New York Tribune

A correspondent of The St. Paul Pioneer Press describes the use of gold dust as currency as the greatest nuisance of the Black Hills. Each man is provided with his buckskin sack, and no matter what he buys, be it a plug of tobacco for ten cents, or an outfit for several hundred dollars, he must weigh the amount out in dust. This is a vexatious process, and of course it cannot be often repeated without a considerable percentage of waste. Gold is taken at eighteen dollars in greenbacks, and all shopkeepers give two prices. A movement is on foot to remedy this evil by adding a considerable percentage to the price of goods sold for dust, and many of the more sensible miners are beginning to sell their dust as they bring it in, and do their trading with paper money. Formerly there was much risk in taking gold dust, as it was possible to detect by any test except that of acid, and few could spare the time to submit the dust to that process. Now the dust is comparatively clean and safe to handle.