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Before the Hamilton
Gas company found a market for its coal tar refuse, it used to dump the stuff
into the Caroline street gully, and it is there yet, mixed with the rubbish of
nearly sixty years. Less than twenty years ago, a Mr. Butler came from England
and stated a distillery for the conversion of the refuse of the gas works into
a merchantable tar product, and it is now doing a profitable trade. At the
present time, the gas works furnish from six to eight thousand gallons of tar a
month, which is sent to Toronto for distillation. The local gas works has a
still of its own, which is now out of use for want of repairs. When the coke
works are established here, there will be an almost unlimited quantity of coal
tar for distillation. The same condition exists in every town in Canada where
there are gas works. It would certainly seem to the common lay mind that the
chemists of Canada should be able to convert this valuable product into
dyestuffs instead of shipping it to foreign countries to be worked up and then
have to buy the finished product at an advanced price. The same is true of
other waste, such as tin cans, bones, old rubber shoes and tires – everything
has its use and nothing is now wasted. For more than fifty years, the soap
factories in Hamilton sent down through the sewers to the bay the wastage from
the lye used in soap making. Some ingenious chemist discovered a use for this
spent lye and converted it into what is known as crude glycerin. One soap factory
in Hamilton for the past four or five years has been shipping from five to
eight thousand dollars’ worth each year of this crude glycerin to a firm in the
United Staes that uses it in the manufacture of dynamite and other explosive
material. The Hamilton firm has been in business in this city for fifty years
or more, and in that time sent through the sewers into the bay spent lye that
would have paid them at least a quarter million dollars had they known its
value. There is not anything now that goes to waste, not even the cores or
peelings of apples, for science and chemistry has converted them into delicious
jellies and jams of any flavor to suit the taste of the bonvivant.
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The Dominion Tar and
Ammonia company is also profiting by the war in the sale of at least one of its
by-products, creosote oil. Heretofore Germany could ship this product into the
United States for half the price the Hamilton company could afford to produce
it at a profit. The German price was three cents a gallon; the Hamilton price
six cents. Now that the war has put a stop to the importation of oil from
Germany, it has opened a market for the Hamilton product. The Dominion Tar and
Ammonia company has its works in Belin, Ont., where it converts coal tar into
aqua ammonia, disinfectant, moth balls and naphthalene flakes. It also distils
anhydrous ammonia for cold storage and ice freezing machines. The residue of
the coal tar is creosote oil, which is used in shingle and wood stains, and
other purposes, but the demand for the residue was not sufficient to exhaust
the supply, and thousands of gallons went into the sewers of Berlin. With this
new market opened by the war, the Dominion company will have an increased outlet
beyond the demand for the Canadian trade. Creosote is now largely used instead
of maple and other wood chips for smoking hams and other meat products.
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The city of Hamilton
is now a large user of tungsten incandescent lamps for lighting the streets.
This lamp is said to be the most economical one in use for household or street
purposes. A few years ago the Ontario Lamp and Lantern company began the
manufacture of the tungsten lamp, and built a factory on Cannon street east,
occupying almost an entire block. The company employs a large force and pays
good wages to their men and women employees. When the Hydro system came into
operation in this city, the company naturally expected to furnish the lamps,
but the manager could not even get a look-in. Germany and the other German
principalities were able to ship into Hamilton the tungsten lamps at a lower
price than the lower factory could manufacture them and make a living profit.
The girls working in the foreign factories engaged in the manufacture of
tungsten lamps were paidtwenty-seven and one half cents a day, while the girls
employed in the Hamilton factory were making an average of $1.35 a day. Then
the duty on this class of goods is so small that the foreign makers had no
difficulty in overcoming it. The Hamilton Hydro commission bought their lamps
on the foreign market instead of at home, thus creating more unemployment for
the Hamilton men and women. Would it not be part of good business for the city
government to give to a local manufacturing company not only its influence, but
to throw everything in its way that will furnish work for the home industry? In
the case of the tungsten lamps, the money the city pays a foreign company for
them goes to enrich another company and Hamilton only gets the lamps; but if
the city buys the lamps from the local factory, it has both the lamps and the
money. The Ontario Lamp and Lantern company is a large tax payer and every hand
in their employ is in many cases, not only a taxpayer, but every dollar paid
out in wages is spent with the local business men. And this rule might be
profitably observed not only by the corporation but by the citizens generally.
Patronize home first, because it is here you earn your living.
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In the year 1857 –
just fifty-seven years ago – Canada and the United States passed through one of
the worst commercial and manufacturing panics. Hamilton then had an actual
population of not more than 15,000. The compiler of the city directory of 1858
took a more roseate view of the figures and increased the population of about
27,500; it was an editor’s dream. Canada then had a population of less than
4,000,000, and the united States could only muster 30,000,000. So you see this
great American continent was not suffering from a surplusage of population.
Neither Canada nor the United States were oversupplied with mechanical
industries, but jogged along raising food to feed the world and buying the
greater part of their supplies from the old world. It may be interesting to
know that the cloth to make the uniforms of the first soldiers that enlisted in
the northern army at the outbreak of the civil war in the United States had to
be bought in England, and even the bunting of which the stars and stripes was
made had to come from England. When the war broke out, the United States had to
arm its soldiers with the old-fashioned Belgian musket, there not being
factories at home to furnish them. Well, when that panic in 1857 came along,
both countries were not in a condition to stand much of it. Canada got it bad.
The only industries in Hamilton were the Great Western railway shops, three or
four foundries and machine shops, a few planning mills, and some small affairs
that did not furnish much employment to labor. For the next three or four years
things looked blue in Hamilton, and all of the young fellows who could pluck up
courage to leave home and had enough money to pay their fare hiked across the
Detroit and Niagara rivers. Talk about the hard times that prevail now ! They
are not in the same class with those of 1857. Now the people patronize no end
of picture shows twice a week, and subscribe money by the hundreds of thousands
of dollars in the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A. and patriotic and unemployment funds,
and think nothing of it. To meet the men and women in the streets dressed in
the best of comfortable clothing, and especially the handsomely dressed women, one
would never think of putting Hamilton in the hard times list. It was not so
fifty-seven years ago; instead of growling about hard times now, we ought to
feel thankful that it is as well with us as it is. There is sunshine hidden
behind the dark clouds, and it will break through ere long and we will forget
all about the past. It is true that Hamilton industries are running at a close
margin just now and that hundreds of men are idle; yet in some of the factories
they are not only working full time, but are running overtime. When Hamilton
could furnish a job for every man things were prosperous, but when the people
got the craze for a hundred thousand population, when there was not work enough
for those who were here, men across the seas heard of this wondrous city and
country and came flocking in till there were three or four men for every job.
They came, unfortunately, at the wrong time, for in Europe they were getting
ready to loose the dogs of war, and that paralyzed not only Hamilton but the
whole world. And there you are. “When this cruel war is over,” as the boys used
to sing during the dark days of 1861-65, then the sun of prosperity will shine
once more, and the factories of Hamilton will be running day and night to
supply, in a measure, the wastage that is now going on.
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Hamilton has been
enjoying a grand musical treat during this week, the Creatore band and the
local choir of half a thousand or more furnishing the programme. It will be a
pleasant memory for the long winter nights, but we fear that the Patriotic fund
is not going to be enriched by the hoped-for surplus. Thursday evening was
especially enjoyable, for there was a larger audience than on any of the preceding
nights, and both singers and musicians caught the spirit of it. When the first
part of the programme had ended, Lieut. Robinson was escorted on the stage and
Prof. Creatore ceremoniously handed him the baton. It was a compliment from the
younger to the veteran bandmaster. The audience cheered and the choir waved a handkerchief
salute. Then with his usual modesty, the veteran lieutenant waved the baton,
the band played O Canada, and the music of Canada’s national song never sounded
better. At the close of the piece, Prof. Creatore threw his arms around the
neck of the veteran bandmaster, and with his most graceful bow handed him off
the stage. The new marching song of the British army, It’s a Long Way to
Tipperary, was sung by Roy McIntosh, and Mrs. McCoy-Hamilton roused the
audience with Rule Britannia. As the new song is hummed and whistled by
everybody, we give herewith the words that they may learn to sing it.
IT’S A LONG WAY TO
TIPPERARY
Up to mighty London
came an Irishman one day,
As the streets are
paved with gold, sure ev’ryone was gay;
Singing songs of Piccadilly,
Strand and Leicester Square.
Till Paddy got
excited, then he shouted to them there
Chorus :
It’s a long way to
Tipperary,
It’s a long way to
go;
It’s a long way to
Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl
I know;
Goodbye Piccadilly;
Farewell Leicester
Square.
It’s a long way to
Tipperary,
But my heart’s right
there.
Paddy wrote a letter
to his Irish Molly O,
Saying, “Should you
not receive it, write and let me know;
If I make mistakes in
spelling, Molly dear,” said he,
“Remember it’s the
pen that’s bad, don’t lay the blame on me.”
Molly wrote a neat
reply to Irish Paddy O,
Saying “Mike Maloney
wants to marry me, and so
Leave the Strand and
Piccadilly, or you’ll be to blame
For love has fairly
drove me silly
Hoping you’re the
same.
It's a long way to
Tipperary,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to
Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I
know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester
Square!
It's a long long way to
Tipperary,
But my heart's right
there.
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