From
now till the summer suns come again, Hamilton horses will walk and stand on
slippery places. The inventors of asphalt pavements certainly did not take into
consideration the danger to horses, and even to pedestrians, that beset them.
It is bad enough during the street-watering with
the danger to horses from slipping on slimy, wet pavements, but how much worse
is it in the fall when the pavement is almost constantly wet or icy? Even
well-shod horses are as much in danger as are the smooth-shod. There is no
question but that an asphalt pavement always looks well, but that is all there
is to it. It is no more serviceable than the old-fashioned tar macadam roadways
that were in Hamilton fifteen and twenty years ago, and costs twice as much to
make and keep in repair. Then the tar macadam road has the advantage of
furnishing a sure foothold for the horses. Some years ago, when the writer was
in London, England, the asphalt pavements on the principal streets were being
replaced by block pavements because of the danger to horses; and here we might
also state that never did we see a watering cart on the streets in daytime; the
streets were swept and flushed during the night and in the daytime an army of
boys was employed with brushes and dust pans to gather the horse droppings. As
a result the streets of London were proverbial for their cleanliness and safety
for horses travelling them. Here in the streets of Hamilton, it is no uncommon
thing for horses to slip and fall down, even in dry weather. Then, how much
more the danger when the pavements are wet, or icy ?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a matter of economy, then, and
comfort for the poor horses, Hamilton should get back to the days of tar
macadam.
(At this point the original of the
Hamilton Spectator had a rip which left the microfilm copy of this article
incomplete – I will try to summarize what I can determine before returning to
the Old Muser’s own words)
Muser
notes that “according to recent estimates … asphalt is an expensive luxury for
road-making” Muser question conditions on Catharine street where residents are
still paying sewer rates for privilege of connecting with one of the first north-south
sewer lines laid in the city, and Muser notes Catharine street is fashionable
in certain parts of it but it has never been a major street. John street was a
“neglected street” which “back in the days” was “prominent” Muser claims that
“wire-pulling” determined which street got asphalt. John street got some
asphalt, Catharine nothing. Muser then reminisces about competition between
James and John street for improvement back in 1840s)
(in old days, ca 1840s) John street had
the advantage as far as location was concerned, being the main street leading
from the mountain top, and the farmers had to use the John street road to get
into town. Then it had another advantage in the way of business, especially in
taverns, fo nearly every other house sold booze. James street, however,
triumphed and Robert Laurie, the street inspector, was instructed to macadamize
James street. There was great rejoicing for the James streetives (Ibid) over
their victory, and a corresponding depression on John street. Early next
morning, Paola Brown visited John street with a blanketful of grass seed
suspended from his neck, and went up and down the street ringing his bell and
scattering the seed along the highway. Everybody was alarmed, and asked Paola
what he was seeding the street for. “The town has no more use for John street
as a roadway and I am seeding it down to grass to graze the cows.” For more
than half a century, John street was neglected till recently, and now they have
it asphalted part of the way. The town
cows had a good thing of it at the old haymarket, even though the seed that
Paola sowed never yielded a crop of grass. The money spent asphalting John
street would have laid two tar macadam roadways and Catherine street could have
come in for a decent road. The same rule might be extended over the city and
two good roadways built, instead of one for the same amount of money.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About fifteen years ago, Hamilton
became famous, not only in the United States butin foreign countries, through a
report written by the American consul in this city to his government in
Washington, setting forth the virtues of tar macadam as a road builder. The
report was published by the government and sent to parties interested in
road-making, and, as a result for more than a year, delegations from United
States cities and counties visited Hamilton to get some practical lessons as to
its real value. The city solicitor and Tom Povee, who had charge of the construction
gangs, gave all the information needed, and the visitors went away pleased and
profited by their research. By and by Hamilton began to put on dude airs, and
nothing but asphalt was good enough for them to rest their eyes upon. The
macadam was too common, even though it lasted just as long, and then it was too
cheap, costing less than half what the asphalt cost. And the asphalt has been
costly enough and requiring an army of repair men almost constantly at work patching
up the holes. No good business man would spend two dollars to asphalt a square
yard of roadway when he could get the same results for one dollar in tar
macadam. And then the tar macadam has the advantage in making a dustless
roadway, thus saving thousands of dollars to the taxpayers every year.
Certainly the expense of asphalting upper John street was money thrown away,
for the road is always dangerous to horses, especially in winter, and numerous
plans have been suggested as a rememdy, but nothing yet has made the road any
better. In the end the asphalt coating will have to be removed and probably tar
macadam substituted.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamilton was the fourth city in
America to adopt the system of sewage disposal works, and delegations used to
come from other cities to see how it worked. It was perfect as far as it went,
but the pit at the disposal works was not large enough to take of the sewage at
certain seasons of the year when the surface water in the streets went down in
torrents to the bay. Then the floodgates are opened and the sewage, instead of
passing through the regular channels for purification are run untreated into
the bay. But this does not often occur. Sewage engineers other plans than the
one originally adopted by Hamilton, which are more costly, but the question is
suggested, do they do the work any better, and are they as economical in
construction and cost of upkeep? There is one thing certain, and that is the
original system adopted by Hamilton did not cost near as much as the later
system that are being experimented with, and the latest systems are not doing
the work any better, if the occasional reports in the city dailies are to be
relied on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Hamilton manufacturing firm was
fortunate in receiving a sub-contract for war materials for the government
which required about 25 per cent nickel in their construction. Hamilton is not
more than 200 miles from the largest supply of nickel for its use in fulfilling
its contract in the country of its production. There is but one other known
supply of nickel in the world, and that is in New Caledonia, a French convict
colony about 14,000 miles from this city. The government of France mines its
nickel itself and refines it for its own use and for French industries. It is
estimated that Sudbury furnishes at least 90 per cent of the nickel of the
world, and yet Hamilton, only 200 miles from the source of this supply, cannot
buy a sufficient quantity to fill a government contract. There was a time when
Canada owned all this wealth of nickel, but its moneyed men did not look upon
it as an attractive investment, and outside capital swooped down and bought the
mining property. Originally the nickel mines were owned by four Canadian
companies, who sold out in 1902 to the International Nickel company of New
Jersey. The first important ore body of nickel was exposed in 1884 on the right
of way of the Canadian Pacific railway, when that road was being built through
Sudbury. Mining operations were first undertaken by the Canadian Copper company
in the summer of 1885, and in January, 1886, the company was organized, with a
capital of $2,000,000, to operate three other mines. The first three years –
1886-87-88 – the final value of the nickel produced was only $1,138,160, and
ten years later the production was worth$9,535, 806. Its value in the meantime
had been discovered in the manufacture of steel, and in what is known as German
silver. Another company was organized in England, partly with German capital,
called the Mond Nickel company, and between the two foreign corporations, the
one in New Jersey and the other in England, Canada sold its birthright of one
among the most valuable mining properties. But the Canadian capitalists were to
blame, they had not sufficient confidence in the undeveloped wealth of their
own country. It is said that one Canadian bank lost several million dollars in
investments in a foreign country. Had the managers invested the money in nickel
mines, Canada would have had the mines and the money. AS it was the money was
sunk and the mines are owned by foreign
countries, and Canada owns neither. However, the war now in progress may teach
Canadian capitalists a lesson, for when idle factories take up the manufacture
of goods formerly known as “made in Germany,” then will Canada take its place
as one of the industrial centers, and instead of soup kitchens and relief
associations, there will be fewer stoppages of machinery in Hamilton, and both
companies and skilled labor will be enjoying the luxury of listening to the
wheels go round.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was a Hamilton girl who was
quite sure that when it came her turn to marry she could not live in a house
any smaller than her father’s. Love in a cottage was not her idea . Scores of
girls who are now in the old maid list used to talk that way, though it is
doubtful if they ever seriously meant it; if it was bluff, but if an
opportunity had offered of almost any kind of man they were were open to
conviction. Cupid, she thought, needed plenty of room to flap his wings and to
practice his archery; he could not pine in a bird cage. So she must have an
immense library with a fireplace that would take a six-foot log; a drawing-room
with a parquetry flooring and thick rugs; the dining-room would have to be
large and spacious, able to seat a large company, with an imposing bowl of
flowers on the center of the table. This young lady had extravagant ideas. She
had forgotten how her father and mother began life in Hamilton, how they had to
toil early and late for the comforts with which they were able to surround
their children. Probably her mother’s favorite instrument was a washboard,
while this young dreamer amused herself on a piano. Times have changed in that
home, and the father, by industry and economy, was now able to indulge in the
luxuries of life and give his dear old wife the comforts that were denied both
of them when they came across the sea and settled in Hamilton before the days
of railroads and motor cars. Their children had fared better. The boys were
ambitious and began work as soon as their school days were over, but the girls were
raised in luxurious ease, and the oldest one, of who we are writing, did not
take kindly to the idea of love in a cottage with a man she loved; but rather
dreamed of some wealthy old fellow falling in love with her and giving her a
home among the 100.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dreamers sometimes have a very
pleasant awakening. Our Hamilton girl had sense enough to change her mind, as
the sequel will show. About eighteen months after she married, a girl friend
paid her a visit, and found her in a little frame house on a side street,
ridiculously happy with her husband and her baby. Hamilton had not then grown
to any large proportions, but it was a little better than when her father and
mother first located in a humble cottage down by the sad sea waves of the bay.
The back yard was just about big enough to hold a clothes-line and a narrow
flowerbed against the fence; the front verandah was only large enough for a
little hammock for baby and a couple of chairs for the happy young mother and
father; and they were happy listening to the cooing of the little mite in the
hammock; the largest room, which was a parlor and living room was about the
size of the vestibule of the bride’s girlhood home. “I know what you are
thinking,’” laughed the proud little housekeeper to her guest, as she fondled
baby to her heart. “You’re wondering how I could have made up my mind to live
in this tiny piano-box. Love is to be found in a cottage, and John and the baby
are two kings that rule over it. I’ve found that it isn’t the size of the house
that matters; it’s the size of the heart, and the biggest hearts can live in
the littlest houses.” That was many years ago. Today, John and his family
occupy a larger house than the little piano-box by the bay side, but it goes
without saying that love in a cottage can always expand as the house grows
larger. The queen of the household always smiles when she hears some young girl
dreaming as she did half a century ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As soon as a man begins to climb the
ladder of success, there comes a lot of whipper-snappers growling at his heels
and trying to drag him back. We see that in business and politics every day. He
may be a good fellow with his associates in the workshop till his merits as a
workman bring him to foremanship, and though there may be no change in his
manner toward his old shop mates, yet there are generally a snarling few to
stab him in the back. It is but one of the unfortunate phases of life, but it
may be expected till humanity is made over. John Allan, when but little more
than a boy, left Hamilton with only his bricklayer’s trowel as his passport to
earn a living that was not attainable in the land of his birth on account of
dull times in the building trade. He was
able and willing to work and to such a job is nearly alays open. For years he
toiled at his trade, and during those years he was an active member of the
bricklayers’ union; and after he became a contractor on his own account his
sympathies for his fellow workmen kept him in touch with them. John Allan
prospered in his new home, as hundreds and thousands of young Canadians have
done who were compelled to seek work in
a strange land, and when the years began to count on him, he returned to his
native land and the city he left long ago with only his bricklayer’s trowel as
his passport. His yearning days were over, for he had been prudent and
industrious during the years he was away.
Back on his old
stamping ground, where he worked as a boy and man at the bricklayer’s trade,
John Allan’s neighbors began to take notice of his business ability and
suggestions, and the people of the ward thought they could make no mistake in
having such a man to represent them in the city council. He discharged his duty
as an alderman to the best interests of the city, and then the whole people
called him to controllership. Here again he proved his ability to manage the
affairs of the city; and then he was called still higher and for nearly two
terms, he has filled the office of mayor. In every position of trust he has
satisfied the people of Hamilton of his worth as an honest official.
