Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-01-18
A TRIP TO WINNIPEG.
TBy the Editor1

AS''.,
SILVER at the thought of thermometers
registering twenty below in st. Paul
400 miles due north there lies great
city more modern than our own Des
Moines and the temperature there will
be forty below with the people all
happy and getting rich Winnipeg is
the gateway TO the great Canadian
northwest, the railroad center, jobbing
and banking center for territory UNI
broken for 1900 miles by any other
large city. American land men and
American land money which has been
making the Canadian land boom of
the past three years all goes thru or
stops in Winnipeg and the city has
grown from 60. 600 to 10000 inhabitants
in three years time. Over 1000 houses
were built last summer.
And those houses will bear talking
about. They were the occasion of this
visit Marshalltown is keeping many
Of those people warm up there with
the furnaces she makes. Over 800
were put in the houses of Winnipeg
alone during the season just past. The
for the purpose of calling on the head
of the jobbing firm which sells those
furnaces and 10 see the houses which
used them for these Marshalltown men
could not understand why people as far
north as Hudson's Bay should be buy
ing the small sized furnaces designed
But those houses told the story. Upon
mile after nile of Winnipeg streets
have been built house upon every
twenty-five foot lot, houses % and 20
feet square and thousands of them.
Lumber and labor is high in Winnipeg
and spectators built the houses, so
they were naturally small, but why
should they be packed in like kennels
at a dog show, when thousand miles
Of unbroken prairie lies at their door
in which to expand?
The managing editor of a leading
newspaper explained that people in his
climate are not going to walk more
than a block or two and they must
huddle close up for protection from
the weather. Our street sales amount
to nothing at all. People won't tumble
for a coin in one of our winters" he
said. And he must have been right
about it for it was a common sight
to see forty or fifty of these houses
less than five feet apart in row, each
protected by the other on it's north eX-
posture, everyone with storm sash on
every window and permanent, built
in vestibule a: the front door,
These vestibules are characteristic
of Winnipeg tls are the sleighs, fast
horses and beautiful furs seen every
where. If anyone can afford stained
glass or beaded glass, it is always found
in the front vestibule window. There,
too, is to be seen the best display of
lace curtains the house can afford.
None of our lnakeshift storm closets,
with a 6xS pane of glass and primed
with yellow ochre, We're ever seen
in Winnipeg, but the result is that
their houses are warm and small fur
naces heat them well. Most Of them
are back plastered, many are plastered'
between the joist. The building paper
used is not our soft watery stuff, but
q paper thicker, tougher and much
heavier than the oiled paper used by
the Iowa hardware dealer for wrap
ping up 20 penay wire spikes-and they
use plenty of it. They have to. Fuel
is high in Winnipeg. Hard coal is
$1,000 per ton, soft coal Sc to IS, and
wood IS per cord.
But the people Of Winnipeg do enjoy
themselves. Snow falls early and stays
sleigh and skate. One mammoth rink
hockey match. The roads are all level
and everybody who is comfortably fix
ed owns a 1920 or 2:15 horse. Some
of the sleighs are beautiful, with great
furs trailing out behind till they just
touch the ground Everybody in Win
ripeg, unless ae be from the states,
wears fur the women's cloaks come
clear down, the police are uniformed
in fur coats and fur caps and the men
all wear fur. Moose heads and deer
heads adorn many wall and few fine
residences fail toghave one outside thu
front door under the porch roof. The
effect is handsome. On Saturday after
noon the sports are out on the river
with their fast horses, where they have
an unkroken speedway for miles over
the frozen stream.
While Winn peg just now Is a babel
of humanity, The Yankee and Scandi-
navian from the states meeting the
Icelander and Galacian and half-breed
Indian in the common quest for gain,
there are enough Of the full-blooded
Englishmen and native Canadians
from the province of Quebec to tenn
per western y-mad people with
some of the pleasures Of life. The gen.
tleman at the head of the large Job
bling firm called upon was one of these
1t was, THANK you, Douglass "If
you please, Stevens" whenever he adj
dressed an employee He was afraid to
accept our invitation to visit the states
because we run our trains too fast. II
would be glad to, Mr.. Head. if l
could walk. but my God, sir, Mr.. Head,
It seems to me those fellows down in
New York sit in their offices trying to
see how many people they can kill. It's
awful, Ell? Mr.. Head? John. drive out
by ST. Johns and back by st. Boniface,
IL you please this to the driver, for
we must spend full day sleigh riding
and dining with him before he would
permit conversation to touch upon bus
iness. Altho busy with large jobbing