Nothing but a flimsy excuse As far as the name changers were concerned, the renaming’s delay was the attorney general’s fault. Waiting for the postmaster general’s okay was nothing more than a “flimsy excuse.” It seems the head postie would be proud to have a hand in commemorating the great British war hero through renaming the […] Read more…
Held up by the post(master) Waiting for the postmaster general’s decision may have been as excruciating as waiting for King George V’s long silence to end. Weeks had passed since officials sent Canada’s head postie the referendum results. After a prod from the local MP, the acting postmaster sent a letter to Mr Millar, the city […] Read more…
Sir Sam, you need to reconsider who your friends are The Royal Commission that investigated the fuse and shell scandal released their findings. Both Militia Minister Sir Sam Hughes and Colonel Carnegie, the Shell Committee’s ordinance expert, were cleared of negligence. The minister was in the dark; the ordinance expert was overworked and “under-qualified” to […] Read more…
Dominion Day, 1916 Canada celebrated its 49th birthday on 1 July 1916. Today it’s sometimes difficult to think of what it was like when Canada was a fledgling nation. In 1916, many people were alive (and remembered) the Charlottetown Conference so thinking back to those early days shouldn’t have been a great stretch. A bit of […] Read more…
Irish Uprising News from Ireland was slow and—at least at first–sparse. Apart from cut communications lines, London’s censors vetted the uprising’s details, leaving many in the dark. By the end of this week—10 days after the rebellion began—more than 100 people were killed or wounded, the street fighting subsided, and more than 1000 insurgents were […] Read more…
Playing around with prohibition Legislators added and refined clauses as they continued to debate the merits of Premier Hearst’s prohibition bill. Every municipality would have at least one licensed hotel (“standard hotels”), and boarding houses could bill themselves as such. For an annual licensing fee of $1 (just less than $20—see notes on conversion), these […] Read more…