It was estimated that when the flour sack's mission was ended it had been
sold for a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
greenbacks! This is probably the only instance on record where common
family flour brought three thousand dollars a pound in the public market.
It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that the expenses of his
sanitary flour sack expedition of fifteen thousand miles, going and
returning, were paid in large part if not entirely, out of his own
pocket. The time he gave to it was not less than three months.
Mr. Gridley was a soldier in the Mexican war and a pioneer Californian.
He died at Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly regretted.
CHAPTER XLVI.
There were nabobs in those days--in the "flush times," I mean. Every
rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several of
these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a general thing, and
the community at large was as much benefited by their riches as they were
themselves--possibly more, in some cases.
Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a man and had to take a
small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 cash. They
gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. But
not long. Ten months afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each
owner $8,000 to $10,000 a month--say $100,000 a year.
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