[4] Montreal Daily Star, January 5, 1914.
CHAPTER XXXII
LAW AND ORDER
JAILS—POLICE SERVICES—COURTHOUSE—LAW OFFICERS
EARLY PUNISHMENTS—FIRST CASES OF THE MAGISTRATES—GEORGE THE “NAGRE”—“EXECUTION FOR MURDER”—OTHER CRIMES PUNISHED BY DEATH—SOLDIER DESERTIONS—A PUBLIC EXECUTION—THE JAILS—THE JAIL TAX TROUBLES—OBNOXIOUS TOASTS—THE NEW JAIL OF 1836—ITS POPULATIONS—THE NEW BORDEAUX PRISON—OTHER SUPPLEMENTARY PRISONS—THE EARLY POLICING OF MONTREAL—THE LOCAL POLICE FORCE OF 1815—THE POLICE FORCE AFTER THE REBELLION OF 1837-1838—POLICE CHIEFS—MODERN LAW COURTS AND JUDGES—THE HISTORY OF THE BAR—THE BAR ASSOCIATIONS OF MONTREAL—THE RECORDERS—THE ARCHIVES.
SUPPLEMENT—THE JUDGES OF THE HIGHER COURTS FROM 1764 TO 1914—THE SHERIFFS OF MONTREAL—THE PROTHONOTARIES—THE COURTHOUSE SITES—THE BATONNIERS.
The early execution of the law in Montreal under British rule has been indicated in the chapters on the military government which lasted until 1764, when the magistrates or justices of the peace ruled the city till nearly up to the Union. Their first case was one of battery and assault.
At the May meeting of 1765 the first felony case was adjudicated. A man and his wife and a negro had been stealing. The sentence of “William and Elinor March and George, the Nagre” is thus recorded: “They are to go back to the place of their confinement, the said William to be stripped to the waist and Elinor March to have her back only stripped, and the said George the Nagre and each tyed to the carttail and beginning at the jail or prison between the hours of 8 and 9 o’clock in the forenoon on Friday next, are to proceed along around by the Intendant’s and then go to Market Place and round by St. Francis Street and through the Parade to place begun at, during which round they are to receive twenty-five stripes each on the naked back, besides twenty-five each on the naked back when at the market place.”