.' I The woman's given name was Amelia, Uncle I Jimmle went down to the office that morning, but I seeing how the atmosphere was he softly went I out and started across the foot-bridge ' for the I Ophir works. On the bridge he met a young man I and woman. The young woman stopped him and I explained that the young man was her brother; I that he was a splendid worker, and that they I both needed what he could earn and besought a I place for him. Uncle Jimmle smiled down at I her and said. "My dear! John tends to all that, go to tho office, I just left him. Go. and tell him I what you have told me, and tell him your name I is Amelia and I am sure he will give your brother I a place!" I Fortunately they did not get to see Mr. Mack- I ay that morning. I On one occasion Mr. Fair returned to Virginia I after an obsence of a couple of months, when a I blacksmith presented a bill for $80. Uncle Jimmle Jim-mle looked at it and said: "Eighty dollars. What might this be for?" The smith explained that It was for shoeing Mrs. Fair's carriage horses, setting the tires on the carriage and but Uncle Jimmie interrupted him with: "That is all right, I was not disputing your bill, but I am superintendent of four mines, and the companies pay for all necessary work. ' Take the bill home and bring me back four bills, against tho four companies, but not all quite al ke. Make one for $22 to sundries against the Con.-Vir-ginia; once for say $18 against the California; one for $24 against tho Curry and one for $16 against the Best and Belcher, and I will try to get them allowed, though times are hard." He went to San Francisco in 1877, called at some offices on Montgomery street on business, I and glancing around the offices, thought he would I like them. He knew who owned the block and the HI ' agent in charge. He went to the agent and asked HI if the people in the corner rooms had a lease of HI the rooms. The agent replied that they merely H paid from month to month. "And how much might K they be paying?" asked Uncle Jimmie. The Hi; agent gave the ligures. "Well," said Fair, "They HP would he worth ?100 per month more to me. 1 l Please give them notice that you would like the rooms on the first of the month." t The agent replied that he could not do it, that ' , the firm occupying the rooms had been there two m years; had paid the rent every month promptly H f and he could not order them out. "You are right," K ; said Fair, "you are doing just as I would want B you to, if you were my agent." H: Three days later he met the agent again and HI said to him, "you will do me a favor if you will m notify that firm that they will have to vacate on H; the first , that the block has been sold." "Sold?" H cried the astonished agent, "to whom?" M v "O," said Fair, "the owner wanted a little K money more than he did the block and I ex- m changed with him, but you are still the agent, ' only after the first report to me please." H One day a man said to him: "Mr. Fair, how 1 can I make some money in stock." H "It is easy, my son," was the reply. "Buy them H when they are low and sell them -when they are H'1 high." H Once in the sixties, Mr. Fair, as he got up H from the breakfast table one morning, said to H his wife: "My Dear, have you any money?'' Mrs. m Fair replied that she had $7,000 in the bank. By H this time Uncle Jimmie had put on his hat, and H said: "Don't mention the matter to a soul, but H I thing there are a few dollars in Curry," and H went out. H Mrs. Fair thought the matter over for a few H minutes. Then she said to herself, "Surely there H would be no harm in letting my brother know," H and crossed the street. Her brother yas away, H but his wife was home and Mrs, Fair told her. H She had a brother and like Mrs. Fair, her H thought was, that there would be no harm In tell- H ing her brother. By noon all Ireland in Virginia H City was. buying Curry and Uncle Jimmie was Hb unloading it upon them. Jm V By the end of the week the stock had dropped H out of sight and in the Fair house there was a H thunder cloud in every room. As Uncle Jimmio H' rose from the breakfast table he said to his wife Hi "My dear, did you not tell me that you had some H money in the bank?" H Then the storm broke. "I had $7,000 and It is all lost in that old Curry," said Mrs. Fair and she then burst into tears. "My, my, but I am sorry," said Fair then with a deep sigh, he went into his library and a moment mo-ment later returned with a check for $7,000. Handing Hand-ing it to hiB wife he sighed again and said, "I will .help you out this time, my dear, but I fear you are not constituted just right to successfully deal in stocks." I saw him in San Francisco in the eighties and asked him if he was holding his own among the sharp men of that city. He gave a faroff look and then replied. "O, I keep scuffling around and every few days make a few dollars to put under a pillow of a night." . He made a trip around the world in 1878-79. The two things that seemed o impress him most were; the wonderful po sibilitles of the Valley of the Nile, and a brass pillar 90 feet high in Japan. It was 900 years old and he explained that the knuckles and pulleys for raising and lowering the flag were just as perfect as they could be made by the most accomplished machinist machin-ist today. While he was absent Mrs. Fair one day told Mr. Mackay, that if her husband could go to the U. S. Senate it would be a great thing for her children. That was enough. Mr. Mackay had the machinery ma-chinery all in order for his election when he returned, re-turned, and he was elected. It was a great misfortune. mis-fortune. There was no more happiness in the Fair family. While he was senator, I went to Washington to help hold the tariff on lead. I went to him and explained that raw sulphur came into this country free, but there was a tariff of ?20 per ton on refined sulphur; how 3 per cent sulphur in Sicily Sic-ily was being refined up to 97 per cent and then shipped in free, which kept the nearly pure sulphur sul-phur deposits in Utah from the market, because of the cost of transportation and the competition of the Sicily sulphur, and asked him to see the secretary secre-tary of the treasury and have the duty applied to Sicily sulphur. I had forgotten that he had extensive ex-tensive refining works in San Francisco. When I had made my plea, he sighed and replied: re-plied: "I will do everything I can for you, but I have three shiploads of that Sicily sulphur on the sea right now." He continued to make a great deal of money up to his death, some fifteen years ago, and died very rich. |