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| Grand Trunk Pacific Locomotive. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Friday, July 31, 1903.
GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC.
Contract With Dominion For Transcontinental Road.
TERMS ANNOUNCED BY PREMIER.
Government to Build From Moncton, N. B., to Winnipeg and Lease to the Company For 50 Years—From Winnipeg to the Pacific Company to Build in Seven Years.
Ottawa, Ontario, July 31.—Sir Wilfrid Laurier announced in parliament the details of the contract between the Grand Trunk Pacific and the government for the construction of a national trans-continental railway. The road will run from Moncton, N. B., to Fort Simpson on the Pacific ocean, a distance of 3,300 miles.
The government will build with public money from Moncton to Winnipeg and lease to the company for 50 years. For seven years the company gets to lease free but will have to pay operating expenses. The following three years the company will turn over to the government the net earnings.
For the succeeding 40 years the company will have to pay 3 per cent to the government on the capital cost of this section. The commission will supervise the building but it is likely the company will do the work
From Winnipeg to the Pacific the company will build within seven years. The government will guarantee 75 per cent of the cost of construction up to $13,000 per mile on the prairie section and $30,000 per mile on the mountain section. The principal and interest to be guaranteed for 50 years. The company will not pay anything on the mountain division for seven years and for succeeding three years will pay the net receipts over working expenses, while for the remaining 40 years the company will pay three per cent per annum.
The government will take the first mortgage on the line between Winnipeg and the Pacific as security of its guarantee and the Grand Trunk railway will guarantee the bonds on the Grand Trunk Pacific for its proportion of the cost of that section. The company will have running privilege over the Intercolonial and the Intercolonial and all other companies will have running privileges between Moncton and Winnipeg subject to the company's terms.
Unrouted traffic in winter must go to St. John and Halifax at Portland rates. The company must deposit in 60 days $5,000,000 as security for fulfilling the contract. The money will be released for the construction of the final section.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier spoke for three hours in announcing the contract and explaining the details. He gave as one reason for building the road through the maritime provinces that it should reach a Canadian port on the seaboard, so that Canada would be independent should the Americans at any time stop the bonding privileges. The best way, he said, to remain friendly with the United States was to be independent of them commercially.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
The Fourth's Butcher's Bill.
"Fifty-two killed and 3,665 injured." That is the "butcher's bill," as the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle calls it, for the last Fourth of July celebration. The figures are rather startling. Many an important battle has been won with fewer casualties. It is hard to see why General Sherman's famous characterization of war doesn't equally apply to the Fourth of July, except that the horrors of the Fourth of July are even less tolerable than the horrors of war.
Wars are waged with reason and often with good reason. The slaughter of a war is inevitable and it serves a purpose. The present method of celebrating the anniversary of the nation's birth is entirely unreasonable. The slaughter of the Fourth of July is altogether unnecessary and serves no purpose whatever. No return at all is received for the Fourth of July butcher's bill. The lives expended in the celebration are lives thrown away.
The butcher's bill is not the only item of the loss and damage occasioned by the Fourth of July. There is the loss of property by fire. It was comparatively insignificant this year, footing up to only half a million dollars. But even half a million is a good deal of money to throw in the gutter.
Isn't it about time to stop this senseless annual drain? Other holidays are celebrated without killing and wounding thousands of persons and destroying thousands of dollars' worth of property. There is no reason why the Fourth of July shouldn't be. The Fourth of July celebration has degenerated into a carnival of hoodlumism; and some of the confusion between liberty and license, which obviously now reigns in the popular mind in this country, is doubtless due to our bad habit of celebrating the nation's liberty by letting down the bars to lawlessness and suspending salutary ordinances whose strict enforcement is now more necessary to the public good on the fourth day of July than on any other day in the year.
Among other numerous reforms that this country needs is a reform in the present method of celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
PRIZES ANNOUNCED
For the Misspelled Works in the Educational Contest.
Some weeks ago five prizes were offered by The Standard for the parties who would detect the greatest number of misspelled words in a list of advertisements which were to be used in this paper during a series of issues. The words were to be purposely misspelled by the man who set up the advertisements. Five columns of advertisements were secured and no advertisement was larger in size than two inches. The spelling of the words was to be changed in successive issues. This insured the fact that every advertisement would be carefully read in full every day and the advertisers can testify from the results attained that they were read.
The advertisements were continued through fifty days and during that time 710 words appeared in those columns misspelled. This number has been ascertained as a result of a very careful count made by two of our most experienced proof readers who counted the errors independent of each other, and then compared results and compared the individual words.
Scarcely had the last issue of the paper containing those columns been put out when the answers began to come in. Hundreds of answers were received, and the exact time of the receipt of each was marked upon the envelope and this time was taken into consideration in making up the schedule of prizes. This was essential for two answers were equally distant from the correct number, one being above the correct number and the other below it. But one was received about two hours earlier than the other and that one was awarded a higher prize than the later one.
While the exact number of misspelled words, as stated above was 710, the answers received ranged all the way from 68 to 1,680.
The recipients of the five prizes offered with the number of words submitted by each is as follows:
First prize, $5 in silver. Miss Estelle M. Walker, 13 Madison-st., Cortland. 694 words.
Second prize, The Cortland Daily Standard for one year. Mrs. Manley W. Kinney, R. F. D. No. 7, Cortland. 682 words.
Third prize, $3 in silver. Mrs. Byron Phelps, R. F. D. No. 2, McGraw. 742 words.
Fourth prize, $2 in silver. N. W. Fuller, R. F. D. No 1, Cortland. 759 words.
Fifth prize, $1 in silver. Mrs. James A. Smith, 32 Groton-ave., Cortland. 661 words.
The prize winners may call at this office at any time and receive their awards, at least all except the winner of the second prize may do so, and if she will call she may receive a receipt for the Daily Standard for one year, and during the coming year she can receive a daily reminder in the coming of the paper to her door of her industry and accuracy in her search for misspelled words.
This contest has been a very satisfactory one to all concerned and the advertisers have had another evidence of how thoroughly, how widely and how generally The Standard is read, for many of the advertisements have been so worded as to disclose at once the fact that they had been read if certain articles were called for by purchasers, and the desired result was in almost every case attained in full measure.
ITALIANS IN CAMP.
Have Come to Gather Bean Harvest for Canning Factory.
The local Lackawanna depot looked like an immigrant station or a small "Castle Garden" immediately after the arrival of the 9:20 train from the north this morning. This train carried a special car containing about seventy-five Italians from Syracuse and vicinity, under the charge of a foreman engaged by Yager & Halstead to work in the bean fields. The party was a typical Italian gang of laborers such as work in the hop fields, onion beds and on extensive truck farms, familiar enough to residents of the Mohawk Valley and along the line of the New York Central [railroad], but not so familiar to residents of this part of the state.
The party contained three or four children to every adult, there being several women with babies in their arms. They carried baggage and provisions stored in trunks, boxes, satchels, paper parcels, etc., but mostly in common grain sacks. Yager & Halstead have arranged a camp for them on a vacant lot just off from Owego-st. near the Lehigh and there they will remain for a period of six weeks or longer.
They were met at the station by teams with hayracks and taken to the camp, where they at once began to make themselves comfortable and at home. They are designed for work in the fields only. The firm has about twenty-two acres of beans about ready to harvest and as it is especially hard to procure local help to do this work it was decided to follow the custom of upstate canning factories in employing Italian help in the harvesting of the crop.
This in no way applies to the factory itself and Messrs. Yager & Halstead wish it stated that they will have work for about 200 local hands as soon as everything is in running order.
The crop is late this year but work will be commenced at the factory next week and everything will probably be in full blast a week later. Owing to the lateness of the season one crop is apt to follow another in quick succession practically insuring steady work.
RESIGNATION EXPECTED
Of Rev U. S. Milburn as Pastor of Universalist Church.
Rev. U. S. Milburn, for five years past a pastor of the Universalist church of this city, has signified to members of his church that his resignation may be expected within a few days. The news is most unwelcome to all, for with a single mind the church desires the relations which have been so pleasant and so cordial between pastor and people to continue, and if a refusal to accept the resignation would avail there is not a doubt that the church would decline to entertain such a request. It hopes that the pastor who is now away on his vacation may be induced to reconsider such a thought, though it hardly dares to hope that he will do so.
Mr. Milburn bas been a most excellent pastor, and is an unusually brilliant preacher. He has commanded the respect, the confidence and the regard, not only of the entire membership of his own church, but of the whole community as well, and his departure from Cortland will be generally regretted.
Not alone in Cortland has he been esteemed, but through the state he has occupied a prominent place in his own denomination, having been the president of the State Young People's society, and having occupied other responsible positions in the state association. Wherever he goes the best wishes of this community will accompany him.
BREVITIES.
—M. L. Erway has purchased the property at 8 Graham-ave., and expects to move there Oct. 1, after some repairs are completed.
—Mrs. W. T. Smith, 100 Clinton-ave., gave a thimble bee yesterday afternoon to about thirty-five of her friends in honor of Mrs. James and daughter of Rochester who are her guests.
—The new display advertisements today are—Angell & Thomas, Sale of oxfords, etc., page 6; Perkins & Quick, Asthma remedy, page 4; Morse Clothing Co., 10 specials for 10 days, page 8; E. E. Bates, Scientific optician, page 5.
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