H. HAMILTON is a trader at Fort Cudahy, on the Yukon river. Last
year, while in San Francisco, and when about to return to his post in that far-off country, he secured through an intelligence bureau the services of a young Swede girl to act as a domestic in his household at the post, agreeing to pay her $30 a month and board, lodging and transportation, her wages to commence from the time she stepped aboard the boat at San Francisco on her long journey to the north. The young and unsophisticated
little Swede girl had no idea of the long and tiresome journey she was about to embark upon, thinking when she entered into her agreement with Hamilton that she was accepting a position somewhere out in the country. But she made no complaint, and as there was no turning back when once started, she reconciled herself to the situation.
Upon arriving at Fort Cudahy, Hamilton laid down to her a code of rather
strict household laws, one clause of which compelled her to be in bed at 10 o'clock. At Fort Cudahy the only lady resident of the place was Mrs. Ned Ayleward, and being the only two females of the place, they naturally sought each other's company, and after the day's household work was done, the little Swede domestic was in the habit of running over and spending the evening with Mrs. Ayleward. It happened one evening, through a social chat, that she stopped there after 10 o'clock, or after her allotted time, and upon returning to Hamilton's house she found herself locked out. She knocked and pounded at the door for
half an hour, but no one would let her in, and so, finding herself locked out with the thermometer shivering at 42 degrees below zero, she returned to Mrs. Ayleward's, where she received shelter and a bed for the night.
The next morning, upon returning to resume her duties again, Hamilton met her at the door and curtly informed her of her dismissal from his service and his house, and that he was ready to settle with her, but would allow her wages only from the time they started up the river from St. Michaels to the then present time, which amount, when summed up and deducting a small bill she had run in the store, would not pay her passage back to San Francisco.
The forlorn girl was thunderstruck at this intelligenee; there she was without a home or even a bed, in the middle of a Yukon winter, and no one but Mrs. Ayleward to whom she could apply for shelter, and no law to which she could appeal for her rights. Mrs. Ayleward took the poor girl in and charitably cared for her.
The whole affair soon leaked out, and, reaching the ears of the miners,
their indignation ran so high that they called a public meeting and resolved themselves into a court of justice, and invited both the girl and Mr. Hamilton to attend their court. The girl came and gave in her testimony, but Hamilton sent word that he ignored entirely all frontier courts of justice or mob gatherings, and would not appear. The trial, however, proceeded without him; a verdict was rendered, and 80 odd voices declared that the decision of the court would be upheld, and, too, by right of might, if it became
necessary to use such extreme measures.
The verdict as rendered gave the girl the full amount of her contract
with Hamilton, her wages commencing from the time she left San Francisco up to the date of her discharge, a bed and lodging, and $150 to pay her fare back to San Francisco again, in case she should make up her mind to return, otherwise the $150 fare not to be paid, and a committee was appointed to wait upon Hamilton for a settlement of the same.
The committee went in force to the store and informed Mr. Hamilton of
the verdict of the court. Looking into the determined faces of the committee-men, Mr. Hamilton realized at once that their call upon him was a strictly business one and knowing that it that their call upon him was a strictly business one and knowing that it would be most unwise for him to attempt any denial of the justness of the verdict or repudiate their right to sit upon such cases, very gracefully came to the front and settled in full
of all demands, but, however, with the remark that they could have the whole
d___d store if they wanted it. The jury in this case didn't want the store, but they did want to see justice done to that lonely girl who had been turned out homeless in a mining camp upon a desolate frontier.
