Saturday 10 November 2012

1903-12-26



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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