The city council was an attraction to many citizens and spirited encounters were frequent and popular with the assembled crowd. At one meeting Ald. Frank Cornish called Ald. Alloway a puppy, and, when asked by the mayor to apologize, did so by saying that when he came to think of it, his brother alderman was not a puppy, but a full-grown dog. This did not meet with the approval of his worship, whereupon Ald. Cornish very humbly and penitently apologized to the entire canine race. Ald. Wright and Ald. Banning had a regular set-to at another meeting, in which both got the worst of it. “Them was the days.” It was said of Mr. Cornish that when he was mayor of Winnipeg—he was the first—he hauled himself up before himself on a charge of being, well, let’s say not too sober, and fined himself $5.00 and costs. The attendants at the police court loudly applauded this Spartan act, until they heard the mayor say to himself:
“Cornish, is this your first offence?” and culprit Cornish blandly informed Mayor Cornish that it was. Then his worship addressing himself to himself, said:
“Well, if it’s your first offence, Cornish, I’ll remit your fine.” And the laughter was resumed.
Not Exactly an Angelic City
It would be a mistake to imagine, that the Winnipeg of the early ’70’s was a city of angels. It is a regrettable fact that some, if not many, of its leading citizens may fairly be described as otherwise.
A difficulty in dealing with the more human and therefore more interesting features of the progress of any community is that the events of a half century ago cannot be fairly read in the light of to-day. Custom is law in a large measure. What was allowable or even commendable under the custom prevailing in one age may be neither allowable nor commendable under the custom of half-a-century later. The reading public do not make allowances. They are apt to judge the facts related of the past by the standards of the present; they do not recognize the absolute truth of the phrase, “Other times, other manners.”
Therefore many legitimately interesting episodes of the old days must go unrecorded rather than that the men of enterprise, energy, foresight and patriotism who put Winnipeg on the map in the years from ’71 to ’82 should be misunderstood.
The men who, so to speak, put the “Win” in Winnipeg deserve the best that those who are the heirs of their efforts and successes, or even failures, can say or think of them. The occasion was great, and they were men of the occasion.
The First Iron Horse
The arrival of the first locomotive in Winnipeg was a red-letter day for the whole Canadian West. It was on October 9, 1877. Brought down the Red River on a barge, with six flat cars and a caboose, towed by the old Kittson Line stern-wheeler, Selkirk, her voyage down stream was one continuous triumphal progress from Pembina at the International boundary to Winnipeg.