PAY FOR JURORS
AND WITNESSES
Commissioner Receives Checks for
Many People Who Have Served
in His Court.
Commissioner J. Lindley Green 1ms
lately received checks from the United
States marshal and from the dork of the
district court for the payment of wit
nesses and jurors in insanity and coro
ner’s investigations and in justice court
proceedings. The money in some in
stances has been due two years, and
some of the claimants are known to be
dead and others to have left the country.
The following named have checks for
service at inquests and in insanity cases:
Becker, E.
Williams, J. C.
McHugh, Janies.
Wiehl, S. T.
Cowan, George.
Sinclair, D.
LeClaire, Billy.
Ketterer, G. A.
Ireland, P.
Ford, Jerry.
Atkinson, Pr. Ira
W. H.
Robinson, M. F.
Parrow, William.
Savage, George.
Wagner, John H.
Ehrhorn, Chas. H.
Tryck, Charles.
Woods, A. H.
Gibbons, Pr. C. H.
Paul, an Indian.
Austin, E. C.
Britt, Harry.
Decker, F.
O’Connor, John P.
Cronk, C. P.
Graham, William.
Laboski, Wally.
Young, J. W.
Stickney, B. W.
Mann, William.
Kahmstorf, Julius.
Wand G. H.
Sinclair, D.
Foster, G. W.
Young, Itobert.
Knapp, J. F.
Becker, George.
Donahoe, John.
Harden, D. H
Funston, Teresa.
Cutting, Si>encer A.
Collier, John.
Solka, Paul.
Yaska, Sarah.
Maria, an Indian.
Tilly, Robert.
Dutton, T. L.
Davis, W. H.
Checks for the following are in pay
ment for services as jurors anil witnesses
in the justice’s court.
Kalning, U. r.
Ireland, P.
Wand, G. H.
Bielenberg, H. 'A.
Wilson, K. R.
Wilse, J. H.
Wield, Joe.
Fanned, Manuel.
Sicott, Joseph.
Lindsay, Thomas.
Meyers, V.
Sinclair, M. \v .
Lane, A. H.
Schultz, Paul.
McHugh, James.
Carey, R.
Palm, John.
Maloney, John.
Scott, Davit! W.
Malone, Thomas.
Lindreth, Thomas.
Isom, John.
iici n tun
•CVHIIC Ull'OC v.int iv?»
the commissioner.
The
Miners Store
Juat rcivivfil a full ami niiiiplrti'
I i lit- uf
Men’s Furnishing
Goods.
SPECIALTIES:
Underwear.
Overshirts,
A!*" »i tiiiv "f
Socks
Groceries,
Etfgs. Potatoes
and Onions
HOT SPRINGS TRAOINC POST
We have a full supply of the best brands of groceries and provisions. Our prices
are right. Low as the lowest. Take advantage of the short trail. New hotel open.
We supply all your needs, from hotel accommodations and natural hot baths to
provisions for the winter. Come and see us.
F. 0. MANLEY, PROPRIETOR
OVER 6,000 ACRES
STAKED BY 8 MEN
The following is from the Nome Gold Digger of Sept. 22, which came in this
week’s mail. A look over the list of notices filed for record and printed regularly
in the Nome papers shows that the case here cited is hut one instance of what is
common practice there and in other portions of Alaska:
An examination of the instruments
tiled for record in the office of the re
corder for the Nome mining district dur
ing the past few days shows tiiat one
aggregation of people, whose names are
connected with a certain mining com
pany, have been very busy in the past
few weeks; so busy in fact that these
eight people have managed to stake
more than six thousond acres of placet
land in the Nome district. Now, so far
as we know there is no provision of the
law by which one man or one aggregation
of men can be prevented from staking
and recording all of the land that they
may feel inclined to locate, in order that
the location may be considered a valid
t n *, must be described by some perma
nent landmark. In mining parlance
they must be “tied to something per
manent.” This provision of the law is
made to prevent, as far as possible, dis
; putes as to the exact location of ground
i which might subsequently become in
1 volved in litigation. This provision of
the law was also intended to serve the
purpose of a guide to those who might
wish to locate property. If the property
is properly described on the books of the
recorder so that any one may readily
find it, and ascertain its exact location,
there is less excuse for the man who
strikes property that has already lieen
segregated from the government do
main. If some permanent monument
or landmark is not used in the descrip
tion of pro|>erty that is located, the law
rules that such a location shall be con
sidered an invalid one.
Yet this party of eight men who are
locating tracts of mineral land by the
wholesale have never in any single in
stance properly dcscrilicd the location
of the property. From the records one
gets a vague idea that it is somewhere
in the vicinity of I’ort Safety, and it
would seem from the nuinher of U!0-acrc
tracts that have been located by this
aggregation, that they intend taking in
the whole of that section, of the coun
try. If the ground should prove valua
ble. and from pros|a-cting work that luts
already been done there is every reason
to believe that such will he the ease,
there wdt Is- an almost endless tangle
of litigation W ithout wishing to coni
ment on the grec<l or avarice—the ‘‘land
hunger” it might be termed—of these
people who are locating everything in
sight, we should think that they would
have sense and decency enough to prop
erly locate the ground which they are
seeking to possess. The Gold Digger
does not wish to criticise unkindly, but
it is very apparent that the attorneys
for these wholesale looters must be
either very ignorant of the law or are
framing up for another one of the colos
sal blackmailing propositions which
have cursed Nome almost since the first
day the camp was found.
Unfortunately the law under which
the people of Alaska are compelled to
transact our mining business is totally
inadequate to the needs of the country,
and offers an incentive to all kinds of
blackmailing schemes. It is the excep
tion and not the rule where a pavstreak
is discovered and it is not immediately
followed by the filing of a suit and the
granting of an injunction. This action
is almost invariably brought by some
man or company who claims to have a
former location. Quite frequently the
man who has made the discovery will
give up half the claim or any portion of
it rather than tight the case in court. If
he goes to law anil wins the case, he has
to give up a portion of the profits to the
attorneys.
As the Gold Digger has pointed out on
previous occasions this difficulty can
only l>e overcome by an amendment to
the mining law. A survey should lie
made of every claim locat'd by a staff
of deputy United States mineral survey
ors, and as each claim is located, let it
be platted on a map kept in the record
ing office for that purpose. Then if a
man attempts to segregate a tract of
ground that has already lieen located
his location notice should la- refused by
the recorder. It might be u'gucd that
eveiy pros]as1 tor is not a surveyor and
that this provision of the law would
work a hardship upon him. Hut the
rule i- made to apply in other countries
and there is no reason why it cannot la
applied lo re, for instance. alien a man
g*s'S to the recording office with a hs-a
tion notice let Idm |aiint out to the re
corder la the map where it is situated.
Then let the recorder mark it on the
map in pencil and allow the prospector
thirty days in which to have it sur
veyed. When this is done, let it be
permanently marked on the map, and
then let no other man file a location on
the same piece of property.
»»
Assuming that the foregoing is not
intended as ridicule, let us pan it down
and see what kind of a prospect it
affords. If not entirely satisfactory, the
result will not be a great deal worse
than the average proposition of those
numerous other publications just now
clamoring for radical and more or less
specific changes in the mining law.
A few land-hungry people, according
to the Nome paper, are locating much
mining ground—for convenience sake,
in 160-acre blocks. Eight people in a
few days thus staked over 6,000 acres
and probably will locate all the ground
in the region of Port Safety. It is law
ful and right for them to take all they
want. But owing to the total inade
quateness of the law, blackmailers are
liable to pester them. Therefore their
future happiness should be guaranteed
by amendment to the law providing
that when they have secured a survey
of such portions of the territorv as they
may require in their business the re
corder will stand between them and all
harm by simply pointing to the map
when would-be blackmailers appear.
The surveying will be costly, but not
prohibitive if done by wholesale.
By adopting this unique plan much
profitless labor would be avoided by
[>oor prospectors, and the country would
be developed in a rational, capitalistic
manner instead of being overrun by
stampeding Swedes and other irresponsi
ble hoodlums.
A story conies from Illinois of a
man who, after he had remarried, hired
his divorced .wife as cook. It’s a funny
kind of a case, hut it may turn out
all right.