Canada no sanctuary for England’s surplus spinsters

Friday, 14 May 2010 05:00

One hundred years ago, clippings from the newspapers of May 14, 1910.

Winnipeg Free Press.The problem of England’s surplus of educated single women, “whose disturbing influence is now beginning to be feared,” can’t be solved by emigration to Canada and Australia, says a Free Press item reprinted from the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican.

“Women of that sort are not attracted to New South Wales or Saskatchewan for the purpose of engaging in ‘intensive agriculture,’ a somewhat euphemistic phrase for raising onions and keeping hens. Nor are they eager to travel 5,000 miles for the chance of marrying a Canadian wheat farmer or an Australian mutton raiser. The surplus ‘grentlewomen” of England are much more likely to stay at home and grow more and more into a problem.” The problem, says the Republican, must be solved in England, and solving it “promises to be an interesting social process.”

Opera money sails away
Halifax Herald. New York’s Metropolitan and Manhattan opera houses recorded record losses during the 1909-1910 season, but when their singers sailed away to Europe, they “carried away as much as $550,000 [almost $15 million in today’s money] between them.” Biggest earner was Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, who earned at least $150,000 for 60 performances at the Metropolitan, and $50,000 from the sale of “phonographic records.”

Indians cancel Victoria Day
Toronto Star. The May 24 Victoria Day celebrations have been cancelled at Victoria, B.C., because the Songhoes and Quamichan Indians have declined to participate in the annual canoe race out of respect for their friend King Edward VII, who died on May 6. The war canoe race, for which the Indians trained for three months and for which cash prices are offered, had long been a feature of the celebrations at Victoria’s Victoria Day, named for Queen Victoria. “The King was our best friend,” declared Chief Cooper of the Songhoes tribe. “He is to be buried on the 20th. We cannot race on the 24th.”

Funeral costs
Lethbridge Herald. A Chicago proposal to regulate funeral costs that have “gone beyond all reason,” is applauded in an item reprinted from the Peoria Herald-Transcript. Caskets that cost $15 are reportedly priced at $200 while carriage fees are doubled. Men borrow to pay funeral costs while their families “may scrimp for several years to pay the money.”
How are your bowels?

Belleville Intelligencer. The first question that a doctor asks, when consulting a patient who is not well, is “Are your bowels regular?” claims an advertisement for Rexall Orderlies, available in Belleville only at the Rexall drug store.

A dog and her pups
Lindsay Post (May 13). “This afternoon [Police] Chief Vincent received a hurried call from a citizen to come to her home, as a mad dog had ensconced itself under her verandah. The chief responded with alacrity, loaded for bear, or at least dog. The animal could be seen under the verandah, and the chief raised a portion of the structure when lo! there was doggie with a family of five pups. The dog was as gentle as a lamb and met the chief’s gaze with a look of pride and satisfaction. The dog is a small collie… Dog fanciers in search of pets are requested to call on Chief Vincent. Don’t all speak at once.”

In deepest Antarctica
Winnipeg Free Press. Biggest attraction on the Winnipeg entertainment scene is an upcoming Canadian Club speech by Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, “profusely illustrated with limelight views and moving pictures from photographs taken by Sir Ernest during his hazardous journey.” During his 1907 — 1909 expedition, Schackleton and three others marched to within 114 miles of the South Pole, the closest anyone had yet reached it. Like other Antarctic adventurers, Shackleton and his men endured incredible hardships. On his fourth expedition in 1922, he died of a heart attack, at age 48.

Canada’s first war plane
Peterborough Review. Canada has obtained its first military aircraft, a bi-place, purchased from the Canadian Aerodome Company of Baddeck, Capte Breton, for $5,000. “It will be shown at military camps.”

Air raid threat
Toronto Star. “All ascents of airships or flying machines in Russia are said to be watched closely. The Czar fears that bombs may be dropped on his palace by anarchists.”