The Montreal Gazette of the period reported a meeting at Dillon’s tavern, Mr. Isaac Todd, a principal merchant, took the chair at a dinner and among others certain toasts were proposed which were thought by some members of the legislature to reflect on them, scandalously and libellously, and Mr. Todd and the printer of the Gazette were declared by the session of 1806 to have been guilty of a high breach of the privileges of the house. The sergeant-at-arms on attempting to make an arrest in Montreal found both of them absent, and the matter dropped. Some of the obnoxious toasts were as follows:
“Our representatives in the provincial parliament, who proposed a constitutional and proper mode of taxation for building gaols, and who opposed a tax on commerce for that purpose as contrary to the sound practice of the parent state;”
“May our representatives be actuated by a patriotic spirit for the good of the Province as dependent on the British Empire and be divested of local prejudices;”
“May the city of Montreal be enabled to support a new paper, though deprived of its natural and useful advantages, apparently for the benefit of an individual” (sic);
“May the commercial interest of this Province have its due influence on the administration of its government.” (Christie—“History of Canada,” p. 239.)
The next jail was finally built in 1808 adjoining the east side of the courthouse erected in 1800, but becoming too small a more suitable one was commenced in 1831 at the foot of St. Mary’s current on ground purchased from the heirs of Sir John Johnson. It was not taken possession of by the sheriff till 1836. It was not built on hygienic or practical lines and in 1852 the northeast wing had to be demolished. It soon became very much occupied by the rebels and political prisoners of 1837 and 1838.[3]
The former prison was occupied as a house of industry from 1836 to 1838, when it became the government barracks. In the summer of 1849 the old jail built like the courthouse on the site of the Jesuits’ estate was pulled down. The cornerstone was found with two plates, the first recording the laying of the foundation stone of the Jesuit residence in 1742 by M. Normand, superior of the seminary, and the other recording that of the prison by Peter Panet, Isaac Ogden, “honorabiles judices,” and Joseph Frobisher, armiger.
In 1870, the prison, opened in 1836, was already being found too small and its overcrowded state had been frequently protested against by many grand juries. The theoretic capacity for this prison was 225 persons. It managed to hold 552 at one time. In 1876 the women prisoners were removed. It continued to be used for its original purpose till lately when the new prison at Bordeaux was opened in 1912, the last contingent being transferred from the old prison in August, 1913.
The following is a table of the population of the prisoners in the old prison:
| 1836 Men and women | 162 |
| 1846 Men and women | 1,275 |
| 1856 Men and women | 1,792 |
| 1866 Men and women | 4,410 |
| 1876 Men and women | 3,969 |
| 1886 Men only | 2,156 |
| 1896 Men only | 4,132 |
| 1906 Men only | 3,130 |
| 1908 Men only | 4,854 |
| 1909 Men only | 4,287 |
| 1910 Men only | 4,702 |
| 1911 Men only | 5,344 |