1903-04-11 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings

Spectator April 11, 1903

        The first locomotive works in Canada were established in Hamilton in the year 1856 by Daniel C. Gunn. Prior to that time, he built stationary engines and the machinery for steamboats in a small way, but when the Great Western and the Grand Trunk railways were built, he naturally thought they would patronize a Canadian manufacturer if he could turn them out as good engines, and as cheap, as could be had elsewhere. His shops were at the north end of Wentworth street, at the head of Land’s inlet, and comprised a range of stone buildings. They were built on sixteen acres of ground, just outside of the city limits, and constituted the first manufacturing enterprise established in the northeast part of the city. The people of Hamilton were very much interested in the building of the Gunn shops, for it was one of the pioneer industries in a city that is now the manufacturing center of the Dominion of Canada. We are accustomed to greater things now, and can look calmly upon the immense buildings that are in the course of construction for the Deering company, into any one of which all the factories and workshops of the Hamilton of 1856 could easily be put and still leave room for more. Just think of it; the Gunn works were going to give steady work to a large company of 150 skilled mechanics, and to drive the machinery there was to be installed an immense engine of forty-five horse power. Don’t laugh at the old Hamiltonians because of their simplicity in thinking that the locomotive were such a big thing. They were big for those days. The superintendent was from Dundee, Scotland, and he was a thorough mechanic from the ground up. As most of the men employed in the works were married and had families of young children, they built their homes in that vicinity, and so interested was the city in the prosperity of the new settlement  that a day school was established with one teacher to conduct it. The Presbyterians built a mission church where services were held every Sunday. It was a great day for Hamilton and for the Gunn works when the first locomotive was finished for the Great Western railway. During the next sixteen months, the Gunn works turned out two large first-class freight engines for the Grand Trunk and it looked as though there was to be sunshine and perpetual prosperity upon the northeast corner of Hamilton.

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          And there was a dream of the future for the Gunn works, when steamboats from all parts of Lake Ontario would make Hamilton their winter quarters, for where was a better haven of safety than in the beautiful land-locked bay where storms would be mere zephyrs. Docks were to be built close to the works for the steamboats, and the boats could have their engines and machinery overhauled for the summer’s business, and new vessels were to be built here and Gunn put in the outfit of machinery. It was one of those dream castles in Spain that filled the mind with beautiful imagery, but fell short of realization. They had a steam hammer in the shops, that was said to be a marvel in its way in those days,  that would break the crystal of a watch without doing any injury to the watch. More than one doubting Thomas submitted his watch to the test to find that he had to buy new crystal for it when he came up town.

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          In those days neither Canada nor the United States had a protective tariff, only sufficient revenue being collected at the frontiers to pay current expenses of the governments. The Gunn works were a large financial undertaking, for it took a deal of money to pay on the skilled workmen though the wages fell far short of what such men would get today; and then it took time to build a locomotive, and the builder had to wait for his money till the job was completed and thoroughly tested. While there was a Canadian duty of only 16 per cent on engines manufactured in the United States, our American cousins were wiser in their day and generation, and levied a duty of 30 per cent on engines entering that country, and the result was that the United States manufacturers had the bulge on Canada’s infant industry, and poor Gunn exploded early in the fight. Canada learned better later in life, but too late to help Gunn, and put a tariff of 35 per cent on locomotives.

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          It was an unfortunate day for Hamilton and for Canada when Mr. Gunn was forced out of the building of locomotives. His market as well as capital was limited. Instead of the Great Western and the Grand Trunk helping to build up that industry in Canada, even when they were getting as good engines and at as low a price, they transferred their contracts to manufacturers in Great Britain and the united States, and the fires went out in the Gunn furnaces and the hum of machinery was stilled forever.  The settlement of happy homes in the neighborhood of the works was broken up and many of the houses went to decay because there were no tenants to occupy them, for the workmen who built them, expecting that they were going to have a permanent job, were compelled to seek work elsewhere. The sun had set on locomotive building in Hamilton. Will it ever rise again? At present, there is not a glimmer of the dawn in that direction. With a good, healthy protective tariff, Hamilton may be able to hold what it now has. Let us pray for the conversion of the anti-tariff party that Canada may yet be a power in the manufacturing world.

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          Before Mr. Gunn went into the building of engines, he owned a wharf down on the bay front, and in that way became interested in steamboat machinery. In the year 1856, he was in the real estate business, and from that graduated into the building of machinery. His capital was limited, but he made up for the shortage of cash with native pluck and industry. There was a demand for such a factory in this city at that time it was started, and had he kept out of the locomotive business, he might have prospered; but to build locomotives required a large capital and it also needed the loyalty of Canadian railroads to Canadian workmen. There was no protective tariff in those days to back up Canadian expertise and home industries, so he yielded to fate and dropped out of the fight. Hamilton lost a good citizen when D. C. Gunn died. One of his sons is a resident of Hamilton now.

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          The Great Western railway shops were a big factor in Hamilton prosperity in the early days of that road, for all the principal repair work for the entire line from the Falls to Detroit, was done In the locomotive department were 86 engines to be kept in order, and a force of 300machinists, and assistants was constantly employed to keep up repairs. About half of the engines were of English make and half of American. Usually there were from 20 to 30 engines in the shops for repairs, which made business brisk. In this department the pay roll amounted to $200,000 a year, which was quite a bit of money to be handed out in a small community as Hamilton was in those days. In the car department were 76 first-class coaches and 50 second-class, and 1,576 freight cars of all kinds. The shops and yards were built on made ground, by filling in the bay front.

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          Hamilton got a black eye when the main part of the railway shops were moved from here to London – while it was a good thing for the latter city, giving it a start from a small town that has now developed into a handsome and progressive city. It was the same in Canada and the United States, the towns along the proposed railway lines gave the companies everything asked for on the promise that the shops would be located there. When the Great Western was first talked of, and the route surveyed through Hamilton, the promoters could have had the city for the asking, so anxious were the people to have the road; and as it was the first road of importance in Canada, much benefit was expected from it.

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          Do you know that Hamilton, away back in the fifties, aspired to the building of railroad passenger coaches.  A Yankee named Foster, who was skilled in the art of making fine cabinet work, conceived the notion that this city was going to be the great railroad center of Canada, because the Great Western was about completing a line or road from the Falls to Detroit, and it was one of his dreams that there would be an endless demand for palatial coaches; and what better place than Hamilton to concentrate the business? He built one coach, and it was a beauty. Every joint and seam was as artistically put together as though it were some rare bit of cabinet ware. He spent months in its construction, for so anxious was he that the first coach should be a perfect sample of what he would build thereafter should he succeed in getting any railroad contracts. The interior of each coach was a delight to the eye, both in the woodwork and in the upholstering. The provincial fair was held in Hamilton that year, and Mr. Foster took advantage of the occasion to exhibit the first fine passenger coach made in Canada. Of course, every Hamiltonian visited the exhibit, took off his hat to it, and proclaimed the greatness and skillfulness of Mr. Foster, the builder. Railroad officials examined it and passed favorable judgment but that was the end of poor Foster’s dream. To manufacture passenger coaches to supply the demand of even the Great Western required a large capital, and in those days, men of heavy bank accounts willing to invest in new enterprises were very scarce. The car builders in the United States furnished nearly all the coaches. There are a great many things to be learned about Hamilton when it was a small city.

1903-04-04 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings

Spectator April 04, 1903

        Should bachelors be taxed? is a question in large headlines in almost every newspaper one picks up nowadays. Why shouldn’t he be if for no other reason than he enjoys all the benefits of civilization in the country in which he lives? Why should he have the use of good sidewalks, the protection of the city government, or, for that matter, the right to live, without paying for the privilege? It is alright to talk about man’s right to live and the world owing him a living, but that is all boah. The world owes nothing to anybody unless he earns something. There is a deal of injustice in throwing all the burdens on the shoulders of the men who build the homes and are industrious members of society. Talk about the single tax benefit, it is exemplified to the utmost in the manner in which the city, county and provincial expenses are raised by the present system of taxation. A bachelor plods along through life with no responsibilities resting upon him, except to pay his board and stand off his tailor and laundry bills as long as possible. He pays no taxes, yet he enjoys all the privileges of good sidewalks, asphalt, and tar macadam roads to run his bicycle on well-lighted streets at night, and in winter, the householder is compelled to shovel the beautiful from the sidewalk that his bachelorship may not have to wade through snow and slush. And what does he give for all these blessings? Nothing. If he goes to church, he gets a comfortable seat and hears a fine sermon and charming music and when the collection plate is passed, he rarely sees it, but sits with a stony stare, looking away off into space. Now and then he may drop a nickel on the plate but often not. Then, when church is out in the evening, he will sneak up to some sweet girl and invite himself to her home. He toasts his shins at the family fire and spends the evening pleasantly, and then goes back to his boarding house congratulating himself that he has enjoyed call there is to be had in life, and it did cost not him a cent. O, the selfishness of those bachelors! Why shouldn’t they be taxed? Not to force them into matrimony, but that they should pay their share to keep the wheels of government revolving. If the advocates of the single tax will only apply the principle to single men, then we are with them to the end of the chapter. “Where singles is bliss, ‘tis folly to have wives,” says the bachelor cynic, adapting the old adage to suit his selfish views.

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        Who pays the expenses of keeping up the city of Hamilton? Why the married men, of course. They are taxed from the hour they apply for a marriage license, for which they pay $2 to some fellow who is authorized by government to issue a license, and then when he dies and his bereaved wife must have an official certificate that he is really and truly dead so that she can settle upon his estate, if he was fortunate enough to have anything, the city clerk must have fifty cents before he will sign the certificate. When he marries, he saves up money to buy a home of his own, and then the taxing begins in real earnest. He buys a bit of property for $1,000, but when the assessor makes his annual call, he declares in substance that the purchaser got it too cheap, and he adds a hundred or two more dollars, not to the value, but for the purpose of bleeding the man who wants a home for his wife and himself. The bachelor escapes all this, for he has use only for a boarding house. As time goes on, the married man has a nice lawn and flower beds around his place, and he brightens up the house with a fresh coat of paint. The assessor calls around in a few weeks and takes in all the beauties, and adds a hundred or more dollars on which the poor devil must pay taxes. The family is the foundation and prosperity of the city, and all the burdens must be borne by the good-natured family man, while a loose-footed bachelor glides along without a thought of the tax collector. Think of the 3,000 surplus females in Hamilton, and then wonder why the fair sex do not arise in their might and demand that a tax be placed on bachelors? And here the question arises, is not the poor bachelor miserable enough without adding a tax to make his sorrows more intense? One of the greatest reforms of the twentieth century would be the abolition of the voluntary bachelor – those gay old larks who want to slide through life without having to account to their wives for the late hours they keep or in whose company they are spent. Every father who has a family of daughters on his hands and no prospect of marrying them off, would vote for a heavy tax on bachelors. That by-law would be easier to carry than the one passed by the board of aldermen for a new reservoir on the hill and other needed improvements.

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        It would be hard to get Mike Nelligan or any other road foreman to believe it, that on the 25^th day of February, 1857, a French-Canadian woman was walking along King street, about midday, when she fell from an embankment into a post hole full of water and was drowned. They tried to make out at the inquest that the woman had been indulging in the cup that inebriates, in order to retrieve the city of the responsibility of her death, but the coroner’s jury did not believe it. Fancy an accident of that kind on the principal street of this city as late as forty-six years ago. Don’t forget, however, Hamilton was circumscribed even in those days, for when you crossed Wellingtton street on the east, you were getting out where the town cows roamed at will, and the same was true when you passed the Bowery on the west.

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        Away back in the fifties, the printers of Hamilton were not the bloated bond-holders such as now hold “sits.” The old boys had to stand up to the case and set their 6,000 or 8,000 and were glad to get home by the time the morning sun was rising from the far depths of Lake Ontario in the east. The compositor who managed to get a $12 string by the end of the week thought himself lucky. Things were better then than they were a few years earlier, and the man was fortunate if he even got part of it in cash on Saturday night. While the printing business was considered above the common run of trades, there was no much money in it for either the proprietors or the workmen. The proprietor was an all-round hand, for he wrote the biting editorials – local news was not deemed important – made up his won forms, and then if the pressman was not fit for duty, he would take a whirl at the hand press. The scissors were mightier than the pen in the editorial sanctum. However, out of all that tribulation came a class of printers that could turn their hands to anything and everything in a printing office. Nowadays the men who set type for the daily papers have a life of ease compared to which the man who lives by clipping coupons from his banded wealth is a veritable slave. All he has to do is seat himself luxuriously before a machine and run his fingers over a keyboard – just for all the world as if he were amusing himself at a piano – and the skillfully planned linotype does the rest. And then when Saturday night comes, the foreman passes around the pay envelopes, containing $16 or $18. The laborer is worthy of his hire, and he gets it in good, crisp notes, and does not even have to wait the pleasure of the proprietor, who was cashier with all his other accomplishments, and then were lucky if they were paid half the amount coming to them in cash; they could get orders for the balance on a store, and the merchant always made it a point to charge a big profit on the goods. The barter system was necessary in every department of business, as money was a scarce article, but it was death on the poor workman, for he had to pay the freight. It was a happy day for labor when the men were able to demand cash. It was not the fault of the employers that they paid in orders, for business was done on that basis, and they were glad when it came to an end.

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        It must be a sign of old age when one gets to talking of things as they existed half a century ago, but, possibly, it may interest the workingmen of the present day to know that they are living on the fat of the land compared to what the old-timers had to endure. But with all their tribulations, the printers of the fifties were a grand lot of fellows. There was a friendship existing between the employer and the employed, for all hard work up from the roller and hand press. After the Hamilton hand printers had organized a union in 1854, and raised the scale from $6 to $7 a week up to the dizzy height of $9, they began training for bank presidents or a job under the government; or, better still, in the city hall. They looked with pity on men who were only getting $7 or $8 for sixty hours of hard work, and they began at once to enter upon a life of luxury. When Ben Franklin’s birthday came around, nothing less than a banquet at the Anglo-American would suit their fastidious tastes. It was a grand spread we had in March, 1857. Don Mitchell presided; W. J. McAllister in the vice chair, and around the table sat as a royal a lot of typos as ever set a line of brevier. After a feast fit for the gods, there came the cigars, the toasts and the speeches, with a generous supply of wine to tickle the palates of those who had been satiated all their lives on common whiskey and beer. Don Michell was an ideal chairman, and every toast was done justice to. William Gillespie, of the Spectator; John Hand, of the Banner, and John W. Harris, representing the job printing business, made short, bright speeches, and song and mirth prevailed till it was time for the morning paper hands to get to work to set up any stray items of news that had been gathered during the night. Ah ! The memory of those days is pleasant to hark back to. How few who sat in the Anglo-American banquet hall in 1857 are still in the land of the living? Five of the veteran printers are still in Hamilton, but only one of them now holds a case. Probably when the Old Boys come back in August, there may be two or three more to answer the roll call.