1915-02-06

When Jules Verne wrote his story of A Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, not one in Hamilton who read that bit of fiction ever dreamed that there could be such a thing as a boat sailing for miles underneath the sea and popping up at stated times to give the crew a breath of fresh air. The unscientific world read the story and pronounced it fishy. But Jules Verne had foundation for his story, and he worked up the idea for all that it was worth. More than four centuries ago, history tells us, a mechanical genius conceived the idea of the first submarine boat. It was a rowboat propelled by twelve lusty oarsmen, but when the crucial test came that the boat was to dive underneath a sailing vessel, it was not equal to the task. Another attempt was made in the same century, but it, too, proved a failure. However, once the ingenuity of man is challenged, there is always some studious inventor to follow up the idea, and a later genius perfects the dream of centuries. This surely has been the outcome of the deadly submarine. The dream of the inventor of four centuries ago has had its full development in the terrible war that has been raging for nearly seven months. Burton J. Hendrik, a writer in McClure’s Magazine, has given much study to tracing up the history of the submarine. The control of the sea has been the pre-eminent fact in English history. Its navy protected its commerce, hence there was but little necessity of a large standing army. The British nation has never suffered defeat except in the little family quarrel that was the outcome of the great waste of tea in the Boston Harbor. Many times in the last century, Great Britain has faced the possibility of continental wars, but its fleet has always been its safeguard against foreign invasion. Untold millions have been spent in keeping up its navy, and the bravery of its blue jackets, and natural skill in naval warfare, have made it pre-eminent. Great Britain might at one time have had some control of the submarine to add to its naval strength, but the idea was too chimerical for her war lords to discuss.

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          The dream of four centuries ago was worked out by a freshman in Yale college during the American revolution. All through his college days, from 1771 to 1775, David Bushnell worked to make a vessel that would sail under water. The first real test of the submarine was during the American civil war, when a United States gunboat, the Housatanic, was sunk by a Confederate submarine boat in Charleston harbor, but was herself sunk with her crew. In principle, the submarine was the same as it is today. The British frigates that were stationed outside of New York and other American harbors during the revolution gave inspiration to David Bushnell’s invention of the submarine, although it did not come into use at that time. The professors in the Yale college ridiculed the idea that gunpowder could be exploded under water, but Bushnell proved to the learned scholars that they might know all about the ancient and modern languages while there were principles in science that they could be taught lessons in, by taking them out into New Haven harbor and producing an explosion of gunpowder under water. Bushnell had already constructed a vessel that could sail under water. It was in shape like a turtle, operated by a wooden propeller. This antedated the invention of the steamboat by several years. Early in the last century, the Molsons built the first steamboat in Montreal that plied on the St. Lawrence river down to Quebec. Bushnell’s Turtle, for that was the name he gave his first submarine, only made a maximum speed of about two miles an hour. It was illuminated by foxfire wood, which gave a phosphorescent light. It had an air-chamber in which the navigator could exist for a brief half hour. When the revolutionary war began the British flagship, the Eagle, then lying off Staten Island, was selected as the first victim of Bushnell’s submarine. Bushnell had not the physical strength to navigate the Turtle himself, and a man named Lee was chosen to destroy the Eagle. Not understanding the mechanism of the Turtle, Lee’s attempt to navigate it proved a failure. He managed to reach the Eagle in the submerged Turtle, but failed in his effort to attach the torpedo with the time-clock to the hull of the Eagle. The torpedo floated a short distance from the Eagle and exploded on time, but not close enough to do any damage to the British vessel. This failure discouraged Bushnell, and in his disappointment, he vanished from his home in Connecticut and died some years later in Georgia.

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          A quarter of a century later, Napoleon was engaged in almost identically the same enterprise as the Kaiser is attempting today. In the midst of his perplexities he received a letter which read : “The sea which separates you from your enemy gives him an immense advantage over you. I have it in my power to cause this obstacle which protects him to disappear.” This letter was written by Robert Fulton, one of the early inventors of the steamboat. Fulton had developed Bushnell’s invention of the submarine, and his work to Napoleon to deprive Britain of her great naval power. Napoleon appointed a commission to investigate Fulton’s plans, and the result was the French admiralty placed a vessel at Fulton’s disposal to experiment on, and he blew the vessel into a thousand pieces with his submarine. By this time, Great Britain began to appreciate the work of Fulton, and he was invited to England. “If your boat is introduced into practice,” said Pitt, “it will annihilate all military marines.” AS an experiment, Fulton entered Deal Harbor  in his submarine and blew up a Danish brig of two hundred tons. It was in this same harbor a few weeks ago, that a German submarine destroyed a British torpedo boat. The British government offered Fulton a large sum of money to pigeonhole his invention, which he declined to accept. Both England and France had refused to adopt Fulton’s invention, so he returned to his home in New York and spent all his energies in perfecting his steam boat.

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          The submarine is the most deadly weapon ever introduced into naval warfare, because there is no defense against it. “There is nothing you can send against, not even itself,” said John P. Holland, another inventor in the line of submarines. “Submarine cannot fight submarine,” said Holland. Germany cannot equal Great Britain in naval warfare, so it has judiciously kept its warships out of the fight. Instead, it has attacked the battleships and the merchant marine of Great Britain with the terrible submarine. The man chiefly responsible for the modern development of the submarine was John P. Holland, born in Ireland in 1841. He was a conspicuous leader in the Fenian order and hated England with all the vigor of his Irish ancestry. He built a submarine in New Haven, Connecticut, and christened it the Fenian Ram. Fifty thousand dollars in pennies, dimes and dollars were contributed by the Irish and with this fund, Holland built the Fenian Ram so as to have it ready should the United States and Great Britain get into war with each other. Holland died a few months ago, shortly after the beginning of the present war. The story of the deadly work of the submarine is being told in war news published from day to day. The naval armament of no nation can overcome it.

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          There is nothing new under the sun.  The more on dips into the history of the submarine boat the truth of the adage of nothing new under the sun becomes a greater reality. Till the present war but little was heard of this great sea diver, and few could realize that it was possible that such a thing could be. Since writing the above, we have had access to an encyclopedia that takes us before the Christian era. The first submarine was a diving bell, and its construction dates back over two thousand years. The next record we have dates in the year 1590, when William Brown, an Englishman, is said to have built a submarine. In 1824, Cornelius Van Drabbel designed an improvement to the Englishman’s boat and exhibited the plans to King James II. During the next hundred years several attempts were made in the direction of undersea  navigation, but none worthy of notice. It was not till David Bushnell’s time, 1771 to 1775, during his college days that any progress was made, and the submarine in use today, with all its destruction power was the result of his genius. Robert Fulton, one of the early inventors of the steamboat, improved somewhat on Bushnell’s plans, and he was followed by John P. Holland, an Irishman. Coming down to modern times, during the civil war in the United States, the Confederate government built several submarines, and while they sank one Federal gunboat, the submarine and all its crew went to the bottom of Charleston harbor. There are two classes, submarines and submersibles.

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          Now that Hamilton is to have a new hospital, it may be interesting to go back to earlier days and look at the crude provision made for the care of the sick. Back in the first half of the last century – in the year 1847 – to care for the afflicted Irish emigrants, who were forwarded from Quebec and Montreal to western towns along Lake Ontario, Hamilton built a row of sheds down on the bay front, which were known as the fever hospital. The emigrants came to Canada and the United States by the thousands, being starved out of their native land by the failure of food products, especially the potato. As a boy, the Muser remembers the long rows of hospital sheds along the banks of the Lachine canal, in Montreal, with the hundreds of patients stricken with the ship fever. Coffins were piled up alongside the hospital sheds and every afternoon, the wail of the living over the death of loved ones was heart-rending. The same condition existed all along the lake front from east to west, and down at the bay was no exception. Hamilton then was in its young cityhood, for in that year, it became incorporated. About the same time, a hospital was built at the head of Cherry street, on the mountain side. It was a two-story frame building, with only limited accommodations for patients. Only the homeless ones were provided for, the sick being generally cared for in their own homes. It was a forlorn-looking place, but for those days answered the purpose. A new home for the sick was provided about 1853, when a large brick building at the foot of John street, facing the bay front, was purchased for a hospital. It was originally built by Nathaniel Hughson for a hotel, and was well-patronized till about the middle of the ‘40’s when travelers visiting the city on business found it inconvenient, and came uptown to the hotels. The building was then sold to the government, and in turn was used as a barracks for the regiments of the regular army stationed here, and then as a custom-house. Finally, it came into the ownership of the city and was converted into a hospital; and an excellent location it was , with its fine view of the bay, with its wharves lined with shipping. The building was three stories in height, and a roomy gallery on each story facing the bay front. In time, as the city grew, larger accommodations were necessary and the Barton street hospital was built. Now that too is too small, and the beautiful site on the mountain top has been selected for a two-million dollar building. No finer selection could have been made, and in time there will be a street railway along the mountain front.

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The city of Hamilton finds it necessary to increase the hospital accommodation. There are two hospitals, one the public hospital under the control of an independent board of governors appointed by the city council, and the other under the management of the Roman Catholic church. The public hospital has three departments – one called the free wards, one the semi-private wards and one the private wards.

The hospital staff numbers one medical superintendent, four lady supervisors, one hundred nurses. The nurses’ salaries range : six dollars per week for the first year, seven dollars for the second year, and ten dollars for the third year and thereafter. The hospital is under bthe management of five governors, selected for a term of five years each, one retiring annually, and the mayor and one member of the board of control. The governors serve without salaries, and are appointed from among the best businessmen in the city.

The expenses of the hospital for the year 1914 were $158,500, provide for by a charge of from ten to fifteen dollars for patients in the private wards, four dollars and ninety cents in the semi-private wards, and a government grant of twenty cents per day for the private and semi-private. This amount is paid by the government for a period of four months. After that time, if the patient still continues in the hospital, the grant is dropped to seven cents per day. The government grant for the last half of the year 1914 was $12,500. From the government grant and the fees paid by the private and semi-private patients, the income was $69,000. Added to this, the amount appropriated from the general tax fund of the city was $90,000, making a grant total of $158,500. The cost per diem for each patient averages $1.57.

The present hospital was built when the population of the city was about thirty thousand, and has been added to from time to time to accommodate patients as the population increased, which is now over one hundred thousand. Hamilton is a manufacturing city, and accident patients from the factories and the increasing number of poor families make heavy demands on hospital accommodation.

It has now been determined by the city and the board of governors to begin at once the erection of a new hospital for which two million dollars has been appropriated, to be spent from time to time as the buildings progress. The site selected is about seven acres on the top of the mountain for ornamental grounds and building purposes, and it has been pronounced by two celebrated medical men in the United States, who are experts in hospital construction, as the finest in America. The buildings are to be erected on the brow of the mountain, overlooking the city, with a perspective extending for miles up and down the valet, with the bay and Lake Ontario in the foreground. The plans of the building have been passed on by the two United States medical experts, and after repeated examination and alteration in the details have been declared next to perfect.

Plans and specifications are being prepared for the first section of the new hospital, to cost $150,000. Tenders are to be advertised for, and the work of construction is to begin as soon as possible. The building will be four stories, constructed of reinforced concrete, and without basement, the New York medical experts having decided against basements in hospital buildings. The building will provide accommodation for sixty patients and the necessary staff. When the entire building is completed, it will provide accommodations for over five hundred patients.

T. H. Pratt is chairman of the board of governors; Stewart and Witton are the local architects.

 

1915-01-23

The ancient Hamiltonians take a look backward in memory now and then and dream of the bucolic days when nearly every well-to-do home was provided with a melodeon in the parlor, and after prayers, the winding of the clock and the putting the cat out at nine p.m., then out went the tallow or candle, and the family retired to peaceful rest, and got up refreshed with the song birds in the morning to take up the daily routine of life. The good old bossy, after giving her morning pail of milk, could be heard bellowing her song of peaceful content as she turned her head toward the succulent pasture fields east and west to browse during the long, hot summer day, and then return home at eventide to replenish the pantry with more pans of sweet, fresh milk. There was no hint of the milkman having crossed a creek with his wagon to supply his customers with the pure lacteal fluid, for milk was so plentiful in those days that it was almost as cheap as water, hence there was no temptation to the honest milkman to fill up his cans from the creek. Now, it might be inferred that people were more honest half a century ago than they are now. Forget it. Human nature has been built on the same plane since the time Noah landed his passengers and freight from the ark on dry land before Hamilton had a place on the map. Do you know that people are apt to live in the past after they pass a certain stage in the journey of life? Well, that is just the case of this old Muser, whose memory flies back now and then to the time in Hamilton when the cat went out for the night, and boys and girls were not allowed to roam the streets after old Peter Ferris would ring the nine o’clock bell.

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The congregation of the First Methodist church dedicated their handsome temple last Sunday, and on next Sunday, a like service will be held in connection with the Sunday school building. It required a deal of courage for the members to build such a handsome and costly edifice, but the location deserved it, for on that lot and corner was built not only the first church in Hamilton, but also the first Methodist church. The corner and the lot are historic ground. Sometimes it seems like plowing over the old ground for any mention to be made in these musings in connection with church, especially that of First church. At a venture we will recall the story, and if the reader should say that he or she read it before, then they can skip this page and read “Bobby’s” hot stuff on the sporting page about the latest prize fight. One hundred and fifteen years ago there landed in the region, now known in history as the Head of the Lake, but later christened Hamilton, a man by the name of Richard Springer. He was of German descent, but was born in the United States. In the year 1801, he located a farm south of Main street and up to the mountain, better described later as the site of the St. Patrick’s school on Hunter street, now turned into a flour mill by the Wood Milling company. The Springer homestead stood in the rear of the present site of the mill, and the first thing that the owner did was to rect an altar in his home to the Great Father who directed his life, and then he planted an orchard with the choicest fruit grown in this region in those days. A few trees of the old orchard are still yielding fruit. He invited his neighbors to attend the weekly prayer meeting held in his house, and on Sundays he would have a class meeting and preaching service. When the farm kitchen became too small to accommodate the increased attendance, he fitted up his barn for the meetings. Now and then a wandering itinerant preacher would drift toward the Head of the Lake, and then there was a regular Pentecostal feast among the ancient Methodists. When quarterly meeting time came, these old Methodists would journey out to Bowman chapel on the mountain or to the chapel at Stoney Creek, which was riddled with bullets in the war of 1812, and there they would devoutly listen to the gospel sermons, relate their experience and “sing the hours away in everlasting bliss.” In those days, Elder Ryan and Rev. Nathan Bangs were the best known itinerants in these parts, and Elder Ryan travelled from one end of Upper Canada to the other, organizing circuits. For years, Richard Springer’s barn accommodated the congregations in winter, and during the summer months, services were held under the forest trees. The first and oldest regular place of public worship was a little frame school house on the lot near the corner of King and Wellington streets. Here Mr. Springer continued his regular class and prayer meetings, and in the absence of an itinerant preacher, he would conduct the Sunday service. As an exhorter, it is told that Mr. Springer was a man of great power, somewhat quaint in his manner, which was very effective in those early days of Methodism. It is said that most of the farmers living at the Head of the Lake (now the city of Hamilton0 were Methodists, among them being the Springers, Lands, Aikmans, Fergusons, Hughsons, Beasleys,Hesses, Kirkendalls and others whose names are forgotten by the Muser. Some of those named united with the Church of England when the Rev. James Gamble Geddes first gathered a congregation here, about 1825.In 1822, Richard Springer, Charles Depew, Col. John Aikman, john Eaton and Peter Ferguson, acting as trustees for the Methodist Episcopal church, purchased the present site on the corner of King and Wellington streets from Col. Robert Land, paying twenty pounds ($80) for about one acre and a quarter of land for a burying ground and a church. One of the first burials was Samuel Price, a tavern keeper, whose gravestone bore the date 1822. In 1823, the deed was made to the trustees and immediately after getting possession, the trustees built the first church in Hamilton, and in May 1824, it was duly dedicated. The contract for the erection of the church was given to Day Knight, a brother-in-law of Richard Springer, and the father of Mrs. Daniel Kelly, 444 Main street east, who is now in her ninety-fourth year, and as bright in intellect and activity as a woman of sixty. The building cost about $1,700; the dedication sermon being preached by Presiding Elder William Case. Soon, after the church was built the congregation withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and assumed the name of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. This was known as Ancaster circuit, the Reverend Issac B. Smith and the Reverend David Culp being the ministers in charge of the circuit. The writer of these Musings had the pleasure, in his youth, of hearing the Rev. David Culp preach in the old Methodist Episcopal Church on Nelson street, now Ferguson Avenue. The church property was afterwards sold to the government, and on it was built the gun sheds for Captain Booker’s artillery. The Rev. Dr. Ryerson, then a young fellow of twenty years, came from his farm home in Ancaster to study the classics under Mr. Law. He was a Methodist and Mr. Springer finally captured hi and got him into the ministry.

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The first Methodist  church built in Hamilton, and dedicated in 1824, cost $1,700, and the early Methodists felt proud of it. It cost much self-denial in those early days even to raise that small amount. The church that was dedicated last Sunday cost $105,000, and the Sunday school building that will be dedicated tomorrow cost $35,000 more, making a grand total of $140,000. When it is considered that there are but few wealthy men connected with the First Methodist, while the majority of its membership is in comfortable circumstances, it required a deal of faith in the future for the congregation to tackle such a proposition, especially in these days of financial stringency. There is no such word as fail in the lexicon of the First church, and while the present generation may not be able to pull the whole load, there are future generations of Methodists to finish the job. The new church is a credit to Hamilton, and to the denomination in Canada. It is to be presumed that the first Methodist bishop in Canada, Bishop Reynolds, dedicated the old King street church in 1824, though we have no authentic data to prove it. The new church was dedicated last Sunday morning by Bishop Chown, and in the evening by the Rev. E. B. Lanceley, who may be in effect called the father of the new church, for it was during his pastorate that the enterprise was started. We will close with a little item of history. In 1824, the first missionary collection taken up on the Ancaster circuit, comprising about thirty miles in circumference, in which the Head of the Lake was included, amounted on the entire district to $32. This would not go very far toward the conversion of even one heathen in these days of high prices of living.

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It is estimated on reliable authority that not less than $2,000 a day crosses the bars of the hotels in Hamilton; and this seems to be a new estimate considering that there are sixty-two licensed hotels, the average receipts being over $32 a day. Added to this, there are sixteen retail stores where liquor is sold by the quantity, not to be drunk on the premises. As there is a good profit on liquors, it is reasonable to suppose that the retail dealers take in quite a large amount in the course of a day’s business for what are called bottled goods. But take the incomes of sixty-two licensed hotels at $2,000 a day and it amounts to $32,000 a week. Count it up for a year and it costs to quench the thirst of the hotel customers $804,000. These figures are low if we consider a semi-official estimate that appeared in the local columns of the city papers some months ago. That statement gave in round numbers $1,000,000 as the estimated receipts that crossed hotel bars in one year. Take your choice of the $2,000 a day or the one million dollars a year and either is certainly a great waste of money for the momentary pleasure of tickling the palates of the few hundreds or more who indulge in that luxury. It is not the intention of the Muser to berate the hotel keeper or his customers. The man with a liquor appetite and his helpless wife and children are the sufferers.

The United Relief association of Hamilton is now spending between $5,000 and $6,000 a week in furnishing food for 2,000 or 2,500 families of men out of employment. The families cannot starve, and there is no work for the men to do to provide the food and fuel and house rent. This condition of affairs is not peculiar to Hamilton alone; it is world-wide. The people of Hamilton are generous givers, and they not only contribute liberally from their private purses toward every benevolent enterprise, but they are loyally backing up the civic authorities to appropriate from the public treasury all the money necessary to provide for the wants of the less fortunate.

But, just think of it, from $5,000 to $6,000 a week to furnish food and fuel and clothing to the families of the unemployed of Hamilton, and not less than $12,000 a week to quench the liquor thirst of the men who have acquired an appetite for strong drink!

In the recent war in which the Japanese and the Russians were trying conclusions, the little brown brother was more than a match for the Russian bear. There was a reason for this, for the men of Russia were as brave and courageous as the Japs. The Japanese are a temperate people, while the Russian soldier of that war drank heavily of his native vodka. The sober Japanese was more than a physical match for his Russian opponent under the demoralizing influence of vodka, and the result was victory for the little brown brother on every battlefield.

When the present unpleasantness between the Kaiser and his neighbor rulers began, the Czar of Russia issued an order prohibiting the sale of vodka in his Dominions. At one fell swoop, he wiped out $500,000,000 of revenue, for the government of Russia had a monolpoly of the liquor business. Every place where vodka was sold was immediately closed and no liquor could be had for love nor money. It was prohibition that prohibited. It was intended for a war measure, and its results were immediate. There is no more drunkenness or demoralization in the Russian army, and these brave fellows are fighting like heroes and whipping everything before them. Tally one for a sober army! Not only has Russia a sober army now, but the men at home are sober and industrious and their families are not only well-fed and clothed, but the rioting and the drunkenness that prevailed have passed away.

If Hamilton had a czar that could do like the Czar of Russia, there would be no $12,000 a week crossing the hotel bars, and the city would not have to raise $5,000 or $6,000 a week for a relief fund.

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Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you go it alone. It was Ela Wheeler Wilcox that gave expression to this trite saying, or words to that effect. We all like the plaudits of friends, especially those of us who dabble in printer`s ink. This old Muser may be pardoned if he gives to the readers of these Musings a couple of very complimentary letters, congratulating him on having lived four score years, and saying very nice things about our humble contributions to the columns of the Spectator. The first is our old friend, Judge Jelfs, and the second from an old Burlington boy who obeyed the call of the wild west and is now the sales manager in the J. H. Ashdown Hardware company, in the city of Winnipeg. We have not had the pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. C. H. Bamford, and that makes his kind words the more acceptable. Many friends told us how glad they were that the Muser was getting up in years, though he is only a boy yet.

                                                          Office of Police Magistrate,

                                                                   November 18, 1914

Dear Sir, - Allow me, as one of the many thousands who have enjoyed and been entertained by your able contributions to the press, to congratulate you on your reaching, with God`s approval, an age in advance of the allotted span, enjoying ,as I am sure you must, the consoling and comforting thought that your life must be pleasing to God because it has been useful to your fellow men.

                                                          Yours sincerely,

                                                                   Geo. Fred. Jelfs

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                                                          Winnipeg, Canada,

                                                                   November 18, 1914.

Dear Mr. Butler, - Permit me to congratulate you on reaching the four score mark, and to express the wish that you will long be spared to contribute Saturday Musings to the Spectator. Your articles I read with pleasure. While they are reminiscent, their diction has a charm that sustains from the first to the last word. Truly, the boys and girls of Hamilton are to be congratulated on their good fortune in having the early history of their city presented to them so interestingly, and interspersed with such ripe common sense. I am an old Burlington boy, and know Hamilton well, hence your articles have an added interest. Yet even were I a total stranger to Hamilton, they would still be looked upon as articles worthwhile.

I ask you to accept this slight appreciation of your worth and work, and wish that the year you are just entering will be a record one in good health and happiness.

Believe me, yours sincerely,

C. H. S. Bamford.

 

 

 

1914-10-10

 

    Why should there be hard times in a land of plenty? That is a question that would puzzle the smartest man to answer. Take Canada for example, it is rich in everything needful for the comfort of man, and its development has hardly begun. The earth yields bountiful crops of every variety of food and in fruit belts are not surpassed in any country. And it is less than half a century since it has been discovered that its mines are overflowing with wealth. Yet, with all these blessings the cry of hard times comes every few years to bring poverty and want to countless homes. One would to countless homes. One would think that in a city like Hamilton with its four hundred or more factories no able-bodied man  would be compelled to ask for bread for the support of his wife and children. Yet there are hundreds of men walking the streets seeking in vain for work. The factory doors have been closed for weeks and months, and the prospects of them again opening are not very bright for months or more. There is no demand  for the output of the factories and money is so tied up that the managers of factories are not in a position to manufacture in the hope of a future demand for their wares. Every few years this condition exists and there seems to be no way out of it. In the rural communities, they know but little of hard times, and as for the farmers they never feel the pangs of poverty, nor do their children ask in vain for bread for no matter how business is with the town people, the farmer always has something to sell for which he gets cash on demand and the best of prices, and from his overflowing stores there is plenty of everything to feed and clothe his family. While the towns are filled with unemployed men, the farmer cannot hire labor sufficient to gather his crops and every year more than enough is wasted on the farm, on account of the scarcity of labor that would feed many hundreds of town families, and there are thousands of acres of land lying untilled because there are not men willing to leave the uncertainties of city life and go to work in the country. It’s a muddle.

 

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          A couple of weeks ago, a correspondent in the columns of the Spectator had something to say about the nickel industry. Some years ago, the writer of these musings was interested in a passing study of the mining and metallurgical industries of Canada, especially in the province of Ontario. At that time, it was one of the dreams of John Patterson to build a smelting furnace here in Hamilton for the reduction and refining of nickel matte. Indeed, he got so far along in his scheme as to organize a company and erect the necessary buildings in the east end of the city, and there, forom some unaccountable reason, the nickel industry came to a sudden ending before actual smelting had begun. Hamilton then lost a prospective industry that would have been the means of bringing others of its kind to furnish labor and wealth for the city. As we call to mind from the reading of the report, referred to some years ago, native copper was first discovered in Canada about the year 1767 by a trader named Henry, who had passed the winter on Michipicoten Island. Later, a company was organized in England to work mines in Lake Superior country, but the vein of copper was so narrow that the prospectors became discouraged and the attempt was abandoned. No further effort was made for nearly three-quarters of a century, until 1845, when a company was organized in Montreal to explore the minerals on the north shore of Lake Superior. A distance of 500 miles, from Sault Ste. Marie to Pigeon River, was surveyed, but subsequent development proved disappointing. Unprofitable operations were continued at intervals until 1865, during which time large sums of money were expended in developing the Bruce mines. Nickel was first discovered in 1816 in the copper ore in the Wallace mine, on the shore of Lake Huron, but not in sufficient quantities to justify extensive explorations. This was the first recorded discovery of nickel in Canada. Ten years later, nickel and copper ore were discovered six miles north of Whitefish lake, and less than half a mile from the Creighton mine. The Creighton mine, which has become the main source of the nickel supply, was not opened till 1909. In 1892, the International Nickel company, of New Jersey, was organized to consolidate and control the nickel production in Canada.

 

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          Canada has a monopoly of the nickel output, for nickel is only found in one other place in the world in paying quantities. In 1853, the French government took possession of an island of Australia, in the Pacific ocean, and converted it into a convict camp. The island is rich in gold, copper and nickel, and is surrounded on all sides by coral reefs, connecting numerous islets, rocks and banks of sand, rendering navigation so intricate and dangerous that the island can be approached by two openings only. Captain Cook first discovered the island in 1774, and called it New Caledonia. The island covers about six thousand square miles, and in 1890 had a population of 57,000. The mines are worked by the French government with convict labor. New Caledonia is between eight hundred and a thousand miles from the shores of Australia, and its approaches are so dangerous that it is next to impossible for the convicts to make their escape. The nickel output of the New Caledonia mines hardly comes in competition with the output of the Sudbury mines, for the distance which it has to be freighted to the markets in England and New York, being some sixteen or seventeen thousand miles, and the demands of the French government for use of the material in manufactures, etc., substantially gives Canada the control of the markets of the world. In 1907 – the latest data on hand – the value of the nickel sent to the United States was $9,525, 406. There seems to be no end in sight to the output of the mines, and as the years go by, its value increases on account of its application in almost every branch of the steel industry, especially in the making of plates for sea-going vessels.

 

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          In gold and silver mining, Canada has wealth in abundance, and all that seems to be necessary to its development is the investment of more Canadian capital. It does seem strange that in Ontario, with all its richness in copper, nickel, lead, zinc, graphite, mica, talc, corundum, carbide of calcium, salt, peat, petroleum and natural gas, so few of the companies are controlled or managed by Canadian men or capital. In looking over the list of corporations, we find Hamilton men and capital are represented in the Canada Corundum company. It has a paid up capital of $1,106,287. Three Hamilton men are members of the board of directors, C. S. Wilcox, F. H. Whitton and J. Orr Callaghan. The headquarters of the company is in Toronto. The company owns about three thousand acres of corundum lands in Renfrew and Hastings counties. The corundum mill is by far the largest concentrating plant in Canada, and in 1904 gave employment to an average of 200 men. Corundum was first discovered in paying quantities in 1906. Corundum is the second hardest mineral, the only other one equaling or surpassing it being the diamond. As with nickel, cobalt, mica and asbestos, Canada holds a unique position, the deposits being practically unlimited. Another valuable product is carbide of calcium, a discovery made by H. L. Willson, who was born and raised within the sound of the alarm in Hamilton’s fire tower.

         

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          Take the entire territory of the Dominion of Canada, from the Yukon territory to the jumping-off place at Nova Scotia, and the earth is one vast storehouse of undiscovered wealth. The hardy pioneers who have developed its mines have merely scratched the surface, but enough has been done to prove Canada among the richest mining countries in the world. Gold was first discovered in the Yukon in 1878 by a prospector named Holt, and in the first twelve years $122,968,000 worth of the precious metal was added to the wealth of the world. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, silver was discovered near Sault Ste. Marie by a Russian explorer, but it was not till 1855 the first mine was located. The yield was inconsiderable till between the years 1867 and 1870, when an American company acquired from the Montreal Mining company a tract of 107,000 acres, in which was included the famous Silver Islet mine. The province of Quebec is rich in minerals, the one of the greatest value being asbestos , which is especial interest in the mining and industrial world. So far as is known down to the present time, the deposits of asbestos in Quebec are the only ones yet discovered. The asbestos mines are principally controlled by American capital. Petroleum was first discovered in the western part of Canada about the year 1850, but it has been known to exist by the Indians aay back in the early settlement of the country. It has been used for lighting purposes from time immemorial. Petrolea, Bothwell, Leamington and East Tilbury are the principal oil fields in Ontario, and all are located between London and the Detroit river. Sixty years ago, everybody in this section of Canada was talking petroleum, and millions of dollars were sunk in prospecting wells, from which there was but small returns to the investors. George Brown, the editor of the Toronto Globe, was one of the early promoters of the Bothwell field, and sunk quite a lot of money. The pioneers in all such enterprises generally lay the foundation for the fortunes made by the Rockefellers. Hamilton had at least one enthusiast as a promoter in the oil fields at Petrolea and Bothwell. Frederick Watkins, father of Frederick Watkins now living in this city, was at that time doing a prosperous mercantile business in partnership with his brother, Thomas C. and Samuel, but he caught the oil fever and left the selling of dry goods and clothing to his brothers, while he spent weary days and anxious nights boring for oil. After sinking quite an amount of capital, he retired from the oil fields, glad to get back to Hamilton with life and broken down health. The men who developed the Ontario oil fields never made a dollar, but those who came after them reaped the harvest.

 

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          We repeat the question asked in the opening of these musings, Why should there be poverty and hard times in a land of plenty? Ontario is rich in everything necessary to the comfort of man, and there is more wasted every day on the farm and in the homes in towns and cities than would feed the multitude out of work. Hamilton has grown in population far beyond its working capacity at the present time. The war and hard times came together, and, as a result, the four hundred or more industries of Hamilton have had either to close down or run on shorter hours. The cotton mills and the knitting factories and John McPherson’s shoe factory seem to be the favored industries, some of them having to work overtime to fill orders. While Canadian capital is being investedin Mexico and South America, English and American capital is gathering in the wealth from the Ontario mines.

 

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          Canada has sent some thirty or thirty-two thousand of her boys across the seas to help fight the battles of the mother country, and there is an effort to raise nearly as many men to raise the contingent to fifty thousand. That the rolls will soon be filled, there is no doubt, as thousands were disappointed at not being taken on the first call. Just think of it, that in less than two months an army of thirty thousand fighting men could be gathered, drilled and equipped, and all are volunteers! In 1861, when President Lincoln issued the first call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion in the southern states, it took nearly three months to lick them into shape and get them ready for the field of battle. That army had to be equipped and drilled, for the majority of the boys who enlisted had, probably, never fired a gun in their lives. This old muser can speak from experience, for he was one of the 75,000 volunteers, and never but once had fired even a shotgun, and then he killed a poor little bird that was singing so sweetly in a tree across the bay in Oaklands park. The United States was not then as well-prepared for war as was Canada when Colonel Sam Hughes called for thirty thousand men. At the first battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, the Federals had in the field no larger an army than Canada sent across the seas a couple of weeks ago.

 

1914-11-14

How the years go flying, especially after one has passed the threescore mark; but it is only a step, and there you are, fourscore. It is not much a long, long way to Tipperary after all. This old Muser has passed the fourscore mark, last Wednesday being the anniversary of his advent into this bright and happy world. It has truly been a bright and happy world to me, barring some of the crosses that now and then come to all, but nothing of a serious nature. I have thought that this would be a good time for me to blow my own horn a little; I have been the musical director for scores of old-time Hamiltonians during the fifteen or sixteen years that I have been writing these Saturday Musings.  To begin with, I entered this life on the eleventh day of November, 1834, in an underground fort on the banks of the St. Lawrence river, in the old town of Coteau du Lac. The intention was to have me born in Ballyholly, Ireland, where my father was born. But a soldier’s life is not in his own keeping, and the regiment to which my father belonged, the Twenty-Fourth Foot, was ordered to Canada from Ireland some two or three months too soon to carry out the program. I was reared in a military barracks till eight years of age, when my dear father passed to the other world, leaving my mother with four children to care for, I being the oldest. Substantially about all the schooling I got was in a barracks school, where the course of study was confined to the three R’s, with a smattering of grammar and geography sandwiched in. My school days ended at the mature age of ten years, when I had to begin the battle of life to help pay the expenses of the family. Not being particular as to what I worked at, I was fortunate in never being out of a job; and the same kind fortune has followed me for seventy years, during which time I have been always in employment. At the age of twelve, I got a job in the Montreal Herald office to learn the printing business, and being the latest apprentice, I was handed the broom by the boy who preceded me and duly installed as office sweeper and sorter of pi and carrier of a route on that paper. I held on to the job for quite a while, the stipend of one dollar a week being an incentive to duty, but when the time came for me to be advanced to the high and responsible office of ‘devil’ I had to resign, not being strong enough to handle the roller. But I persevered in my ambition to become a printer, and when our family moved to London, I got a job in the Free Press office as roller boy under Charles Kidner, one of the kindest instructors a boy ever had. I worked in London for two years on the Free Press and on the Prototype, then I turned the toes of my yarn stockings, as Colonel Robert Ingersoll once remarked, toward the rising sun and came to Hamilton in the summer of 1850. That was in the days before the streets of Hamilton were lighted with gas, and the Great Western railway was beginning to loom up through the cut half way down to the bay, and waterworks were only a dream. I arrived in Hamilton by the old stage line in the evening, and the next morning, I got work in the Journal and Express office at the princely sum of $2.50 per week, when the editor was in funds. In those days, four printer boys boarded with ‘Dick’ Donnelly’s aunt, paying her $1.50 per week. It was a small price, and the kind-hearted woman made nothing out of it, furnishing good, healthy food to four hungry fellows. I was fortunate in getting a more desirable job in the Christian Advocate office, but the weekly stipend was not advanced. In the fall of 1852, another Advocate apprentice and myself decided to go to the United States, and we landed in Rochester late one night with only fifteen cents between us. Hungry and tired after our trip on the cars, we put up a bold face and stopped at one of the large hotels near the depot. The next morning, we told the landlord of our impoverished condition, said we were printers from Canada looking for work, and the first money we earned he should be paid. He was a kind-hearted man, believed our story, and told us to go into breakfast, and he would talk to us afterwards. He invited us to stay at the hotel till we got work, and gave us a deal of fatherly advice. That morning I got work in the first printing office I went into, and I was cheered by meeting Jack Cliff, an old Hamilton printer. The first work I made more than enough to settle my bill at the hotel, for the landlord put the rate down very low, and then I bade him goodbye and got board in a private house. Board was very cheap in those days, and the food was of the best, charge being only $1 a week.

 

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          I remained in Rochester a couple of years and joined the first printers’ society organized in that city. The scale of wages was twenty cents a thousand for solid bourgeois, which the ordinary hands set, the local, commercial and advertisements being departments given to the older men. At the first meeting of the society the question of a scale of wages was discussed, and twenty-five cents was the price demanded. The proprietors objected to such a heavy raise, and they offered a compromise, but the younger fellows held out for the demand. Finally the younger element was outvoted, and the scale fixed at twenty-three cents. I was getting the wanderlust, so I decided to quit and go and see the great city of New York. When I arrived there, I found scores of printers like myself hunting for work, times being bad; and finally I took a job at Peekskill at $7 a week as foreman of an office in which there was only one boy myself to boss. I remained in Peekskill for about a year and then got homesick and returned to Hamilton. The Banner was then about to start and I was just in time to get a job. The Banner was first started as a semi-weekly, and in time it became a daily. At the head of the office were two first-class printers, and the third member of the firm was ‘Billy’ Brown, whose father was the angel who furnished the cash. The Great Western railway company was then organizing its departments in Hamilton, and through the influence of Issac Buchanan, who then was a leading man with the heads of the departments, the Banner was fortunate in getting a large share of the job printing., which was profitable work at that time. The Banner was the organ of the Great Western, and Mr. Buchanan wrote the leading editorial in its interests. With all its financial backing, the Banner did not make headway, and after three or four years, it was sold to a syndicate, with Tom Gray as the business manager. The Spectator had the leading position as a daily, until the death in 1858, of Robert Smiley, the original proprietor and editor, and then the Times took the lead for a time while Hugh B. Willson was the managing editor. But, we’re not writing newspaper history.

 

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          I worked only a few months in the Banner office, when I returned to the Advocate, where I remained until the spring of 1859, holding for a time the position of assistant foeman. In 1857 came the great panic that paralyzed the industries of Canada and the United States. At that time, Hamilton was not much of a manufacturing town, there being only a few local industries. Any one of the large factories in the city today employ more men than did all of the workshops in 1857. The printing business suffered in the panic, and it was only in the two daily offices that part of a full force was employed. In the Advocate office there were ten journeymen, and a number of boys employed, and the time came that the force would have to be reduced. The men, among themselves, agreed to work half-time, and this being satisfactory to the managers, we went to work at seven in the morning and quit at noon. The boys were kept on full-time, but their wages were small, and they boarded with the manager; it did not pay to reduce their time. Notwithstanding the hard times of ’57, I mustered up courage to get married, and for months we had to get along on the very small wages I earned. My wife was a good manager. We stood it as long as we could, it being hard work to leave the old home and go out into the world to pastures new. Finally, the break came, and one day in a fit of desperation, I threw up my job, sold our furniture for $50 that had cost us over $300, and away we went to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the turning point for me, for the morning I got to Cincinnati I got work, and never was a day idle of necessity till I sold out my own printing office, having saved enough to keep my wife and myself the remainder of our days. When the civil war in the United States broke out, I got what we might call in those days the war lust, and as President Lincoln called for 75,000 men for three months, we thought the war would be of short duration. I enlisted in a company of printers, and when the three months were up, I concluded that I had done my share, and was ready to quit. I then bought a broken-down printing at Oxford, Ohio, and went out there to make my fortune Oxford was a college town, there being a university for young men, and three colleges for young  women. The presidents of the colleges were kind to me, and gave me the catalogues and other printing to do. Fortunately, I had learned the printer’s trade from the roller up, and then it was that my education in that line stood to my advantage. I had only about $1.26 when I bought the office, but the man who owned it had taken it for a debt, and knew nothing about the printing business, he gladly sold it to me without any money down. It took me about a year and a half to get out of debt and pay off the mortgage, ad the war fever running high, every young man in Oxford having gone into the army, I and the boys that were working for me, enlisted in a company that was then being organized in Oxford, and the office was closed until the cruel war was over. After the war, I took up my work where I had laid it down to carry a musket and stand up to be a target to be shot at for $16 a month in greenbacks, which was about thirty-three cents in gold on the dollar part at the time, that being the pay of a corporal.

 

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          In the year 1870, I sold my paper in Oxford, and bought another in Oberlin, Ohio, where I remained for a couple of years, and then sold out to buy another paper, The Public, in Clinton, Illinois, where I spent twenty-five years. For nine of the years in Clinton, I had the honor of being postmaster, which paid me about $1500 a year, which I foolishly spent in politics. The Public was a prosperous investment, but I never had the faculty of saving money till a few years before retiring from business. My first saving was in buying $1,000 worth of stock in the De Witt County National bank, for which I had to borrow the money, and it was wonderful to me how quick I paid it off. Here let me say that the best thing a young man can do is to go into debt for something of value, and then pay it out as quickly as possible. It is the hardest proposition to save the first thousand dollars, but while you are saving it you are gaining a valuable lesson in economy. For sixteen years, I had the honor of being a director and the vice-president in the bank, but as neither directors nor the vice-president got any salary, it was purely an honorary position.

 

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          Nineteen years ago, I retired from the printing business and have been like a fish out of water ever since. It doesn’t pay to give up your life work till you get so old and helpless that you cannot stand up to the rack any longer. There is nothing like an active life to keep one young and vigorous. Seventeen years ago I came back to Hamilton after forty years’ absence, though making occasional visits during that time. As a mental recreation, I have endeavored in the Saturday Musings to interest the present day generation with the ancient Hamiltonians of fifty and sixty years ago. How far I have succeeded it is for the readers of the Musings to say. Last Wednesday I reached my wightieth birthday, and as I have written of other ancient Hamiltonians, the question suggested itself to me, why not tell your own story before the undertaker calls for you? Let me say, in conclusion, that to me life has been one sweet song with only an occasional discordant note. I never used liquor, even for medicinal purposes, and have never been out of a job since I began to work at ten years of age.

 

1914-11-07

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 ?

 

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          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.

 

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          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.

 

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          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.

 

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          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.

 

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          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.

 

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          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.

 

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          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.