and for two reasons. The cattle-graziers of the plains should be divided into two classes,—the legitimate and the illegitimate; those who conduct the business as any other business is conducted, and those who go into it as a speculation. The latter class seem to have had access to almost any amount of money. One young man entirely without business experience brought to Cheyenne and deposited in a bank at one time over a half-million dollars, He invested this large amount of money without good judgment, and of course the most of it was lost. The illegitimate class competed with those who were legitimate in the business for the ranges, which became overstocked, resulting in some cases in great loss in a severe winter. There is no finer grazing in the world than is found in the Rocky Mountain States and Territories. If the ranches were not overstocked the losses in each year would be very inconsiderable, perhaps not greater than on well-conducted farms. The business is better managed to-day than ever before, and would be very profitable if a fair price could be obtained for the products. It is not the cold weather that kills cattle, but the want of food. We do not feel the cold out there the same as you do in this climate, owing to the dry atmosphere. I have ridden twenty-five miles when the thermometer was twenty-five degrees below zero and did not get out once to get warm. My little boy was wrapped in robes in the foot of my buggy and did not feel the cold.
Ochiltree.—How about the cattle-pirates?
Carey.—Well, as I was going on to say, the other cause of depreciation in the price of cattle is the manner in which the business is conducted in the great cattle-markets. The butcher pays good prices for his beef, and we know the consumer pays high prices for what goes on his table. Ten or fifteen years ago we sent trains of from fifteen to twenty car-loads. When they reached Chicago they were assorted, the fat cattle in one pen, the thin in another. There was a man in the market to purchase each kind of cattle. The Jew and the Gentile and the Irishman were each dealing in his own particular kind of stock. It was a profitable market for every kind of cattle, and there was a ready sale. Then the "Big Four," Armour, Swift, Hammond, and Morris, went into the slaughter-house business, and the first thing the producer knew everybody else was driven out of the purchasing-market. These four men have the control of the beef-product of the United States. They offer to make agreements with the butchers, and if the butchers fail to buy their beef they lower the prices and drive them out of the market and put in their place those who will handle their products exclusively.
Stoddart.—Colonel Johnston, give us some of your earlier experiences.
Johnston.—Those are too long past to be interesting to anybody here except myself.
Stoddart.—Then some of your later, especially as an author of character-sketches.
Johnston.—These are briefly told. Sidney Lanier first drew me to a Northern audience. Having read some of my stories in the Southern Literary Messenger, happy himself in the acceptance of his poem,
