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Show TO FORT BRIDGER. 59 receive a dime. There are always about his premises, from six to a dozen persons, not connected with his family ( a few Indians always included), who live at his expense. Persons who know him intimately say he never complains of such imposition, and when advised by friends to send away such loafers, he always has some ready excuse for their idleness, and expresses the hope that they will soon be able to earn something wherewith to pay for their board. There are scores and hundreds of just such worthless indo lent people scattered throughout the Far West. Some of the men have their families with them, and those who have not usually take squaws, and they eat and sleep away a mis erable existence, apparently without any object in life. As may have been inferred from what I have said already, Uncle Jack is a natural gentleman one of those noble char acters who have the instincts and feelings of gentlemen, place them where you may. His associations and habits may degrade him, but you will always find cropping out those qualities which indicate him as intended for a different sphere in life, and mark what he would have been under different circumstances. Uncle Jack is now sixty- five years old, but is hale and hearty, though of course not so active as in early life. He has an iron constitution, and has passed through enough to break even that, I should think. He is exceedingly fond of his toddy, or the toddy minus the water and sugar. A gen tleman told me that eight years ago he saw him take ten drinks of whiskey before breakfast, apparently without feel ing the effects of them. But now it requires comparatively little to produce intoxication. He says it is ridiculous to talk about bad whiskey that there is no such thing ; some whiskey he - pronounces better than others, but says he never saw any bad whiskey. If the reader could taste, or smell, some of the stuff distilled in this country, and known as il Valley Tan," he would rather doubt Uncle Jack's qualifi cations as a " taster" for a liquor- store. He advises Judge Carter to bring out a distillery next year thinks there is a great waste of the raw material in making corn and wheat |
