C.H. DICKIE: OUT OF THE PAST (Part 2)
by An M.P.
The author of this enjoyable memoir, Charles Herbert Dickie, obviously had as much fund recounting his colourful adventures as he'd had living them. (Family photo)
As I noted last week, you’re not likely to find Charles Herbert Dickie’s memoir, Out of the Past, “by an M.P.,” in a used book store—or even online.
Dedicated to the memory of carefree friends, it’s small (128 pages) and just 20,000 words in length.
But make no mistake: It’s a great read and of particular interest to students of Cowichan Valley and British Columbia mining history.
A member of the British Columbia Provincial Legislature for a single term, then a Member of Parliament for Nanaimo for 14 years, Dickie’s background as a sheriff in Michigan, as a fireman with the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, as a saloonkeeper in Duncan, as the principal owner of the Richard III copper mine on Mount Sicker, and as a fortune hunter in the Stewart River wilds of northern B.C., is a fascinating story.
After finding himself penniless in California and forced to take on odd jobs just to get by, he made his way to Victoria, B.C., the province which would be his home for the rest of his life
This is where we resume Out of the Past in this second instalment of Charles Dickie’s rollicking life story...
CHAPTER III
“I am of all sects but blindly sworn to none for as the tempest drives I shape my way.”
I arrived in the charming little city of Victoria, Vancouver Island, one lovely July day in 1885. A band was playing, but not for me. After a minor business transaction with a pawnbroker I ate and then proceeded to look the town over. I was favourably impressed, but decided not to buy it just then. If I would eat I must work, and nothing better offering, I engaged in uplift work, lifting heavy slabs and timbers in a sawmill. I had only to work eleven hours a day; the rest of the time I had for relaxation. The mill boarding house was the worst eating house in the world.
The manager, who was also chef, was named Salt, but we called him other names. As a cook he was certainly not the “salt of the earth” but rather of the “earth earthy”.
The stable was just across the alleyway from the dining room door, so the fleas had not far to come and go. My seat was alongside a big Kanaka, not a bad fellow, who afterwards murdered his wife, named Lucy. When he courteously passed me the bread I remarked that I did not care for currant loaf, to which he replied, “Partner, them’s not currants, them’s flies.”
There were flies in the soup, in the tea, flies to the right of us, flies to the left of us, flies everywhere.
Not being insectivorous, I did not seem to thrive on the cuisine, so I deemed it advisable to resign my position, notwithstanding which fact the mill still continued to run, eleven hours a day. Many years have flown since those days, but I still feel tired when I recall them.
The Canadian Pacific Railway had reached the coast and Victoria was thronged with discharged Chinese coolies who would work for a mere pittance, so although the city itself was delightful and most interesting to a person favoured with plenty of the metallic jingle, it was not an Eldorado for those who had to eat bread by the sweat of their brow. Business houses took down their shutters shortly before noon, and offices opened a little later and at one o’clock everybody went to lunch, and perhaps fishing, or to cricket after lunch, and in the evening, or later, prominent citizens who had the entree, foregathered at the Old Union Club for relaxation, and perhaps later or earlier some few would “take in the town” and then take down their shutters, open their offices, and another day was on.
Canadians [he means those who were from eastern Canada as, in his case, Ontario—ed.] were frequently termed North American Chinamen, the reason being that they in many cases having Scotch ancestors, and coming from a country where money was hard to get, were a little more careful with their capital than were the Westerners, who by mining, trapping, sealing or other adventurous pursuits, at times made money fast and spent it recklessly.
C.H. Dickie's two stints with the E&N Railway, as a fireman and as a conductor, are a story in themselves--perhaps the origin of the expression, "A funny way to run a railroad!"
Also there were many remittance men who knew not the value of money, and having had to struggle for it. These sent home for money—the Canadian sent money home—for a time—a la Chinamen [sic], hence the epithet.
The Canadian had yet to learn the typical western way of throwing his money across the bars or depositing it in the little thread banks of various performers.
Hope sprang eternal in the heart of the old westerner and he always knew, or thought he knew, where he was going to make a big stake. If not, there was always the Old Men’s Home, so he distributed his largess with abandon, for was not British Columbia a land of opportunity?
At times the saloon lined streets of Victoria would be thronged with miners, sealers, smugglers, fishermen and blue-jackets [sailors] with Indians and Chinamen everywhere.
Smuggling Chinese and opium across the United States line was a highly adventurous and lucrative business and was considered almost respectable.
Fifty dollars—in advance—was the toll exacted for landing Chinamen in the United States and many—very many—unfortunate oriental neither reached those shores nor returned to the point of departure for the smugglers were unscrupulous desperate characters and when chased by revenue cutters thought nothing of jettisoning cargo, so ‘twas said and believed.
When the sealing fleet arrived and its crews started out to “paint the town,” Victoria was “some town”. Kipling could have heard tales that would have made his “Rhyme of the Three Sealers” seem a nursery ballad. Quiet well-dressed, soft-spoken individuals who conversed from the corners of their mouths “the mildest mannered of men who ever scuttled ship or cut a throat” were also well in evidence, for Victoria was, practically speaking, a “wide open town” and gamblers, as well as the “deadlier of the species,” were always on the job. Strange to say, there were but few major crimes, a tribute to the efficient fearless administration of British Justice.
One evening in the bar-room of the Driard Hotel, noted up and down the coast for the excellence of its cuisine and its liquors, two gentlemen started shaking dice for $10.00 a throw; later on they raised the limit to $1000.00 a throw with one dice, a somewhat substantial game even in those gambling days. At one o’clock in the morning Captain John Irving, one of the contestants, was over $100,000.00 loser, then his luck took a favourable turn and when the game terminated in the cold grey dawn his opponent, Alex Dunsmuir, was, if my memory serves me correctly, only $1,000.00 ahead. Both of the gentlemen in question made and spent large fortunes and lived to regret having done so, but they were of the west in the reckless, old western days of western ways. (Alex Dunsmuir died, middle-aged, of acute alcoholism.—Ed.)
The regularity and frequency with which gold coins slid across the numerous bars of Victoria was a revelation to newcomers from the East where money was as scarce and as sedulously sought for as was evidenced by a tale that was told me—preparatory to striking me for a loan—by a profane old man, who, in a minor key, related that one day “back East” a number of idlers and himself were skipping stones across the water of a pond when a convivial stranger sent a fifty cent piece skimming across to the deepest part, where it disappeared. This notable event, he lied, happened in the springtime and the population was diving for the coin until the ice formed and he again lied when he said he returned from California after an absence of ten years, and men with whiskers, men who spoke “the gaelic” were still diving for the fifty cent piece.
If living to eat or eating to live were the only desideratum, life on Vancouver Island could have been an indolent dream for when the tide receded the table was spread.
(Editor’s Note: Charles Dickie was a man of his times with all of the biases of that era towards races other than his own. There’s simply no way I can massage his low opinion of First Nations people as he expressed it here in a single paragraph, so I’ve erased it altogether.—TWP)
My next important position was “railroading”—a new departure—with the exception of a brief period as a telegraph operator earlier in my mediocre career.
After giving the matter much thought and it being “Hobson’s choice,” I decided to start right at the foot of the ladder and learn the business, as it were, from the ground up in order that in future when I became President of or Owner of Railways, I would have a full grasp of all details.
I had always a horror of going to bed when anything was stirring, so the night work did not worry me, besides I usually had company—the engine house being alongside a rancherie [the Songhees Reserve] and the loco [sic] being a source of wonder to the aboriginals, they used to drop in and linger long...
When I had my iron horse cleaned and bedded down, which was usually shortly after midnight, I would gently settle down in the cab with an alarm clock at my ear and with the satisfying thought of something accomplished, something done, I would slumber until such time as it was necessary for me to get steam up for the day’s operations.
One morning the clock did not do its duty and when the contractor with about sixty workingmen arrived at the roundhouse, I was still in the arms of Morpheus and the engine was cold.
I awoke, flustered and apologetic, and informed the contractor that I was quite ready to start toward any point of the compass which he might designate. Pardon being accorded me I never after slept during office hours.
In due course I was promoted to the position of fireman, a job that was a little more exciting, and as I only had to handle fifteen or twenty cords of wood daily which recreation, requiring no mental effort, gave one ample time for meditation—time to myself so to speak.
The engineer was an important fellow by virtue of a position which was to him an exalted one and his chief pleasure or satisfaction seemed derived from criticism of his fireman’s well-meant efforts prompted in part by dislike for my unworthy self for not being sufficiently awed by his pre-eminence.
One morning that gentleman became unbearable and after I had pulled him off his seat, with the information that I was going to put him in the fire box and having closed the throttle, the train slowed down, I climbed from the cab and walked fourteen miles to Headquarters and was again out of a job.
At about this time trouble arose in Vancouver, a mob having driven the Chinese from that city. The Vancouver authorities not taking action, the Government at Victoria, the Capital city of the Province, despatched a force of forty policemen, under the command of Captain Fitzstubbs, to take over the policing of the city.
I, being jobless and “flying light” was one of the force in question, although my sympathies were with those who had driven out the orientals, but I was always partial to regular meals and being almost a stranger to the country I could not resist the $4.00 per day—and knowing that if I did not go someone else would—I went.
It had been freely asserted that we would not be permitted to land at the city in question, as feeling ran high. Before we reached Vancouver we were marshalled to the lower deck of the steamer and big .44’s were served out to us. Captain Fitzstubbs in a short crisp address informed us that if we met with a hostile reception, we were to ignore the attitude and actions of the crowd, but if worse than he expected happened and he gave us orders to use our weapons we should use them effectively.
At this stage an elderly amateur minion of the law by my side collapsed and was carried to the rear—our first and only casualty.
I succeeded in maintaining my equilibrium but the tenor of the Captain’s remarks impressed me. As we neared the wharf we saw a large crowd awaiting our arrival. Before and after disembarking we met with no physical opposition. Insulting epithets were hurled at us and at one time I would have welcomed orders to unloose our .44s, perhaps induced by a sense of humiliation on my part, as I was not at all satisfied with myself.
We marched through the crowd and through the principal streets to quarters that had been provided for us and the next morning we took over the policing of the city.
A man named Green and myself were assigned to a beat on Granville Street. Green was a big powerful fellow who was anxious to distinguish himself, always looking for trouble. I, on the contrary, was anxious, if I may use the word, to extinguish myself. All I wanted was my four per day and relations became strained between my partner and I.
Green afterwards went North with a posse to capture Kitwancool Jim, an Indian desperado, whom he shot to death and for which he was afterwards severely censured by Judge Begbie and narrowly escaped imprisonment for being “too quick on the trigger”—be that it may, he did his work thoroughly.
Our entire force was one day marched out toward New Westminster where a large number of Chinamen [sic] were met and escorted through the city and to what was known as the Brighouse Estate [situated in] a thickly populated part of Vancouver, where they were to be employed clearing land.
The Victoria of the 1880s, when a penniless Dickie arrived from California, was a wide-open frontier town with its laid-back approach to business, wild spending characters, saloons and red light district.
We anticipated trouble during our march but we were not molested.
It would have taken little to have fanned the smouldering embers of hate into flames—sensible citizens, however, realized that the law would be rigidly enforced. Also, consideration was given to the fact that the majority of our force had the appearance of men who could not be trifled with.
When the situation had calmed down, I asked for leave to return to Victoria, which leave was granted and shortly afterwards I was employed as [a] brakeman on the Island railway and in time became baggageman and spare conductor. The wage of a baggageman was $60.00 per month—meals cost 50c and I had to pay 50c for a room each night at Nanaimo and I did not appear to be laying by a competence for my old age.
While on my run I used to buy game and farm produce, which I would sell at Victoria and in this and other ways I managed to eke out an existence.
In talking with the Superintendent one day I asked him how many years I would have to work for his Company before my wages would be raised to a figure that would balance my budget as to living and other expenses. That gentleman being unable to answer to my satisfaction I concluded that railroading was not my forte, so I handed in my cap.
The operation and management of the railway on which I had been employed was somewhat unique. I had known the engineer on the regular passenger train shoot grouse from the cab window, then stop the train and have his fireman retrieve the game. One day when I was acting as conductor an elderly lady asked if we could not run a little faster as her daughter was very ill and wished to get to Nanaimo as soon as was possible.
I thought I understood, so I climbed over the tender and asked the engineer to pat his courser on the back, as there was no train ahead and trouble imminent in the rear coach.
In defiance of all rules we ran into Nanaimo fifteen minutes ahead of time and ten minutes after we arrived another male citizen was added to the population—a close call as the two ladies comprised my entire female passenger list. I have sometimes wondered if I had not disregarded the rules how I, an unsophisticated young man, would have survived the ordeal.
Our conductors receiving the princely salary of $100 per month were opulent gentlemen, who wore large diamonds and spent money freely, but notwithstanding the atmosphere of prosperity they disseminated and the substantial volume of business as evidenced by the passenger traffic, that branch of the railway activities were not profitable to the railway company.
Our passengers preferred dealing with the conductors on a cash—or sometimes credit basis—rather than by purchasing tickets at the office. Those who boarded the train with tickets were not as effusively received as were cash customers who were privileged to call them by their first names.
At several stations en route the train would tarry while passengers and trainmen would saunter to the bar of an adjacent hotel and partake of liquid invigoratives and as long as the drinks came freely the train tarried—time, or being on time, not essential in those convivial days.
Nanaimo, the northern objective of the train was a town of careless ways where gambling in the open and all that went with it were unhampered, unrestricted.
In the late 80’s two gamblers, Cobb and Ingram “blew into Nanaimo. Ingram had artistic ability to which he gave rein by marking the backs of playing cards to enable the initiated to make games profitable.
Ingram landed a job as bartender in the mining town of Wellington some few miles from Nanaimo, and the rest was easy, for his cards were substituted for those in general use. Payday came and with it came Cobb who made a “clean up” in a big “Black Jack” game.
Ingram behind the bar had a satisfied smile until along towards morning he missed Cobb, whose peculiar curves he well knew, so he at once hied into Nanaimo and locating Cobb asked [for] his share of the winnings and when he was handed only $50.00 he never “batted an eyelash” but suggested a drink which lead to many more and then Cobb, full to the “Plimsol mark,” lay down on a bench in the old Nanaimo Hotel and slept the sleep of the unjust. Ingram pulled up a bench alongside and also laid down, but not to sleep and when he arose he was $400.00 wealthier than before, and then a flash went through his distorted brain that he was not playing fair and that honesty was the best policy, and he tiptoed back and reinserted $1.00 for Cobb to breakfast on, then sauntered forth into the glorious dawn.
Some unsophisticated person once asserted that there was “honour among law evaders;” comradeship, perhaps, but honour, hardly or seldom, for Cobb and Ingram remained inseparable partners.
Should luck be coming the way of the conductors or others of the train crew, the train would leave late as it was not considered good ethics for a player to leave the table while he was winning and the train was but a secondary consideration.
The train men took turns in sleeping during our mad rush, at sometimes a speed of 18 miles per hour for Victoria.
The southern end of Vancouver Island was in those days a sportsman’s paradise. The forest covered mountains abounded with game; the lakes and streams teemed with sporting fishes. The beaches were matted with delicious bivalves, the lagoons with crustacean delicacies, and we had to spoil it all in our reckless haste for population.
(To be Continued)
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