When
editors, who live on the fat of the land – terrapin, soft-shelled crabs and the
like delicacies, being as common on their daily menu as potatoes and pickled
pork on the table of the humble toiler who works for fifteen or eighteen cents
an hour in these piping times of prosperity, in making concrete walks or
digging sewers – get short on political topics on which to write, they take up
economic questions. As it is the easiest thing in the world to figure out how
cheaply a family can live and what luxuries they can enjoy on the munificent
sum of $10 a week, it is a pleasure to the brainy editor to sharpen up his
pencil, square himself before a desk and go at it as it becomes a man who has
just risen from a dinner prepared by a chef graduated from the School of
Domestic Science. As the smoke gracefully curls from one of Tuckett’s
Marguerites, he feels at peace with the world, and in that contented frame of
mind is equal to discussing the last budget of the finance minister of Canada
or to tell poor people how to live and save money on a dollar a day. The editor
is not only one to give good advice along the economic line. Pick up any of the
magazines or weekly papers devoted to the elevation of women, and there you
will find pages on how to fully clothe and educate a family in which there is
half a dozen healthy kids, always ready for three meals during their waking
hours and a piece of bread and butter should they wake up during the silent
watches of the night. The charming young ladies who write for the magazines
have no idea how to cook a meal, yet they will learnedly discuss all the ins
and outs of the culinary department, and tell how much it should cost for the
weekly family expenses.
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A few days ago a number of women got
together, when the topic was started of
keeping a family of five on $10 a week, and they figured the following out :
Rent
………….….. $2.50
Table expenses …..$4.00
Clothing ………… $1.50
Fuel ………………. $1.00
This left one dollar for car fare,
contributions to the church, and odd trips for mother and children during the
summer months. There was nothing for doctor bills or sickness, just simply $10
a week for actual and necessary expenses. This amounts to $520 a year. How many
men are there in Hamilton today, including all classes of wage-earners, who
average $500 year in and year out? It was the easiest thing in the world for
the good women to figure how cheaply it might be done, yet not one of them
would dream of being limited to $10 a week to provide for a family of five.
They had all passed through that economic stage, and are now enjoying the
luxuries that only come to the large majority when they are treading the downhill
journey of life. In our youthful days, when we had the capacity and appetite
for a good dinner, we had not always the dinner to enjoy. And the same is true
of all the pleasures of life. Probably a wise Providence has so ordained it, on
the principle that in later years there should be some recompense for the zests
of youth that are gone forever. Burns tells the whole story in his rhyming
grace :
“Some
has meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we has meat and we can eat –
And
sae Lord be thankful.”
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There may have been a time in Hamilton when a
family of five might live on $10 a week in comfort, though without many of the
little luxuries, but that day has passed. Everything as well as labor has
advanced during the past two years, and the near future does not give any
promise of any reduction in the cost of living. Take the table of weekly
expenses given above, and it would be a difficult matter to cut short any of
the figures. Carroll D. Wright, Unites States commissioner of labor, has been
figuring on what it cost to keep a family of five, and here is his estimate for
the year 1903, which is an increase of 11 per cent over the cost in 1902, the
total being $1,569.71.
The facts are that one-half of the world has
no idea of how the other scratches through the year. The average earnings in
Hamilton among skilled mechanics are under $600 a year, even though the work
may be pretty steady; and, when a family of four or five, and sometimes more,
have to be fed, clothed and educated, it makes close work to end the year
without a deficit. The responsibility staring the father of a family in the
face makes him dread labor troubles, and this is probably the reason why so
many are classed as non-union men. The young fellows who have no one to care
for but themselves are generally the ones to vote in favor of strikes, for if
they are out of work, the weekly stipend from the union will pay their board.
It becomes a serious question nowadays for a young man to consider the
responsibility of married life, and this may account in some measure for the
large number of bachelors, and unmarried young women who would brighten homes
and make life worth living to the poor fellows who are trying to play the game
of life alone. Ten dollars a week may do for two people to get along on
comfortably, but when the babies begin to clamor for bread, it is another
thing.
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A copy of the York (now Toronto) Gazette,
Saturday, October 24, 1812, printed by John Cameron, “Printer to the King’s
Most Excellent Majestie,” has been handed us by a friend. It is a four page
sheet, 8 x 12 inches to the page, and three columns to the page. It was
published at $4 per annum, and had been published for 22 years. The latest
intelligence was its foreign news, dated over two months before it reached the
readers, and among other matters in the paper were proclamations by Roger Hale
Sheafe, who had been appointed president and administrator of the government of
Upper Canada. One column is given to an outline of the military funeral at Fort
George on October 16, 1812, of General Brock and his aide-de-camp, Lieut.-Col
Macdonald. The Gazette had no editorials and no items of local character, being
devoted only to foreign news and official proclamations. On the 6th
day of July, 1812, General Brock as president administering the government of
the province of Upper Canada, issued his proclamation setting forth that on
“the seventh day of June last, the congress of the United States declared that
war then existed between those states and their territories and the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the dependencies thereof and requiring
all officers, civil and military, to be vigilant in the discharge of their
duty, especially to prevent all communication with the enemy, to be apprehended
and treated according to law.” Within three months after issuing the
proclamation the brave Brock fell while leading his army against the invaders.
The government even in that early day deemed it necessary to aid the industries
of the province of Upper Canada, one of which was the cultivation of hemp,
under an act for granting a certain sum of money for the encouragement of the
growth and cultivation of hemp within this province.” Commissioners were
appointed to see that the money appropriated was spent in promoting the hemp
industry.
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Only two advertisements had place in the
paper. John Strachan, afterwards the distinguished Bishop of the Church of
England in Canada, was the teacher of a private seminary. His advertisement
read as follows :
“The subscriber having been nominated teacher
of the school of the Home District, informs the public that his seminary is now
open for the reception of pupils. Rate of tuition appointed by the trustees,
Halifax currency; common education 6 pounds per annum; classical 8 pounds do.
Anxious to extend the advantages of his school, the subscriber will even abate
somewhat of the above rates to the poorer inhabitants, provided they keep their
children neat and clean, and supply them with proper schools. N. B. Scholars
from other districts are charged 10 pounds per annum.”
JOHN
STRACHAN
The other advertisement was of lands for sale
in the province of Canada, belonging to John Gray, Esq., of Lower Canada. Three
hundred acres of the land were in the third, sixth and seventh concessions of
the township of Saltfleet.
Among the first criminal trials on the court
records in the district, when court was held in the log courthouse of which
mention was made in these Musings a couple of weeks ago, two cases are worthy
of special note. One man committed manslaughter, of which he was convicted. As
there were some extenuating circumstances connected with the crime, the judges
assessed a fine of five shillings, which the friends of the prisoner promptly
paid, and he was set at liberty. The other criminal was tried for the grave
offense of sheep stealing, and after solemn trial was found guilty. For his
crime, the code affected the penalty of death, and the judge so pronounced, “And
may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” However, the records further show that
the sheep stealer was pardoned and did not suffer on the scaffold for
purloining his neighbor’s mutton. The punishment laid down for the two crimes
was so ridiculous that the sheep stealing was soon after expurgated from the
list of capital punishments.
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Looking backward in history for 60 years, we
find that Dundas was an important manufacturing town, even though it had only a
population of about 5700. A description written in 1844 might be of interest
now, of which we give some of the main points. Dundas is described as a
manufacturing village in the township of Flamborough West, five miles from
Hamilton, and situated at the western extremity of the valley which borders the
southwestern portion of Lake Ontario. An extensive marsh reaches from the
village to Burlington Bay. A canal, five miles in length called the Desjardins
canal, after a Frenchman who first commenced the work, has been cut to connect
the village with the bay, through which all articles manufactured in the place
and farming produce can be sent to Lake Ontario. Dundas is surrounded on three
sides by high table land, commonly called the mountain, from whence large
quantities of freestone and limestone were obtained, much of which was sent to
Toronto and other places on Lake Ontario.” Through the influence of the
extensive water power, the village has been gradually rising into prosperity
during the last fifteen or twenty years.”
Sixty years ago, Dundas had six churches,
which was certainly a fair proportion for
a population of 1,700. There was the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Catholic,
Baptist, Methodist, and one free to all denominations. The fire department
comprised a hook and ladder truck and one engine. It was well supplied with
taverns, there being six in the village, of which Bamberger’s was the principal
one.
Dundas was a thriving manufacturing village
long before Hamilton took a stand in that direction, and today it has two or
three establishments that furnish the principal part of the inhabitants with
work. It may be interesting to know what were the leading industries sixty
years ago. There were two grist mills, one with five run of stones, and one
oatmeal mill; one factory for making furniture, edge tools, pumps and turnery
ware; one carding machine, frilling mill and cloth factory; two foundries for
making steam engines and all kinds of machinery, one of which employed 100
hands; one burr millstone factory, one planning machine, one axe factory, one
comb factory, one soap and candle factory, one tannery. This was quite a
showing of manufacturing industries for a small village. Three doctors and two
lawyers looked after the health and estates of the villagers, and three breweries
furnished all the drinkables necessary, so that they had no particular
necessity of a water system except to put out fires and to take an occasional
bath. It must have been a thriving business place, for there were nine stores,
one druggist and bookseller, two saddlers, three bakers, two watchmakers, four
butchers, six blacksmiths, two wagon makers, one hatter, six groceries, six
shoemakers, one hatter, six groceries, two chair makers, four painters and the
Bank of British North America had an agency. Four schools took care of the
education of the infantile Dundasers.
The principal articles exported from Dundas
in 1845 were 62,153 barrels of flour, 93 barrels of biscuits, 90 barrels of
oatmeal, 1,100 barrels of whiskey, 115 barrels of pork, 238,289 stoves and 785
tons of freestone.
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