Of the criminal class in Toronto there are two grades; the first of these consists of those who commit the great crimes, such as murder, forgery and the like; such crimes result in many cases from motives which may occur but once in a lifetime; such cases of reform as I have seen have come mainly from these classes. But the crimes which depend on lying, dishonest, laziness, and unchastity are ineradicable, humanly speaking. The intenser forms of crime are like the deadliest diseases which attack but once in a lifetime; the other class of crime clings to the character like itch or leprosy.
Among the more famous Toronto criminals under my care was the famous
GRACE MARKS, THE GIRL MURDERESS.
She was a singularly beautiful girl, fourteen, with dark eyes, graceful figure, and a transparent olive complexion, when she and her paramour committed the crime, for which he was hanged. Grace had pleasing manners and though considerably past forty when under my care, still retained the remains of her girlish beauty. She told me that for many years she never slept without seeing the face of the murdered man in her dreams. She has been for some years a free woman, and is now a respectably settled married woman in an American city. There is one class of women who trade in human life, who are but too seldom brought within the grasp of the law, and when the guilt of murder is most clearly proven, are too often allowed to escape with comparative impunity. Perhaps the worst case of this class known in Toronto was that of the wife of an American quack doctor, to whom, and to her husband, was clearly brought home the death, by malpractice in their den, of a young girl, daughter of a minister of the gospel. I saw this woman-fiend in the workroom at penitentiary, pert, cheerful, and confident of the speedy relief she afterwards obtained.
FROM THE EAST END.
The Rev. Mr. Taylor, rector of St. Bartholemew’s church, at the east end of Wilton avenue gave much interesting information with regard to the condition of the poorer classes at the east end of the city. “With us,” he said, “there is more poverty than pauperism. What pauperism there is, unlike that screened from public view by the alleys of St. John’s ward, can be seen from the public thoroughfares. The lowest district, Regent street, can be seen from Wilton avenue. It is wide and well-drained, but the humble hovels which line its sides make a hideous comment on its ambitious title. Little better than this is St. David’s street, which crosses Regent street, east and west. Sumach street was poverty-stricken a few years ago, but is now improving, but Sackville, Sydenham, Parliament, and all the streets in this region are to a great degree peopled by the poorer classes of our citizens.” As far as many years intimate acquaintance with the poor of this district has entitled him to form an opinion, there is little or no public immorality among those people, who thus form an entirely different class from the inhabitants of the St. John’s ward slums. The great evil is a certain shiftlessness, a tendency to hope for support anywhere or from any one rather than to their own exertions. This I have noticed especially among immigrants from London and other parts of England. Mr. A. called on me several years ago with an introduction from one of the best known and most hardworking clergymen in a well-known London parish. He was respectably dressed, and though he lived in one of the poorest shanties in a lane off Sackville street, the place when I called there was clean, even neat, and decorated with a few good engravings and other survivals of his former English home. He had a wife, a neat, well-dressed person, three fine girls, and two as nice boys as I have ever seen. The girls had already found employment as dressmakers, a business to which they had been apprenticed at Camberwell, London. The father sought a genteel situation, something in the line of a clerk, bookkeeper or secretary; he could write a good hand, and was a competent arithmetician. But as you know, our city is already overstocked with applicants for such positions. I soon found that Mr. A. looked to the church for some slight monetary assistance, which, as our poor fund, small enough for legitimate uses, was already over-drained, I was obliged to withhold. The result was that Mr. A.
KEPT AWAY FROM CHURCH
for about a year. But the evil righted itself, as the boys grew up and found employment. They and their sisters supported the family by their earnings, an act of self-denial which, I have no doubt, was of the greatest possible moral benefit to themselves. After a time Mr. A. found occupation not wholly incompatible with his dignity, as caretaker in a furniture factory, became a most regular attendant at church and a communicant. This is the history of many of these English arrivals in Toronto, more especially of those who come from London. They are generally fairly well-educated, are respectably connected, and in most cases, I believe, are “assisted” to this country by relations anxious to shift from their shoulders the burdens of directing or aiding their course. The parents are people trained to earn money, if at all, in a single groove, seldom in one available in Canada. They cannot, like our people, turn their hand to anything that presents itself. But for all that they form a valuable element in our city population, for their children soon get Canadianized, imbibe the Canadian idea of being self-dependent and form the best possible addition to our vastly increasing numbers. One of the greatest evils I have to contend against in dealing with this class is an absurd and bastard pride and love of keeping up appearances. A woman living in a rented room on Sackville street lost a child by death. I provided her out of the poor fund with a plain black coffin as the means of conveyance to the place of interment. Soon afterwards another woman lodging in the same house lost a child. I offered to do the same for her that I had done in the former case. The woman indignantly refused, but begged me to give her money to get a more expensive coffin. Now, I had in my pocket a small sum of money from the poor fund, which I had intended to give her, but which I felt compelled to withhold when I found it would but be spent superfluously on “the trappings and the suits of woe.” Still I felt sorry for the poor mother, in her desire to give a handsome funeral to her dead darling, though I could not conscientiously gratify her at the expense of those of my poor who needed food, not sentimental gratification. But when I came to officiate at the funeral I found she had provided a rosewood casket with white metal plate, a hearse and a carriage. Among my saddest experiences here are my visits to
THE NUMEROUS BABY FARMS,
which drive a more or less thriving trade in this part of the city. Some of them are situate on St. David street, several of them in a healthier position north of the General hospital. I have frequently visited these places; each dwelling will accommodate from three or four to as many as eight or ten infants, who are in almost all cases the children of shame, for whom their mothers, often persons in respectable positions, pay a small sum monthly. I do not think that they are neglected by the women who undertake the charge of them; in fact it is, of course, their interest that the babies should thrive, as on their living depends the monthly pay; but the circumstances of the birth and rearing of these poor infants, and, above all, the deprivation of the mother’s milk, the often sour milk in the feeding-bottle, and the unavoidable crowding together, make these places nothing less than nurseries of death—the babies all die!”