The Daily Colonist, February 1-5, 1915

#dailycolonist1915 - The news out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago:

[Excluding the news of a Zeppelin attack on London, it is impossible to look at the events of this week outside of the context of the tyrannical fear-mongering of the Harper government and bill C-51. It can be plainly seen by these articles from a century ago that things are not any more or less dangerous and all that is happening is a profound step backwards toward a time when people, like my great-grandparents, were forced to register with the police and report regularly on the threat of being packed away to forced labour camps simply for being born in the wrong country.]

• Monday, February 1, 1915
  • (No paper on Mondays)
     
• Tuesday, February 2, 1915
  • Forts in Dover repel Zeppelin air-raid on London.
     
• Wednesday, February 3, 1915
  • A lone terrorist from the United States dynamites a railway bridge in New Brunswick and flees back over the border. Upon arrest in Maine the bomber, who had been living in Mexico prior to the war, claims to be a German officer and as such cannot be extradited from a neutral country to an enemy of the Fatherland. "Van Horne did not enter Canada wearing a uniform, nor did he act under the instructions of his military superiors."
     
• Thursday, February 4, 1915
  • Due to the bridge bombing in New Brunswick guards on railway bridges here in British Columbia are doubled and immigration officials are ordered to "exercise the closes possible inspection" of people arriving from the United States.
     
• Friday, February 5, 1915
  • Due to the terrorist attack from the United States, Parliament opens in Ottawa under heavy police guard, including uniformed and secret service dispersed through the public galleries of the Senate. No one can enter the "public" gallery of the House of Commons without a ticket obtained through a member of Parliament and all "suspicious persons" are refused any entrance to the building at all, with others only allowed in with a pass unless already well known to the police as someone safe to admit. 
  • Bridge bomber Werner Van Horn is charged, tired and convicted to a 30-day sentence in Maine for damaging property in Maine (the explosion from dynamite applied to the bridge in New Brunswick broke windows in the neighbouring town) as a formality to extend his incarceration beyond U.S. constitutional limits against being held without charge while Canadian officials, via the British Ambassador to the United States, proceed with extradition.

[ source: http://www.britishcolonist.ca/dateList.php?year=1915 ]