Someone left a copy
of the Norfolk Reformer of the date 31 Mar 1870 on
the editor's table one day recently and this morning we spent half
an hour or so dippling into its four time faded pages.
[It's] Not much
mechanically, compared with modern samples of news printing, still
the Reformer was a good local paper 50 years ago and
carried a generous quantity of county news and a couple of long
columns of editorials on parliamentary and other matters.
Careful examination of its
well patronized advertising columns revealed, so far as our
present knowledge goes, the names of only two men still
alive.
Mr. C. C. Rapelje signs,
as clerk of the County Court, a notice of sessions to be held
without a jury, on 4 Apr 1870.
The largest mercantile
advertisement in the paper is a three-column spread notifying all
that Simcoe is to have a new store called "The Golden
Beehive," conducted by Walsh & Hendry.
The latter members
of this firm is, of course, Mr. Oscar Hendry, who, though he
is well over the four score mark, is still hale and hearty, and
performs, every working day in the year, full service for his
employers, as the oldest active commercial traveller in Canada.
But while the advertising
columns exhibit a depressing mortality, it is possible that a
string of births may have interest for some of our present-day
readers. The following are chronicled:
To the wife of
Henry Cook, a son,
20 Mar 1870 in Delhi.
To the wife of R. S. Javy, a daughter,
23 Mar 1870 in Delhi.
To the wife of Duncan McIntosh, a son,
21 Mar 1870 in
Woodhouse.
To the wife of John Norris, a son,
20 Mar 1870 in Simcoe.
To the wife of J. Sensebaugh, a son,
22 Mar 1870 in Windham.
To the wife of Jacob Shepherd, a son,
26 Mar 1870 in Simcoe.
To the wife of P. J. Wintermute, a daughter,
15 Mar 1870 in
Windham.
