In 1676, on a surprise visit after vespers one Sunday,—"on information received" doubtless,—these officers found four men being entertained at one of the cabarets, now beginning to open up without authorization and apparently contravening all the above-quoted ordinance. One June 11th the four men and the innkeeper were fined. On September 27th the judge of the seigneurs, forced to cut down the growing abuses, ordered all inns to be closed under penalty of a 100 livres, provided that the autumn then ending and the forthcoming winter did not bring any strangers to Montreal. He declared at the same time that in the spring there would be established one or two "cabaretiers hôteliers," which we may translate as "hostelry innkeepers," to board and lodge traveling merchants coming to Montreal. Shall we consider this the first indication of the hotel life of Montreal, the commercial metropolis of Canada?
The crime of blasphemy was severely punished. On Ascension Day, 1668, the new royal edict, supplementing a former one of 1651, was placarded at the door of the parish church at Montreal. [106] Various fines and imprisonments are meted out to those who shall sin. At the sixth offence it is ordered that the blasphemer's upper lip shall be cut with a hot iron, the lower lip on the seventh, and if after this he still continues his blasphemy, his tongue is to be cut out.
A man near Lachine, having attempted outrage on two young girls of eleven and seven years, was fined and banished, on June 2, 1672, from the Isle of Montreal, for seven years.
Evil livers were punished even after death. A former corporal, who had been killed by accident by an Ottawan at the "Little" River, was, in July, 1674, refused burial in holy ground but was allowed to be buried on the commons by one who offered to do that service on the condition that the clothing covering the deceased man should be left him. [107]
We may sum up the history of the transition of morals from the pristine fervour of the early days of Maisonneuve to the early years of royal colonization, in the words of Sister Morin in her annals: "But this happy time is past. The war with the Iroquois having obliged our good king to send us troops at several times, the officers and soldiers have ruined the Lord's vineyards, and vice and sin are almost as common in Canada as in Old France. This it is that makes good people grieve, especially the missioners who wear themselves out in preaching and exhortation almost without fruit, regretting with tears and sobs those happy bygone years, when virtue flourished, as it were, without any labour on their part."
FOOTNOTES:
[106] Edits et Ordonnances, page 62-63.
[107] The "Greffe" of Montreal, dated July, 1674.