Читать книгу Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s - George H. Ham - Страница 26

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It would be a mistake to imagine, that the Winnipeg of the early ’70’s was a city of angels. It is a regrettable fact that some, if not many, of its leading citizens may fairly be described as otherwise.

A difficulty in dealing with the more human and therefore more interesting features of the progress of any community is that the events of a half century ago cannot be fairly read in the light of to-day. Custom is law in a large measure. What was allowable or even commendable under the custom prevailing in one age may be neither allowable nor commendable under the custom of half-a-century later. The reading public do not make allowances. They are apt to judge the facts related of the past by the standards of the present; they do not recognize the absolute truth of the phrase, “Other times, other manners.”

Therefore many legitimately interesting episodes of the old days must go unrecorded rather than that the men of enterprise, energy, foresight and patriotism who put Winnipeg on the map in the years from ’71 to ’82 should be misunderstood.

The men who, so to speak, put the “Win” in Winnipeg deserve the best that those who are the heirs of their efforts and successes, or even failures, can say or think of them. The occasion was great, and they were men of the occasion.