Ernestly ?!Ernestly ?!By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher
Last week I took you on a sentimental journey almost 35 years back, when the Review published, in commemoration of Weyburn's 50th anniversary of receiving its city charter, Isabelle Eaglesham's well-known book, "The Night the Cat Froze in the Oven." I also mentioned that even at this late date, there may be a few copies of the fourth printing left, and they would make suitable stocking stuffers for the coming holiday season.
Now the bookie has so much interesting information about Weyburn and Weyburn folks in it, that I might well have mined it for a dozen or more columns, but that would really be almost like reprinting the book and hardly the purpose of this column (if it has a purpose). Another alternative would be to let well enough alone, and settle for the single column.
However, I have to share with you, at the very least, a foxy little device I dreamed up to pay for the printing while avoiding a tax that might be attracted and which would then eat up a lot of the revenue gained.
At that time in this province (and probably to this day) books printed in Saskatchewan were exempt from E&H tax, providing they did not contain advertising. If thus tarnished, regardless of how worthy the cause, said tax was payable on the printing cost of the book at the time of publication. Beside taking a big chunk of the revenue, the printing cost would go up because of the additional pages taken up by the advertisements.
So I came up with what I considered - and still believe to be - an ingenious idea. (In fact, it was an inspiration, and I still chuckle when I think of it.
Now the problem with this type of booklet is that once it is printed, and even if the selling price is modest, it is often difficult to sell enough copies to pay for the printing, which presents both a financial challenge, and defeats the primary purpose of the exercise, which is to get copies of it to as many people as possible.
So, I reasoned, that rather than selling advertising, I would prevail upon Weyburn merchants to pre-purchase a number of books (I believe the number was 10) at a bargain price, with the option of keeping the booklets for their own use or distribution, or turning them over to the Weyburn school system for gifting to school kids. As well, if memory serves, proceeds from any sale over the printing cost would be turned over to the museum.
The merchants loved it! The book was easily paid for, most of the youngsters in certain grades received copies, and this in turn generated more sales for the remaining books, bringing in money for the museum. There were no losers, except for the provincial tax department, which was out in the cold on a technicality.
Had I been older and wiser, I would not have chanced it, for I would have already learned that governments have seen just about every trick, subterfuge, evasion or sundry sharp practice every devised by devious human minds, and that the risk was not worth taking.
Innocence and luck were on my side. On his next audit, the tax inspector spotted the avoidance, questioned it, and after hearing my explanation, looked me in the eye - with cold, hard eyes, I recall - and told me not even to think of trying that stunt again. I never did, but I have always been proud as punch of getting away with that one. I know this sounds a bit like a senior bragging about the time, as a youngster, he raided a watermelon patch or swiped crabapples from a neighbor's garden on a sin-filled night, but then, I have been told more than once that the human male never really grows up.
A few more items from this book before I close it until next time:
Researching Review back issues from 1922 to the present, I have often been surprised at the mention of hamlets and school districts I had never heard of. This Frozen Cat book, detailing the formation of the Queen Elizabeth School when the massive consolidation of school districts took place 50 years ago, mentions the following rural districts as making up the centralized district to be headquartered in Weyburn: Riverview, South Weyburn, Prospect, Meadowbrook, Tagg, West Weyburn, Wheat Centre, Prairie View, Actonvale, North Weyburn, Hume, Little Rock, Ralph, Lowland, Weyburn Plains, Marmora, Elmdale, Muckamore, Lillie Glen, East Weyburn, Grand Bend and Rockfield. Some of these schools had been closed before the amalgamation, and a few were late additions. McTaggart and Cedoux schools also were involved, but of course, these were not rural schools in the traditional sense of the word. You have to be a real oldtimer, I'll wager, to remember all these school names from your own experience.
One of the most interesting facts about our city I encountered in the rereading of this booklet was that Weyburn had the first railroad west of Winnipeg connecting with the United States. Come to think of it, you would have to go a long way to find another today.
Of course, there are references to the Idaho Kid of local lore, the birth of the first white baby in the area, the first marriage, early population figures (150 in 1902), the first long-distance call, the corpse in the waiting room of a local funeral parlor, and the Saskatchewan Hospital patient ready for release, who admitted he was really an interplanetary linesman.
There's much more, but I must leave you some for enjoying while you sit and munch your Christmas peanuts and candies. Or isn't that done anymore?
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