From the Archives of Western Newspapers

By Samantha Johnson
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

November 27, 1908 – Coleman Miner

In Blairmore, the trouble over diverting a branch of the Old Man River, which runs close to the Alberta Hotel and is the only water supply sufficient for fire protection, has been settled. The water will continue to run in the old channel for the present. Who said the councillors were dead?

The investigation which is being carried out in Ottawa into the affairs of the marine and fisheries department, each day reveals more and more rottenness. The liberals are saying it is the fault of the conservatives and vice versa, but the upshot is the whole department needs reorganizing.

Here are a few things the Alberta Government has done for the Pass. They have given us the over the slide ‘shoot the chutes’ trail, a compensation act that doesn’t compensate, the Coleman elevated high water road, free schoolbooks printed outside Canada by scab labour, a government owned telephone system with no reduction in rates, an increase in crime, squandered the estates of the victims of the Frank slide and other unfortunate accidents and let widows and orphans go in want, provided many promises along with a splendid exhibition of incompetence.

November 24, 1909 – Didsbury Pioneer

There have been one or two unlucky episodes in the career of Earl Grey, who got lost in the Canadian forest recently. A short time ago an incandescent globe exploded near where he was standing resulting in shards of glass penetrating his right eye. Fortunately, a successful operation saved his vision.

It has been estimated that if all the English sparrows in the world were placed one behind the other, they would make up a line 4,090,909 miles long. This would mean they could circle the earth at the equator 163 times.

Penny-a-word cables are currently the topic of earnest discussions between Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux, postmaster general of Canada, and Sydney Buxton, postmaster general of Great Britain.

November 28, 1913 – The Lacombe Guardian

In London, women hurled hammers at the judge in session at the Old Bailey today when he sentenced Miss Rachel Peace, a militant suffragette, to 18 months in prison. She was found guilty by jury of setting fire to a mansion at Hampton-on-Thames last Oct. 4. Four of the disturbers were arrested following a hard struggle with police.

Ross Piper, a young man of about 23, has been arrested for the abduction of 16-year-old May England. The couple disappeared a week ago and the Mounted Police failed to locate them. England returned this past Saturday evening and said she’d been held in a tent by a masked man and assaulted. This tale turned out to be false and was what Piper told England to say. Piper, who is married to a well-known young lady not yet out of her teens who he has a small child with, returned to Red Deer on Monday night and was arrested.

At the last town council meeting, there was some friction between the local fire brigade and the management of the skating rink over the use of the fire hose to flood the rink. It turns out the mayor had given permission to use the fire hose without consulting the fire chief first.