A YEAR'S PROGRESS IN THE KLONDIKE. 459 



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, with- 

 out meals — but the character of these rooms has materially im- 

 proved, 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 improve- 

 ments, 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 con- 

 struction, it is claimed, of only two weeks. Its season's repertoire 

 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 con- 

 sideration of educational matters, and what little of school train- 

 ing is imparted to the youth of tender years comes largely in the 

 shape of a beneficence from private hands. If the issuance o"!; 

 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 T^eVvs) and a Sunday paper (The 

 (ileaner), while the pioneer Nugget has been converted into a semi- 



