Knitter & Canner

Habitual loafers on Boston Common know enough not to be alarmed by anything that happens in that calm and curious little park. Last week, however, they were mildly surprised to see a collection of 100 or so women congregate, sit down on camp chairs and start furiously to knit. The knitting turned out to be part of Boston's tercentenary celebration and it commemorated a spinning contest held there 182 years ago which ended in a riot when some 600 Boston husbands took exception to the distribution of prizes. Last week, loafers on the Common waited hopefully but the knitting bee caused no trouble even when the judges awarded one of the six prizes to a man. He was bald, tidy, dignified John Farnum Cann. His contribution -- all the knitters made little chunks which were later pinned together in a large U. S. flag -- was a red stripe.

A fair candidate for the title of No. 1 U. S. male knitter, John Farnum Cann, unlike the Prince of Wales who took up knitting during the War but soon gave it up for polo, has knitted all his life. He learned 56 years ago when, at the age of 10 in Yarmouth. N. S., his mother found that his five brothers and two sisters wore out their stockings faster than she could supply them. From stockings, Knitter Cann progressed to sweaters, caps, and fancy afghans. He grew up, married a girl who liked to knit, adopted the profession of male nurse, kept on knitting. Be fore the War he had a New Hampshire sheep farm, which kept him well supplied with wool. During the War, he knitted perpetually, flooding a nephew at the front with products for distribution. Now he is owner of a Back Bay rooming house and uses the proceeds from his knitting to help support Mrs. Cann who has become an invalid. Last week, Knitter Cann, whose strokes are old-fashioned and who can do only a plain stitch, went to the Tercentenary Committee's knitting bee intending to watch rather than compete, entered with misgiving when the committee asked for volunteers. He sat down, removed his coat, put his straw hat in his lap for a knitting basket, and revealed a smooth head fringed with grey. His prize, when the bee was over, was a box containing 16 balls of yarn.

P:While Knitter John Cann was distinguishing himself in Boston last week, Canner David Hippie was likewise distinguishing himself in Chicago. A 45-year-old bachelor who runs a fruit farm near Elgin, Ill., Canner Hippie, competing with 100 women in the Cook County Fair, got first prize for a jar of his blackberry jam.

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