Century-old message in a bottle found under toppled statue in Canada
Workers uncorked a rare piece of prohibition history when they found a 101-year-old message in a bottle under a defaced government statue in Manitoba, Canada.
A letter bemoaning the booze ban dated July 30, 1921, was discovered beneath the base of the toppled Queen Victoria statue outside the city’s Legislative Assembly offices, CTV Canada reported.
“It says, ‘On account of the Prohibition, we are unable to adhere to the custom of depositing a bottle of brandy under the stone, for which we are extremely sorry,’” government services minister Reg Helwer told the outlet.
The century-old note referencing the good fortune tradition was signed by a stonecutter along with Manitoba’s then-deputy minister of public works.
Workers were removing the statue after protesters last year toppled it, ripped off its head, and tossed it in the nearby Assiniboine River during a rally over indigenous children’s graves.
Officials are now hammering out how to best preserve the hooch-boosting historical document.
“Apparently there are things of that nature around the legislature. As we move stones, we do discover things like this,” Helwer said.
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