"Laurier coming to Winnipeg!"
"New York Giants win Pennant!"
"Hey, hey, extra! Cora Hind says wheat will go to $1.00!
Read all about it!"
"Eaton's to open soon - everybody will get jobs!"
Such were the headlines shouted along downtown Winnipeg streets in the early days. There was little home delivery of newspapers then, and of course, no radio. The only way to get the news "hot off the press" was to buy a paper from a newsboy.
Stories of the founders of our city, politicians, merchants, lawyers, sportsmen - yes, crooks too - were ballyhooed by boys like me as we raced each other to Main Street. Names like Bonar, Hagel, Roblin, Sharpe, Banfield, Boyd, Ashdown and others were big news in themselves. When any of those names appeared in the headlines, there was no trouble selling out quickly. Often people were so eager to read the news, they forgot to wait for their change. Naturally, we never chased after them.
The hoot and holler of the newsboys shouting "EXTRA" always created a stir. People would come running towards us. We were the centre of attention, proudly conveying the latest news to a waiting world. It made us feel very important. Most of us were immigrant boys, newly arrived, who took the job because it was the first thing available. But except for me and a few others, none stuck with it very long. In most cases, once a boy's family had settled in, his parents would make him quit in order to spend more time on schoolwork.
As a rule, though, we newsboys were pretty good students. The teachers always let us out a few minutes early to get our papers. While I was still attending school I remember I always felt fidgety on those days when an extra was to come out before the regular edition. An extra edition meant more money for us, and there were seldom any absentee newsboys when one hit the streets. Sometimes when we were told there was to be an extra the following morning, we would take the morning- off from school. Of course, once I quit school I had no problems there.
There were many reasons for extras - ball games, disasters, elections, prize fights, wrestling matches, train wrecks. Extras were the "news flashes" of the day; there was no other way of getting the latest news except from us.
We were great salesmen who never lacked a good pitch. I recall the day news reached Winnipeg about the San Francisco earthquake. We had a bonanza! We spread out through the downtown streets, yelling "San Francisco on fire-everybody dead - read all about it!" I started with 50 papers, all I could carry. Shouting my pitch all the while, I ran hell-bent from Albert and McDermot, where the papers were printed, to Main Street and then to Portage. By the time I reached the Queen's Hotel, I was sold out. So I scooted back for another 50 papers, then ran along Main Street to City Hall and the Grain Exchange on Princess Street.
By the time I got home, I had over $5.00-a real bundle, most of it clear profit! Our extras sold for five cents, and we made about three cents on each one. I felt on top of the world, especially since one of my greatest pleasures was bringing my earnings home to mother.
I soon found out which areas of the city were best for special editions, and what type of people were attracted by particular kinds of headlines. The early morning edition, for example, always sold best around Portage and Main. Editions with big sports stories sold well around the Grain Exchange or outside any saloon. News of disasters in Europe drew plenty of customers along Main Street, north of William. And of course, if there was a crop report from Cora Hind, we'd head straight for the Grain Exchange, and maybe Portage Avenue as well.
Having a good corner was important to a newsboy. When selling the regular editions of the paper, we generally kept to our own favourite corners. But when extras came out it was every boy for himself. The best corners went to the boy who was most aggressive - the one who was there first or was the best scrapper. I was never much of a fighter, but I was usually first at my chosen corner. And I always had a good pitch.
All the newsboys gathered, the same time every day, in the lane behind the Free Press and Tribune buildings to wait for our papers. Sometimes we would be early, or the papers would be late coming off the press. To pass the time, we played games.
A favourite game was "tippy". We used a small block of wood about four inches long and an inch square, with its ends whittled down into points. We would dig a small hole with our heels, place one end of the tippy in the hole, then whack the other end with a short stick, usually part of a broom handle. The tippy would flip into the air where we would try to hit it. The idea was to send it off in a particular direction. We were not always accurate. Sometimes it would hit a window, or a passerby on the street. But it was always fun.
If we weren't playing tippy, we were usually wrestling or playing leapfrog. Playing catch with a ball seemed sissy stuff to us. Besides a ball had to be bought, while a tippy could be made from a piece of wood, usually in manual training class at school.
As for the wrestling - well, we used to fight quite often, for any number of reasons. We fought when some kid called us a foul name. We fought for priority in line for our papers, for some newly-arrived immigrant kid who was being bullied by another. Sometimes we'd choose sides and would fight just for the fun.
Most of the boys selling newspapers didn't resent a new boy who came along, usually accompanied by a relative or friend of the family. More often than not we went out of our way to help him, especially if he was a fresh-off-the-boat newcomer. We immigrant boys stuck together.
My own concern after an unusually tough scrap was coming home with a torn shirt or dirty pants. When I arrived in mother's kitchen after such an afternoon, she would cry, "Joe, look at you! How did you get so dirty!" Then I would look her in the eye and tell her what I had been doing. She rarely reprimanded me or my brothers for our misdeeds, but that only made me feel worse because I knew my carelessness caused so much extra work. Ah, mothers - the things they put up with!
Apart from the occasional bonanza of a "hot" extra, we didn't make a lot of money. Regular editions of the papers cost us 2%& each, and sold for 5Q. And generally the profits went straight to our mothers. But a left-over newspaper-that brought us the "power of the press"! A newspaper would get us into a show; we'd just hand one to the door- man and walk right in. If there was an empty seat, we took it. If not, we sat in the aisle. Fire regulations were non-¥ existent then.
We rarely walked home at the end of the day, since a newspaper would get us past any streetcar conductor. A spare paper would get us into ball games and the police court. And if we were hungry, we'd just go to the nearest bake shop, give the clerk a paper, and get a stale bun or a) piece of cake or pastry in return. W. J. Boyd's bakery was my favourite. It was just like the tale of Ali Baba - except a leftover newspaper was the "open sesame" that admitted us.
No newsboy ever went hungry once he learned the how and where of downtown Winnipeg, not as long as he had an extra paper or two. And he didn't have to settle for stale jam tarts, as I soon learned.
Most hotels along Main Street had signs outside announcing "FREE LUNCH", as theirs was a very competitive business in those days. Inside, in the saloon, customers would help themselves to large bowls of sliced cheese, ham, pickles, pretzels and other goodies, placed along the bar. Men could sit there drinking beer and eating their fill, with no restriction.
Often I strolled into one of these bars selling my papers. I'd hand one to the bartender who'd wink at me and allow me to help myself to the food. If the bar was too high, someone would always pass the bowls down.
Of course, not all hotels approved of my mooching. But when one objected, I'd just go to another, the Woodbine, the Criterion, or the Mariaggi - there were lots of places in the neighbourhood, and I knew them all. I ate so well, in fact, that my parents often wondered why I never seemed to be hungry at mealtime. I didn't dare tell them I ate downtown because the food there was not Kosher!
Like most of my friends, I was always on the lookout for ways of earning extra money; and working downtown gave us plenty of opportunity.
For example, dust and litter was a real problem for downtown shopkeepers. Just as it is today, Winnipeg was a windy city and the street cleaners were overwhelmed with work. In those days, the stores kept their doors wide open and, as a result, it was a common sight to see mounds of dirt and litter gathering in doorways and spilling into the shops. So every storekeeper kept a shovel and broom handy. Often, after we had sold our papers, we would sweep out these doorways and carry the accumulated dirt to the back lane. If it was winter, we'd shovel the snow. All this meant extra money of course. Or if we needed a new shirt or stockings we could get them cheap in exchange for our services. I found other ways to make money too. Occasionally, when I sold papers at the Empire Hotel, the barber would ask me to work the shoeshine stand in my off hours.
I also dropped into the bowling alley in the basemen t of the Woodbine Hotel. It was one of my favourite spots, not only because I enjoyed watching the bowlers, but because I always earned some money there. The place was forever short of pin boys and it didn't take me long to learn how the pins were set up. So I volunteered my services.
It was a more dangerous occupation than you might think; many of the boys were hit by flying pins. As soon as they were set up, we had to quickly pull ourselves onto a shelf behind them. And we had to be nimble for the bowlers always seemed to be in a big hurry to throw the next ball. If we didn't keep out of the way we could be badly hurt.
At the end of each game I'd walk up to the players and tell them how well they played. There was always a tip if they liked my work. After a couple of hours at the bowling alley I seldom took in less than 50Q, often g61.00. But I never told my mother what I was doing in case she thought it too dangerous. I just handed over my extra earnings and let her think that the newspaper business was a good one indeed.
Another way of earning money was by selling magazines. My favourite was the Saturday Evening Post, which was marked at 5¢ but sold for 10¢. It seemed to have something of interest for all ages and all walks of life. I had lots of customers for the Post, from shoeshine boys to bankers, so that from my bundle of about 50, I never had one left over.
One great thing about the Post, from my point of view, was the number of contests they had for the sellers. To encourage greater effort in getting new customers, they offered all sorts of prizes - bicycles, watches, jewellery for our mothers, and much more. This was on top of the money I made on each copy sold, and that amounted to a fair bit of change, since many Main Street businesses and several offices in the McIntyre Block were my customers.
However, there were two men I would rather not have had as customers. Both were criminal lawyers, one with an office in the McIntyre Block, the other in the Bon Accord. I was scared of them. I figured that since they appeared so often in the newspapers, defending crooks in some criminal case or another, they must also be crooks. So when I delivered their magazines, I would slip into the office, lay a magazine on a desk, and if the lawyer was around, run out again as fast as I could. I wouldn't even wait to collect my money (what good is money if your life's in danger!), but would wait until it was safe before collecting from the office girl.
Main Street! That was where the action was in the boom days of Winnipeg. From the CPR station south to William Avenue there were 33 clothing stores, 13 restaurants, nine fruit stores, 14 jewellers, five hardware stores, six pawnbrokers and loan offices, 15 hotels (each with a street level saloon always invitingly open) and four liquor stores, all within six short city blocks.
As a young lad, observant and impressionable, I witnessed a lot of hanky-panky in some of these establishments. Many merchants were kind and helpful and treated all their customers fairly. But others exploited the farm boys and immigrants unmercifully.
One example of this was the nickelodeons, bright flashy places where men would come to watch peep shows (boys were not allowed in). All too often while a "rube" was bent over a machine, turning a crank with his eye glued to the peephole, someone would lift his wallet. And if they didn't get his money that way, there was often a bawdy house in back to empty his pockets. In those days Winnipeg had more than its share of both pickpockets and prostitutes.
Despite all that, though, Main Street was still a fun and exciting place. There was an old man who could almost always be seen around Higgins and Main, a tin cup in his hand and a parrot on his shoulder. When you dropped a coin in the cup, the parrot would poke his beak into a box and pull out a card that told your fortune.
And then there was the hurdy-gurdy man, with a monkey which perched on a box above the organ and held out a tin cup. The man would crank away until someone deposited a coin, at which point the monkey danced and screamed in delight.
Something was always happening. A drunk would weave his merry way from one bar to another, never a long walk. Two policemen would hang on to a struggling thief, waiting for the paddy wagon. Penny arcades were always full of people cranking peep shows and shooting at moving targets, amid flashing coloured lights.
Often you could see a "sport" parked in his new auto mobile, watching the girls go by. Once in a while he might succeed in luring a girl or two into taking a spin. However, it was bound to be a short ride, since there was little pavement in Winnipeg.
The traffic was fascinating for young boys like me. There were farm wagons, carriages, delivery wagons, ox carts, brewery drays, all rumbling back and forth. One of the prettiest sights was always the horses and wagons of the Eaton's store. Their delivery vans were brightly painted blue and red, as their trucks still are today, and their prancing teams of well-matched horses were beautiful to see.
And of course, there were the occasional cars - Stanley Steamers, McLaughlins, Fords - chugging along in their own special lane, without the benefits of traffic lights or signs. Sometimes an especially noisy car would startle a farm horse, causing a runaway-and THAT was excitement!
Most of all, though, I enjoyed watching the people. You could tell where they came from by their clothes. Russians wore Astrakan hats and long colourlul hand-embroidered shirts, hanging below the waist. Austrian man had bushy sideburns and walrus moustaches, and wore blousess sashed at the waist, with billowing pants tucked into boots. Most immigrant women wore babushkas and colourful aprons over long skirts, filled out by layers and layers of petticoats, which caused them great difficulty when trying to cross a mud puddle.
For boys my age, Main Street was a continual source of wonderment. We spent a lot of time on the street - so it's probably a good thing there was a Newsboys Club to keep us out of trouble.
The club was located on Logan Avenue near Ellen Street, and was run by a group of men and women who wanted to help young boys, especially from immigrant families. The man in charge was a jolly middle-aged gentleman named Mr. Finnegan. He was always kind and good to us boys, and we enjoyed spending time at the club.
Mr. Finnegan was not the sole attraction, however. Even though we paid no dues, we were regularly treated to soda pop and ice cream and encouraged to join in all sorts of games, including indoor baseball, volleyball, wrestling, boxing and others.
There was a price for all this fun, though. Mr. Finnegan often lectured us on morals and religion, on the importance of young boys staying on the proper path and avoiding sin. We were too young for much heavy preaching, so Mr. Finnegan kept it simple and basic.
He was a good man, but he had strict rules. One was against smoking. Any boy caught smoking was pinned to the floor by several boys, while Mr. Finnegan pinched his nose to make him stick out his tongue. The unfortunate boy's tongue was then painted with some very bitter substance. I learned some time afterward that this was a weak solution of silver nitrate, which was basically harmless, but horribly bitter tasting if one smoked again. I should know. I found out for myself.
All in all, the life of a newsboy in the early days was a good one. The work was interesting, the pay pretty fair if you hustled. And the bustling streets of a boom town was just about the most fascinating place where a young boy could be.
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