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A (45' is ENCOURAGING STREET SCENE as cement workers install new sidewalks' in If area. Small trees, new lamp standards, brick edging and, v.ari expected to transform the downtown scene. The wooden poles I recently heard about a man called Crapper, who is alleged to have devel- opeddhe flush toilet and was later knighted by Queen Victoria. Is this true? B. Barrowisliffe, Strathroy, Ont. Thomas Crapper (1837-1910) did in- deed develop the flush toilet, though he did not invent it: if it goes to any one person, that distinction must belong to Sir John Harington who, in the late 1500s, invented a water closet with a controllable trap. But 16th-century England was sanitarily squalid, far be- hind the Minoan civilization of 3,000 years before, and even farther behind the Romans, who had an early water- flush system in ancient Britain. So am other 200 years passed before a water- closet patent was granted to London watchmaker Alexander Cumming in 177 5 . THOMAS CRAPPER A century later, Crapper's improvement on the existing water-closet system came at a time when authorities were worried about the possibility of Bri- tain's reservoirs drying up. The pre- Crapper system, simply put, involved a plug which the user would pull out when he needed water: in many house- holds the plug was left out all the time. The considerable velocity of Crapper's invention almost overnight cleansed the British system of its lavatorial impurities. It was called Crapper's Valveless Water Waste Preventer CSiient Action", "Quick and Powerful Discharge Maintained Throughout"). It did what it had to do with speed and powerful efficiency: after pulling the chain, which unleashed the rushing-of waters from the overhead cistern (up there near the ceiling), the cistern filled again and automatically shut itself off. Aug/7 " It "rn t; its. Thus it wiped out waste in more senses than one and formed the basis of the flush toilet as we know it today. Such genius could not long go un- marked. Crapper was the Royal plumber to Edward VII as both Prince of Wales and King, though he was never knighted. His firm continued the distinction well into the reign of George V. . Crapper's developments in the field had compelling names like The Torrent, The Deluge and The Rocket, and they went f hand in hand with the invention of then; perforated toilet roll, which occurred i‘ ' the 1880s and for some years fought an uphill battle since stores found it inde- cent and un-Victorian to stock it. A humorous, gentle, dedicated vision- ary, Crapper, after the death of his wife in 1902, lived out his last years with two maiden nieces in southeast London, where he died at the age of 73. We might well spare a thought for him to- day as we go about our duties. gmg and, van-size concrete strips are wooden poles are temporary installations _ m-v" -- ' Could you please tell why we thrdw confetti at newlywed couples? ": "3;. Dennis Hancrar, Windsor, Ont". , _ a . The custom goes back to pagan times when grain or rice was tossed at the blushing couple -. the seeds, of course, symbolizedfertility. The. ancient"ereks sub- stituted dates, nuts, figs, andlittle coins: Italians got into the act by using sugared alinonds. The word con- fetti, in fact, is Italian fofsifeetmeats. _ T'oday, we've replaced thtrtasty tidbits with tiny pieces of colored paper, but ever' in this age' so con- cerned with population control, the symbolic meaning of confetti remains the same - a form of wishing the bride fertility. my rtiljty. The, ancient"Ghse)rs [ gs, and-little coins: Italians ogared almonds. The word for skeetmeats. l the tasty tidbits with tiny er, but even' in this age so Ct ll control, the symbolic ty if? itsiiiiiiiii'i the dow'ntown x771 Cxperinlentation has always been a part of were put together, the emphasis was put on the education. Sometimes the experiments seem pupil learning. rather than the teacher teaching to take us backwards suggests the St. Catharines The stronger students helped the weak, and Standard editorally. . the older helped the younger. "In most cases, " The Lincoln County Board of Education was said the report, "it resulted in children having told at its last meeting about an experiment at a greater sense of responsibility." ulrtrv?1sroH flrOamo1 whore nuni'lc Frnm "grin-m The Lincoln County Board of Education was told at its last meeting about an experiment at Woodland School where pupils from various grades are being grouped together. For example, children from grades 1 to 3 were grouped together in classes, and the officials say the result indicates that the project has value. It was explained that, once the students Little Old Red SchoorHouse The number of tractors reported on farms in 1971, at 597 , 0.00 was practically unchang- ed from 1966. The percentage A mong all farms there were 31,000, or 8.4 per cent which reported neither automobile nor truck located on the fa,rm, but many of these would be farms on which no one was living. The number of farms report- ing trucks declined from 261.00 in 1966 to 248, 000 in 1971 but the number of trucks increased from 345,000 to 3'70, 000. Thus the average number of trucks per farm reporting rose from 1.3 to 1.5 during the period. There were 68 per, cent of the farms reporting trucks in 1971 com- pared with 61 per cent in 1966. In 1971, as in 1966, about 75 per Cent of farms reported automobiles on the farm. On average, such farms had more than one automobile per farm and thisdncreased during the five-year period, although total automobiles reported declined from 356,000 in 1966 to 324,000 in 1971. 1971, the market value of farm machinery and equipment, as reported by farm operators, continued to increase from $3.6 billion to $3. 9 billion for Canada as a whole. The machinery investment, at market value, per farm increased from $8,300 in 1966 to $10,700 per farm in 1971, a rise of 29 per cent. Despite the continued decline in the number of census-farms fromJune l, 1966 to Tnnp 1 Canada 71 Census Shows fewer farms Bar Market Value of Machinery Up ' 1966 to June 1 Pick-up hay balers also s report- became more common on m 261,000 farms in 1971, with 153,000 1971 but reported, compared with Somehow it all seems more than faintly reminiscent of the little old one-room schools where six or eight grades might be lumped together and which are now being wiped out as rapidly as possible in the name of improved education. Marking the general shift from dairy to beef production, farms reporting milking mach- ines declined from 103.000 in 1966 to 81,000 in 1971. The proportion of farms with milking machines,' which had risen from 22 per cent in 1961 to 24 per cent in 1966, reverted to the former level by 1971. in 1966 to 29, 000 in 1971. While this was the least frequent of the farm machines reported in the Census of A griculture , it showed the greatest percentage increase at 17 .4 per cent. The percentage of farms reporting forage harvesters increased from 5.4 per cent in 1966 to 7.3 per cent in 1971. _ The number of forage har- vesters increased from 24, 000 137,000 in 1966. Over the same period, the number of farms reporting balers rose from 135,000 to 151,000. The number per farm changed little on a national average basis but, taking into account ' the reduction in total number of farms, the proportion of . farms with combines increased _ from 37 per cent in 1966 to I 41 per cent in 1971. Swathers q on farms increased from 124,000 in 1966 to 140, 000 in 1971 and the number of farms reporting swathers rose from 117 '000 to 128, 000 over the same period. of farms with tractors increased from 85 per cent to 88 per cent and the average number of tractors increased from 1.6 to 1.9 per farm reporting. Grain combines reported on farms in 1971 totalled 163e000, compared with 170,000 in 1966,' GRAIN COMBINES 232% 3 9/71