Ragged street merchants newsboys need a haven

Friday, 12 March 2010 05:00

Ninety ago, from the newspapers of March 12, 1920.
Toronto World. “Give to Newsboys’ Building Fund,” exhorts the World, in a “Campaign for Home and Gymnasium [that] Should Appeal to All Who Feel the Need of Social Assistance.”

The plan was launched at a meeting of the newsboys March 10 when the “Ragged little urchins … turned out their pockets and cast their little earnings on the table.” The amount needed to build the club is $20,000.

It is to be a place where “these little merchants of the street” are to be taught cleanliness and fitness of body and mind;” provided with “clean amusement and healthful rest;” and a place to “kill the thousand evils to which their life in the streets exposes them.” The World’s readers are urged “to help those who are already working to help themselves and in many cases to help… mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers… It is not the lazy and shiftless derelict of life that you are asked to help today, but the sturdy little merchants of the street.”

How high the sky
Belleville Inteligencer. Cambridge scientist Joseph Bancroft has emerged from a six-day experiment in a hermetically sealed glass cage to determine how high airmen can fly before suffering lack of oxygen. The answer seems to be no more than 15,000 feet. The oxygen in Bancroft’s cage was gradually diminished until it approximated the oxygen content at that level. “At that juncture, Bancroft began to suffer from vomiting fits, lost his appetite, and was unable to sleep.” He said he was badly shaken by the experiment but pleased with the technical results.

Moon tides
Montreal Star. “In spite of the heavier ice conditions in the river this year,” the moon is expected to have a great affect than an early Spring in determining the start of shipping season on the St. Lawrence River. “The tidal effect of the new moon will very soon clear the river of ice,” according to R.A. Willard of the federal Marine and Fisheries Department. Navigation is forecast to open April 15, five days earlier than in 1919. “The earliest date of navigation in the river ever recorded was in 1910 when ships reached Montreal on March 28.”

Good food
Canadian Press. Dr. J.W. Crane tells University of Western Ontario students that beer and tobacco are good for you. “Good, fresh beer has considerable food value, being rich in vitamins,” Dr. Crane said in his talk on “The Psychology of the Menu.” But “the two percent beer sold here has no vitamins and has therefore no food value.” He had earlier advised students not to use tobacco, “believing it weakened digestion, but tests had shown the saliva of a smoker digested starch better than that of a non-smoker.” Other food advice: candy is the best food for children because they need more sugar and fat than adults; oatmeal is the cheapest and most efficient breakfast food; fireless cookers and prolonged boiling destroy vitamins; tea, coffee, alcohol or other drugs do not increase work capacity.

Truants
Peterborough Examiner. “Mr. W.F. Miller, school attendance officer, is in receipt of almost weekly anonymous letters from citizens, drawing his attention to cases where children are unnecessarily kept out of school, and would remind the public that not the slightest attention is ever paid to such a manner of communication, and sending such is merely a round-about route to the waste basket.”