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The Lucknow Sentinel, 1994-02-09, Page 4Page 4 — Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, February 9, 1994 2 pa Published weekly by Signal-StarPublishing Ltd at 619 Campbell Street Lucknow. Ont P0. Box 400, Lucknow, Ontario NOG 2H0 528-2822: Fax (519) 528-3529 • Established 1873 Thomas Thompson - Advertising Manager Pat Livingston - General Manager/Editor Phyllis Matthews Helm:- Front Office Subscription rates advance: Local Regular 5200° within 40 mi, radius G S.T incl Local Senior Si %00 within 40 mi radius G S.T incl Out -Of -Area (40 miles) - Regular $32.24 - Senior $29.24.G.S.T: incl. Foreign + U S A ,;9669 Publications mail registration no. 0847 held at Lucknow, Ont. Changes of address, orders for subscriptions, and undeliverable copies (return "postage guaranteed) are to be sent to Lucknow Sentinel at the above address. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, the portion of the advertising space occupied by the erroneous item together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid at the applicable rates. Hats off to COC and Bank of Montreal • The village of Lucknow received good news on Monday, when the Bank of • Montreal announced it would have an Instabank automated banking machine Installed by April 30. It appears bank offlclals were listening when the Chamber of Commerce (COC) made known Its determination to have a banking machine In the village by the spring. The COC made It clear that If the Bank of Montreal didn't think the village was a good place to Invest In, they'd continue their pursuit of 7a banking machine with competitive financial Institutions. For what must have felt like beating your heads against a brick wall, the executive of the Chamber of Commerce and any others Involved, are to be commended tor their per- severance. And to the Bank of Montreal officials who realized con- tinuous investment in a village .that has supported your Institution for over 90 years, a tip of the hat as well. We're getting It; now let's make sure It's used!. (PL) A tough breed to please A letter to the editor in the Port Elgin Shoreline News last week proves it's verydifficult to please all humans. The writer, a landlord, stated that sonie'of his tenants had complained to him about having their sleep disturbed, inthe early morning hours, .by the noise . of snow removal equipment. He politely questioned if it would be possible to "compromise with • i council and the works department/ and perhaps change the early hours to later, maybe between 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.?" He also conceded that the town has a great deal of snow to remove this year. The letter writer .doesn't state exactly at what time the snow RAMBLINGS by Pat Livingston removal takes place. I hear the snow removal equip- ment in -our village, but wouldn't dare open my mouth to complain. It is a feeling of comfort I gain, when I hear the plow going by. At least I know I can get out on the street and go about my business. I simply push my ear plugs in a little further and give thanks that it isn't my body that was pulled from the warm comfort of a bed. Human beings are .a tough breed to please. Dickie invites all businesses to be part of local COC To the editor: As 1994 president of the Luck - now and District Chamber of Com- merce I would like to say thank you for the recommendation, that I am proud to represent the business community in and around Lucknow and will do my best to fill past- president Ben Hogervorst's shoes. Membership is important. In order to have your voice, heard please consider becoming a member and attending the 8:00 a.m. meetings at the Mayfair the first Wednesday of each month. Promoting our town and surrounding community is an integral part of the Chamber and ultimately affects you and your business. . Fresh ideas and goals for '94 are on our March agenda. Please be a part of this exciting New Year and all that lies ahead. You are impor- cantand needed, big or small business, YOU can make a dif- ference. if- ference . I hope to see you Mar. 2 at.8:00 a.m. in the Mayfair meeting room where the welcome mat is out and. the coffee is always on. Irene Dickie, President 1994 Lucknow and District, Chamber of Commerce. OOPS! The location of the McGar- ry House. pictured on the editorial page last week, was incorrect. Donald McKinnon 'tells us the hotel, that closed in 1916, was actually on the cornet of Campbell and Inglis Streets, where Huron Bruce Auto Glass is now located. The Sentinel Memoirs Investigate open drinking at dances, '44 70 years ago Feb. 7, 1924 Abad man in Ashfield - When Stuart Robertson, and his men went to work Thursday morning of last week, at a barn.on the Macln- tyre Farm, 1 lth Con. of Ashfield, they found that the gas engine they had been using had been converted into something like junk during the night before. Evidently a crowbar or an axe had been used in an effort to smash the engine completely. The belting and parts of the engine had been carried away and a few screens belonging to the flax mill had been destroying. The damage was quite evidently the work of some miscreant who ought to be "doing time" in Kingston Penitentiary or other place of safe keeping. Local and general - Athol MacQuarrie who has been managing editor of the Goderich Signal since August of 1921 has given up that position and is leaving Goderich. Mr. Robertson, who was taking a needed rest, has again taken full control. Huntley Gordon went to Detroit last week where he has taken a position with the Michigan State Inspec- tion Bureau. Mr. Gordon has been an inspector on the provincial highways the past two years. - 50 years ago Feb. 10. 1944 Investigate open drinking at dances - special meeting of village council was held to investigate reports of open drinking at dances in Lucknow. The board decided that the public be warned that dances must be'kept respectable, or they ,will act quickly to either,clean them up or close them up. Reports say beer was on display in the gallery of the Town Hall at a recent dance and some out-of- town girls had a quantity of it in the passageway near , the ladies dressing room. These conditions had been referred to from the pulpit of at least one church on Sunday. Constable W.J. Douglas said, "Tell me to clean it up and I'lI bring in the Provincial Police to do a complete job without making fish of one or flesh of the other," pointing out that for the trifling salary he receives, he could hardly be expected to do so. The editorasks. - "Could it not be arranged to illuminae the Post Office clock with that streetlight hydro that burns before sunset and after sunrise? Club has total loss of 79'% lbs. - Pounds are melting fast and furious. Another weekly meeting of "Dr. Corrin's Pet Peeves" was held at the Lucknow Public School, Jan. 31. Little did anyone realize, least of all its organizers, that a club such as this would prove to be such a booming' success in just three short weeks. Eleven more en- thusiastic members were enrolled, bringing the total so far to 33 members. ' Eighteen members lost a total of 39 lbs„ bringing the grand total of weight loss to 791 lbs. Few showed no weight loss this week and two showed a gain of 1 lb.. each for which they. paid the penalty of .10. pass music exams - Pupils of Clara Shaddick passing the Royal Conservatory piano exams included: 'Donald Elliott passed Grade 8 and will receive his certificates Grade VI and VIII; Elizabeth Newbold passed Grade VI with honors; • Karen Elliott passed Grade VI with honors; Loraine Boyle passed Grade VI with honors;. Brenda Ritchie passed Grade VI with good mark, 68. Pupils of Mrs. William Scott who passed . their Toronto Conservatory of Music piano exams in Stratford in January _are: Grade VIII - Pass, Carol Campbell, Donna Mullin, John Henderson; Grade VI - Honors, Sandra Finlay; Grade IV - Pass, Susan Hall.. Steel Murdoch was well-known builder 1910 - Probably few men derived more pleasure from Lucknow's great Reunion than did the one whose well known face is pictured here. Few men indeed renewed acquaintance with a larger number of people than he; for among those whom he met and greeted here, were friends from Cuba, from Scot- land, and from cities of the United States and Canada as far west as Chicago, Winnipeg and Vancouver, as far east as Quebec and New York. Mr. Steele Murdoch, who has built sufficient houses of brick and stone to make a modem village, first came to Lucknow when only one house was stan- ding. That was many years ago. He came direct from the soil of Scotland, from a part of Ayrshire only 20 miles distant from the birthplace of Robert Burns. Taking up in thenew land that which had been his father's trade in the old, he commenced the laying of brickand the building of stone, and has not yet quite laid aside the tools of labor. Houses of his workmanship may be seen from the Post Office of Kinloss on the north to the town of Goderich on the south; and he was the man who, in the latter place, built the wall surrounding the mdnument of the Dunlops. The strength of the passing, generation was the strength of such men as these; and it seems likely .indeed, in more senses than one, that their works will live after them. Blood on the railway tracks, 1880 • by Marsha Boulton YALE, BRITISH COLUMBIA,' 1880 -.What role did nitro-glycerine play in uniting Canada? If you knew that this awesomely unstable liquid was used to blast through mountains of granite during the construction of the national railway system, you may also know • that hundreds of the 30,000 workers. who toiled on the railway died setting the explosive charges that carved the groundwork for tracks from sea to shining sea. There are segments of the Canadian landscape) where nature seemed to have gone to extremes to thwart the railway builders. Mus- keg, bogs and sinkholes presented their own unique problems, but when it came to the Rockies the builders confronted wrinkled canyons, criss-crossed by deadfalls and sheer walls rising to lofty heights above rushing rivers. An American named Andrew Onderdonk purchased the contracts to build the railway line west of the "Fraser Valley. In 1880 he es- tablished his headquarters at Yale, B.C. on the Fraser River. There were four tunnels to be drilled within a 3 km radius and it took 18 months to blast them out of the rock of the canyon. Twenty-three more tunnels were drilled on the Dnderdonk line. Onderdonk built an explosives factory at Yale. When the factory blew up, shattering every window in the town; Onderdonk simply shrugged his shoulders and built another factory. By 1882, the Yale factory was turning out nearly two tonnes of nitro-glycerine a day. Hell's Gate on the Fraser was aptly named according to the "na- vvies" who blasted holes into the rock face above a shaer drop into the foaming waters below. Men had to be lowered on ladders secured by ropes .which were attached to trees on the summit until they reached the level where the tracks were to be placed. The canyon walls were slick, so they worked in bare feet to try for better footing but the hard rock surface often frayed critically on the rope. Falling rocks or a premature blast could mean certain death. Blasting holes were drilled into the granite, which was stripped with quartz - the hardest of all rocks. Once , the charge was set, the worker was hauled to the surface or he took refuge in a "secure" hiding place. Then the fuse was lit.. None of this work took place under ideal circumstances and some of the ' workers did not make it when the charges failed to do what they were supposed to do. Some men died when explosions were improperly timed, and rocks had a dangerous habit of catapulting off the canyon walls and into the "hiding" places. Rock . slide and avalanches were triggered by the continual blasting. Most of the railway workers had no previous experience with explosives or safety provisions. One tried to light his pipe after handling blasting powder. Others were killed when they vigorously dumped dynamite down a chute into a waiting boat. One Chinese worker near Yale hid behind a tree 60 metres from a tunnel that was to be blasted, only to have a flying splinter shear off his nose. Fortunes were made and boundless opportunities were opened by the building of the rail- way. But the human price in the lives of the laborers - French and English, Scots and - Irish, Italians • and Slays, Swedes and Americans, Canadians and Chinese was exacted in immeasurable toll that was written in blood on the tracks. When your steam vaporizer is clogged from mineral deposits, remove the cap and scrub it with hot vinegar to which some salt has [leen added. Use pipe cleaners to clean hard to reach places.