Vancouver Island was the scene of a gold rush in the 1860s, although the colony’s mountain streams never panned out as well as the richer and more spectacular diggings on the Fraser River and in the Caribou country. Many of the prospectors who swarmed north were Americans. Carrying revolvers was illegal but such gun toting […]
Category: Law and order
Abolish convict labour?
Should convict labour be abolished because it is said to rob honest workers of jobs or should it be maintained to help ease the burden on taxpayers? Workers at Kingston wanted it abolished but business men, at an annual meeting, thought otherwise. From the Kingston Daily News, January 30, 1860. The mechanics of Kingston memorialized […]
Police raid stops big dogfight
Hundreds of spectator from as far as Albany and Montreal gathered near a tavern east of Hamilton, Canada West, to witness a dogfight when the mayor and 20 police dashed up on sleighs to put a stop to things, as reported in the Hamilton Spectator, February 2, 1857. It had been rumoured for a long […]
Militia officers may be laughed at
Service in the militia of Upper Canada in September 1853 was compulsory, but the law had become a mockery, according to this account, reprinted from the Guelph Advertiser. Galt has long been a place of notoriety in the petty annals of the neighborhood, and when nothing else has been available, even a court martial to […]
Teetotallers curb booze
Booze 1829 — 1920 From my book, About Canada, Toronto, Civil Sector Press, 2012. Curbed by a holy war waged by temperance advocates and teetotalers, Canada’s nineteenth century booze pandemic peaked in the 1820 and 1830s. Hundreds of temperance societies sprang up within a few years. They were led mostly by Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians […]
The Mounties’ pain killer
Booze 1829 — 1920 John A. Macdonald in 1881 on reports of alcoholism in the Royal North West Mounted Police, as cited in the Winnipeg Free Press, July, 5, 1904. As regards the habits of the men, I think, on the whole, they are in a very fair state, but there is still a good […]
Death penalty abolished in 30-year reform campaign
Law and order 1822-1967 From my book, About Canada, Toronto, Civil Sector Press, 2012. For some two centuries, the death penalty hung over the parts of North America that eventually became Canada, before it was abolished—for all but military crimes. Under British law, there were some 230 crimes that carried the death penalty, early in […]
Hanged thieves are stark warnings
Law and order 1822-1967 The public hanging of a horse thief and two burglars was seen as a warning to others in this item from the Upper Canada Gazette, York (Toronto) November 6, 1823. Montreal, Oct. 18.—Yesterday morning at 20 minutes past ten o’clock, the awful sentence of the Law was executed on Abraham Paradis […]
Lament for hanging 17-year-old
Law and order 1822-1967 The Peterborough Review laments the hanging of a youth, June 11, 1910. The government says that Robert Henderson must die for killing Margaret McPherson. So the law will slay the child. Just 17, this unfortunate youth would have been better had he died a babe. They took a life for a […]
Gruesome hangings fascinate females
Law and order 1822-1967 Women as well as men flocked to watch public hangings in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That much is clear from photos and drawings of crowds of spectators, although the men seem to somewhat outnumber the women. None appeared more fascinated by the gruesome sight of death than the […]