It
is not creditable to newspaper editors and contributors to ridicule mothers
engaged in reform work because, perchance, they may have wayward husbands or
children. The four bandits arrested near Chicago a few weeks ago for crimes
committed in that city and elsewhere have furnished an opportunity to some
heartless writers to reprove the mother of one of the boys for neglecting his
moral training while she was working with other women to lessen the evils of intemperance
and providing places of retreat for boys and girls who had no homes, or whose
homes were worse than none. When the bandits were arrested the first request
they asked of the officers of the law was to send for their mothers. This was
too much for the caustic writers of the press. The idea that a criminal should
have a mother started their fanciful brains in a train of thought that was very
funny. If these brigands had mothers, no doubt reasoned the writers, why should
they have committed murder and burglary and highway robbery? Why were they not
at Sunday school instead of consorting together in some out of the way place
reading blood and thunder novels and planning crimes? The story as published
was that a mother of one of the criminals was a very earnest Christian woman
who had tried to raise her children in the paths of virtue. Her boy, so far as
history is given, was industrious and had a good character among his
acquaintances. A year or more before his arrest, he fell in with a bad gang and
left his home, as he represented, to seek work elsewhere. The first intimation
his mother had that her boy was a criminal was when the news came of his
arrest. For years she had been associated with other good mothers trying to
save the young, not knowing that her own boy was taking the downward course.
The wits who write for newspapers take
a deal of pleasure in holding up to ridicule the mother-in-law, the women of
education and reading who have advanced ideas as to the duties and
responsibilities of their sex in the affairs of the world, and of the women
connected with temperance work. Take the everyday influence of woman out of
life and every mother’s son would be rushing to the devil by lightning express.
Did these funny fellows never have a mother or sister or a wife that they can
dig up so much humor out of what they denominate the foibles and follies of
women? It is a good woman’s fault that she is afflicted with a worthless
husband, or a willful son or daughter? No wonder that she is interested in every
movement that will tend to close up the drinking saloons, the gambling houses
and the brothels that are an ever-present snare to their loved ones. Alone she
cannot accomplish much, but by association with other good women, all working
together towards the desired end, she has at best the hope that although the
road to reform and purity may be a long one, strewn with its thousands of
victims, there may yet be light at last and the glad day dawn when these
temptations will be removed out of the way of the husbands and sons of future
mothers. Go to, you newspaper wits and expend your humor on something else
besides mothers and wives and sisters.
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God bless the good women of Hamilton
for their efforts to make the world better. It would be a sorry old place were
the women to be as careless and neglectful of the suffering of humanity as are
the men. But we are not going to berate the men, for the old boys are generally
willing to furnish the funds and leave the matter of distribution to their
wives and daughters. In reading the list of benevolent organizations in the
city directory you will find only the names of a few of them, for the greater
part of the work is carried on without any fuss and feathers by women who give
freely of their time and money to care for the unfortunate. Homes for the boys
and girls and for aged women are all the outcome of the work of women who stand
between the unfortunate and the outside world; and even Father Geoghegan’s
infirmary is backed by the women, although there be a few men for ornament in
the directory. If Ald. Domville could only get the council to appoint a
committee of women to work with him in his efforts to build a hospital for
incurables, it would not be long before the material would be on the ground and
the cheery shouts of bricklayers for “mort” and the sound of the carpenter’s
hammer heard down on the bay front, and by the return of summer, the hospital
would be completed and the incurables be praying for blessings on the good old
alderman and the women who helped him. Because the women are not in it is the
reason Ald. Domville has to struggle and fight single-handed and alone. Half a
dozen good women would make short work in raising the balance of the funds
necessary to erect the hospital.
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So it is to the churches. Take the
women out and the minsters would preach to empty pews and the prayer meetings
would be relegated to innocuous desuetude. Women are not the patrons of saloons,
gambling dens, pool rooms and the bucket shops, nor do they fool away their
hard-earned money on the ponies. Here and there, probably one in a thousand,
may get down from the high estate of womanhood and be guilty of such things,
but they are few; and we are proud of our Canadian mothers, wives and sisters
because of their lives and deeds of kindness. The newspaper wits who wrote
about the mothers of the Chicago bandits, and spoke slightingly of the
murderers because they asked for their mothers when they were in the hands of
the law, should remember that no matter how great the crime, the criminals were
their sons. The loving heart of the mother more tenderly yearns over the black sheep
in the flock, and she would gladly give her life to save the erring one.
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In these days of push and activity, there is
a hustle to get rich even with people who know how to toil and who are willing
to work sixteen and eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, if by that means
they can reach the desired end. Half a century ago, a man was considered to be
on Easy street if he had but a thousand a year, and it is a question if he did
not enjoy the comforts of life better than men do now who can add a few ciphers
to the $1,000. It is human to be progressive, and if by the honest means one
can increase his capital and his income, he is to be commended for making the
effort. There is no necessity why one should eat potatoes and herrings for
breakfast when by a little effort he can change the menu to quail on toast. It
is astonishing how quickly the appetite changes and demands rarer dishes as the
income increases. Of course, there is the danger of dyspepsia, when you may
have to diet, as does John D. Rockefeller, on crackers and milk and on Force.
If John had not fattened his bank account on coal oil, he might today be able
to enjoy a slice of the cold turkey that was left over from yesterday’s
Christmas dinner. But the dollars are mighty and will prevail, and this leads
up to another side of the question.
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The boys from the farms are students of
current history, and when they read of the fortunes to be made in the city,
like old Uncle Neal, they “throw down the shovel and the hoe,” and strike out
for the newer and richer pastures. The boys tires of the farm because in the
country everything is calm and peaceful, and there is nothing to stir up his
blood or call forth his mental energies. It is the same round of work day after
day, and after the chores are done, when the sun goes down, he feels too tired
to think. This, however, is a forced condition to farm life, and things have
changed wonderfully in later years. There is no earthly reason why a farmer
should work himself and his family of boys and girls and the hired hands from
sunup to sundown. Life is too short to spend it with one’s nose to grindstone
during the waking hours. It is this condition that drives the boy from the
country to the city. In the city he has regular hours to begin and end work,
and when the evening comes, there are social and intellectual diversions which
he can enjoy. He is not subject to any greater temptations in the city than in
the country, for if his mind runs to poker and high balls and beer seems he can
find opportunity even though he were surrounded by the malarial waters of the
Dundas marsh.
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Many who own broad acres toil that they leave
as a heritage to their sons the farms they have changed from forests into rich
and productive soil. Their aim being accomplished, they are beginning to give
some thought to the future of the boys and girls. They see the spirit of unrest
and the desire of the young to change from the farm to the counting room or the
workshop, and when they candidly look at the matter, they can hardly blame the
young people. Out in Illinois, the majority of the boys have been leaving the
farm and crowding into the cities. One large land owner who had been giving
serious thought to the future has in a measure solved the problem. In each
school district the teacher has been appointed as a sort of general head to
plan for the new order of things. Social meetings are held in the farm houses
and in the school houses, to which all of the young people are invited. Interesting
programs are prepared, reading circles are formed, and all who have talent in
music and in elocution, or in any line, are pressed into service. A new life
has opened to the young people and they are beginning to feel that farm life is
not such a lonely existence after all. The young men are organizing string and
brass bands and glee clubs, and the wonder is why they did not think of this
long ago. The postal service sends out its carriers on the rural routes and
every farm house gets its morning daily paper from the larger cities and
letters and packages. In sections where radial electric roads run, the farmer
and his family can get into town to church and concerts and the theatre and get
back home before midnight, just as though they had only to go a block or two.
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This is a pointer for our Canadian
farmers. They are growling because the boys leave home and move into the
cities, and are clamorous for the government to bring out farm hands from the
old country to till the soil. Better get the government to open out the rural
mail routes to bring the farm and the city into closer touch. Better encourage
radial electric roads in every township so that the boys and girls can get to
town without wading through mud in summer and snow drifts in winter. These are
advantages that will increase the value of farms and make the young people more
contented. There is no life so independent as that of a farmer, and with the
improvements in farm machinery and
implements, it is no longer the slavish life that it was even a quarter of a
century ago.
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Captain Masson, one of the old-time
lake captains who lived in Hamilton, was the first to establish regular
steamboat connections between this city and the Niagara river. Prior to 1848-9,
passengers from Hamilton and this section of country who wanted to get into the
United States at the Niagara river were compelled to make the journey by stage
coach; and as the roads were pretty bad, especially in muddy seasons, it was
quite a hardship to businessmen and travelers. An American company placed the
steamer Rochester on the route from Hamilton to Lewiston, calling at Port
Dalhousie and Niagara. The Rochester was an old boat even then, and it took
from four to five hours to make the trip one way, leaving Hamilton at seven o’clock
in the morning and getting back home from the return trip about seven in the
evening. Captain Masson was one of the most careful commanders, and even though
the boat was not considered safe, especially in stormy weather, the travelling
public had so much confidence in the genial captain that it never had any doubt
about making the trip. There was an old law on the statute books regulating
ports, and some jealous person called the attention of the attorney-general to
the law. As the Rochester was a foreign-owned vessel, the strict application of
this law would have compelled her withdrawal from the route, but Hamilton
business men took the matter before the law officers of the crown and had it
modified so as to permit the running of the boat. As there was no British or
Canadian steamer willing to take the route, it would have been of great
hardship to the business men of Hamilton, as it was the only means, except by
land, to get merchandise from the American borders. A few years ago, the old
Rochester boat was doing business as a pleasure boat sailing around points at
Charlotte, near the city of Rochester, N.Y., and it looked as youthful then as
it did more than a half century ago, when Captain Masson trod its decks. When
the new steamers, the Canada and the America, were put on the route from
Hamilton, Captain Masson was appointed to the command of one of the vessels and
Captain Willoughby the other. The boats were too large and expensive for the
lake trade, and when the civil war began in the United States in 1861, the
owners were only too glad to sell them to the government to be used as
transports in American waters. Captain Masson went with his boat and entered
the naval service, continuing in it until the close of the war, after which he
was appointed to a prominent place in the lighthouse service on the southern
sea coast, in which he continued until his death, which occurred only a few
years ago. Captain Masson was married to a daughter of John Winer, the
wholesale druggist, who started the business in Hamilton that now bears his
name.
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