Part 7

The shops of Dawson have risen to the dignity of establishments having corrugated-iron covers, plate-glass fronts, and redwood shelves and counters. Following closely upon the pioneer constructions--department stores, they might be classed--of the Alaska Commercial Company are the depots of the North American Trading and Transportation Company, the Alaska Exploration Company, Ames Mercantile Company, and the Yukoner Company, several with retaining warehouses placed beyond the reach of a city fire and with dimensions that would lend dignity to locations of much larger size than the emporium of the North. Many of the smaller shops also carry a varied line of goods, but others are restricted to a specialty, and their wares are now offered at rates which are in the main only reasonably in advance of the “high” rates of the Western coast towns. There are exceptions to this rule, however, especially where skilled local labor is called into requisition in a manufacture. Thus fourteen dollars for a pair of trousers made to order strikes the imagination rather forcibly, when a first-grade quality of boot or shoe can be obtained for five dollars and six dollars. Really good meals may be procured almost everywhere for from a dollar to a dollar and a half, and the best hotels supply twenty-one meals for twenty-five dollars, and these do not absolutely reject delicacies of one kind or another. Cow’s milk can now be had as a regular adjunct to coffee, since the milcher is no longer a stranger to the country. The price of rooms in the hotels still remains high--from four to six dollars per night, without meals--but the character of these rooms has materially improved, even though they would be considered with us decidedly third rate. In a few establishments of a more private character, lodging for a certain amount of permanency may be had for fifteen dollars the week, or, where the condition of the surroundings is not closely scanned, for even less. A new and capacious hotel, the Hotel Metropole, reared from the wealth of the “King of the Klondike”--Alexander MacDonald--has recently been added to those of less pretentious design which served the community last year. A heavy cut in rates is promised.

The conflagration of April 26th, through which perhaps one quarter of the business portion of Dawson was burned to the ground, has given opportunity for the introduction of improvements, and the most important of these is that which has resulted in the removal of houses and resorts of evil repute from the heart of the city and consigned them and their inmates to a localized area or “tenderloin” district. Women of refinement may now parade the streets without having their finer sensibilities offended through the public intrusion of the immorals of the lower world. The tone of the public places of amusement, the theaters and dance houses, has also been in a measure elevated, even if far from sufficiently so, and some real talent occasionally sparkles behind the footlights. A new “opera house,” with a seating capacity of perhaps seven hundred or eight hundred, but advertised for two thousand, was thrown open to the public last August, after a construction, it is claimed, of only two weeks. Its season’s _répertoire_ included, among other plays, Michael Strogoff and Camille, both of which, even in their crudest type of presentation, felt well of the public pulse.

School education plays as yet little part in the morals of the Dawsonites. The greed of fortune has left scant time for the consideration of educational matters, and what little of school training is imparted to the youth of tender years comes largely in the shape of a beneficence from private hands. If the issuance of newspapers be properly classed as belonging to education, then Dawson has made material advances during the past year, for, in addition to the three weeklies which more than supplied all the information that was needed to the inhabitants of 1898, it has now a daily (the Dawson Daily News) and a Sunday paper (The Gleaner), while the pioneer Nugget has been converted into a semi-weekly. Some of these journals, which in typographical detail stand fully equal to many of the foremost journals of the United States, are devoted largely to a vilification of the Yukon government, and secondarily to the nonpartisan interests of the community. But little space is given over to murders and daring deeds of robbery, since occurrences of this kind, thanks to the continued vigilance and efficiency of the Northwest Mounted Police, are all but unknown, and the safety of possessions is as well established as that of the person. The shooting of an actress by her lover, followed by the suicide of the murderer, furnished the sensation for the year; but previous suicides, also in the ranks of the theatrical profession, had already paved a way to this form of excitement.

Two or more lines of telephone unite Dawson with the nearer mining region, and a partial city service has also been established. The city remains as yet without an electric-light plant, but it is by no means unlikely that before the present season has passed the darkness of the winter night will be lifted by the arc light, and much of the oppressiveness of the closed season thereby removed. After two winters of experience, the Dawsonites continue to think lightly of the “terrors” of the cold, and to but few apparently is the extreme of temperature a deterrent to exercise. Sleighing continues to be a pastime, with the temperature marking 40° to 50° below zero, but only with this season does it enter into the category of a fashionable recreation. Hitherto dog-sled teams performed the full service of winter travel, and divided with skating and “ski”-ing the winter exercise; but this year the snow causeways will be lively with the jingling of cutter bells and the rapid pacing of the horse.

One can not help remarking the vast improvement in the general tone of Dawson society, if by that term we may include all that constitutes the population of the city. More particularly is this marked in the case of women, among whom it is no longer a rarity to meet with strict refinement and culture. Musical _soirées_ register among the events of the week, and literary recitals are not exceptional. The male portion of the population has also undergone a refining process through the departure of hundreds or even thousands of “bums,” who only too late for their comfort discovered that their presence was neither a necessity to Dawson nor a mainspring to the extraction of gold from the soil. By their departure the city has probably suffered a decrease in its population of some three thousand to four thousand, but has more than received compensation in that stability of purpose which such elimination always insures. As a city of about thirteen thousand inhabitants, it enters upon its history in the year 1900 with principles cast largely upon a pure business basis, and with a future that is bound in with the product of the soil.

The gold resource of the Klondike region seems fully to sustain the anticipations which had been put forth touching the product of 1899. The better-known creeks, such as the Bonanza, Eldorado, and Hunker, have kept well up with their record of the previous year, and give indications of continuing as important factors in the calculation of output for some time to come in the future. The introduction of a certain amount of mining machinery, such as steam drills, thawers, and powerful pumps--applied more particularly to the deposits of the benches and hillsides--coupled with a more definite method of conducting extensive operations on a comparatively economic basis, has given fresh impetus to the work of mine holders, and made largely remunerative that which had promised to be little profitable. A more just administration of the mining laws has helped to a considerate feeling among the miners, and reduced very materially the grievances which formerly fell with thick force upon the offices of the Recorder and Gold Commissioner. Access is now easily had to the records of claims, and individual “cases” receive an early and proper hearing. Electric plants have been introduced on some of the claims, so that there need be no interruption in work for the full twenty-four hours of the day.

Apart from the discovery of rich pay-dirt on creeks and gulches, such as Last Chance (tributary to Hunker), Gold Bottom (tributary to Sulphur), and American, Magnet, and Adams (tributary to the Bonanza), concerning which much skepticism was expressed last year, the filling in of assumed barren gaps in the general line of creeks has done much to inspire the feeling that more of the broad area is gold-bearing than the first surveys and explorations “indicated”--a feeling to which particular confidence has been given by the surprising wealth which has been washed out from the hillsides. For a nearly continuous four miles of the “left limit” of the Bonanza, extending northward from Gold Hill at the confluence of the Eldorado to the “forties below discovery,” the crests of the hills at an elevation of some one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the creek are laid bare with the work of the shovel, pick, and drill, and the same or a corresponding stratigraphical height is pierced elsewhere along the stream. Gold Hill (and French Hill, on the Eldorado side), Skookum, Adams, Magnet, and American Hills, and Monte Cristo, all have their summits capped by what is now familiarly known as the “white layer”--a feature in the landscape as interesting to the casual tourist as the construction is important to the more fortunate claim holders who are located here.

Up to this time no quartz locations determined to be of positive value have been located, although a goodly number of “quartz reefs,” “lodes,” and kidney masses have been staked, restaked, and recorded. Some of these have shown gold in small quantity, but in by far the greater number of cases they have proved absolutely barren, and are without promise of yielding anything. The anticipation of many, naturally fostered by individual wish and hope, that an originating or “mother” lode must be present and found somewhere rests without any geological support so far as evidence has been accumulated up to the present time, and there is nothing that looks like a promise to the geological eye. At the same time, it would be premature to assert that such a reef or series of reefs may not be discovered in the future. The hill crests that have furnished so much of the white material of the high benches of the Bonanza and the Eldorado may perhaps be searched with best advantage in this direction, and thence extended to the water parting which surrounds or incloses the upper waters of Gay Gulch.

No estimate, naturally, can yet be put to the total gold supply of the Klondike region, but to inquiry that is frequently put regarding the future existence of Dawson as an energetic mining camp one can unhesitatingly answer that this existence is assured for many years to come, and there are indications that point to a permanence independent of the simple supply of gold.

The earlier conceptions of the extreme severity of the climate of the Yukon Valley forbade the hope of agricultural possibilities, but a more intimate knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the summer time--a season of four to five months’ duration, with daylight and day heat protracted far into the normal hours of night--and a comparison of these conditions with somewhat similar conditions prevailing elsewhere, have given hope not alone of a possibility, but of a probability, and there are few to-day who doubt that agriculture may not be practiced with at least a legitimate amount of success in many parts of the Yukon basin. This probability has, indeed, been already emphasized by Prof. George Dawson, and the more recent examinations of Alaskan territory, made by Colonels Ray and Abercrombie, confirm with a conviction the reference to American soil. The feeble but more than promising efforts in agriculture and gardening that were made in the region about Dawson in 1898 have borne surprising fruit in 1899, and while the results may not, for various reasons, have proved in all cases remunerative to the “prospector,” they at least clearly demonstrate the possibilities to which the future may lay claim. Cabbages, turnips, peas, radishes, lettuce, and beans are now raised to perfection in favored spots along the Yukon and Klondike, and on scattered hillsides of the Bonanza and Eldorado, and a good promise is also held out for the potato. In the charming spot known as the Acklin Garden, situated on the Klondike about two miles from Dawson, oats and barley, sown on April 26th and May 22d respectively (1899), were grown to beautiful heads, and harvested in the middle of August. No wheat had ripened up to that time, and I suspect that, owing to a light frost which took place on the 19th of the same month, none of this grain came to maturity. Radishes sown on April 24th were collected on May 20th, and string beans, whose seed was scattered on May 26th, were collected on August 1st. Other successful crops were those of beets, onions, and spinach.

The exquisite beauty of the flower garden in this spot rivets the attention of all passers-by, and few there are who do not for a moment lay aside their packs to enjoy the feast of color that is presented to them. Poppies of the size and brilliance of those which adorn the fields about Naples, chrysanthemums, gorgeous dahlias, pansies, the cornflower, mignonette, and centaurea are part of the outside bloom, to which Nature “beyond the fence” has fittingly added the wild rose, anemone, fireweed, and forget-me-not. Such is the aspect of the region which to-day illumines the far North, and carries with itself a hopeful promise to many and the certainty of disappointment to many more.

THE DECLINE OF CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE IN AMERICA.

BY GINO C. SPERANZA.

The rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property have been called the “rights of the people of England,” and may be said to constitute the richest heirloom in the Anglo-Saxon family. While, in a certain sense, they belong to all civilized people, yet, in their practical application, they are peculiarly the creation of Anglo-Saxon common sense and love of order. The underlying principle of these rights, clothed by the Latins in the seductive garb of _Liberté_, _Egalité_, _Fraternité_, gave us a Reign of Terror, a Commune, and finally a doubtful republicanism; but the same principle, embodied in the less dazzling formula, “That no man shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” produced in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons more enduring democracies “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

With the instinct of a race born for self-government, the Anglo-Saxons have ever sought and almost always found the highest safeguard for their ancient rights in the courts of law. Between a partisan Legislature and a tyrannical Executive an honest judiciary has generally been found ready to annul the excesses of the one and to prevent any infringement by the other; so that it has become a belief, having the force of faith, that in our courts will be found the bulwark of those liberties which we consider essential to the full enjoyment of life.

Laws and courts, however, are after all the creation of men, and, like all such creations, they are necessarily imperfect and fallible; or, more correctly, they are organisms which develop and improve. In other words, justice and law are only relatively immutable and perfect. They do, indeed, represent, in a sense, abstract perfection, and at any given time they must be considered the highest criterion of human conduct. But justice and law are not such divinities that they can withdraw themselves from the operation of those forces which we call progress. Seriousness, dignity, and venerability are not sufficient to sustain the majesty of the law; it needs also adaptation to those higher conditions and broader views which mark the growth of human thought. The more we come to look upon law as the standard and gauge of upright human action, the more do we grow to expect it in consonance with the highest dictates of human knowledge and reason, for what is above us must represent what is best in us, else it will be neither respected nor obeyed. Whenever this consonance is not found, human belief in the dignity of the law and in the efficacy of justice ceases. For, theoretically at least, law is so near ideal perfection that the least defect destroys it entirely; and by this “ideal perfection” is meant that _laws must reflect the highest and soundest thought of every age_. Laws that fail in this cease to be a power for good; they are then looked upon either as ridiculous or as oppressive. If the former, they defeat their ends by becoming dead laws; if the latter, they become a source of disorder and discontent. Hence we see that jurisprudence is essentially evolutionary and progressive, and that the majesty of the law does not lie in its age but in its perennial youth, or, more correctly, in its successive rejuvenescence. It is true that in China the antiquity of a law is its highest prestige, but, as a consequence, Chinese justice is proverbially inefficient and barbarous. It therefore follows that the constant study and improvement of what we have called the safeguards of our fundamental rights should be our highest duty, and the object of the care and solicitude of the State. It is not enough to rest contentedly in the thought that a Magna Charta, a Petition of Rights, and sundry written constitutions protect us. Their very existence is but an argument for our eternal vigilance. Now, the question to be here examined is whether we have exercised that care and vigilance which are essential to the free enjoyment of our rights.

Let me premise the statement that the protection of the rights of life, liberty, and property is peculiarly within the province of the criminal law. What constitutes the right of life, liberty, and property can not be defined or described, except negatively by a definition of what will be deemed its infringements. These we call crimes. To declare what acts come within the definition of such crimes is the function of the criminal courts.

It is upon the criminal law, therefore, that we must rely for the enunciation of what acts shall constitute a breach of the right of life, liberty, and property, and it is to the criminal bench and bar that we must turn for the correct interpretation and application of such enunciations. Hence the more time and attention we devote to the study of criminal legislation and to the enlightenment of the criminal bench and bar, the more will the safety of our rights be increased and strengthened. Likewise, the more we allow criminal legislation to be the product of hasty consideration and the criminal bar to drift into disrepute, the more the safety of our rights will be proportionally weakened.

The first question that presents itself is, “_What is done by our law schools for the study of criminal law?_” The answer is not very encouraging. Let us take those law schools which are of most importance, either by reason of their curriculum or of their attendance. Harvard, with a three years’ course, devotes two hours a week for one year to criminal law (including criminal procedure). Allowing nine months of four weeks each to the scholastic year, and a weekly average of eighteen hours, it will be found that the time devoted to the study of criminal law (including procedure) is a little over _three per cent_ of the entire course. By a similar computation we find that Columbia devotes to criminal law (and procedure) a little over _four per cent_ of the entire course, which is about the percentage given by Yale and a little lower than that of the Universities of Michigan, Cornell, and New York respectively.

These computations are based upon figures given in the catalogues of those universities, or kindly furnished by the deans. Nothing more eloquent of the decline of the study of criminal jurisprudence in our country could be cited. But the catalogues of these law schools add further proof. At none of them is there a professor whose instruction is confined solely to criminal law. Nearly all the instructors in criminal law devote but a small part of their time (and probably of their study) to the teaching of this subject. In Columbia the instructor in criminal law is professor of international law and diplomacy;[I] at Harvard the incumbent of the chair of criminal law teaches the law of carriers; that of Michigan teaches the law of bills and notes and of public corporations; that of the New York University the law of sales and wills. It is, moreover, a significant fact that the faculties of the above-named institutions, while recommending to law students the optional study of political economy, constitutional history, taxation, physical science, English literature, and modern languages as conducive to a higher standard of legal culture, utterly fail to advise them to pursue courses in criminal anthropology, criminology, or penology. In other words, it is deemed advisable that the future lawyer should bring to the aid of his civil practice the complementary knowledge of French and history, for instance, but it is of no importance that he should be acquainted with the results of modern criminologic and penologic research. Thus the conclusion is forced upon us that the study of criminal law, whose importance I have endeavored to set forth, has become a subject at sufferance in our universities, a practically optional course of little consequence to the student, and of no interest to the teacher.

[I] This has since been changed; but the change makes the case worse, as the new instructor in criminal law teaches not only two branches of the law (as under last year’s course), but five--viz., Criminal Law, Wills and Administration, Common-Law Practice and Pleading Bankruptcy, and Bailments and Carriers.

From the very beginning of his legal career the future lawyer is made to feel that the field of criminal law is not the one in which to exercise his best talents. Both the school curriculum and popular sentiment strengthen this prejudice. To the community at large our criminal courts have come to mean places where criminals are sentenced or rogues saved on technicalities; they have ceased to be centers of justice, where innocent men are saved and guilty men tried according to the law of the land. Hence has arisen the popular belief (despite the rule that the accused shall be considered innocent until his guilt is proved), shared in a measure by the bench and bar, that every man accused of crime is criminal and depraved, and that, therefore, contact with him should be avoided. Thus the criminal lawyer, who necessarily must come in touch with such alleged crime and depravity, is practically ostracized not only from the community but also from the civil forum.