The
firebug is an old resident in every community, and away back in 1849-1850, he
not only flourished in Hamilton, but also in neighboring towns; now and then he
took a trip into the country and left his mark on some farm house or barn. Mr.
Russell owned a woolen and cloth mill in Ancaster which was not a profitable
investment, and as it was insured for $10,000, the thought may have been
suggested to him that insurance companies, now and then, but surely against
their will, would pay for the ashes all the building was worth. A man named
John Fraser was in the employment of Russell, and one night when the Russell
factory went up in flames, suspicion rested upon Fraser that he had something
to do with causing the fire. Fraser was arrested on the charge of arson and had
a preliminary examination before a bench of magistrates sitting in Dundas. The
chain of evidence was so strong against Fraser that he finally agreed, under
promise of a free pardon from the government, to make a clean breast of it, and
tell the whole story. He confessed that he had set fire to the premises under
promise of being liberally paid by his employer. Russell was at once arrested
and committed to prison without bail. His attorney6 finally succeeded in
getting him bound over to the next term of the assize court. The case attracted
a deal of interest on account on account of the high standing of Russell, and
as he had money, he was able to employ the best attorneys to defend him. At the
trial Fraser was the star witness, but he failed the jury of the truth of his
story, and the result was the jury did not agree on a verdict, and the case was
continued till the spring term assizes in 1851.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bums and toughs who assaulted police
officers in the early days of the city government did not get off quite so
easily as they do now, and the result was that more respect was paid to the
officers. The convenient plea is always ready with the thug that he was drunk
and did not know what he was doing. The mayor, who presided in the recorder’s
court, was always on the side of the officers against the ruffians, and he made
things warm for those who amused themselves in scrapping with the officers. One
case will serve as a specimen. Maurice Fitzpatrick had the reputation of being
a handy man with his fists, and his boast was that no officer, single-handed,
could arrest him. He met his fate one night in a strapping Irishman on the force,
and in the scuffle the officer was pretty badly handled and had his uniform
torn in rags. However, Maurice was not certain whether or not he had been run
through a threshing machine and it required a wagon to haul him, bleeding and
covered with wounds from the officer’s sturdy fists, to the cells. It was hard
to tell from appearances which had got the worst of the scrapping match, the
officer or Maurice. As a warning to the toughs, the mayor sentenced Maurice to
two months’ in jail, fined him $40, and required him to enter into bonds, with
two securities in $100 each, for his future good behavior. Maurice served his
time in jail, his friends paid the fine, and ever after he had good respect for
the officers of the law. At the same session of the court, a nine-year-old
child was sent to jail for four days for stealing lumber for kindling wood.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamilton had been three years an
incorporated city, with a population of 10,000, when in 1850, it seriously took
up the question of a gas lighting system. But few towns in Canada had got
beyond oil lamps for street lighting, and candles and burning fluid for homes.
Coal oil had not yet been heard of in this country, although within seven years
from that time, bob Young put on the market the first coal oil burners made in
Canada. The Hamiltonians of 1850 were slow in introducing gas, for they
believed that next to the sun for light came the candles made in Judal’s and
Walker’s soap and candle factories. It would have been treason to any
new-fangled light that was going to affect the business interests of these old
citizens. However, the car of progress had been started and a provisional
committee was appointed at a public meeting held to consider the gas question.
As a matter of history, the name of the provisional committee should be handed
down to posterity as the men who lightened the darkness of Hamilton more than a
half century ago. Dr. Wm. Kerr was the chairman, and his associates were Mayor
John Fisher (head of the firm Fisher and McQuesten who built one of the first
foundries in the city, on the block now occupied by the Hotel Royal); James Osbourne
(father of the grocer on James street, opposite the Gore); Robert McIlroy;
Hutchison Clark; John Young, Sr.; J. F. Moore; Richard Juson; James Robinson;
R. R. Smiley (editor of the Spectator); W. P. McLaren; Archibald Kerr.
Certainly, the Gas company started out with a representative body of men at the
head of it. It was estimated that the cost of the plant would be $40,000, and
that by selling gas to consumers at $4 per thousand cubic feet, a lower rate
than was then charged by any Canadian company, the shares would pay a good
dividend and every shareholder would be well paid for his investment. The
capital stock was $50,000, divided into shares of $40 each, and as a wise
precaution to prevent the control falling into the hands of a clique, no one
was allowed to own more than fifty shares. The simple-hearted old fellows never
dreamed that such a law could be circumvented in later years by some
enterprising citizen, who knew a good thing when he saw it, buying the shares
in blocks of fifty and dividing them up among his relatives, and even servants,
thus getting the business into the hands of the few. A comparison was published
between the cost of lighting the City hotel with oil, and how much cheaper it
could be done with gas, the hotel by the plan of oil and candles costing $911
for the year, when by gas it would only cost$ 534, exclusive of the cost of a
servant whose only occupation was to attend to the lamps and candlesticks and
see that candles were properly snuffed. As to clinch the argument, a list of
public places in Montreal was given, with the cost of lighting by oil and
candles and by gas. The first contract with the city after the gas works were
in order was for fifty or sixty street lamps in the central part of the town,
and as it was supposed that all decent people should be in their homes by 12 o’clock
at night, the lights were turned out and the city saved money. Nowadays gas
companies make more than the cost of running the gas out of the sale of
by-products, which, in olden times, were wasted. Gas consumers now pay $1 per
thousand cubic feet, and gas is not only used for illumination, but for cooking
and heating. A small family can light their homes and do all their cooking at a
cost of 50 to 75 cents a week, being much cheaper than the cost of coal or
wood. Gas stock is so valuable in Hamilton that it rarely a share changes
hands.
-----------------------------------------------------------
For a man who sustains life on
crackers and milk, and who for years has not known the comfort of healthy digestive
organs, John Rockefeller, said to be the richest man in the world seem to have
great capacity for the management of his personal interests. One has not to be very
old to remember when the great oil fields of Pennsylvania began to spout, and
so great was the yield that thousands of barrels went to waste almost daily
because the owners of the fields were not prepared to utilize it. Many have
heard of Coal Oil Johnson who amassed immense fortunes in a few months from the
sale of oil lands, and a few months later, they were worse before they struck
oil, for land and everything was gone. Rockefeller was a young man then, the
keeper of a small store in Cleveland. Evidently he had a nose for oil, for he
got into the game at an early date. The crude oil as it came from the wells was
vile-smelling stuff, and refineries were started in Cleveland to purify it, and
separate the gasoline and other by-products. Rockefeller did not have much
money, but he had much daring and nerve and became interested in the refineries
and oil wells. Everything in his success had to stand aside and when he became
stronger in the business, he ruthlessly pushed out all the small owners and
incorporated them into his own company. If he could not buy out a well-owner,
he took him into partnership till such time as he could get rid of him. He
forced railroad companies to give him such rates of freight on oil as were not
given to others, so it was only a question of time when the Standard Oil
company was a complete monopoly. But the story is known to those who have read
this subject.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the past few days, the
newspapers have been giving reports of the quarterly dividend of the Standard
Oil company, and that company is now dispensing more money among its
shareholders than any other corporation in the world. The Pennsylvania Railroad
company has paid in 57 years to is stockholders something like$215,000,000; the
Standard Oil company has paid $275,000,000 in the past six years. Since the
year 1897, J. D. Rockefeller’s dividends alone amounted to about $90,000,000.
As there are only a few men on the inside in Standard Oil, they evidently have
a good thing to fall back upon. However, Rockefeller is not satisfied with
cleaning up $40,000,000 to $50,000,000 a year, he wants more. He is dipping
heavily into iron and steel stocks, and in the end expects to control that
giant corporation. Now and then he corners the grain or produce market, ruining
a few thousand suckers, but adding to his own wealth. If Rockefeller can do all
this on a diet of crackers and milk, what could he not do if he had a healthy
stomach, and was able to digest the cooking of an average boarding house? His
hobby in giving is confined to a Baptist university in Chicago; Carnegie runs
to libraries, J. Pierpont Morgan to picture; but not one of them has ever given
a dollar to help the afflicted, to provide for widows and orphans, or to a
hospital. Such men are not a blessing to the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment