From the Archives of Western Newspapers

By Samantha Johnson
For Southern Alberta Newspapers

September 24, 1885 – The Brandon Mail

Two councillors put forth a motion at the last meeting to buy a four-ton scale, not to exceed $210, to be placed in town with an office rented for the same to give farmers confidence and show them they were being treated fairly. Another stated there was no money on hand for such a purpose. The argument was made that with two scales already in town, farmers could take their grain elsewhere if they felt the elevators weren’t giving a fair price. The motion was defeated by the vote of the mayor.

The Manitoban has fallen into the petty and contemptible habit of reproducing unfriendly criticism of the Free Press. Even the Brandon Mail, the lowest, most disreputable and despised of all sheets, is lovingly patted on the head by our neighbour when, in the worst of English, it vents its vulgar venom against the Free Press.

The Inspector of the Goals was in the city last Saturday on his round of inspection. He found a racket of some proportions among the officials, but until the matter is settled, we are not disposed to say anything more about it.   

September 24, 1912 – The Vulcan Review

A certain class of newspaper men assert that the farmer is the most independent person on earth, and they have nothing to do but to enjoy life. This is a mistake; the industrious farmer begins work long before the sun thinks of getting up. With a soul shrouded in gloom, he proceeds to build a fire and soften his boots with a sledgehammer.

There are people who will tell you that everything in the body is changed every seven years and there is no part of it which was there seven years ago. This does not mean the body changes its form all at once, like a snake does its skin or a deer its antlers. The changes are minute and gradual as individual atoms are replaced by fresh ones.

The department of public works will shortly issue a report on the probable effects of Canadian transcontinental traffic, particularly has regards grain and the opening of the Panama Canal. Grain going through the canal will be subjected to the heat experienced at that latitude and be liable to what is technically known as sweating, creating conditions that will foster weevils. For these reasons, shippers will be advised, for their own interests, to continue shipping their grain by northern water routes.

September 23, 1915 – Bassano Mail

Alderman McCaugherty must have jumped out of bed on the wrong side Monday morning for he had a perfect fit of objections at the council meeting Monday evening. Connolly behaved like a regular gentleman, but then threw a couple of conniption fits before letting anything get by him.

A young man named Austin John Hammond Beresford Croal put one over on the Berkeley Hotel crowd on Monday last when he stole the chamber maid of that institution, took her to Calgary and married her. They spent a happy honeymoon in the city of perpetual honeymoons and not even Fatty Cairns, news editor of the Calgary Daily Herald, knows what is going on.

Mayor Wallace Flanagan slipped into town yesterday to pay his annual visit to his constituents and to solicit their votes for another term. He has spent the season out at Flanagan Bros. Ranch, about 40 miles north, feeding sheaves to a greedy threshing machine and can now swing his arm like a regular rancher. He returns home today.