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The Clinton New Era, 1911-12-21, Page 1• IPOTAIWIIID VOW fol. 44,. No: 26 , °LINTON ONTARIO T.HUR DAY DECEMBER 21 1911 l� liRoWTralk oi.a4a $IOP iTAP RaOOICSs 0 o p '!C s I e ii 'r w *a. ... >R' O.11 ip e. Co.• ttaco BY RM,ssioa••- 01/+. iXc � � w T'. flgbUng King VIoter "Up on* firucc" a The veteran railroader looked doubtful When the ' newepapermnaa>< venturedgoing;tobean eatlhe t pisynree ma.thattter.fit .war , or the railroad men in thin district thee. Winter. The Veteran rayfiroader hats beim ?uniting "up ithe'Bruce" for a good many years notw, aped' he opened up ;whit• bhp. remark that the old anew fightersalong the line were ex- pecting one of.t+he w'oret seasons in the hmeto,ry :of the line. "You know we' have had it fairly easy for three years,. now," he said, between pu#ts "H'ailrroad men think that things ran an threes and they ,calculate that it le time for ,a trio of hard seasons We had three pretty hard ones in a roar before thhe last easy ones, and the lasts of them, four years ago, ewes about the. ,worst 'that any line ida Ontario had to . contend .with. We are ready to put in tsoane hard ;woi% this ,winter.," Where Winter is King. Anyone who has :travelled the Bruce -or ,the other lines in the section north of London knows that it is one: of the zones that King Winter has picked out for his N ery own. Almost- any ,commercial :traveller who his gone through the terror tory in (January en, Februarry will tell you that he has seen tihe trackrnen hang their coats afro the telegraph wires while they�stood on the snowbanks. Some banks on. the Bruce have . been measured and have been found to be tweinity.. said twenty-five feet high. The railroads—both the C. P. R. and Grand Truiak have lines in this snow fastness—are already prepare ing :to Hackle the jobate' its worst, if necessary. Travellers have no- ticed that the engines of the trains that are •drawn into the hor•t l country are equipped already with .what: is known an "the butterfly" plow. This device is placed on the front of the engine, and takes the place of .the pilot or "cowcatch- er." It eonsists of 'two large steel wings with concave surfaces,, amid it is the only kind of •a butterfly seers in .that section. For am. ordinary, fall of ~snow these serve the pur- - pose of cleating' :the line, but epee the snowflakes are more than'threile or four inches' deep, it is 'necessary to get out the giant plows—the. Dreadnought•s of the' fleet,. so to spealu. Each Dreadnotj;ght" has its . two big engines behind it, and it has a captain and a'erewi of forty or'fifty men. It even has alookout, oln• the J. 0 lit . tle town of l3eth-le- hems Flo▪ w still we see. Z. For Christ is born of 'Ma , • ry, And gath-ered all 3. 170.* Si . lent .1y, how •.61. lent-lyi The wond'rousgift 4.0* ho . ly Child of Beth- le . hemi De - ecendto us, f d. J• 4. = r F , �• A - bove thy deep and dream -less sleep,The .si - lent stars go . by; While mortals sleep, the an - gels keep. Their watch of wondr •- ing love; _ So God im=parts to hu -man hearts The bless-ings of His heav'n._ Cast out our sin, and en ter in,.'lie . born in. us to day:— '�',� m�„i�i=)•!1®min���sti ,s—'AP).". r��r in thy dark streets shin - eth The en.; er • las- t ng . light morn-ing stars to.- ,geth r er Pro- - claim the ': he . - ly birth; — ear may hear his com - ing, But in this world of sin, — hear the Christ. - mas an gels The great glad tid . tags :te,11;�\ • • The hopes and fears of all' the years. Are met in thee to•night, AadP rais-es sing to God the King And peace to men' on earth. Wheremeeksoulswill re. ceive Him still, The dear Christ en- ters in 0 come to _ es, . a .,bide .with us, Our Lord E . man - a • • ell nhe t high prew,. IVO; wlli,rht::signals ere g4iven. to the engineers. The sec- tion boss is usually in charge. Som'ettimes Easy Going. When •the fall ' of ,snow is pot unusually heavy, the big plows turn- up the White blanket as though it ;were rbc softest loam before a traction plow. ' But let the scale be increased to feet, and there is trouble. Even the D:r'eadnought, or the big rotaries, the latter .the, inventic a ,o1 .a ppr�eacher, do . not snake high speed when there is bench snow, and especially if it has become coated with ice. The big fighting machine may, make twenty miles without' much effort, but (wheal it strikes a drift there is trouble. When a( stop is hnade, the plow is' drawn back a handed yards, • and then: .the, steam is turned into, the cylinders, ,Theplow rushes at the wall of snow Dike :tihde old Monitor, . Perhaps itis able t run through a bank, but of- ten it 'is only successful im pack-. ing the big 'drift' .harder. Then the crew is ordered out with picks and shovels, and sometimes hamid ,Work has to be done for miles. In fact, once it, was necessary to clear the aline from' London: to Wingham with pick and shovel -a ' distance Of More than ninety miles. This was an unusual . occasion, however, and the plot 's ,can 'usually 'make the grade." • Italians Usually Employed. W H. Kerr & Bon, Editors and, Publishers -) e ' oisoxthg otthe. People By Or. Mlm Msplam (Copyright by Publishers Preset -Ltd.) The that business of a community,, civilized or unciviliresl, le to provide Itself with some arrangements, pri- mitive or complicated, by 'which it shall avoid the necessity of eating, drinking, or re-breathing,its own excretions. This .is the end and aim of all hygiene and sanitation. The easy device which savage people practise is to move away from de- filed that elocality xistence is hich has no longer come bear- able or even possible. But so soon as they erect habitations for them selves they become indisposed to pur- sue this migratory policy and endure as.well-as they can the .evils which they created. Pestilence and plague are the results, until a merciful fire sweeps away the whole abomination, and allows a repetition of the offence; But as these habitations become more durable, and brick and stone replace straw and wood, the remedy of fire is less generally, applicable, and the pestilence gees unchecked. To abandon the sites of Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, : and Toronto, for example, .would be Inconvenient, and the edifices are too well built for us to hope much from, the ealutory fire. A better way had to be found. Accordingly sewers were constructed to carry off the refuse, and pipes were laid to carry water.• But the indiscretion was committed of draw-. ing the water from the receptacle into which tb_ a sewage had been dis- charged. By a rare feat of ingenuity, however, the intake for the water was glaced at some little distance from the disgharge for the sevrage.• Under the. -best conditions this merely meant that a community was satisfied if it did not consume its own sewage. It was • still -content to poison a com- munity lower down the river, and to be poisoned by a community which hs' its habitation atelier up. • Cities in Canada may be divided inn, two classes, •according as their *habitants are poisoned by them- selves or by their neighbours. To- ronto and Kingston fall into the first. 'class; Montreal in the second; and Ottawa; in •both;,. but all.. four poison their neighbours indiscriminately.; The difficulty has arisen out of our failure to understand that • a .river is designed to drain a country.. 1t. always lies at the lowest level of the land through. which it passes. Its very excellence as a drain is pre- cisely the quality which makes it the worst possible source .of supply for eater which is to be drunk. In Eu- rope the people have made • the dis- covery that this'drain May be used to sail boats on;, it never occurs to them to drink of its water. ' The Romans made the same dis- covery. They emploayed the, riversfor • legitimate purposes and ‘,ought their water supply at the proper source. 'In all the regions which they occupied there: yet remain, the ruins of those splendid aqueducts by which 'they brought water from the clean hills: We are content to bring our drinking supply in an .open diteb •from a polluted river, The degree of civilization to which a community has attained may be judged by the number of deaths which occur from typhoid fever. It is . an index of the regard in which clean- liness of living and even life itself is held. Before settingforth, in all its enormity the death rate from typhoid, 'which prevails in the cities of Canada,. it will be advisable. for the sake, of erecting a standard, for comparison, to cite the rate for European .coun- tries. In • Scotland the deaths from typhoid during the years 1901-05 were 6.2 per hundred thousand of the po- pulation; in England and Wales; 11.2; in Germany, 7.6; in Belgium. 16.8; in Austria, 19.9.. ' According to the latest, return s the -death rate in Canada is 35.5, which is higher -than that in Hungary, where it is 28.3: in Italy, where it is 35.2; and only lower . than in the United States where it is forty-six per hun- dred thousand •of the population. Let us now consider the state of affairs in the various cities of Canada in . the light of statistics supplied by Dr. Charles H. Hodgetts, 'medical offi- cer to the Conservation Commission, in his address .on • "Pure .Water and the Pollution of Waterways". When it is considered what Scotland has achieved, and that a death rate from typhoid ot' over' twenty per hundred thousand of the population is evidence of . gross carelessness, the full signi- flcance of the figures 'will be ap- preciated. In Edmonton, from 1901- 09, t he death rate from typhoid ° fever per one hundred thousand of population, was: 75.4, 20.0, 32.3, 37.5, 40.0, 254.8, 180.0, 110.0, 76.0. In Win- nipeg the rate was 118.3, 95.0, 82.8, 248.3, 176.0, 108.8, 49,2, 40.5, 38.4, The figures are not to be obtained during all of these years for Fort ' William, but such as are given disclose the It is a peculiar thing that most of the shovelling is : done by "wed who ,coins from the land of eternal. nunshiise•-Italy. ;They. seem •to't,be: able,to,sticlr at the work night and: day, and neiver play out, and,as there is !lots oft other :work for Canadians ohithe road, the Italians get all they want of it: Som'otimes, .as stated, the banks on either side* of the -tracks reach almost to' the telegraph-, wires. :Oftre(o three tiers oflinen arse. at work, one !shovelling the snow as high lets • his head ;to. another, who hoists it( up to a third. The terraces are not an• t mpleassiae sight, if one does not have to gaze upon theni for too along a time.. The ,auxiliary crew is always ready for a,eaill When the snow trains are out. T1he big plows of- ten leave the rails, and whets tMare, .is snow ahead of them, and ole' a single track lineo it is of te(n% a'dia i- .eult feat to get the derrick in such. a position that will permit of its onoratien on the plow. The m'api, ,who rides on top of the plow, us- ually the section boss, or • one of his assistants,often has to jump into a snowbalntic, and many a man has been buriedi up°do his ehin aril the downy substance when a bank. ,caved in. ' Four and a Half Miles in 19 House. Snow trains have been out for days Without a respite along the Bruce, and engineers and all have often ;come into London an,a .bit- :telly ;cold night with their cloth- ing frozen ;to them. Sometimes a train has been known to take 19 hours it ;ping four and a half nniles. But the railroad elan is good for the work, :and th:ouh 1912 brings Where the rate was 4 per hunttlre' thousand, the water Is drawn from a series of well guarded lakes; and in Quebec, where the rate was 6.8 the Water Is drawn from the Laurentian Bills. If now, the chief cities of the United States, which border on the Great Lakes, be considered, it will be found that the death rates from typhoid are higber, and vary less, than those of the otttas quoted for Canada, Niagara.: Falls from 190,0-08, has the follow- ing high rates: 107.9, 143.9, 130.4, 126.9, 139,8. 181.6, 147.3, 126.8, 9$.; and Seen Ste. Maxie has: 132.9. 92.9, 172.9, 115.9, 52.4, 68.6, 58.9, 16.5, 72.9. ' Of the twelve cities from which returns are available, only two, and those curiously enough, Chicago and Mil- waukee, have rates which would sug- gest care and supervision of a water supply.. -. What has been brougbt about in the way of reform in Great Britain. has not been the result of a day. It was not until.1258 that pollution was prohibited in England. In 1861. an Act was passed requiring sewage to bo purified and freed from, putreseible matters before being discharged into streams, From, then until to -day, the question has been dealt with by many Aets,and considered by 'many commis- sions, and although all .'difficulties have not yet been overcome, one aoost Important precaution has been taken, namely, the purifying of the whole of the sewage before discharging it into any. water course. In Canada, .the matter 'is com- plicated by the fact that many of the sources of watersupply are not only interprovincial but.. also iuternatienal. The great Lakes, for example, receive a portion of their waters from Minne- sota, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Ver- mont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as from the contiguous Canadian provinces: So that to take steps to ensure cleanliness In the water sup- ply of the country will demand that • R. S. LEA, C.E. Chairman. of Cominittee formed to investigate• sanitary 'conditions •ef. Canada. V.. United States May be appealed to. For four years in Albany before an efficient water supply was secured the rate averaged 104 per hundred thou. sand. In the nest four rerrs it de- areemed to 26. In Troy Where no alteration Was made in the water sup- ply the rate remained identical dirgin8 the two periods. When we reflect upon what hal been done in Europe the shame for our, neglect will he the greater. Heft we are ' practically tree from the poverty which oppresses Europe. Our Population is smattered over in enormous area, whilst in Europe a. population of 178,000,000 is crowded into an area little greater than theft of the Maritime provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, which contain fewer than seven million people. - Strange as it may appear, the dip covery of methods for the purification of sewage has harected rather then helped, since they have confirmed; Abell' habit of discharging. ,1e the rivers from whit e. The realobiect to bei •n to prevent rivers fro people sewage.i they dr attained hecomi" offensive, since no meth had been discovered for reducing! sewage to such a point of purification.., that it may be drunk- The plants! Which are being erected at enormous cost to filter water and the sewage farms 'which are being built are ',merely postponing the time when we shall have purewater to drink. In- stead of working towards a supply which has always been purere. wasting our time in purifying water, which has already been hopelessly: polluted. The proper method is to obtain the purest supply • and then purify it still' further by filtration, Liverpool has shown us the way. Ise water. , Is obtained from a stream rising in the mountains of Wales, the watershed of which is owned or eon• trolled by the city. This circum. stance is not, however, depended upo'r to ensure the entire safety of the water, for it isfiltered through slow sand filters before being delivered tc the consumers. The Canadian Society of Civil . Ere gineers by means of a Committee has just completed an important surveh of the sanitary condition of Canal" • and the committee of which Mr. It. 9 Lea is Chairna.n has submitted a most valuable report to the Annual Meeting of 1911. The following -facti are taken from the Report of the Society as published: For the, putt pose of obtaining definite information the list of questions was sent to all places in Canada with populations of 1,0.00 • or over. This list was sent to 327 'places and replies were received from 166, Only 18 aiaces reported any kind of , purification and in twelve of these it is,limit'ed'in its nature. 01 the • 166 places reporting 145 have waterworks. 01• these only 36 have supplies from under -ground 'sources, 44 obtain their supply from small- . lakes and .-streams in practically un• Inhabited watersheds; 25 -from tile• Great Lakes and: the St. Lawrence• and Ottawa rivers;' and 40 :from other Iakes and streams which are liable to contamination by sewage. From the information • furnished• by these re- plies, the Committee reports "that not much has yet been done in Canada in the way of purification: of either water or sewage". After a complete analysisof all the replies received and a general, coal, sideration of the whole question, the committee summarized its eon- elusions as follows 1. None .of the methods ea sewage. ' disposal, which. are feasible and eco- • nomically applicable on a large scale,, can -be relied upon to effect complete purification. • 2.. The distinction between the general surface drainage of a po- pulated district and its urban sewage is one of degree only, and each ' in itself • may render the 'water into which it discharges unwholesome, and dangerous for drinking purposes. • 3: Since much of the surface drain- age cannot be even collected for • treatment, and since sewage disposal- processes in the present state of the. art cannot be .depended upon to effect complete bacterial •purification, it follows that' the raw• water' of rivers and lakes in populated districts can never be considered entirely safe, and fit for domestic smiles, 4. Experience has shown that' water of even a considerable degree of pollution can be rendered pure and wholesome by filtration, . and, for . practical purposes this is . the only reliable means of ensuring the 'safety • of surface supplies from unprotected water -sheds. ' • 5. Towns, and cities which take their supplies.from suspicions sources should not depend for their safety.: upon the efforts . of others, but should themselves adopt such precautions ag .are available. • 6. Iia• Canada up to the present time practically nothing has been done in 'the way of purifying• the sewage . of municipalities, except in the case of "less than half a dozen places in the Province of Ontario. 7. The Public Health Acts of the different Provinces provide 'in a general way against the discharge into bodies of water of matter which would cause . nuisances, or which would endanger the public ' health. Such laws lack definiteness, and are therefore generally ineffective. The meeting of Dominion and pro- vincial public health representatives with the Members of the Committee on Public Health of the Commission ,of Conservation, which was con- vened at Ottawa last October, and at which Dr. Hodgetts delivered his ad- dress, is an indication that this Sub- ject is being considered by public health authorities. If, as Dr. 1 odgette suggested,- the Commission. on Con•'' servation collect all available data to estimate correctly the character, quantity, and variety of the various, pollutions at present. existing, and ascertain their exact point of dis- charge and their bearing upon the present sources of water supply of towns and cities, both near and 1-e-, mote from the point of discharge, an important stop will be taken. It will then be for the B ederat 'Government to deal effectively with the whole matter, • the Federal Governments of the two countries deal with . the matter. The' restrictions, Imposed at present. against , polluting water, ways are,i largely municipal, and, as such; 'each community is concerned chiefly with' attempting to keep pore its own par- ticular water supply, without con-; sidering whether or not the 'disposal:. of ` its sewage will contaminate the supply of others. Fortunately there: are now means by .which" this joint; Control can be undertaken by the, governments of. Canada and of the ,United: States, under a .Treaty .which was signed on January. 11, 1909,' and ratified on. May 5th, 1910. The• main. object of this Treaty was to prevent, disputes : regarding boundary waters, but incidentally provision was made. to prevent their pollution by com munities dwelling upon either .banks.. Under this treaty it is provided that all questions and mattersof differ- ence arising between the . two coun- tries involving the rights, obligations or interests of • either in relation to the other shall be referred to a com- mission for. examination and report, Such commission has now been .ap- pointed ap-pointed and is at work upon these problems. The death rate from typhoid in Canada is 35 per 100,000 of the po- pulation. Accordingly about 3,000 persons die ,every year from the disease. How, as only about ten _per cent. of all patients affected die it follows that thirty thousand persons are attacked in Canada every year. In addition to the suffering and grief caused by the disease the drain on the efficiency of the community is enormous by the withdrawal of to large a number of the people from following state; 88.6, 200.2, 182.6, useful employment. 946.9, 98.5, 94.0. In the Prosince of By combining the life value of in- Quebec the highest rates, in the Cities dividuals at different ages with the quoted, are those given for Sher.• age distribution of persons dying of brooks: 476'.6,• 227.0, 60.8, 60.8, 30.7, typhoid fever, the resulting average 62.3, 21.6, 108.0, 131.4, 78.4. Of the value of persons dying from typhoid two largest cities fronting on the .1 is found to be $4,634. If to this Chain of the Great Lakes and the St. be added cost "of nursing, attendance, Lawrence, Toronto has a comparative- iand loss of wages the cost will easily ly low rate, though during the years , reach six thousand dollars. Ae'tord- 1906-09 the figures have risen to i ing to the census of the united States 24.8, 19.4, 19.8, 25.7. During 1900- for the last year for which complete 09, the rates for Montreal were: ( returns are available, 85,379 deaths 42.6, 44.4,. 30.9, 31.4, 31.8, 18.1, 37.0, , occurred from typhoid fever. If it 33.2, 33,1, 5$,$ per hundred thousand be assumed that each of these re - of 4he inhabitants. presents a loss to the community of These figures Have been selected t $6,000, the total amount is found to as showing the highest rates. Other I be $212,$00,000. Of these deaths pro - a blizzard :a day, he will be wait{- cities, such as Vancouver, Victoria, batty three-quarters could have been int foretell the storm ships and at- Haireilton, Quebec, Halifax, and Char -i provontd; lottetown, have figures, as a we that is, the needless loos telt the embattled tyrant, rule, Weof vital ll ,-.. under the 20 per cent danger marls.' neo C endtheasameslol se is ut $repetrted rt.., ;t i^ i-•t.pt', re.'"'er° di' n. Cry t;itttt't'10t,tt;tmwil 't'i.+,.it. " "a" ••'• av J.a..u. t..:l wt3 lav 1J wings; � in ae, az, C A - • C \.a\, l A . is given as •8.3 the water s Hplif s to reduce the death rate, the ex. FOR L iCIi R'S I drawn from tela , parienee of two adjacent nitiea in the Probably a woman bates to lie just because she doesn't fancy the idea of . . .,.,...••;,y ��•�: :+.:�:.,t n::.i, crit,.