London Evening Advertiser
- Carr Raps New Stand On ‘Brew’
- Deep Shaft Is Choked With Ooze
- Society Wages War On Collars
This partial reading of the London Evening Advertiser for 4 November 1926 covers three datelined news items. From Hamilton, Canadian Press carried a statement by Hon. Dr. Carr, a member of Premier Howard Ferguson's cabinet, who said he was surprised by the premier's announcement in the morning papers that he meant to stop home brewing in Ontario, and that the cabinet had never considered interfering with a custom he described as endorsed by the federal government. From Ishpeming, Michigan, the Associated Press described widows and orphans keeping an all-night vigil at the mud pit over the Barnes-Hecker iron mine, where the paper put the number of trapped miners at 52 after a swamp gave way above the shaft. A lighter item from Paris reported an 'Anti-Pillory Society' urging men to give up stiff collars even with evening dress, though its membership lists were not yet public.
This is a partial reading of three items. The supplied OCR was badly fragmented and did not match the page, so the texts were transcribed from the page images. The collar item runs across two image tiles and its lines were joined at the overlap, so it is marked medium confidence. The bottom edge of the page is torn, the lower left is damaged, and some other items are cut off at tile edges and are not covered.
Translation
Carr Raps New Stand On ‘Brew’
Canadian Press Despatch.
Hamilton, Nov. 4. — Hon. Dr. Carr, member of the Ferguson cabinet, today gave out the following statement regarding the Premier's announcement that he proposed to prevent the making of home brew in Ontario: "I must frankly say that I am surprised at the announcement made by Premier Ferguson in the morning papers. The question of interfering with a long-established custom, indorsed and legalized by the Federal Government, is one that to my knowledge has never been considered by Premier Ferguson's cabinet."
Deep Shaft Is Choked With Ooze
Associated Press Despatch.
Ishpeming, Mich., Nov. 4. — A grief-stricken crowd of women and children, most of them widows and orphans of the victims, kept vigil throughout the night about the great, gaping mud pit which marked the grave of the 52 miners entrapped in the Barnes-Hecker iron mine near here yesterday when the bottom of a swamp over the shaft gave way, flooding the workings.
Society Wages War On Collars
Paris, Nov. 4. — "Women the world over have discarded corsets, why should man remain bound to the tyranny of the stiff collar?" is the rallying cry of the Anti-Pillory Society. The society pledges its members to abandon stiff collars forever, even with evening dress, substituting the old-fashioned stock collar, or the more modern soft collar. A large membership is claimed for the society, but the lists of adherents have not yet been opened to the public.
Context
Ferguson's home-brew move and the 1926 'temperance election'
Carr's statement came in the middle of the campaign for the Ontario general election of 1 December 1926, held about four weeks after this report. That election was fought principally over the Ferguson government's proposal to repeal the Ontario Temperance Act and replace prohibition with government control of liquor sales. The 1916 Act had banned the sale of alcohol but at first still allowed liquor to be manufactured in the province or imported, and Ferguson's government had already permitted beer of about 2.2 per cent alcohol, popularly called 'Fergie's foam'. A promise to curb home brewing would fit a plan to channel drinking into a regulated, taxed system, but the terms of the announcement Carr objected to are known here only from this report. Ferguson's Conservatives were re-elected with a slightly reduced majority, and in 1927 the Liquor Control Act ended prohibition as legislated in the Ontario Temperance Act.
Why a cabinet minister broke publicly with his premier
Carr's public rebuke reflects how deeply the liquor question divided Ferguson's own party. Ferguson's Attorney-General, William Folger Nickle, went further and resigned from cabinet to run against the government as a Prohibitionist candidate opposing repeal. The electorate itself was split almost evenly: in the 1924 referendum the Ontario Temperance Act was upheld with 51.5 per cent for and 48.5 per cent against. The divide was also geographic, since the large cities that formed the Conservatives' base voted overwhelmingly wet while the rural areas behind the opposition voted mostly dry. Carr's objection, as printed, rests on two points: that the cabinet had never discussed the matter, and that home brewing was a custom 'indorsed and legalized by the Federal Government'. The second point is Carr's own characterization in this report rather than a finding of the histories cited here.
What flooded the Barnes-Hecker mine
The Associated Press account, written the day after the disaster, blamed the bottom of a swamp over the shaft giving way. Later histories describe a more complex sequence. The ore at Barnes-Hecker lay beneath a thick layer of water-saturated glacial sand and gravel, which early records called 'quicksand'. On 3 November 1926 a routine blast set off, for unknown reasons since no one in the blast zone survived, a catastrophic cave-in. On the surface a sinkhole formed and drained the lake above into the breach, and water and mud filled the mine within 15 minutes. The paper's figure of 52 entrapped miners also differs from the later established toll of 51 dead, which included the county mine inspector.
Who the dead were and what the families received
The vigil the paper describes took place beside what became a permanent tomb. Because the mine was completely flooded and pumping achieved little, a full recovery was judged too dangerous; most of the dead were sealed inside, and only ten bodies were recovered. Many of the victims were Finnish-Americans. In 1926 neither Michigan nor federal law required the owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, to pay liability damages to survivors, though the firm voluntarily paid double workers' compensation. As of 2025 the collapse remains the worst industrial disaster in Michigan history.
The stiff collar the Paris society attacked
The Anti-Pillory Society's existence and claimed membership rest on this brief report, which itself notes that its lists were not public; its name casts the collar as a pillory, the wooden frame that locked an offender's neck. The garment it opposed has a well-documented history. Removable collars were invented in 1827 in Troy, New York, and in the early twentieth century they were typically cotton or linen stiffened with starch. Straight-standing collars for evening wear were very rigid and two to three inches high, and a sudden movement of the head could chafe the jaw, which gives the society's 'tyranny' complaint a literal basis. Soldiers in the US forces wore soft-collared uniforms in the First World War, and afterwards men's styles became more relaxed; by the 1930s only older, conservative dressers kept detachable collars. The reference source traces this mainly through American dress, so it shows the general trend rather than the Paris society's own fate.
Original
Carr Raps New Stand On ‘Brew’
Hamilton, Nov. 4. - Hon. Dr. Carr, member of the Ferguson cabinet, today gave out the following statement regarding the Premier's announcement that he proposed to prevent the making of home brew in Ontario: " I must frankly say that I am surprised at the announcement made by Premier Ferguson in the morning papers. The question of interfering with a long-established custom, indorsed and legalized by the Federal Government, is one that to my knowledge has never been considered by Premier Ferguson's cabinet. "
Deep Shaft Is Choked With Ooze
Ishpeming, Mich., Nov. 4. - A grief-stricken crowd of women and children, most of them widows and orphans of the victims, kept vigil throughout the night about the great, gaping mud pit which marked the grave of the 52 miners entrapped in the Barnes-Hecker iron mine near here yesterday when the bottom of a swamp over the shaft gave way, flooding the workings.
Society Wages War On Collars
Paris, Nov. 4. - " Women the world over have discarded corsets, why should man remain bound to the tyranny of the stiff collar? " is the rallying cry of the Anti-Pillory Society. The society pledges its members to abandon stiff collars forever, even with evening dress, substituting the old-fashioned stock collar, or the more modern soft collar. A large membership is claimed for the society, but the lists of adherents have not yet been opened to the public.
Source: Holding institution