“You know, Mr. Robert Watson, a flour inspector, and a fine gentleman, was shot dead in his own house by a man whose name I cannot recall. That was, I think, in the twenties. The man was arrested, tried and found guilty on circumstantial evidence, which was principally the fact that his boots corresponded to the footmarks found in the snow leading to Mr. Watson’s residence. At the same time there was a French-Canadian tried and sentenced to death for forgery, and sheep stealing, which were then capital offenses. I determined to see the hangings. I know you will think me queer, but I had a desire to go. Hangings were then conducted in public. I remember the crowd in the jail yard as well as if it was yesterday—men and women and girls like myself. The authorities had allowed as many as the yard would hold, but there were hundreds outside who could see nearly as well.
“The Irishman asked for three cheers for the Irish, and said, ‘Take off your hats for the Irishman.’ The people did as he asked. The Frenchman said he had sold his body to the students, and that he was ready to die like a man. He asked the women to come up that he might pull their ears off, for when he began to steal his mother never corrected him, and therefore he was on the scaffold. Then I fainted, the first and only time in my life. I was sorry I went.”
JAILS
The jail[1] used in the latter part of French régime and the early portion of English rule was situated on the site formerly known as the Crystal Block (now represented by the second building northwest of St. Lawrence Street), on Notre Dame Street. On the occupation of the British, the Jesuits’ residence, on Notre Dame Street, on the site facing what is now Jacques Cartier Square, was confiscated and in 1773 used as a jail as well as a courthouse. Not being designed for a jail, it is not surprising that the grand jury at the Court of King’s Bench held on the 2d of September, 1782, presented in their statement that the jail “is very insufficient for the purpose of a civil prison, is in a ruinous condition and is becoming a nuisance to the public and dangerous to the health and lives as well of the persons confined therein as others, his Majesty’s subjects. That it is insufficient for the purposes of a civil prison will appear on considering that there are but three small apartments into which are put prisoners of both sexes, and every denomination, whether for debt, breaches of the peace or the most flagrant crimes, and on the representation of the sheriff of the district to their honours, the judges of the court of common pleas, on the insufficiency of the prison, they have thought proper to order that executions should not issue against the persons of debtors who, by the laws of the Province, may become subject to imprisonment.”
In 1787 a committee of the legislative council was appointed by Lord Dorchester to investigate into the past administration of justice in the Province of Quebec. A committee of merchants of Montreal in a report to this commission, dated the 23d of June, 1787, stated in Article 8: “The want of a proper jail for the district has long been complained of, and at divers times has been represented by different grand juries, as well as at the courts of oyer and terminer and in the inferior courts of quarter sessions; but hitherto no remedy has been applied. The house which at present serves for a jail consists of four very small rooms in which are frequently confined promiscuously persons of different sexes and for very different degrees of crime. The unfortunate debtor cannot have a room to himself, nor can the malefactor, when preparing for the other world, be accommodated with a place of retirement to deprecate the wrath of the offended Deity. The insufficiency of the jail, in point of security, occasions a guard of soldiers to be kept in the lower part of it and even with that precaution many atrocious offenders have escaped, insomuch that the sheriff of the district has refused to confine debtors, unless the prosecutor offer to take upon himself the risk of an escape. The situation of this insufficient jail heightens the sufferings of the persons whom the law dooms to imprisonment, offends every passerby in the warm season and is a nuisance to the neighbourhood.”
The fire in 1803, which swept this portion of the city, partially destroyed the jail, and pending repairs a building was leased for a temporary jail. Still procrastination prevailed.
In 1804 the grand jury of Montreal made another presentment stating: “that the present gaol is only the ruins of the former one, which was burned, repaired and patched up in such a manner that the prisoners are sheltered from the inclemency of the weather, but by no means prevented from going out whenever they feel so inclined.” A report of the sheriff, Gray, shows that the same building had existed under the French rule, that it had then, as subsequently, suffered from fire and that although recently the sum of £615 had been expended on repairs it was still inadequate for the security of prisoners.
In 1805 an act was passed in the house of assembly by which commissioners were appointed to have a jail erected in Montreal and Quebec, the cost to be restricted to £9,000 currency in each case. It was high time. The act of 1805 was the result of these representations.
But a discussion arose at once concerning the ways and means of raising the funds. The bill as prepared embodied a proposal for the raising of funds through a tax on imports.[2] The merchants opposed this as directed against commerce and urged a land tax which the landholders in turn combatted. Petitions were sent by the merchants against the bill and they asked to plead at the bar of the house. This was refused and the bill in its original form passed the upper house unanimously. The bill became law. The merchants trading from London also intervened in a memorial protesting against the import tax. Altogether there was a strenuous fight. The feelings at Montreal rose high.