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The Brussels Post, 1929-12-25, Page 2WJ DNP DAT, DEC,, 25th, 1520 Huron County Council The{ meeting of the county council last week was conducted on Thuret day night, when the members mann a presentation to the retiring l•Se1'. deft. On Tuesday afternoon, E.fter, the opening proceedings, the clerk sub - /flitted the following statement of payments trade lost year to high end continuation schools ; County High Schools Levy Grant Total Clinton , 99766.20 6671,36 910401,04 Godorioh 0723.00 1001,03 9274.92 Soafortlt .,,.9113.82 760,11' 2870,06 W ltighranl ..... 7146,24 777.71 1893.60 1691eter .., 7897.79 930,39 5025,11 341,593.15 Adjacent Iiiglh Schools llarrlston 9613,39 1';75.79 115.98 Lis tower .. Stratford :it, Marys Parkhill 360.40 London 130,31 90,810,6 p County Continuation Schools Levy Grant Total Blyth 52904,16 $270.09 02574,25 Lrussels .. ,,, 1463,63 313,73. 3777.30 I7ordwloh ,,, ,,, 1193.45 143,65 2037,30 5Vroxoter ,,, 1653,41 106,53 1690.2.1 Zurich 400.76 341,70 745,45 Mensal]. .,, 233.0 286 4 2 39 3 13 3 6 3 $19,440,09 .Adjacent Continuation Schools Luck now 9'463,91 Clifford '7014 ;2,3-0,41 Recapitation county -High Schools 511.613.15 Adjacent High Schools 2,690 99 Co. Continuation Schools 22,4461'. - Adi4Cent Continuation Schools 2,226.41 Total Paid ,.,. 203,131,22 The jailor's report showed 13 commitments during the past she months, and ten at present in jail. 'The daily average cost of rations , per prisoner was 13 ye cents. ' Mother's Allowance The clerk submitted the following figures re mothers' allowances for the past year. The average monthly i number• of beneficiaries was. 52, who had been paid an aggregt.tu amount monthly of $1720, of which I the county board paid one-half. The 1 least paid any mother was $20 par month and the most $55, the aver- age being 533. There were two ail 520, eight at 525, seventeen at $30, nine at 535, eleven at 540, three at $45, one at 550. one ati $55. The total paid for the year; was 520,040, of which the county pays 510,320. The average total; payment for the year to each ben- t eficiary was 5396.92. The Late Reeve Snell Moved by Mr. Higgins, seconded by Mr. Neeb, that this council wishes to express its sincere regret at the sudden passing of our rriend, and colleague, the fete Clateles Snell, Reeve of Exeter, news of whose death yesterday morning woos received with feelings of sincere sorrow ; and we wish to place on record our high appreciation of the services of Mr. Snell, -whose quiet, unassuming manner and diligence at this council board made friends of the whole council and we all join in expressing our sincere sympathy • to Mrs. •Snell in this the great hour of her affliction. Carried. At the Wednesday evening ses- sion (the council having attended the late Reeve Snell's funeral in the afternoon) several committee reports were submitted ,and adopt- ed. . On motion of Messrs. McKibben and Craigie, it was resolved to pet- ition the Department of Education to adjust the public school grant so es to place Godorich and Winghaul on the same basis as other towns and villages in the county. At pres- ent they are the o]tIy municipalities in the county not participating he the public school grants, which the council considers to be unfair to them. Children's Aid Work At the Thursday morning session Mr. H. T. Edwards, county inspect- or for the Children's Aid Society, presented lois report and answered a number of, questions relating to his work. The council discussed at some length the matters of child welfare and the prevalence of jnvo• nile crime. Mr. ISdevards Was tendered a vote of thanks by the council. Nit, Turner asked ie there eves any information 1 nation as to the cot of an audit by a chartered accountant. The clerk stated that nothing had yet been done but that the infor- mation would be available nt the January session, :.t which the audit- ors are appointed. The county treasurer gave e statement of the finances of the ('runty. Messrs, Rader and Sweitzer in- 1 a l.rodueecl a motion advoratint ani 1 Netnews in the customs tariff on 1 a enf C The cn ' h i . Pl `Vm-drn ads -deed that the h motion be withdrawn, the ratter not being one *ithin the jul'isdic'• tion of the county council, The motion was withdrawn. On motion Messrs, Backer and Henderson the county I•oo.d commis Alen . was requested to retain the services of Mr. Lever, the present traffic office!', his salary to be el, ranged from time to time, Several further reports were sub-' mltted at the Thursday afternoon silting, including that of the county read commission, After discussion and adoption of the report, a mo». tion 'was presented by Messrs. Wright and .Backer,, and adopted, that a hearty vote of -thanks be ten - tiered to Engineer Patterson for the efficient services rendered dur Ing the past year. A Letter From Judge Lewis A communication was received from Judge Lewis complimenting the council upon the excellent con- dition of the roads of the county all compared with those of neighboring counties over which His Honor travels in the discharge of his du- ties. Continuing, Itis Honor said "I am writing you for the purpose of bringing to your attention the, fact that the municipality that does not keep open the toads in the win- ter time is behind the times. Of course, 'as, you know, the "main trouble is the snow, which, when light, drifts in in certain spots, If attended to and removed promptly. the task is comparatively easy. In fact, the trouble- and work and ex- • pense of keeping open snow roads, if ` properly attended -to, is much less than keeping the roads in good shape in the summer -time, as they have been in Huron the last year.. I, therefore, would ask 'the council lo take this, matter into your eon• ideration, and see if by some means the machinery which you have in. use in the sun -mei -time' care not be used .in the winter -time to the benefit of all," ' '• This was discussed by ,the War-' den and other members. Mr. .Mc- Kenzie spoke particularly of the Blue Water highway, which he thought required attention as much QS sonic: of the other main high- ways. The prevailing opinion was that the matter should be left to the good roads commission, and that the main lines of communication .01001 be kept open as far as in the judgment of the commission was necessary. . Some former members of the council being in the room, the Warden called on them to speak Ex -Warden, J. '3. Hayes, of God- erich, thanked bite council for the privilege of saying 'a word and in- vited the members to visit the plant of the Dominion Rad Mach. inery Co., which company he now represents. Mr. Herb Cox, former Reeve ot Goderich Township, also spoke briefly. It was moved by Messrs. Hallam type and Hill that this county coum• cif recommended the return of War- den Inglis for the year 1930, as we consider the Warden of the prey- ious year to be a benefit to the county council owing to his exper. ience, and that a copy of this reso- lution be sent to the clerk of the Howiek council. Carried. The mother's allowance board wee granted the usual allowance of 8145,, to be divided as follows : Chairman, 565 ; secretary, $35 and other members $15 each. The cou]ity road commission was empowered to purchase another carload of snow fence. A motion was introduced by Dies' srs, Hubbard and McKibben recom- mending the paying of the men street of Gerrie. Referred to the county road commission. Presentation to Warden Inglis The final session of the council was held • on Thursday night, when by-laws 'Nos. 21, 22 and 23 were passed, signed and sealed. By -haw No. 21 confirms the sev- eral payments voted at the Decem- ber meeting of the council. By-law 22 confirms a by-law of the township 'of Hullett closing •ti em'tein road allowance. 11y -law No. 23 facilitates action by the county engineer in securing the removal' of nuisances and obst- ructions from county roads. The business of the meeting bo- nus concluded, Mr. Tsowal•bhe, was celled to the chair, and Mr, Neel] read an address couched in compli- mentary terms to Warden Inglis while Mr. Adams presented the Warden with a fine gold -heeded cane. . The Werdcn made an appropriate: ddress i11 reply, thanking his fel ow-nmentlrers for their splendid gift nil for very kind words contained n the 0,6161rss, (Contiritted all Page 3) I Dramatic Milestones in Canadian History WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY C. W. ,T.BFFERY$ • ii :1' Al* 4*, , , ,.': \IT: :1',:-"t7S. '... 7.:':- - - j ,-5 . 4L. ' "k' tell \\tl\ 414 ee R, e/ "%▪ "•,,457%:.[A, f {"! 0 ,p.------„:„.., 'f7/i iii �r:i/ T'{ �(C 0 / •' :` / -''r' .-//-,,.////h 1 / r ":-.11-7-7.4,'''''p•4'.-z•,.:,,,),:. ce� / c /// -;1 j;. 'i . ,/,..„:„:,,,,,,.„ r h % ' / r,,,21/v;ti `,!/,r ri1/s/"° 1fY ' l l/! ! ...‘6., •�1 a /� (,r \(` /- / // r `'h Ili/jl/,l \ 7l .2---r—Y / r / �r ( 4v, a i ire/ \\ •i';\IF,-, ,. c ctz, .✓ 2i h: •'ti3 Kk •wr 1, r rtqf P /✓U Ai�rl, t w ii. v c It� r 't •fit. \ ti, 1. ) lee h• rft i ;7:4,C:77) �,,'O ,c 19 ,1 � �i I !� 2 l /j, 1`, • Cid e 04.17 ,w 1� hf6 �✓ EF1 R)'Srfj The Brothers ,La Verendrye in Sight o/ the Western Mountains Thoughout • the earlier history of Canada a. Sea of the West ured the explorers to discovery. Always it seemed to be only a little farther be- yond ; always receded • before thein. To seek it many men spent Heir lives in. toils and privations ; hey ruined themselves, and some, ;ke Marquette and, LaSalle, perish- ci in the search They all failed ; ut -out of their failures came the nowledge of the vast interior of be Continent. Among these meg- hificent failures none was greater ban that of La Verendrye and his ons, which madeknown the prairie aunty- and the Rocky Mountains. Pierre Gaulter de La Verendrye was born tat Three Rivers in 1685 Ie was one of a family of ten chil- ren of the Governor of the district, nd in that age of almost continual arfare, the sons of the seigneurs ad to take their share of the fight - :a at a very ee.r'1y age. Pierre was my twelve years old when he oined the colonial troops and be - ore he was twenty he had fought gainst the settlers of Massachuset- :1 and the English fishermen ot 7ewfoundland. In 1707 he sailed rom Canada to join the French ;my fighting in Flanders ageinst lie great Duke of Marlborough. in the bloody battle of Malplaquet he received nine wounds and was taken; risoner. In time he was exchanged ; ut he had no private fortune end no influencial friend at court,! nd without these, promotion in the' .rmy was impossible. He returned ; o Canada end soon retired from; rilitary life. Shortly after his return from the -ars, he married. Four sons were ern to hint, and his growing fbm- y made it necessary for hint to eek some profitable employment. Ie obtained permission to open al lading post on the St. Maurice 1 aver near his native town, which MS then an important centre o3 he fur 'trade. Here he spent sever- ? years, gaining valuable exper- •iTlce, if not much wealth. In 1726 e turas given the command of the rontier post of Lake Nil» gon, north t Lake Superior, on the verge of ie distant unknown wilderness of he West, La Verendrye, like so many titers, dreamed of finding a way verhand to that Western Sea which n one had seen and of which every - n,] spoke. At Nipigon, while busy eth his duties as an Indian Traci ,r, n eves ever on the Mort for infor' matiotl: about the region beyond. The .!diens told hint, es they told titers. stories of a Wesftvarcl flow- inc river, of a salt lake, on which sailed ,great ships, of men in arm, ur gho rode upon horses. One of the Indians drew a rough map of the route which he helm -0d that he ad followed to where the water: bbed and flowed Though La Ver- udrye did not believe all that he as told, he was convinced that ,uch of it was probable. He resole -- ii to try to find that Western Sett imself, and so, taking with him )eilagah's map, he travelled down ,t Montreal in 1730 to persuade the lovernor to help hien to carry out is project. , ' The Governor, Beaucharnois, was ',terested, but the King would give Ieither men, nor money, nor sup- ' lies. All that La Verendrye was E ble to get was the monopoly of the I'estern fur trade, on condition that t the same time he carried on the el1reh for the way to the sea. He 1 -as allowed to build forts and to trade with the Indians, and out of Iis profits he was expected to pay 11 the costs of his expeditions It an easily be seen that -if he had to ttend to the business of fur trad- ' ug he would not have much time or exploration. He had little money , f his own : he needed men and revisions, canoes and trading oods, and, since the Ring would not ssist hini, he was compelled to ask 1 elp from the merchants of Mont- i eel. Tiley were not interested in his plans for exploration, but by - I remising them a large share of the refits of his trade, he persuaded them to advance the money and 'oods he needed. Early in June, 1731, all was eady. La Verendrye set out from (entreat, taking with him !tis ne- hew, La Jemel'aye, and three of is sons, boys of eighteen, seven- een and sixteen years, who had rown up in their trading post home t Three Rivers, It was a family of xplorers, and all shared the enthus-, ism and the ambition 'of the elder tan. Doubtless, to the boys, the expeditions had all the attractions of i great adventure, and, as there la- er history shows, they must have con sturdy, bravo and self-reliant, The little fleet of birch -bark can-; es trade its way by the usual route o the West, up the Ottawe and long the north shore to the upper' tikes. Late in August, they reached the western end of Lake Superior.' Here the party divided, La Jemeraye on wi h halfn pushing t the men to build a. fort at Rainy Lake, while Le Verendrye stayed for the winter at Kanunistiquia, where Fort William now stands. Next spring he went on 10 the new fort. Gradually during the next fete years a chain of trad- ing posts was r.stnblishcd from Lake. Superior to Lake Winnipeg and be.; gond' as far as the Assiniboinc River Here, (.t the spot where today stniide Portngc la Prairie, Fort La Rion( was built. -A large trade was opened up, for the Indians were glad to bring their • furs to the near -by French forts in- stead of having to take them to the posts of the Iludeon's Bay Company far to the north. Heavy troublea fall upon La Verendrye in 1736. His most experienced and reliable lieutenant, his nephew, La Jemer- aye, died, and in June, a party of his men, with his eldest son and a Jesuit priests, were all massacred by a band of Sioux Indians on an is- le nd in the Lake of the Woods. The bulk of the profits of the trade went to the Montreal merchants, and to carry on his explorations La Verendrye involved himself in debt. The King complained that he was not doing enough exploration. His partners clamored for more profits, and rival merchants spread stories about him to influence the government to take away his monopoly. La Verendrye had to go to Montreal and Quebec to protect his interests, and it was only with great difficulty that he was able to get the merchants and the govern- ment to continue then- support. Again, 'undaunted by his sorrows and misfortunes, he set out for the West. His youngest son, who had been taught to make maps, '10217 joined his father in the family en - 2 erprise, From time to time, La Verendrye had heard accounts of a tribe of Indians called the Mandans, who : were said to live on 'the hanks of a great river that flowed into the ocean. In the simmer of 1738, with two of his sons, he journeyed ec ross the plains southwest of their country. He found them living Meng the banks of the Missouri River, in villages of houses built of logs and earth. They received him cordially and gave hint some information, but he found that their river flowed south and West. He left two of his hien to learn their language and gain further information, and returned to Fort La: Refine, suffering severely from a violent illness, caused probably by his years of hard work, priva- tion and anxiety. Next year his men returned with news thet early in the 011111me1' a number of strange Indians had ar- rived to trade in e Mandan vi - 't tit .I,uhdan 11 '0'7es. They rode on horses, and chine from the, west, where they said there were bearded white men iiv10171 in stone houses on the shores of n lake whner• wafers rose and , fell. Those whit' teen 11111901. have been Spaniards of Mexico 5.1161 Cat -1 ifoenia : it VMS, the old story tltnt, the tendines told all explorers, and. t w110 10.91,61 on truth, hut none of them gave any idea of the great. distance that had to be travelled to reach the Parlfic Ocean. Meanwhile La Verendrye sought other routes, t One of his sons w'a1 sent to ex- l plore the country at the northern end of Lake Winnipeg. He went up the Saskatchewan as far as the forks, and built a post at the place now known a0 The Pas, on the line of the present Hudson Bay i Railway, but lack of means pre- vented further progress in the dir- ection. In April 1742, two of La Ver- erldrye's sons, with two other Frenchmen, set forth again to try to reach the sea: by way of the Mandan country. Their father stay- ed behind, for he was too ill to travel, and the business of fur trading must still go on. The sons reached the Mandan villages and waited there for the expected visit of the Horse Indians. As they did not come, the bro- thers started near the end of July, with two Mandan to guide them to the Horse country. They crossed the Missouri and travelled for twenty days through what were la- ter known as the Bad Lands. Here the earth was streaked with bril- liant colors, yellow red, green, cri- mson and blue, and carved by wind and water into fantastic sha- pes. They found a camp of ce tribe which were called The Good Look- ing Indians, and from them got the new guides to the Horse In- dians. When, at last they reached these Indians, they admitted that 'hey had never been to the West- ern Sea, and said that the way there led through the country of the fierce Snake Indians, the ter- ror of the Western plains. They told then of a neighboring tribe, Bow Indians, who might be able to take them to the sea, and who were the only tribe able to fight the Snakes. To the Bow Indians there- fore the brothers travelled, and at length en November 21st, they Lound them in a huge camp prepar- ing to start out to 'attack the Snakes. Over two thousand warriors with their families were gathered, and the prairie was covered with hund- reds of teepees, and La Vetendrye's recount tells us that the Indiana had with them great numbers of horses, asses and mules. This information is of great in- terest, since it shows us how fat north the use of the horse had ree- shed at this date, The. Spaniards had hrnn,ht the first: horses to this continent, and from their settle -1 inents in Mexico mid California„ 'rrem time to time, horses escaped,': or were purchased 01' stolen by tile. Indians. They passedfrom tribe, a tribe by capture or trade until 117 1742, n6 We have seen, horses were, nsnd by the lthclians almost as fat`I; as Missouri. The possession of these nninals lna(ie en entire change to he life of the Inclians, and gave he tribes who used them an onor-' nous 'advantage in hunting, in tra- vel and in warfare. Hitherto the buffalo, on which they depended for their food, clothing, and shel- ter had to be hunted by slow and careful tackling, or by luring or driving them over high banks. Now they could be surrounded, or yid - den down by hunters on horseback Formerly all journeys were made on foot ; the dog was their only bel st of burden, and these carry only small loads. Now they by could travel very rapidly and heavy loads could be be transported by means of the travois. This was en 'ngenious arrangement of two long poles, which were tied together in 2 V. shape at the horse's shoulder, which supported the tips, while the ends dragged on the ground on either side several feet behind the horse. Cross -bars between the poles bore the piles of baggage, the tent covers, provisions, old men and wo- men, the sick and the children. The Indians never developed the cert, end knew nothing of the use of wheels until they saw the white man. Some recompenses was given Lal l'erendrye for his years of effort : himself was promoted to the ranit f Captain, and in 1749 he was awarded the Cross of St. Louis, the coveted military distinction of this day. He lived only 02 sew months to carry the honor. Before the end of the year, death took him ht the midst of preparations to start in the spring on s new search by way of the Saskatch- ewan. His sons expected' to be allowed to carry on his work, in which they had shared for so many years. But rival claimants got the ear of the Governor, the old false stories were circulated egain, and though they pleaded their cause strongly, others were given the western trade which they, had established. Poor and neglected, they continued to serve as junior •officers in the colony troops until the end of the French rule in Canada. When and where the eldest, Pierre, died we knew not. Louis Joseph, on his way to France, was drowned in the wreck ship f o the .h T a h u A u,te off p g the coast of Cape Breton in the veer 1701. Francois apparently 1-e- rnnined in Canada after the Bettish conquest. Though descendants of the elder 1,e Verendrye's brothel's nr.'i sisters art? living fo-da,y 111 (Moline, of his own family none ere known to exist. He and his. eons live only in the story of a. great purpose followed with stead- f0.st courage and devotion, 4L The rotary engine was invonted by George Westinghouse at the age of 1,4