Wednesday, January 25, 2006

100 years ago

Work for practically unlimited numbers of emigrants was the prospect offered by Canada. It had at its disposal millions of acres of land which would provide them with work at once. A country could not be run without people, and realising what an opportunity presented itself for developing the vast tracts of land as yet untitled, the Canadian government had come forward with an offer, through the Salvation Army, of a quarter of a million acres of land for cultivation by settlers as a first instalment. Thousands had crossed the Atlantic to the country that was so freely offering land for the landless man, but there was still room for thousands more. The willingness of the Canadian government to accept immigrants from this country would go a long way towards helping to solve the problem of the unemployed.

50 years ago

Gangs of youths were causing a nuisance in York. The source and time of the trouble in the city seemed to centre on Colliergate and King's Square late on Saturday nights, at a time when dance halls and public houses had closed. Here, it seemed to be the habit of young people to congregate until well after midnight. One businessman, who had suffered damage to his shop, had, on occasion, asked the groups or small gangs to move on. On each occasion he was answered by bad language. He said: "It is no use reasoning with them. They seem to be in gangs and many are dressed like Teddy Boys."

25 years ago

An outbreak of glue sniffing which hit several York schools recently appeared to be on the wane. One headmaster wanted the law changed to make it more difficult for youngsters to get "high" on glue. The headmaster, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "I know of half-a-dozen schools which have had to deal with the sniffers." Some children had been using glues and other chemicals provided by schools, he said. "I first discovered that my school had a problem when a few weeks ago, I found a boy rolling around in the woodwork department. He had been using chloroform, which was used in plastic work." The headmaster said he would like to see a change in the Misuse of Drugs Act to make it more difficult for children to buy glue. "The fact that sniffing is not actually illegal obviously makes it more difficult to prevent," he said. A spokesman for North Yorkshire Drug Squad said: "There is clearly a problem in York, and the rest of the country too, but changing the law would not be practicable." One of the main problems for parents and teachers was the fact that glue-sniffing was virtually un-detectable.

Updated: 15:26 Tuesday, January 24, 2006