Temperance Verse for New Year's Day

The Montreal Witness, 3 January 1894

THE PLEBISCITE VOTE IN ONTARIO, 1894

It was 1894, ere the New Year's Day was o'er,
     Noble Temperance workers gave a telling vote;
"Prohibition right away," was the watchword of the day,
     For the country's weel they knew it would promote.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

While the people's voice is heard be the whole Dominion stirred,
     Deal destruction both to Licence and Saloon;
Full two hundred thousand strong join the great triumphant song,
     Oh, the better time is surely coming soon!

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

By the tens of thousands dead, by the tears of living shed,
     We adjure you to secure the boon we seek!
For the rulers can't refuse if you all your ballots use.
     They must harken to the people when they speak.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.

Grateful then to gracious Heaven for the signal victory given
     We will never cease to work and plead for more:
Strong in union, toil and pray for the dawning of the day
     When the traffic shall be swept from every shore.

          Joy! Joy! Clear the way before us,
          High, high wave the banner o'er us.
          From Atlantic's dashing roar to the far Pacific shore
          Sound the joyous Temperance triumph evermore.


Words of joy – Joy! Joy! – from Archibald McKillop, "The Blind Bard of the Megantic", inspired by the successful, though entirely ineffective, Ontario Prohibition Plebiscite of 1 January 1894.

We twenty-first century Canadians know that rulers rarely "harken to the people when they speak."

Archibald McKillop
"The Blind Bard of Megantic"
 1824 - 1905
Author of
Rhymes for the Times
Temperance Odes and Miscellaneous Poems
and
The Flood of Death; or,  The Malt that Lay in the House that Jack Built

Related posts:

A New Year

Immature Verse for the New Year

An Old Poem for the New Year by Arthur Stringer

Z is for Zink, Lubor J.

Has there ever been so underappreciated a writer as Lubor J. Zink? Was ever one so misunderstood? Even enthusiastic supporter Peter Worthington, who supped with the man, didn't get it. The late Toronto Sun publisher embarrassed himself writing in his Foreword to Viva Chairman Pierre, Zink's comedic masterwork, that the author had been described as "a Jeremiah by some, a prophet by others".

I'm being unfair. Looking to the Toronto Sun in matters religious is akin to consulting the tabloid on… oh, let's say, politics. For goodness sake, they have papers to sell. And to be perfectly honest, I'll take fin de l'année Sunshine Girl "Amanda" over the Weeping Prophet every time.

The only publication that can be said to have truly recognized Zink's genius was National Lampoon. That he was featured in the very first instalment of its Bombardier Guide to Canadian Authors (March 1978) makes perfect sense. That he was placed between Robertson Davies and Northrop Frye is perfectly appropriate. Mr Zink was a master of humour and language, and thus most deserving of the four (of five) snowmobiles awarded for his work:

Zink, Lubor J. (Pre-war) Believed to be pseudonym of Toronto Sun columnist and National Lampoon contributor Mackenzie Porter, Zink is well-known for his regular newspaper column in which he drolly mimics the demented ravings of a scoutmaster suffering from varicose brains. A great satirical writer in the tradition on Radelais, Swift, and Ayn Rand.

The entry, which I believe was penned by Brian Shein, marks the start of a true understanding of Zink and his work. While I have don't believe Mackenzie Porter and Lubor J. Zink to be one and the same, doubts do linger. The great shame is that the foundation laid by Mr Shein thirty-four years ago has yet to be built upon.

May 2014 bring greater things!

A Happy New Year to all!

Related post:

B is for the Bombardier Guide to Canadian Authors

Y is for Young Cover Cavalcade

Toronto: Salvation Army, 1949

Boston: Little Brown, 1952

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1956

Toronto: Ryerson, 1965

Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1982

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984

Christmas with Neil Young's Dad

Home for Christmas and Other Stories
Scott Young
Toronto: Macmillan, 1989

Seventeen stories by sportswriter and sometime hired pen Scott Young, this is pleasant enough stuff. "Bread-and-butter articles" to borrow the words of one character, most were written for the Globe & Mail, many dating from the days in which the newspaper published a Christmas edition. The best of the lot, those spared the jam and jelly, touch on the autobiographical. In "Once Upon a Time in Toronto" he shares memories of his first Christmas as a married man. "The Night After Christmas" is about the unforeseen, rather surprising consequence of a festive wartime party. My favourite, "A Prairie Boy's Christmas, 1933" is as much about the holiday as it is about the author's rough childhood. It's the author's favourite, "Early One Christmas", that disappoints. Rewritten as "Glad Tidings from the Paper Boy", it begins:

Once there was a boy of 13 who had The Globe and Mail paper route on Brookdale Avenue in North Toronto, between Yonge Street and Avenue Road. He was a tall and thin boy who did not like getting up at six every morning…  

Young has placed some distance between himself and the 13-year-old, whom he never names, removing much of the warmth. Here's the beginning to the original, published in the 25 December 1964 Globe & Mail. Enjoy!

Almost everyone has his own favorite Christmas story. I believe that I am particularly lucky in that my favorite concerns one of my sons. He is 19 now, a little taller than I am and a lot thinner. But this story happened six years ago when he was 13 and delivered a Globe and Mail route on Brookdale Avenue in North Toronto.
     I used to hear him almost every morning at six when he wakened. Usually the two hours after he left were my soundest sleep of the night.
     On the rare occasions when he overslept, this built-in alarm mechanism in my mind brought me awake about the time he should have been moving. When I could not hear him I would tiptoe to his room and say, "Neil".
     "Yes," he'd say instantly, sitting upright in bed, wide awake.
     "I guess you overslept."
     "Guess I did."
     But on this Christmas morning of 1958 he was up on time and, like all other Globe and Mail boys up that morning, rose when the world was black and cold.
     He made the blind trip to the bathroom and sleepily began to pull on his clothes.
     Downstairs, he stood for a moment and looked at the stacked and laden Christmas tree, did the slow march past it, stopped to shake a parcel or two and stood like a robin to listen, and then went on.
     A glass of milk and a brief forage in the refrigerator, and then on with his ear-covering cap and his scarf and parka and overshoes and mitts, on that ice-cold bicycle seat and down the driveway to pedal into the morning alone.

Object: A compact 117-page hardcover in red boards with twenty-four illustrations by Huntley Brown. I bought my copy eleven years ago from a Vancouver bookseller. Price: $1.99. It's a signed, first edition. There has never been another.

Access: Twenty-four years after publication, it's not too hard to find in public libraries. Dozens of copies are being offered online with prices ranging from US$0.01 to US$7064.57. Condition does not factor.

Long out-of-print, as Home for Christmas it can be read as an ebook. This is the "cover":

Chindigo and Amazon.ca for $9.99. Amazon.com charges US$10.78 because… oh, just because.

Related posts:

Mordecai's Mom's Memoirs

True Crime Stories with David Cronenberg's Dad

Christmas Greetings from Gay Page!

from The Workshops and Other Poems

Gay Page (pseud. Florence N. Horner Sherk)

Fort William, ON: Times-Journal, 1919

Verse of Christmas past:

'Christmas in Heaven' by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

Miss Machar's 'The Call of Christmas - 1914'

Arthur Stringer Pines for Christmas
Christmas Verse by Master of All Poets James Gay

Christmas Comes Early

My newest acquisition:

Maria Monk's Daughter: An Autobiography

Mrs. L. St. John Eckel

New York:

Published for the Author by the United States Publishing Company

1874

God bless us, every one!

Related posts:
Maria Monk's Immortal Book
Pornography of the Puritan
Maria Monk and the Kennedy Campaign
Words of Hate for Maria Monk

X is for Xmas Spex (Why Not?)

It's true, every family does buy a present for the Old Folks. Hell, in good times mine'll buy two or three. No one likes to see Old Folks fighting.

I first came across this pamphlet as a student. Until then, I hadn't thought much about what a delightful and useful present a pair of modern spectacles or eyeglasses would make. A quarter-century later, I've still never given glasses at Christmas. Not to say I won't.

Advertisers Jas. Pequegnat & Son didn't date their pamphlet, but I'm going to suggest that it's about a century old. As evidence, I present this ad from the 7 December 1913 Toronto World:

Again, delightful and useful. So, why not?

Remember kids, that's Xmas Spex, not: