Page 8 THE STRATFORD MIRROR January 25, 1946. LARGE LOSS OF LIFE BY FIRES The last part of December, par- ticularly the few days before Christ- mas, saw an almost unparalleled outbreak of household fires involv- ing serious loss of life. Seventeen Canadians died in home fires the first week-end in December, seven persons in a farm house near Nap- anee, Ontario, from an overheated stove and pipes, a mother and four children in their home near Sud- bury when a stove fire was being started with coal oil, and a mother and four children died at St. Pierre, Man., when an overturned coal oil lamp ignited a can of gasoline in their home. A couple of days later a mother and a baby were burned to death near London, when the mother was starting the kitchen fire with coal oil. Near Tilbury, Ontario, while ther parents were attending midnight mass, three young child-| ren sleeping in their beds were burn- | tems being ina very hazardous con- led to death from a fire which ap- parently started from a_ kitchen stove. One Toronto newspaper in the isue of December 24 devoted one column to reports of seven fires, in two of which occupants barely es- 'caped with their lives. Another To- ronto newspaper of December 25 re- ported six fires, while a Toronto paper of December 26 gave nearly two columns to 10 fires, in one of which a father was badly burned rescuing his 6-months old baby. | The prevalence of fires from heat- ing systems is a grave warning to householders in particular to check their furnaces, stoves and pipes. Dif- ficulties in getting competent repair men and in obtaining proper repair parts and pipes of adequate gauge have resulted in many heating sys- dition. The terrible tragedies from trying to start fires with coal oil are another drastic warning against this suicidal practice. All Synthetics Are Identical TIRES 650x16--4-Ply--$21.25; 600x16--4-Ply--$17.25; 550x17--4-Ply--$15.50; 550x194-Ply $16.20; 500x20--4-Ply--$12.20; 600x16--6-Ply Tires Mounted FREE "Snow TUBES ... $4.00 Sigil: eee ... $3.00 ... $3.45 Ree em 81 | Tire", Nobby Tread $22.30 In Our Service Dept. _ Tire Pumps ony 1 98 ---- TIRE --P : GEO. F. THOMPSON, Prop. CANAD Ay Z ASSOCIATE STORE 6 Ontario St Tel. 982 "EVERYTHING FOR YOUR CAR" Sizes i CDS- "For Fun Indoors" Girls' Jumpers Plaid Jumpers for little girls. Qual- ity to please Mother and swing skirt pleated front and back to delight Daughter. "Young Canada" will dote on these ..colour-bright All Jumpers. Why not get at least two? Smartly-styled All-Wool Tartan Wool 4 to 6x. C.D.S. PRICE, EACH g 4 C.D.S. Children's Dept., 2nd Floor Shop With Confidence "Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded" «* CANADIAN DEPARTMENT STORES tres, To the habitual pipe-smoker the worst war-shortage is not sugar, or butter, or meat, or even tires--but the roots of a small tree from which brier pipes are made. The pipe- lover, fond of his brier, smiles grim- ly over unsweetened coffee, pre- tends that a fly-sized pat of butter is more than enough, scoffs at any- one who would dare suggest that he misses his week-end driving ... But the dearth of good brier pipes: Well that is something to really complain about! Non-smokers may not appreciate the depths of the brier-lover's pres- ent dilemma, but even they may come to understand his despair when they know what he is up against. Pipe-smokers, we all know, don't feel quite decent without their stems to draw upon and the aroma of a bowlful of fragrant tobacco to meditate in. But now they have to enough to find a custom pipe-maker with a supply of bruyere root in, they will have to add their name at the bottom of a long queue of sig- natures and await months for de- livery. The pipe-smoker's troubles began when Hitler invaded France, for it is whence that the bruyere or brier root mostly comes. The small tree- sized heath also grows in Italy, Spain and Algeria, but not to anything like the same degree. The brier pipe earns its English name from the French word for heath, bruyere, which is rendered in the Southern French peasant dialect as briere. It was thence but a simple step to reach its present Anglo-Saxon equiv- alent: Brier. The making of the first brier pipe, and the reasons therefore, are lost to history. But there is a legend which purports to explain the brier's origin over a century ago--a legend that, however true, is worth repeat- ing. It is about a little picturesque village in Southern France--Saint- put up with almost burnt-away , bowls, pressed sawdust creations. masquerading as the real thing, or, --if they happen to be fortunate, Light Up And Listen Claude--situated within easy view nO OLE een ee ee of the Swiss Alps. Before the war, © Saint-Claude exported something in 7 the neighbourhood of 50,000,000 brier ~ pipes annually; and this profitable © industry all began, the legend tells | us, because the peasants who col- lected boxwood for the village's toy and snuff-box manufacturers used to pad out their bags clandestinely © with bruyere roots. Instead of dis- 7 carding the roots which they had = paid for as boxwood, some of the gq thriftier craftsmen utilized it to make ~ beads--beads which looked so hand- = some after being polished that one of them made himself a pipe out of © the bruyere. That craftsman's sat- isfaction with his bruyere pipe prov- -- ed the of Saint-Claude; success snuff-box making was soon discard-_ ed for pipe manufacturing, and the | fame of the town's brier pipes, made = from the lowly bruyere, soon spread around the world..... It would be & revealing to know, but idle to ask, © whether the peasants, when sent out -- to collect the roots with which they -- formerly "padded" their bags, took to adulterating their loads of bruy- ere with boxwood. DON'TS FOR THE SIGHTED White Cane Week for the blind, » which ends tomorrow; has created © much interest among the general public in the problems of the blind pedestrian. Here are a few sugges- tions to motorists that would greatly ~ aid the sightless folk: Don't leave the door of your park- ed 'car swinging open for a blind dedestrian to bump into. You're tres- a passing on the sidewalk and he may = be seriously hurt. Don't blow your horn, race your a a passing blind man off his stride by ~ making him think the lights have ~ changed. Don't overstep the white line a when stopping at an intersection. -- The blind pedestrian may be struck by the bumper or may swerve away ~ from it into the cross traffic. sé "a ee ee Be v Sige Be te motor or make unnecessary noise © near an intersection. You may put ~ 1} ee ae es | | end oe ee ae a ee a ee ae ee | sine a ee tur be LA Py ee