The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

the tribune stouffville ont thursday june 16 1949 the stouffville tribune established 1888 member of the canadian weekly newspaper association and ontario quebec newspapers association member of the audit bureau of circulations authorized as second class mall post office department ottawa issued every thursday at stouffville ontario in canada 200 in usa 250 a v nolan son publishers notes and comments bricks per day how many bricks is the trade unionist bricklayer per mitted by the established custom of the union to lay a day i see that the mayor of margate gives the figure at 300 i understood myself that it was 320 i know of a bricklayer who on a straight run regularly lays 1000 he is not a union member and his employer pays him nearly double the union scale but he lays much more than double the union scale of bricks london spectator liquor and politics a liberal government gave ontario the beer parlors and a conservative government brought on the cocktail bars neither of which accusations have anything to do with the present dominion election where liquor issues yet its amusing now and then to find persons saying they could not support this or that old party because the one they did not happen to favor did something for the booze industry no one should kid themselves or be kidded on this liquor issue it will never be stamped out by any political party so one can just forget the liquor issue during the dominion election campaign improvement in cattle looking back 40 years we can see again the skinny poor cattle which predominated on most canadian farms that has changed to a wonderful degree and it is a pleasure now to look at and admire the herds as we drive along the highways some farmers started the good work by im porting purebred stock from britain and elsewhere and that movement has spread to an enormous extent until the old razorbacks no longer are seen now canada in stead of importing purebred cattle is exporting fine animals all over the world at high prices we were talking to an old fanner the other day and he marvelled at the improvement which has come about in all grades of cattle and the notable increases in milk and butter production which has accompanied it the sale of such cattle not only brings muchneeded foreign money to canada but also a great deal of prestige throughout the world celebration of dominion day celebration of dominion day in another couple of weeks reminds us that while most canadians are familiar with that famous painting the fathers of confederation few know anything about the man who painted it robert morris was born in north wales in 1849 at the age of seven came with his parents to charlottetown pei he studied art in london paris madrid rome munich hol land and belgium painted portraits of many famous men including sir john a macdonakl lord strathcona and lord mount stephen harris painted the fathers in 1883 incidentally for the sake of composition he took artistic license and substi tuted roundtopped windows for the square ones actually in the charlottetown chamber the dominion paid 4000 for the picture harris ex penses were high and it is doubtful if he netted more than 1000 for a years hard work he didnt get a penny for the millions of reproductions of the painting made during his lifetime the original hung in the ottawa parliament building until it was destroyed in the fire of 1916 harris died in montreal in 1919 why not showers for bridegrooms we have read with the keenest interest a news dispatch from prince aubert saskatchewan which describes a shower given last week for mr bud pechey who is to be married shortly apparently mr pecheys shower was well attended and he received a variety of useful gifts including a lawnmower this seems to us to mark a desirable trend in social life for years brides have been in the custom of shaking down all their friends for weeks before their weddings scooping in kitchen ware linen china handkerchiefs and everything that a young woman could possibly need to set up housekeeping the bridegroom however is apparently expected to meet his new expenses entirely out of his own pocket this is unfair and is another instance of the dis crimination against men which bedevils oursociety the shower custom is a pioneer survival a century ago when household goods of all sorts were harder to come by than they are now it was a neighbourly action to give a girl something useful before she married as well as a wedding gift on the occasion of the marriage itself but these gifts to the bride were somewhat balanced by pieces of land often whole farms yokes of oxen and other useful gifts which were offered to the bridegroom by his father his uncles and other friends such gifts ae uncommon in our day women have wisely kept the old custom alive men have improvidently allowed it to lapse bridegrooms of canada awake begin well before your marriage with a pyjama shower a shirt shower a tool shower a bottle shower a cheque shower and a coal shower the lovely creature who will face you at the altar all innocence and apprehension has a warehouse full of toot what are you bringing to your marriage we all own them socialist orators are forever talking about the big companies that they will liquidate for the benefit of the common man they give the impression that these organ izations are the sole property and creatures of a handful of unnamed millionaires as usual asserts the financial post this sort of talk is all froth in the annual report of ba oil company ownership figures show just how wrong these people can be of the 18597 shareholders of ba oil 43 per cent hold 25 shares or less or an average investment of under 600 apiece over 18 per cent hold 10 shares or less or an investment of less than 250 ba oil like every other big company in canada is owned by thousands of little people many of them widows and retired people who depend on the dividends of a few shares in this or that company to provide them with lifes necessities if these companies were taken over and liqui dated as the socialists plan it is these little people not some nonexistent millionaires who would be the chief and immediate sufferers ministers alliance founded fathers day to fight disrespectful attitude the approach of fathers day on sunday june 19th brings to mind a sentimental story behind this day well established in canadian tradition as the one day in the year we honour the paternal head of the family the idea originated not on the male side but from the sentimental feelings of a mother this woman mrs bruce dodds of spokane washington had looked back for many years upon the kindness and courage of her own father who raised six motherless children with faultless devotion as well as earning a livelihood for the family so deeply im pressed was mrs dodds with this devotion that she often wondered if more fortunate families with mother and father appreciated both parents equally she knew that children who spend more time under mothers wing fail to see the importance of the paternal head of the family aside from being a bread winner mrs dodds a spiritual minded woman took her idea to the religious groups in her city backed by her pastor rev conrad bluhm the ymca and a ministers alliance the first fathers day was observed on the third sunday in june 1910 mrs dodds group met in church for song and verbal tribute at that time there were many songs and jokes in circulation making father the butt of jokes the group attempted to fight this disrespectful attitude shown to fathers press pulpit and womens groups took up the crusade and in very short order fathers day was evolved this thoughtful womans attempt to have fatherhood revered as greatly as motherhood is today a reality in the united states canada and many other countries this year the canadian fathers day council has adopted as its slogan for better citizenship make dad your pal this council feels that if the younger canadian citi zens paid more attention to father and the grownup citizens gave fatherhood more respect there would be less juvenile delinquency family troubles and divorces they feel that the modern freedom of this enlightened age does not give a license to show disrespect for the paternal head of the family less was given a full military funeral by the british army for saving an artillery troop at the somme but still the question that lay men and scientists have been ask ing for hundreds of years remains unanswered before us why does a homing pigeon go home after it is tossed into the air miles away and far more baffling than that how does he find his way home what mysterious impulse drives him to walk home if he is unable to fly in birdlore pigeon fanciers have expounded almost as many theories explaining why the homer goes home as there are theories of evo lution a thousand and one and every one of their conclusions rests only on probabilities a great many men who own rac ing homers claim that it is the sun which guides their birds home it is true that most pigeons dislike night flying when sent on a journey in the dark or in fog or snow they will generally roost till the first few streaks of dawn ap pear but they can and do fly home in darkness fog and snow many an airman forced down in the north sea or the mediterra nean with his radio out of commis sion will gladly testify to this fact still a question a few years ago a curious amer ican fancier plugged his racers nos trils with cotton batting before re leasing them on their homeward flight the birds did not return here then was a theory proving beyond a doubt that pigeons smell their way home in much the same manner as dogs do but a short while later the american scientists watson and lashley had birds return home to them even though their nostrils were stuced with wax and coated with asphalt in all birds the eyes are well de veloped with three eyelids one of these swabs the eye clean of dust particles in much the same man ner as the windshield wiper on your car works the homers ex ceptionally keen sight although it is not known whether he can see at night or not has led many to believe that he sees the first commercial jet air plane built in north america is canadian and will be test flown in june- it will carry 36 to 40 passengers at a cruising speed of 400 miles an hour flying nearly six miles up for true economy maxwell house costs only a fraction of a cent more per cup than the lowestpriced coffees sold you get so much more for so little more why homing pigeons come home when station agent magnus mowat gave a couple of pigeons their freedom a couple of weeks ago as they arrived by cxr ex press be nor anybody else could explain by what power those homing pigeons would be able to fly back to home loft in london ont when they had been shut up in a baggage car and did not even have the opportunity of retracing the homeward journey by the aid of any landmarks they returned to their home loft with unerring accuracy however in short time covering the 150 miles at the rate of 15 miles per hour the incident concerning the flight from stouffville to london causes this paper to dwell on why hom ing pigeons come home and the story we gather is highly interest ing on a flight from stroud to tor onto jeturbo upon being released from his basket soared high up into the clear april sky for a few brief moments the sun flashed on his beating wings and he gained altitude ranidly like the aircraft he iwas named after then something went wrong the two university of toronto biology students shaded their eyes with cupped hands and followed his flight with great interest they had brought this pigeon ten miles in a southwesterly direction from its home in toronto to a place called clarkson they selected this particular location for their experi ment because here less than one hundred yards from where they had released the bird rose the giant antennae towers of cfrb the most powerful independent radio station in the british com monwealth their experiment was a success for the bird circled around the towers twice and then began to lose altitude at times it dived and careened crazily like a wounded plane in a dogfight finally it landed in the spring mud bewild ered befuddled lost in this par ticular area it was no more a hom ing pigeon than the liarly little sparrow that strutted boldly around it when a homing pigeon crosses the magnetic field created by a broadcasting station something happens whatever mechanism it is that guides the ipigeon home ceases to function at least tem porarily from such intriguing ex periments carried out close to radio transmitters biologists have con jectured that the radio waves inter fere in some way with the tiny de licate semicircular canals of the pigeons inner ear the result is confusion loss of balance and loss of that vital powerful homing in stinct animals como home but this homing instinct or sense of direction does not belong exclu sively to the pigeon there are dozens of other animals which in a sense might also be called hom ers whose ability to return home is in no way interfered with by radio waves the lowly toad for instance has been known to find its way back to its regular habitation after mak ing journeys of hundreds of miles every spring the salmon leaping and vaulting over falls and rapids ascend the rivers of the north to spawn bees find their way back to the hive ants to the hill robins starlings nightingales and scores of other migratory birds travel thousands of miles back to their old familiar nesting places annu ally everyone is familiar with the classic example of the return of the swallows to capistrano the homing pigeon however is the only one in which man has been able to place any degree of faith man can trust the pigeon and train him to do exactly what he wants done small head big brain probably the simplest way to iden tify the homer is by his red legs and red feet his head is small but his brain is larger than that of the ordinary pigeon in the park who eats cornmeal out of your hand comparing the homer with the latter is like comparing a grey hound with a mongrel the family tree of the homer has branches in over 200 varieties of birds with its roots down deep in the wild rock pigeon they originally came from asia and made their debut in bel gium over 130 years ago the homing pigeons uncanny ability to find its way to the home loft over as great a distance as 7200 miles and its stubborn flights through deadly machinegun fire the everpresent menace of the hawk and adverse weather condi tions have made this species noted for its seed graceful form and per severance useful to man as a car rier of news very early in the his tory of the world the old patriarch noah sent out a dove to see if the floodwaters had abated but the bird flew back home to the ark after a futile search for dry land the egyptians the greeks and the romans made use of pigeons to carry messages in times of peace and war in 1146 the first regular pigeon postal ser vice was set up by the sultan of bagdad in 1315 a homer winging its way across the english channel with news of napoleons defeat at waterloo three days before it be came known elsewhere enabled nathan rothschild the london banker to capitalize on the stock exchange and make himself into one of the richest men in the world in world wars i and ii homing pigeons were used extensively carrying important despatches in aluminium and plastic message holders attached to their legs on different occasions with automatic cameras strapped to their breasts they flew far over the enemy lines to take a host of invaluable snap shots one homer colonel fear- w c mcdonald ro at markham every thursday 1230 to 800 pm in former telephone office complete visual analysis lenses prescribed when necessary phone markham 4w etoru 4o h ecoonc0 pov0 ras keep this date open wed june 22 in veterans memorial hall bingo carnival lovely prizes games for young and old pony rides for the kiddies fish pond and other games modern and old time dancing 50c per person music by gary lewis and the legionaires come one come all have a good time canadian legion stouffvimje dancing in the hall every friday evening