August 2004 - Vol Four, No.9

HAPPY B. C. DAY!

Legislative Library of British Columbia

Here’s a website to explore, as long as you allow time to browse. The Legislative Library of British Columbia on-line at http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/, has books and government documents in its collection, as well as citations to recent British Columbia newspaper and periodical articles.

Soldiers in the South African War

If you’ve had a chance to have a look at the database on the National Library and Archives site for Canada, you may have seen some of the documents available in respect of the men who served in that conflict from 1899 to 1902. The site, which I wrote of in the last issue of "History Helps," can be found at http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/020156_e.html.

One of the records obtainable is the individual’s Medical Examination, with relevant personal information.

On the reverse side of the form, however, is some equally interesting information, as follows:

"MEMORANDUM FOR MEDICAL EXAMINERS

The attention of medical examiners of applicants for service in this Force is particularly drawn to the necessity for observing the utmost care in making the examination, inasmuch as members of the Force are committed to the performance of duties often necessarily associated with danger and fatigue, which tax severely the physical power, in a region where luxuries, or even the ordinary comforts of life to which they have in many cases been accustomed, must be dispensed with. To this end, having abundant opportunity for judicious choice, only those absolutely free from any physical or constitutional defect should be received.

In order that reliable means for identification may remain in possession of the Department, any distinctive marks, as well as ordinary features peculiar to the individual, should be carefully noted.

Any one known to be addicted to the inordinate use of alcohol, opium or other drug, or whose constitution has been impaired by previous indulgence should be rejected.

The lungs and heart must be devoid of disease or (even so far as can be judged) tendency to disease.

The digestive organs, beginning with the teeth, healthy; the hearing and eyesight unimpaired.

The muscular system must be well developed, the eyesight good and the fingers and toes free from defects or deformities.

As much of their duty will be performed in the saddle, special care should be observed that no disease, congenital or acquired, exists in connection with the generative organs or rectum.

The minimum height is 5 feet 8 inches; the minimum chest measurement 35 inches, and the maximum weight 175 pounds.
The medical examination fee paid by the Government throughout Canada is Two Dollars for each man examined."

One comment ... the memorandum speaks of the "inordinate use of alcohol, opium or other drug ..." -- does that mean that moderate use of these was acceptable?

Food, Glorious Food, From the Past

Here are two websites where you can have a look:

If you’re interested in or just curious about 17th century recipes such as foole or knowing how to stretch sheeps’ guts for sausages, you'll enjoy this website at http://www.godecookery.com/engrec/engrec.html

Historic American cookbooks from the 19th and 20th centuries, in a searchable database containing the most influential examples, can be accessed at http://digital.lib.msu.edu/cookbooks/

Spam (speaking of food)

We are probably all victims of that dreaded disease. Here's an interesting article on the subject with some suggestions for cutting down on the volume -- we can hope -- at http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml

Railway History

"NEW TOWN IN NORTHWEST

Two Hundred and Twenty New Towns to Be Built on Line of G. T. P. Railway

It is expected that the next eighteen months will see the culmination of one of the greatest colonization movements in history, for during that time it is schemed to build and populate 220 towns in the Dominion of Canada, an average of one town for every other week day in the year and a half. By the middle of 1911 if Canadian government officials are not wrong in their estimate, these 220 towns will have their official places and names on the map of Canada, populations of from one hundred to one thousand each, and they will have been made by good American citizens from over the border.

Never has a more interesting or a more unusual scheme for the development of a country been undertaken than this. That it will undoubtedly succeed is assured by the fact that both the government and the great railroad interests of the Dominion are behind it. Recently Andrew D. Davidson, one of the big men of the Canadian Northern, said: ‘I will show you how towns and cities are born, as they have never been born in any country in the world before. I will show you how within a year or two a vast wilderness, a thousand miles in width, is to be populated, so that from one town you will almost be able to see the smoke of the next.’

On the Grand Trunk Pacific westward from Winnipeg, a distance of 960 miles, a new town is to be located during the next year and a half at a distance of every eight miles, or 120 towns for the total distance. Most of these towns are already marked on the construction maps and the majority of them are named. On the mountain division of the same road, which is to terminate at Prince Rupert on the Pacific, 35 new towns are to be planted. On the main line and branches of the Canadian Northern in Saskatchewan and Alberta 30 new towns are to be brought into existence, and on the Canadian Pacific, in the same provinces, 35, a total of 220 in all.

The history of these towns is to be unlike that of any other in existence. They are not to be merely platted and named, and then left to vegetate. They are to be forced into life. That is the remarkable thing about them. And this is neither a guess nor a hope. It is the result of a ‘game of town building,’ which has been played out by the government as carefully as one might play a game of chess -- From Building a Town in a Day, in July Technical World Magazine."

Source: The Delta Times, 16 July 1910, page one.

Cemetery Website

Transcriptions for the Murrayville Cemetery, Surrey, B.C., can be found at http://www.freewebs.com/murrayvillecem/index.htm. It appears that photographs of headstones are also available from the owner of this website.

Update on Modern Divorce Information

In "History Helps, Volume Four, Number 1, December 2003," I included an article from the Vancouver Sun newspaper reporting on a Federal Government decision to restrict access to the Department of Justice’s Central Divorce Registry, citing the Privacy Act. That decision was being challenged at the time. Now we have the result of that challenge:

"Divorces stay secret

OTTAWA --- In a ruling that will make it easier for public figures to hide embarrassing marital mishaps, Information Commissioner John Reid has upheld a federal government decision to keep divorce records confidential. He says privacy law trumps the public right to access to a Department of Justice database that tracks all divorces in Canada."

Source: The [Vancouver] Province, Thursday, 29 July 2004, page A10.