CRIMINOLOGY
Professor John Hagan
and
Professor Rosemary Gartner
1988 - 89
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
FACULTY OF LAW LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
CRIMINOLOGY
Professor John Hagan
and
Professor Rosemary Gartner
1988 - 89
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
CRIMINOLOGY
LAW 2 4 2S:
Professors John Hagan and
Rosemary Gartner
Table of Contents
Phillips, "Poverty, unemployment, and the administration of the
criminal law: vagrants and vagrancy laws in Halifax, 1864-1890."
Sherman & Berk, "The specific deterrent effects of arrest for
domestic assault." American Sociological Review , 1984, 49: 261-
272.
Crocker, "The meaning of equality for battered women who kill men
in self-defense." Harvard Women’s Law Journal. 1985, 8:121-153.
Johnson, "Wife abuse." Canadian Social Trends. 1988, Spring:17-
20 .
Gurr, "Historical trends in violent crime: A critical review of
the evidence.” Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research.
3:295-353. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Lane, "Urban police in 19th-Century America." Crime and Justice.
1980. 2:1-44.
Bursik, "Social disorganization and theories of crime and
delinquency: Problems and prospects." Criminology . 1988, 26 :
519-552.
Clarke and Cornish, "Modeling offenders’ decisions: A framework
for research and policy." Pp. 147-185 in M. Tonrv and N.
Morris (eds) , Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Hirschi, "On the compatibility of rational choice and social
control theories of crime." Pp. 105-118 in The Reasoning
Criminal .
Norrie, "Practical reasoning and criminal responsibility: A
jurisprudential approach." Pp. 217-230 in The Reasoning
Criminal.
Carroll and Weaver, "Shoplifters’ perceptions of crime
opportunities: A process-tracing study." Pp. 19-37 in The
Reasoning Criminal.
Hagan and Parker, "White collar crime and punishment." American
Sociological Review. 1985, 50:302-316.
Wheeler and Rothman. "The organization as weapon in white-collar
crime." Michigan Law Review. 1982, 80:1403-1426.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2018 with funding from
University of Toronto
https://archive.org/details/criminology1988haga
Black, "Crime as social control." American Sociological Review.
1983, 48: 34-45.
Baumgartner, "Social control from below
Theory of Social Control. Donald Black
Press, 1983.
" In
( ed ) .
Toward a Genera l
New York: Academic
Smith and Uchida, "The social
American Sociological Review.
organization of self-help
1988, 53: 94-102.
it
Shearing, "Subterranean processes in the maintenance of power: An
examination of the mechanisms coordinating police action."
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. 1981, 18:283-298.
Cohen and Felson, "Social change and crime rate trends: A routine
activity approach." American Sociological Review. 1979, 44:
588-608.
Hindelang, et al, Chapter 11, Victims of Personal Crime: An
Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization.
Cressey, "The^differential association theory and compulsive
crimes." Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police
Science . 1954, 45:49-64.
Glaser, "Criminality theories and behavioral images." American
Journal of Sociology. 1956, 61:433-444.
Martinson, "What works? Questions and answers about prison
reform." Public Interest. 1974. 35:22-54.
Platt, " The triumph of benevolence: The origins of the .juvenile
justice system in the U.S." In Richard Quinnev (ed) Criminal
Justice in America. Boston: Little Brown, 1974.
Lemert, "Diversion in juvenile justice: What hath been wrought."
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. January 1981, 34-
Gottfredson and Hirschi, "The true value of lambda would appear
to be zero: An essay on career criminals, criminal careers,
selective incapacitation, cohort studies and related topics."
Criminology. 1986, 24:213-233.
Blurastein, Cohen and Farrington. "Criminal career research: Its
value for criminology." Criminology. 1988, 26:1-36.
POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CRIMINAL
LAW: VAGRANTS AND VAGRANCY LAWS IN HALIFAX, 1864-1890
Jim Phillips
Vagrancy was one of the most common .offences for which
residents of late nineteenth century Halifax were committed to the
city prison at Rockhead, more than 1,400 incarcerations occurring
between 1864 and 1890. Prostitutes, strangers, pr o.f essi onal
mendicants, and the able-bodied unemployed - all were susceptible
to classification as vagrants. Like their counterparts in urban
centres throughout North America, members of the Halifax middle
class perceived in the vagrant a growing threat to social
discipline and turned in part to the criminal justice system to
impose their notions of order and respectability on this segment
of the urban poor.
This article examines the characteristics of the vagrant
class and the operation of vagrancy laws in later nineteenth-
century Halifax, a period that witnessed the beginnings of
industrialisation, considerable population growth, out-migration
from the rural hinterland of Nova Scotia, and new approaches to
providing for the urban poor. Statistical evidence on rates of
incarceration, analyses of the ethnic, geographical and religious
origins of the convicted, sentencing practices, and official and
popular reactions to vagrants are used to assess their place in
society. Of particular concern is middle-class reaction to the
emerging lower working class - unskilled labourers uprooted from
traditional occupations and communities yet, transient and often
unemployed, without a regular place in the new industrialising
1
society. The administration of vagrancy laws in this period is
best interpreted as part of a broader process of social control
which involved enuring these members of the lower classes to
bourgeois notions of industry, sobriety and respectability.
Nova Scotians Vagrancy Laws
Colonial Nova Scotia enacted its first vagrancy law just a
year after the establishment of the Assembly in 1758. A 1759 Act
providing for a workhouse in Halifax required JPs to 'commit to
the said house of correction, ...all disorderly and idle persons,
and such who shall be found begging, ... common drunkards, persons
of lewd behaviour, vagabonds, runaways, stubborn servants and
children, and persons who notoriously mispend their time to the
neglect and prejudice of their own or their family's support.' 1
It was closely modelled on English statutes, which by the mid¬
eighteenth century focussed on the vagrant as a status criminal,
one who threatened social order by an unacceptab1e, though not
otherwise illegal, lifestyle, or by appearing likely to commit
other crimes. 2 In similar vein a successor statute of 1774 , 'for
punishing Rogues, Vagabonds, and other Idle and Disorderly
Persons' laid down eight categories of offenders to be deemed
'idle and wandering persons', including those who ran away and
burdened the community with supporting their families, those who
'not having wherewith to maintain themselves, live idle and refuse
to work for the usual wages', and all beggars. Sentence was one
month in the prison or workhouse with hard labour. 3
These statutes provided a comprehensive vagrancy law for the
colony and stayed in operation until their repeal with Nova
Scotia's first statutory revision in 1851. They were replaced by a
single section of a short Act dealing with 'madmen and vagrants',
which stated: *
Persons who unlawfully return to any place whence they
have been legally removed as paupers, and idle and
wandering persons having no visible means of
subsistence, and persons going about to beg alms, shall
severally be deemed common vagrants, and may be brought
up and summarily convicted by a justice of the peace,
and thereupon imprisoned by not more than one month.
This provision was reproduced at each subsequent pre¬
confederation statutory consolidation. It was supplemented for
Halifax by the City Charter, which permitted the City Court to
sentence 'common beggars' to 10 days for the first offence, 90
days for subsequent offences, and 'vagabonds' for up to a year. =
In 1869 the federal parliament passed a Vagrancy Act as part
of the pre-codification campaign to consolidate the criminal
law. It was intended primarily to punish immorality and control
those who threatened to commit crimes, with a secondary emphasis
on the suppression of begging and a reduction of charges on poor
relief systems. Included in its sweeping definition were 'all
common prostitutes or night walkers...not giving a satisfactory
account of themselves', brothel-keepers, and persons who 'for the
most part support themselves by gaming or crime or by the avails
of prostitution'. All were to be 'deemed vagrants, loose, idle or
disorderly persons', as were, inter aiia, 'Calll idle persons who,
not having visible means of maintaining themselves, live without
employment'. The penalty on conviction was a maximum 2-month
prison term, with or without hard labour, - or a maximum $50 fine,
or both. s Later amendments toughened up the law. In 1874 the
maximum term of imprisonment was extended to six months. In 1881,
— I—.
.judicial doubting of the power to sentence to hard labour brought
another, one-section, amending Act to confirm it.' 7 ’ Throughout
this period vagrants were caught not only by federal law, but also
by provincial and municipal laws because the types of offences
falling under vagrancy were susceptible to concurrent jurisdicton
under section 92(14) of the British North America Act - the power
of the provinces to make laws to punish contraventions of
provincial statutes enacted under another s.92 head of authority.
This authority was judicially confirmed in 1888 in Wj.nsl.ow v
GalJ_aqher and later again i n v Munroe.®
The new legislation was welcomed in a number of quarters. The
Chief Constable of Toronto, for example, commented that 'if
strictly enforced’, it would ’tend more to the prevention of crime
than any Acts hitherto passed by the legislature’A Halifax
newspaper claimed that it would ’bring the street corner loafers
and users of bad language within range of a healthy amount of
judicious restraint and punishment’. 10
Historians and Nineteenth-Century Vagrancy Laws
Most studies of the operation of vagrancy laws in Britain and
the United States have depicted them as overt instruments of
ruling class control. To orthodox Marxist historians they
represent a mechanism for disciplining the large numbers of
unemployed and underemployed necessary to the operation of a
capitalist labour market. Industrial capitalism needed this
’reserve army’ both to discipline its workers and to maintain low
wages, and required also a means of controlling that army. Sidney
Harring argues that the various ’Tramp Acts’ passed from the 1870s
4
onwards 'offer a classic example of class legislation - thart is,
laws specifically designed by one class to be used as weapons in
controlling a weaker class'. 11 Others provide a subtler, but in
many respects similar, interpretation, seeing the vagrancy laws as
the means by which the Victorian middle classes imposed
'respectable' values on those who threatened the comfortable and
settled bourgeois world of church, community, and industry. Paul
Boyer presents a 'social control' thesis, depicting an urban
middle class struggle to combat apprehended disorder in the new
industrial cities through a mixture of repression, self-help based
charity, and institutions for the inculcation of morality and
discipline. A similar interpretation is offered by a variety of
local studies; Friedman and Percival, for example, conclude from
the evidence of one California county that 'as the police
patrolled the streets looking for vagrants, brawlers and drunks,
they were also patrolling the moral and social edges of society,
trawling for deviance, enforcing standard norms of good bourgeois
conduct' .
Despite such interpretive differences, common threads can be
discerned in the work of all who have examined vagrancy in late-
nineteenth century America. There is general agreement that
America 'discovered' the vagrant problem in the depression years
of the 18705, and that the level of concern about them
corresponded with fluctuations in the economy. The importance of
the vagrant lay not in what he or she represented, be that social
unrespectabi 1 i ty, outlawism, or nascent labour radicalism.
American society responded to the vagrant
'menac e'
principally
F.ir.V
with repression - long prison terms with hard labour - but also
through an expansion of public and private charity, albeit charity
which came increasingly to stress the importance of a labour
test. 13 Vagrants presented similar problems to late nineteenth-
century British society. 'To many Victorians', argues David
Jones, 'the vagrant was the most glaring affront to the trinity of
work, respectability and religion', even though 'a degree of
mobility and homelessness was an inevitable part of the change
from a rural to an urban and industrial society.' 1 **
In the only Canadian work on vagrants in the later nineteenth
century James Pitsula paints a picture very similar to the
American canvas: the number of vagrants greatly increased in the
1870s, the incidence of vagrancy fluctuated with economic
conditions, and their presence was met with a combination of
middle-class private charity and public repression. Adopting a
social control model he argues that 'the tramp symbolised
rejection of the work ethic and middle class values', and that 'if
social order was to be preserved, this rebellious figure had to be
suppressed.' 13 This article comes to similar conclusions about
another of Canada's major cities. While acknowledging that a
variety of forces helped to shape the use of criminal sanctions
against vagrants, I argue that the principal determinant was, as
elsewhere, fear of the vagrant as a deviant, disruptive force, a
fear that was manifested despite the limited degree of
industrial 1 sation in Halifax during these years.
IfDELiSSDCDgQt for Vagrancy^ i§&4zii!iQ
Table 1 breaks down incarceration statistics 1S into three
6
principal categories - .vagrants, drunkenness and 'others'. 1 ' 7 ’ The
percentage figure on the extreme right represents vagrancy as a
percentage of all committals excluding those for drunkenness,
which were always the most numerous. This separation demonstrates
TABLE ONE: RETURNS OF COMMITTALS IQ THE CITY PRISON^. 1§64 = 1890
VAGRANTS
Year
Female
Mai e
Total
Drunk
Others
Total.
7. *
1864
59
34
93
173
173
439
jj . U
1865
49
29
78
264
172
514
31.2
1866
57
30
87
240
202
529
30 . 1
1867
53
46
99
119
215
rUU
31.5
1868
40
43
83
231
206
520
28.7
1869
22
38
60
255
184
499
24.6
1870
26
23
49
310
183
542
21.1
1871
14
21
35
304
170
509
17.1
1872
21
27
48
326
21 1
cnc
JOJ
18.5
1873
31
35
66
246
21 0
5 2-2-
24.0
1874
38
27
65
282
169
516
27.8
1875
28
27
55
302
171
528
24.3
1876
24
33
57
305
264
626
17.7
1877
22
33
55
265
214
534
20 . 4
1878
29
63
92
273
205
570
31.0
1879
37
50
87
243
205
nr cr
JuJ
29.3
1880
26
36
62
245
223
530
21.7
1881
11
15
26
186
175
387
13.0
1882
9
14
23
229
167
419
12 . 1
1883
16
9
25
167
1 40
LJ Lj
15 . 1
1884
9
21
30
163
109
302
21.6
1885
6
18
24
199
145
363
14.2
1886
6
24
30
149
128
307
1 9 . 0
1887
5
15
20
1 00
115
•“.ncr
J
14.8
1888
8
13
21
104
1 16
241
15.3
1889
15
16
31
142
150
wJ -b-
17 . 1
1890
15
10
25
188
143
ncr/:
JJ O
14.9
TOTAL 676
750
1,426
6,010 4,
764
12,200
23.0
* Of vagrancy to
all inc
ar c er at i
ons, excluding
drunkenness
that 23 per cent of incarcerations for the more serious petty
crimes were for vagrancy. In some years - notably 1867 and 1879
7
- it was the most frequent cause of committals other than
drunkenness, and rarely did it fall below second or third in
importance. Measured by total committals males were more commonly
offenders against the vagrancy laws, although only marginally so -
52.6 to 47.4 ger cent. These are high rates for women. Rachel
Vorspan demonstrates that 85 ger cent of vagrants convicted in
England during the second half of the nineteenth century were men;
the equivalent figure for Massachusetts between 1866 and 1873 was
75 ger cent. 18 Moreover, all historical and contemporary work on
female criminality suggests that crime rates are much lower for
women - 20-30 ger cent of total crime only. 13 The Halifax figures
are skewed by two factors. First, the ratio of female to male
crime is always larger for petty offences. Second, the substantial
prostitute population typical of a port and garrison town must
have considerably inflated the statistics. While it was not
uncommon for women to be convicted because they were begging or
had no place of residence, 20 many of the female vagrants here
were prostitutes. Given that approximately 30 ger cent of all
committals were meted out to women, 21 it is reasonable to assume
that prostitution accounted for the difference between that figure
and the 47 ger cent of vagrants who were female.
Perhaps the most instructive trend to be culled from Table 1
is the correlation between vagrancy committals and fluctuations in
the economy. Like other major Maritime communities Halifax was
primarily dependent on shipping, ship repairing, and the lumber
trade, and to a much lesser extent on ship-building. Ship
manufacture dominated the economies of many of the Nova Scotian
outports, from whence came some of the vagrants imprisoned in the
8
capital. 22 The end of the American civil war and the abrogation of
American reciprocity in 1866 reduced both the demand for and the
competitiveness of Nova Scotian goods there, and a decreased
British demand for lumber and ships after 1873 contributed to the
decline and eventual eclipse of the principal traditional props of
the export economy of the Maritime Provinces. The 1370s was thus
a decade of depression, with economic fortunes being restored by
the introduction of the National Policy and, more importantly, by
the global economic upturn of the late 1870s. The result was a
growth in manufacturing
in the Maritimes and a shift away from
wholesale dependence on
the traditional staples. While this
represented no more than
a partial industrialisation and was not
sustained in later decades, in the 1880s industrial output in Nova
Scotia increased by 66 ger cent over the previous decade; indeed
the growth rate was the highest among the eastern provinces. 23
Incarceration rates for vagrancy closely correspond to the
performance of the local economy. The totals for male
incarcerations only were considerably higher in the depression
years of the late 1860s, probably the result of the failure of the
fishery which sustained so many of the surrounding counties, 2 * 4,
and in the 1873-1879 period, than in the better days of the 1880s.
Female incarceration totals display the same trends after 1367.
Between 1864 and 1867
female rates were very high, almost
certainly because they
were greatly inflated by prostitution
convictions in a period
when the size of the garrison was much
greater than subsequently.
i The general causal relationship between
the economy and vagranc
:y is also evidenced by the figures for
9
vagrancy as a percentage of non-drunkenness committals. Only in
1876 did they dip below 20 per cent during the 1873-80 period, and
only in 1884 did they achieve that level in the ensuing decade.
The vagrant 'problem' was also in part the result of
migration trends during these years. Halifax grew from a city of
25,026 in 1861 to 29,582 in 1871, 36,100 in 1881 and 38,556 in
1891.This was not, as it had been in earlier decades, the
result of the large-scale immigration of trans-Atlantic
paupers. During this period immigration from Europe was low, and
the provincial government exerted itself to attract only the
sturdy, well-founded, immigrant. 26 Rather population growth had
a localised economic origin - migration from the more depressed
areas of the Maritimes, which from the ear 1y 1860s experienced a
marked increase in out-migration. A first stage for many of
those who would eventually travel south and west was the Maritime
city. Both urban growth and vagrancy convictions were highest
during the 1870s, the decade of recession. The better times of
the 1880s stemmed the flow of tramps and migrants endemic to
working-class life throughout the North American continent in
the 1870s.
Table 2 breaks down the incarceration totals in Table 1 by
month, demonstrating that more occurred during the summer months
of May to September than at other times, with the fewest coming in
the winter and early spring, January to April. The explanations
for this are probably fourfold. First, more women were imprisoned
as prostitutes during the months when they would be out on the
streets and therefore visible; women outnumbered men from May to
July, and were only slightly less numerous in August,
while in all
MONTHLY INCIDENCE OF IMPRISONMENTS FOR VAGRANCY
TABLE TWO:
Month
Mai es
Females
Total
Jan.
56
28
84
Feb.
52
47
99
March
56
44
100
Apr i 1
50
43
93
May
50
67
117
June
70
72
142
July
61
79
140
Aug
73
70
143
Sept.
76
71
147
□ct.
76
46
122
Nov.
63
53
1 16
Dec .
67
56
123
TCTALS
750
676
1426
other months men predominated. Second, vagrants convicted in the
fall, especially late in the fall, would often serve out their
sentences with little remission wanted or granted during the
winter? consistent recidivists would therefore not be 'available'
for re—conviction until at least the following spring. Third, poor
relief was more generally available during the winter, obviating
the need that some offenders had to court conviction for shelter.
Finally, this statistic may well reflect the basis of public
antipathy for those classed as vagrants. It was easier to
appreciate the plight of the resident poor in winter when jobs
were few than to sympathise with the visible prostitute, the
wandering tramp or the able-bodied resident unemployed of the
summer months who represented the outsider and the non-conformer.
Needless to say, few tramped from community to community durinq
the worst of the Nova Scotian winter. 2 ®
Tables 3 and 4 analyse the characteristics of the vagrant
population in selected sample years. Most vagrants were in
V_*v. . -■>. : : f.
: ■/rn?.i , .W>l«..- ' 1 . *
b ;iAw-
r;
TABLE THREE: AGE AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISJICS OF IMPRISONED
VAGRANTS - SELECTED*YEARS
Year
Average Age
Religion/Ethni
city
RC
Prot
Black
1864
29.7
36
39
16
1867
28. 1
59
22
8
1870
34.4
35
8
1873
35. 1
35
22
6
1875
30.2
29
18
6
1877
32.6
27
19
1880
34. 1
28
21
8
1883
29.0
10
9
1
1885
32.5
12
11
•“*
Xm
1887
29.2
11
jLm
1
1890
31.7
9
1 1
4
TOTALS
31.4
284
188
56
their later
twenties and
ear 1 y
thirties,
and
consistency in age throughout the period suggests a considerable
turnover in the vagrant population. Vagrants were not merely an
incorrigible rump of Halifax society, but a renewable class of
prostitutes, strangers, and the able-bodied unemployed. As the
vagrants of one generation either moved on or became old or infirm
enough to qualify for public poor relief, they were replaced by
others unable or unwilling to find a regular place in society.
While most vagrants were of prime working age, the law was
also applied both to the very old and the very young. Michael
McCarthy was in his 70s when sent up in December 1864 and again in
July 1867. On each occasion he remained in prison for only two
weeks; in 1864 he was released on Christmas Eve by order of the
Lieutenant-Governor, and in 1867 he was sent to the Poor Asylum. 30
Similarly, John Colbert was 70 when twice imprisoned in March and
April 1875. On each occasion he received a short sentence - 10
12
and 20 days respectively - which, as we shall see, was very much
lighter than the average at the time. Pat Cody was imprisoned 22
times between 1864 and 1880, by which time he was in his late 70s.
Boys and girls were also subject to the rigours of the law: a
total of 81, or 5.6 per cent, of the committals were given to
children 16 and under. Fourteen year-olds Andrew George and Susan
Scott both received 12-month sentences in September . 1867,
although both served their time in other institutions - the
reformatory and the poor asylum respectively. While most of the
very young and the very old did end up in institutions more
suitable than the city prison, Halifax society often dealt with
them initially through the criminal law. 11-year old Harry Fuller
served almost all of a 3-month sentence meted out in August
1880. One James McMaster, a boy of 12, was sentenced for a year
in October 1880, and stayed in prison for 7 weeks until his father
in Saint John sent $3 to pay for his return to New Brunswick.
The Holihan brothers, 11-year old Edward and 15-year old John,
were both given 12—month sentences in November 1875 for the dual
offences of vagrancy and 'leaving the Poor House.'
Table
3 also
shows that a SLibstantial
major
-P
• rl
some 60
per
cent, of
the imprisoned vagrants were
Cathoi l c
, at
a t i me
when
Cathoiics
made
Lip approxi mat el y 40
Ber
cent of
t h e c
i t y' s
populat l on
Moreover, they generally
comprised
either a min
or i t y
or on1y a
narrow
majority of arrestees
for
al 1
petty
o f fenc
es. 3 1
It would
appear
that their economic
status caused
them t
o be
singled o
ut by
a law aimed primarily
at
the
unemp1
eyed.
They
were a relatively
impoverished group within
the
city,
havinq
1 ong
been the major recipients of public and private poor relief. 32
Blacks, the city's most visible and discriminated against
minority, also appear in disproportionate numbers: 3 per cent of
Halifax residents were black, while at least 11 per cent of
imprisoned vagrants were. 33 Again, we can look for the cause in
their status as an economically disadvantaged community, and
prejudice would also obviously have made them susceptible. 3 ** Yet
they do not seem to have been arrested every time they offended.
'The coloured people that one sees in this city, all beg, with few
exception', noted one Halifax newspaper in 1872. 3=5 This is
obviously an exaggeration, but it does suggest that begging by
blacks was highly visible, and the vagrancy laws could have been
applied more rigorously against them. They may have been charged
with lesser offences, or perhaps it was more acceptable to society
that members of the long-established resident black population
pan-handled on the streets than that whites did so. The small
number of blacks, and their long history as a depressed minority
within the city, may have resulted in them not being considered a
threat, precluded them from being expected to conform to white
middle-class standards.
Table 4 shows the place of origin of imprisoned vagrants. The
designation Ireland in the registers did not generally mean recent
Irish immigrants, but probably stood for first or second
generation Catholics of Irish origin. Occasionally they reappear
on subsequent convictions as originating elsewhere, or they were
sent to other communities on release. The use of this designation
probably reflects the Catholic preponderance among vagrants,
and/or the desire to categorise vagrants as aliens. The more than
14
■g>«Nwfc-.
•S» <r
TABLE FOUR: PLACE OF ORIGIN OF CONVICTED VAGRANTS -
SELECTED YEARS
Nova
Atlantic
Year
Halifax
Irel and
Scotia
Provinc es
U. S.A.
Other
Tot a
1864
21
16
17
12
7
75
1867
28
20
12
11
4
6
81
1870
10
16
11
6
0
0
43
1873
18
16
5
9
=*1_
7
57
1875
21
‘ 8
7
5
1
5
47
1877
16
11
5
3
'"“i
8
46
1880
20
10
7
4
cr
U
49
1883
1
3
10
0
1
v—>
18
1885
14
1
2
1
1
5
24
1887
9
1
1
1
0
i
13
1890
9
2
7
0
1
i
20
TOTALS
167
104
84
52
18
48
• i “7
4 / o
7.
35.9
21.6
17.5
10-8
3.9
10.3
100
20 ger cent of vagrants said to be from Ireland stands in marked
contrast to figures for all arrests; in 1S86-87 they totalled 120
out of 1,552, and in 1888-89 53 out of 1,244 C7.7 and 4=2 ger sent
respectively)= 36 In fact a substantial minority of convicted
vagrants were local. Halifax consistently appears as the largest
single designation, with some of those imprisoned altering their
place of origin to Halifax over the years. The migration patterns
discussed above are confirmed by the some 28 ger cent who came
from other Atlantic Canadian communities.
Analyses of sentencing and release practice reveal trends
similar to those for conviction rates. Table 5 gives average
sentence length and time served for the sample years. Through the
1870s sentences of up to a year were common, producing an average
of 9—10 months. 45 of the 55 sentences given out in 1375, for
example, were for 12 months. In the 1880s sentences decreased
15
——'
^iwiriSj
;Tr*’ - "or* •’i >»*-
i / -- --- - - • - - ~ ' -- '
TABLE FIVE: SENTENCING AND TIME SERVED*. SELECTED YEARS
Year
Average Sentence
Months
Average Time
Months
1864
5. 48
4.07
1867
7.74
3. 73
1870
6.00
3.42
1873
9.46
5. 38
1875
10.84
4.61
1877
10.95
4. 56
1880
10.45
2.34
1883
2. 15
n/a
1885
3.54
n/a
1887
3.00
n/a
1890
3.30
n/a
drastically, demonstrating a more lenient attitude to vagrants in
better economic times.
The statistics for average time served are instructive in a
number of ways. Like all petty offenders, 3-7 vagrants received
substantial remission. As with the other figures, that for average
time served decreased sharply after 1880; in 1880 sentences
remained high, but time served fell to less than 2.5 months.
While release dates are not given after 1882, time served
throughout the 1880s must obviously have been less than time
awarded, and therefore substantially down from the 1870s.
Within the broad trends indicated by the statistics,
considerable inconsistencies occurred. Mary Mackenzie (21) and
Ann Mahony (23) were each sentenced to 12 months on 5 July 1867,
yet Mary was out a month later while Ann remained incarcerated
until 10 April 1868. Some clues to the reasons for such
inconsistencies can be drawn from the cases of 6 prostitutes
awarded 6-month sentences in September 1364. Four of them stayed
until the middle of the following March, while the other two were
16
■ > r'rS- — ■
♦. ■!.-- --- *£ ^ ,c-r- ri. r-. t - tu vW^: -‘
let out in December to go to the Poor House and female
reformatory. At times inconsistencies can be explained by
recidivism; Ann Mahony, for example, was a consistent offender, 3 ®
as was Eliza Cahill who was convicted three times in 1867 (5
March, 14 August and 1 November), serving 2 months on the first
two convictions and 11 on the third. Yet in many of these cases
the records do not provide such logical explanations for
differential release dates.
A major consideration in releasing vagrants was whether they
could be sent elsewhere. On at least 126 occasions during these
years the old, the young, the sick and the indigent were variously
dispatched to the poorhouse, hospital, refor mat or i es or the
industrial school very shortly after committal. 3,3 Pat Cody is
recorded as having been almost immediately sent to the poorhouse
on 8 of the 21 occasions that he was imprisoned for vagrancy,
Edward Sheehan 5 times out of 32 committals. Others would serve
varying amounts of their sentence before being moved. John Mahony
and John Warren, sentenced in early December 1879, were sent to
the poorhouse just after Christmas, perhaps in a burst of seasonal
charity. It was not uncommon, however, to serve a longer portion
of the sentence befor remittance to other institutions. In
addition to the poorhouse, the provincial hospital received a
number of ex-prisoners. When 47-year old William Devines was
sentenced to 12 months in July 1868, he served only a little more
than a quarter of it before being sent to hospital, 'broken in
health'. The practice of sending children to refor mator 1 es was
commonplace, and drew applause from city officials. 41
17
Other vagrants obtained their release by agreeing to accept a
.job and/or to leave the city. This method of disposing of
offenders was implemented at least 114 times. The already
mentioned Ann Mahony served only 2 weeks of a 12-month sentence
in March 1873 when she agreed to go to work as a nurse in a
smallpox hospital. She could not have stayed long, receiving a
90-day sentence on July 9 of the same year. Annie Gore was given
the same dubious privilege in March 1878, although domestic
service was the most common type of employment obtained. Among
those who got their release by agreeing to go elsewhere was
Barbara Gibson (30), from Saint John, who was sentenced to 12
months in December 1876, stayed in prison through the worst of the
winter, and was released and sent back to New Brunswick in early
April 1877. In all she was 'expelled' from the city 5 times.'* 2
Mary Barry, twice imprisoned in 1867, was sent to Antigonish by
order of the Stipendiary Magistrate. Ellen Hawke, following her
second conviction in 1867 and bad conduct in prison, was put on a
ship for her native England. One Robert Boyle, from Prince
Edward Island, served half a 3-month sentence in 1867 and was
then released and sent to New Brunswick. The reduction in time
served in 1880 can largely be attributed to a greatly increased
tendency to remove vagrants from the area. The three vagrants
convicted in January 1880, for example, were all released after
2-3 months of their 12—month sentences and sent away.
The lives of many of Halifax's vagrant community therefore
featured repeated institutionalisation, in prison, provincial
hospital, poorhouse or reform school. The impression of a life of
poverty, unemployment and misery is confirmed by the fact that
18
' y.s? < ■. ~ aa-l/lrfi* • «>‘K-i,r ■£* i i »H ..£.. ,', v . / — -
many of the vagrancy committals were meted out to repeat
offenders. Table 6 provides a summary of recidivism on the
offence of vagrancy only. It demonstrates that while 540 of the
731 (74 per cent) individuals who appear in the registers were
only imprisoned once for vagrancy, they represented only 38 per
cent of the total committals, with 62 per cent accounted for by
the 131 individuals who were imprisoned more than once. Recidivism
was thus a significant feature of the vagrant population,
particularly since these figures underestimate it by not counting
incarcerations that occurred before and after the 1864-1890
period, or those meted out for other offences. Yet its importance
should not be exaggerated. Table 6 also shows that the city's 'old
lag' population,
those
constant 1y
i n and
out
Ci f prison as
vagrants,
total1
ing more than
10 committals
during
this 27-year
period, numbered
only
19 people,
8 men
and 1 1
women. They
TABLE 6: RE
CID IVISM
Number of
Number
of
Total
7. Total
Committals
Of fenders
Committals
Commi11 als
Mai e
F emale
Total
Mai e
F emale
Total
1
341
199
540
341
199
540
38.4
9
45
44
89
90
88
178
12.7
16
19
c
UwJ
48
57
105
4
8
6
14
O'”'
'-W
24
5 b
4.0
5
5
6
1 1
25
30
55
3.9
6
•9*
4
6
12
24
36
2.6
7
X-
6
8
14
4
56
4.0
8
0
O
n
u
(I)
24
24
1.7
9
0
O
27
0
27
1.9
10
1
O
r?
u
10
20
30
■ ' -
11-15
5
6
11
63
77
140
1 0. 0
16-23
3
5
8
61
97
156
11.1
TOTAL
431
300
731
723
682
1,405
100
19
IIV rt£ } vir i ‘■rfluWir'
ifOsJk m >r f XI
. la*!**:
represent a relatively small percentage - 21.2 - of the total
incarcerations. Not only within this last group were women the
more likely recidivists, they also generally accounted for a
higher proportion of the offences than their numbers warranted.
The women were imprisoned an average of 2.27 times each, the men
1.67 times. This is probably the result of women being liable for
imprisonment as vagrants both because they were poor and homeless
and because they were prostitutes.
The more frequent offenders among the recidivists demonstrate
that for some the poverty-vagrancy-petty crime cycle proved
impossible to break. A quartet of blacks - George Diminus, and
John, Martha and Henry Killum - were incarcerated 16, 11, 8 and 13
times respectively during these years, the three males usually
appearing together. Edward Sheehan went in 23 times for vagrancy,
was frequently sent to the Poor House and once dispatched to his
brother in Shubenacadie. The hapless Pat Cody went up on 22
occasions for vagrancy and many more times for his drunkenness and
other offences. In 1874 a newspaper noted that he 'has been before
the Court a score of times' and approved a sentence of 1 year for
being drunk and disorderly and assaulting a policeman. 43 John
McDonnell, 43, was in and out of prison for vagrancy 5 times in
1867-8 alone. First convicted and given a 30-day sentence on 29
March 1867, he was released on 27 April, recommitted 7 May,
released in mid-August, convicted 3 days later and given an
indefinite sentence, let out after a week, picked up again on
September 11 and sentenced to 90 days, served his sentence but
received another one shortly after Christmas and stayed in prison
until late March 1868. He appears 9 times in the years between
20
1866 and 1870, but not again after 10 june 1870 when at the age of
63 he was released on the death of his wife.
The vast majority of vagrants were unskilled labourers, the
marginals or outcasts of Halifax society, their numbers swelled in
the winter months by transient workers from among the idle ships'
crewmen and the outports. Only 32 of those imprisoned for
vagrancy paid their fines and got out early during these years,
most of those women convicted as prostitutes. The registers reveal
many pathetic life histories within their terse descriptions and
comments. They tell us about Patrick Maloney, a young man of 19-20
- a little over 3 feet tall and a cripple - who was put inside 4
times as a vagrant between August 1864 and October 1866. Some of
the marginals died in prison, like Johanna Freeman and William
FI inn, on 26 October 1867 and 25 April 1880 respectively. Two
young men, Robert Jones and Thomas Smith, might have died in mid-
November 1878 had they not been put inside for vagrancy; they were
spending the night in a large packing case. An apparently
happier fate befell Anne Burke and Thomas Drew. Burke was
committed 12 times for vagrancy between 1869 and 1879, by which
time she was in her mid-40s, on occasions clearly for
prostitution. On 13 November 1879 she was released ear 1y from her
most recent sentence in order to marry fellow inmate Drew and go
to Saint John. Drew was a little younger than her, and had only
been in twice before for vagrancy. Unfortunately Burke appears
again, sentenced to 90 days in July 1880.
The degradation of those made subject to the vagrancy laws is
shown by the extent to which the prison was used as a winter
21
' at
own
request' appear
--• -—'t~ •'■' - f- ^ .— ~- "-* alii ■
refuge. People listed as going in
consistently in the registers, although not all must have
appreciated the regime because there were at least 13 escapes of
vagrants during these years. One James MacDermott, a 24-year old
Halifax Catholic, for example, asked to go in late in November
1873, and was not released until the following February. On 4
September 1879 the Heral_d reported that our groom-to-be Thomas
Drew, going to the police station for shelter, 'was kindly granted
one for 12 months.' Later that year two men were discovered 'in
an unfurnished rookery...sitting down around a coal scuttle in
which there was a fire burning'. As they had no place of
residence, they were sent up for 90 days. 46 Mary and Martha
Killum 'applied to be sent up to Rockhead' in December 1879
because 'dere was nuffin' doing' and 'the twain went up to board
at the City's expense until the end of May'.' 47 '
This use of the .jail as refuge, by no means unusual in North
American cities during the later nineteenth century, was also
reflected in the pattern of serving time when offence-related
sentences were handed out. Sentences were served for shorter
periods if granted in the spring or summer, while those convicted
after 1 November infrequently emerged before late March. Johanna
Power, for example, given a 12—month sentence with the option of
a fine in January 1870, went to prison until April and then paid
the fine and left. One of the clearest examples of such practices
is provided by the case of Mary Walsh, whose sentence for vagrancy
in December 1864 is given as 'for the winter'.
Such practices excited the disapproval of many of the city's
respectable citizenry. The Ac.adi.an Recorder thought it 'singular'
22
'1 A r . Vw.r Vwf JLL r--U’.*«»nt V-rtTi r f k- \ ~tW
■•a4wr'».Vit..
Lj'n Cst t-fV^ rir->
that the prison should be 'preferred to the Poor House by numbers
of that class of persons, male and female, who figure in the
annals of the Police Court.' 30 In 1885 the Mayor argued that
hard labour would discourage the practice. 31 There was much
hypocrisy in such views, considering that many of those sent to
prison for vagrancy had committed only the offence of having no
home, and should have been admitted to the Poor House. In 1886 the
Prison Governor was moved to make this very point in his annual
report. 32 Whatever the contemporary disapproval, the use of the
prison for such a purpose demonstrates the dislocated, hopeless
nature of the lives of many of Halifax's vagrant class. 33
Society and the Di_sc i.jgl_i_n i_nq of. the Vagrant
During these years the tenor of comments about vagrants,
policies towards police, prison and courts, and new directions in
poor relief combine to suggest that the Halifax middle class
responded to vagrants in similar ways to their counterparts in
other North American cities. The vagrant was viewed as a dangerous
element in society, whom the police and courts should treat with
necessary severity. There was some recognition that unemployment
and endemic poverty were in part responsible for the problem, but
the major thrust in public and private initiatives in poor relief
was towards greater emphasis on distinguishing the deserving from
the undeserving poor. Prison work and discipline were toughened
up to discourage that institution’s use as a refuge, public poor
relief underwent some reorganisation, and private charitable
agencies strove, principally through the medium of the labour
test, to force the vagrant population to conform to middle class
'nr
notions of the work ethic and labour discipline.
This reaction to vagrancy mirrored that of many American
cities, where increasing attention was paid to the phenomenon
during these years. Lawyers, academics, charity officials and law
enforcement agents all took an interest, and the vagrant was
condemned in many f or a. He/she was 'lazy’ and 'shiftless', 'a
barbarian, openly at war with society' who would refuse to work
if 'Cclertain charitable eccentricities - such as soup-houses,
night shelters, and depots for the free distribution of articles
of subsistence' were made readily available. 3,4 The vagrant was
not merely deviant, but dangerous, ever likely to commit other
crimes. Although the depressions of the later nineteenth century
also brought acceptance of the need for some measure of relief for
these people and for other members of the urban unemployed, a
labour test was generally insisted on. In part, of course, this
was done in order that charitable institutions and societies could
produce a saleable product to augment contributions. But behind
this policy there also lay a belief that the fundamental cause of
the problem was character. Rare indeed were the sentiments of
one author who, complaining that Americans 'make the chief causes
Cof vagrancy] ignorance, intemperance, thriftlessness, and
indiscriminate charity', reminded his readers that 'the poorer
classes of the United States had recently emerged from at least
seven years of unparalleled misery'. 3&
Canadian approaches to the vagrant problem differed little
from American ones. Whereas before 1850 crime and poverty had
frequently been blamed on immigrants, especially Irish Catholics,
and the seasons, the second half of the century saw in Ontario a
'critical transition from a perception of the seasonality of
poverty to an apprehension of a permanent class of dependent urban
poor'. The result was an increasing gulf 'between the respectable
classes who define what society is and the disreputable elements
who exist beyond their reach,' and a concomitant 'explosion of
concern' about crime and poverty and about 'the institutional
remedies...to meet them',° 7 Against this background Pitsula's
study of tramps in Toronto tells a familiar story. The !31.obe
typically characterised the vagrant as 'dissipated, shiftless, and
it is to be feared vicious', while the Star recommended the lash
as a suitable punishment.*® Charity organisers fought hard for a
labour test - stone-breaking - and approved its financially and
morally beneficial results. The 1891 Royal Commission on Prisons
report did argue that vagrants were not universally idle, that
some were genuinely travelling in search of work.*® But a series
of petitions sent to the Commons in the 1880s demonstrates that as
in the U.S. the general trend was towards a harsher, more
disciplinary approach to vagrancy. A total of 12 municipalities
in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia asked the House to amend
the law to allow vagrants to be sentenced to hard labour on the
roads outside the prison.® 0 While this may in part have reflected
municipal parsimony, it equally represents a perception that
vagrants should be forced to make a contribution to society.
The response of Halifax's middle class was not markedly
different from that of other communities north and south of the
border. Local newspapers and city officials took a keen interest
in poverty and crime; the underside of Halifax society was plainly
visible and the activities of its memoers widely reported in
the
press. 6,1 The Halifax elite nevertheless took a special pride in
what they saw as the peaceful nature of the city. Newspapers and
the Annual, Reports repeatedly stressed the City's 'character for
being...orderly.' It was 'the most orderly city in the world for
its population,' noted one in 1889. It was 'a subject for
congratulation' that 'there is a marked absence of serious
crimes.'® 2 These smug assertions did not, of course, paint an
accurate picture; the prevalence of warnings about the dangers of
criminals testify to that. 63 But they do suggest a middle class
longing for a Halifax safe, comfortable, and respectable.
In these circumstances it is not surprising that attitudes
towards vagrants were harsh. They were depicted as dishonest
characters, idlers who looked to take a free ride on society.
Bitter denunciations and ironic accounts of their activities
appeared frequently in the press. In 1880 the Heral,d reported that
a 'most delapidated specimen of the genus tramp' had been found in
Point Pleasant Park, and that he had claimed in a foreign accent
to have walked from Chicago. This was clearly a ploy to excite 'a
greater compassion with his forlorn condition'. The following day
the paper succinctly noted that he had been put away for 12
months. 64 One writer was amused to note that Dartmouth had
'kindly agreed to entertain' a vagrant, while another man, 'going
to the [police! Station for shelter and having no fixed abode, was
kindly granted one for 12 months.'®® In 1879 residents were
warned that 'a delegation of tramps' was on its way from Saint
John; their arrival may have prompted an article in the same
26
newspaper 3 days later. Entitled 'Begging and Beggars', it warned
that 'this is the season of the year when most frequently is heard
the voice of the professional street beggar'. Residents should
avoid succumbing to a seasonal charitable urge, lest 'the habit of
professional begging, which seems to be on the increase in this
city,...be encouraged.Begging children attracted particular
attention, the newspapers claiming that parents trained them in
the art and that the result would be a future generation of
professional vagrants.
At the root of these attitudes was a perception of the
vagrant as someone who contributed little or nothing to society.
One alderman in 1866 condemned the practice of sending vagrants to
prison at public expense, when they might more usefully be
employed on public works. 67 Mixing condemnation of vice with
self-interest, the Ci.t i_z en suggested that 'loafers' who relied on
charity could be employed selling newspapers. Such work was
always available, and there was no excuse for the unemployed to
refuse it: so
we submit that people who can get work - and light work
at that, and won't work, deserve to starve, and boys who
would rather beg and steal than earn an honest living
should be arrested and punished without the alternative
of a fine. Give them three months with hard labour and
an occasional flogging, and it will have wonderful
effect on their future career.
While more compassionate references to seasonal unemployment and
the plight of the poor do appear, &s ‘ it was generally considered
that unwillingness to labour, not unavai1ab i 1 ity of work, was the
root cause of the problem. Fear of the danger the vagrant posed to
society, not qualms about wasted human potential, dominated
middle-class attitudes. The following is typical: 7,0
27
■ trwrW.-i
If one of these robust and healthy-1ooking beggars is
asked to do a job of work for remuneration, he, or she,
will sheer off immediately....It is a notorious fact
that it is almost impossible to get any person, old or
young, in this city, to go an errand, or do any other
casual job; and when such labor is secured, it has to be
paid for at twice, or thrice, its worth. This is not an
indication of much poverty in Halifax. The crowds of
dirty loungers in the City Court House of a morning, or
about the street corners, who contemptuously decline
employment when offered them, would lead any stranger to
suppose that poverty was unknown here.
These attitudes towards vagrants were reflected in three
aspects of city policy: a greater emphasis on police efficiency
and curial strictness; an attempt to render prison a less
hospitable environment; and, most significantly, a mobilisation of
citizens to impose a labour test for charitable relief.
The City Court structure underwent significant change at the
beginning of this period. From 1841 the court had been presided
over by the Mayor and Aldermen, but this system came under attack
in the 1860s because of inconsistencies in procedure and sentences
and alleged bias. 171 In 1867 the elected officials were replaced by
a Stipendiary Magistrate, with security of tenure during good
behaviour. 72 The magistrate from 1867 until 1886 was Henry Pryor,
a barrister and former 5-time Mayor of the city. 73 He therefore
had judicial experience in the old Mayor's Court. As stipendiary
he had jurisdiction over all cases except those involving treason,
homicide, burglary and arson, and at first his appointment was
welcomed as likely to be 'of great good as regards the morality of
the city. ' 7 “* He did not, however, entirely live up to these
expectations. He ruled his courtroom with an iron hand and with
little regard for the niceties of procedure, 7,3 but his
sentencing, which was often ’tailored...to fit the person, not the
28
crime', brought him a reputation as 'arbitrary, unprofessional and
irasc i bl e' . 7 ’ a
Pryor's treatment of vagrants fitted this general pattern.
Long sentences were frequently meted out, especially in the 1370s,
and some offenders were particularly unlucky. Anne Weston left
Rockhead prison on 31 July 1879, was picked up that day for being
drunk and disorderly and a vagrant, and sentenced to 60 days more.
Yet on other occasions the accused were treated more leniently.
When John Carey promised to leave the city to find work, he was
allowed to go. Julia Martin and Margaret Chandler both received
12month terms for vagrancy 'with the understand i ng that they
might be let out if they behave themselves.' Mary McNamara was
told to leave the city, having only been out of prison two
weeks.' 7 " 5 ' Some offenders escaped the prison without having to go
elsewhere, through what seems to have been a hallmark of Pryor's
court, the granting of 'a chance.' All classes of offenders,
including vagrants, regularly appealed for 'a chance' and on
occasion got it, with a strict warning that the next offence would
bring a year in prison. Hannah Baker got one because she had been
released only a few days previously; Henry Downey was also let
off, but when he asked for shelter at the police station a week
later Pryor sent him up. When Thomas Drew came to the police
station in July 1879 complaining that he had no work and nowhere
to live, he was let off but warned that 'if he came back again he
would get work at Rockhead for 12 months'. Margaret Schofield,
charged with being drunk and a common vagrant, was given a chance
when it was shown that she had stayed clear of police court
trouble
for 14 months and was livira at the Female Inebriate Home
run by Mrs Harrison, who was prepared to take her back. If
leading citizens were dissatisfied with some of Pryor’s decisions
towards vagrants, they could do nothing about a judge with
security of tenure. Perhaps more important than individual cases
of leniency, however, was the fact that the consistently harsh
sentences meted out to vagrants were as much Pryor's work as the
granting of 'chances’. ’ 7 "*
The second public institution concerned with vagrants, the
police force, witnessed considerable growth as well as demands for
more efficent policing. The force grew from 33 men in 1864 to 40
in 1867, reached a high of 49 in the mid-1870s, and was reduced
again to 40-44 throughout the 1880s. eo It is tempting to ascribe
growth in police numbers simply to the increases in population,
but this would disregard the fact that the size of the force
actually decreased in the 1880s, while the population continued to
grow. In fact policing policy was influenced not only by
population but also by concern over crime rates and the
constraints of municipal finances. While calls for more policemen
from the press, the City Marshall, and the Mayors were not
uncommon,® 1 the desire for protection conflicted always with
municipal parsimony. 02 Economy nevertheless sems to have taken a
back seat during the 1870s, the years when concern about vagrants
was highest.
□f greater contemporary concern than augmenting the police
numbers was a perceived need to improve the quality of the force,
□n many occasions the Halifax police seem to have been little more
acceptable to their masters than those they were supposed to
30
control. Reports and complaints about policemen drunk on duty and
neglecting their offices appear f r equen 11 y, 133 negating City
Marshal1
Cotter's claim that the men under his command were
’steady
and sober’. 84 The city council's police committee spent
most of
its time dealing with the officers' derelictions of
duty. 63=5
Yet the prevalence of such complaints makes clear the
desire for a better force, and a variety of reforms were
introduced. Pay was raised in the early i870s and this produced a
discernible improvement, 86 although the men petitioned council
again in 1884 for further increases. e ‘ 7 ' Cotter also tightened up
internal discipline, ® s and while abuses did recur, complaints
1essened
through the 1880s, although there was a considerable fuss
made in
1884 when a new appointee turned out to be a man who had
r esigned
from the Dartmouth force rather than be dismissed. 33
The
culmination of the campaign for a more 'respectable' and
efficient police force came in 1888 with the passage of a
provincial statute regulating the police. It tightened entry
requirements, made pay increases dependent on good behaviour, and
specified punishments, especially suspension and dismissal, for
offenders against the regulations. 30 The period from 1870 to 1920
was one that saw increasing stress on professionalism in urban
Americ an
police forces, and to some extent Halifax followed this
pat t er n.
As elsewhere, the generally increased concern for
impr oved
'law and order' in the city emanated in part from the
vagr ant
problem. Better policing and stricter sentencing were
measures to control petty offenders drawn from the lower working
class, including vagrants. If Halifax's saw less large-scale
31
violence than other cities, that was because tramps and vagrants
did not present a threat of such magnitude. But that is not to
say that they were not perceived as a danger to accepted
standards; the distinction is one of quantity, not of quality.
This conclusion is strengthened by examining changes in the
prison regime. At all times the regulations imposed strict
standards on those 'sentenced to imprisonment' and on 'persons
condemned to be confined...as vagrants’. ,l By municipal ordinance
25 the sexes were strictly segregated, prisoners were solitarily
confined except when working, and all were kept hard at work on
the prison farm or, for those sentenced to hard labour, at stone¬
breaking.'* 2 ' Yet it would seem that theory and practice were not
always aligned, that the regime was not enforced entirely to the
council's liking. This paper has already noted the practice of
using the prison as a winter refuge, and despite efforts to stop
it the Mayor could still complain in 1885 that '[mlany idle and
vicious vagabonds looked upon the city prison as a home during the
winter.' Determined to prevent this, the Governor was ordered to
tighten discipline, especially hard labour, and the Mayor was
pleased to note that 'under the present management these
individuals prefer to look elsewhere' for winter shelter. 93 In
addition, in order to make the maximum use of prisoners, a
provincial statute of 1881 permitted Nova Scotian municipalities
to employ prison 1abour outside the grounds of the institution. 3 ^
The most direct evidence about the public perception of
vagrants comes from those engaged in the relief of the poor. The
Halifax poorhouse served for most of the nineteenth century as
both poorhouse and workhouse, caring for the sick, aged and
oc
—**-
disabled as well as the able-bodied unemployed. Conditions were
kept harsh lest some prefer it to life outside an institution. 90
The public system was supplemented throughout the century by
private, often denominational1y-based, societies, which
* fulfilled a basic middle-class instinct for collective efforts
as well as for emulating the fashionable course. 196 This period
saw both an expansion of public institutions for caring for
society's unfortunates and a degree of consolidation and
reorganisation. There emerged also a perception that some used
the system to avoid working, a belief that transcended both
genuine concern for the blameless poor and ample evidence that the
Asylum supported primarily 'the aged, those whose constitutions
have been broken down by dissipation and disease,
and...chi1dren.’Nevertheless, the need for a labour test was
constantly reiterated. Officials thought their able-bodied
charges fundamental1y work-shy, and put them to stone-breaking
for their moral benefit and in order that they be ’compelled to
contribute to their own suppor t. ’ This perception was echoed in
the public debate over the choosing of a site for a new poorhouse
after the old one burned down in 1882. Many letters to the press
urged that it be located outside the city so that the able-bodied
would enjoy the life less: there were even suggestions that it
simply be combined with the prison. 100
Private charity reflected much the same attitude. The Night
Refuge for the Homeless, established in May 1876 by James Potter,
was intended initially to provide shelter, prevent crime, and,
most of all, to ’check imposition.’ Its avowed purpose was to
/-V/-V
discipline both beggars and almsgivers. Citizens were urged never
to hand out money, but to direct vagrants to the Refuge. A
genuine case, in need of shelter, would go there; an 'impostor'
would not. Thus the able-bodied would be forced to work for a
living, and the middle classes could collectively provide alms and
salve their consciences by indulging a charitable urge without
risking the moral character of the recipient. Potter claimed to
have reduced the problem substantially by 1879, and concentrated
thereafter on his other charitable enterprise, a sailors' home,
but his assertions are not supported by the evidence. 101
The major voluntary organisation of the period - the Halifax
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, founded in
1866 - espoused the same message. Run by some of the city's most
wealthy and influential citizens, particularly industrialists
Samuel Brookfield and John Doul1, 1 02 , its self-avowed aims were
twofold: relief of 'the temporary distress of the deserving poor'
and a 'check upon the vicious in their too generally successful
schemes of imposture, for 'many evils' resulted from 'indiscrimate
almsgiving.' 103 Temporary outdoor relief was provided to those
who warranted it, a visitor system was established to assess need,
and male recipients of the Association's largesse were put to work
breaking stone, which was then sold to the city. These projects
were supplemented by a soup kitchen and by a service providing
washing and cleaning work for women. The Association operated from
January to March every year. Citizens were constantly urged not to
yield to the importunities of beggars but to direct them to its
office. It was a scheme designed to co-ordinate and make more
effective private charity in the city, to force the unemployed to
34
ft .•'«r i—*L - .ft ■,.f.-.>'.a;. i-^=r— .V~- -. V t: -> L--'-^
work for their welfare. and to remove the unseemly spectacle of
begging from the city streets. 10 "*
The work of the Association received much favourable comment
from the Halifax press. 'A scene of busy activity meets the eye
of the visitor to the stone-breaking sheds', noted the Morning
Qh.L2Qi.2i.® on 20 January 1875, adding that the Association was
performing 'a noble work.’ When the council discussed its purchase
of the stone in 1878, the Mayor ’stated his willingness to
personally guarantee $1,000 of the cost should the amount required
not be forthcoming’. 10 ® Urging the council not to abandon its
policy of buying the stone, the Citizen found ’no need...to remind
the citizens of the amount of good’ it had done. 106 Many citizens
clearly believed that there were deserving poor and that duty
required that such people be taken care of; one correspondent to
the Acadian Recorder chided his fellow residents with ignoring
their duty to God and their fellow man by not giving generously
enough to the Association. 107 For all contributors there was the
satisfaction of seeing their names announced in the press.
Yet in attempting to maintain the often delicate balance
between charity and discipline, the Association did not receive
universal or complete approval. A correspondent to the Herahi in
1881, calling himself ’Syndicate’, noted that the aim of private
charity should be ’to elevate not to degrade’, which meant ’the
decrease not the increase of begging’. He approved what the
Association was doing, but wanted it and other relief
organisations to establish a registry of recipients so that none
could apply to more than one society. He argued that
- -
' indiscriminate? giving' was 'the cause of half the poverty in this
City' because 'as long as the lazy and intemperate can get fuel
and food, work for them is out of the question.’ 1os When in
January 1879 the city council refused to buy any more of the
Association's stone, 'A Ratepayer' complained that the result
would be that 'all tests as to the willingness of the unfortunate
applicants to work will cease, and thus one of the main objects of
the Society will be frustrated.' He demanded that the council buy
the stone, for the alternative would be increased expenditures to
house the destitute in the prison or poorhouse. 1 °' ; '
The Association claimed some success. 'Street-begging in the
winter months is much less common than it was formerly’, it
boasted in 1874. 110 Yet begging by residents and transients alike
continued, for at every annual meeting the members railed against
the practice. 111 Two problems in particular hampered the
Association's work. On a number of occasions it had to fight to
persuade the city to purchase stone; this happened in the winters
of 1874-75, 1877-78, 1878-79, and 1885-86. 112 Secondly,
charitable contributions were often in short supply. In March
1875 the funds of the society were exhausted without meeting all
the demands on it; in March 1877 the funds were so depleted that
'visitors would have to exercise very great discrimination in
giving relief'; in January 1878 the treasurer issued an urgent
appeal for money, as 'barely one-third of the amount usually
subscribed has been received'. 113 The unsurprising result was
that poverty remained endemic and highly visible in the winter
months. An apocryphal story in the Acadi_an Recorder in October
1879 showed how much more needed to be done. The paper recounted
36
■ i
.V wj< '.,v* ' r . .: *>- ; \
run V^\-ri^JMw^ : a>rTinn •? i T av-.fr Vjr-■';y
iLit,
■ v'AJiA
•*
that John May and his wife were forced to live in 'a shanty' at
the rear of a house on Grafton Street. It had no glass in the
windows, uneven floors and ceilings, had been used as a wood-
house, and was described by the reporter as a ’kennel'. 11 '*
The significance of the Association lay in its perceived
solution to the vagrancy/poverty problem. It acknowledged that
there were deserving paupers, but refused to accept that all those
who sought relief were unable to work. The labour test, the
demand that citizens not give alms indiscriminately in the street,
and calls for the punishment of those who would not work, all
point to middle-class desires to mix charity for the unfortunate
with reformation and punishment for those who would not conform to
accepted standards of industry.
Conclusion
This essay has demonstrated that in late nineteenth-century
Halifax men and women of all ages were imprisoned on the basis of
the vagrancy laws, most for 'crimes of poverty' - being homeless,
wandering about, prostitution, and begging. Two principal
conclusions emerge from this study. First, there was a correlation
between the incidence of incarceration for vagrancy and economic
conditions. While not all crime can be explained by reference to
changes in economic trends, the historian of crime cannot ignore
such developments and concomitant changes in social attitudes. In
Halifax the depression of the 1870s accelerated economic and
demographic trends already underway as Halifax adjusted both to
the transition to industrial capitalism and to a redefinition of
its role within the British North American and the qeneral
37
SjLiiAaiL
. V S
continental economy. Individuals shaken loose from traditional
employment roles as a result of this process fed the unemployment
problem, and society was forced to re-assess both the nature of
the problem and the nature of the solution. The ways in which the
vagrancy laws were administered formed a part of this solution.
This contemporary re-assessment serves to introduce the
second major conclusion of this paper, which concerns the
attitudes of those at the forefront of disciplining the working
class through the vehicle of the criminal law. Laws and
institutions which had evolved gradually over centuries were
increasingly perceived as inadequate during this period. This
perception did not represent so much a sharp break with the past
as a redefinition of the seriousness of the problem, for society
still focused on the inadequacy of the individual vagrant and
his/her lack of moral fibre and commitment to the work ethic.
There was nonetheless an augmented emphasis on inculcating
appropriate industrial attitudes and in restricting the definition
of the worthy poor. Yet this took place in Halifax, a city
beginning the process of industrialisation but hardly one that had
gone very far along that road. The still predominantly commercial
metropolis of Halifax reacted in much the same way as the advanced
industrial cities of the US eastern seaboard and mid-west. This
suggests that the importation of ideas and fears about vagrants
was as important as any actual threat to the progress of the new
industrialism. Yet whatever the cause, in Halifax as well as
elsewhere, vagrancy laws were used as an important tool for the
control of the non-conformist and the unemployed.
38
Wt» fr; - *-»- 'f^i.'U^.-i'jz.-. ■•■■^>:'a>C.- -.‘ w..1-‘W' 1
NOTES
1. SNS 1759, c. 1, s. 2
2. Between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries, during
which time some 48 vagrancy statutes were passed in England,
the definition of vagrant underwent a number of evolutions.
According to Sir James Stephen's analysis, which has remained
largely unchal1enged, from the late fourteenth to the mid
sixteenth centuries the overriding function of vagrancy laws
was labour control. From then until the mid eighteenth
century they served primarily as a criminal sanction to
support the administration of the poor law. Although this
aspect remained important thereafter, it gradually gave way
to a perception that the vagrant population represented a
threat to order and morality. This change was marked, for
example, by the landmark case of R v. Bran worth (1704) 6 Mod.
240, 87 E.R. 989, which established that idleness per se was
not sufficient to ground a conviction for vagrancy, but that
the law should be used to control those likely to support
themselves by crime or immorality rather than industry. For
the development of the law see, inter al_i,a, J. F. Stephen, A
History of the Crimpnai Law ojf England (3 vols. , London;
MacMillan 1883) iii. 266—75; W. Chambliss, ’A Sociological
Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy', Soci_al_ Problems, 12 (1964-
65) 67-77; A.L. Beier, Masterless Men:_ Ihe Vagrancy ELCbi^Ql
id EnglandiS60;;.1640 (London: Methuen 1986); J.F. Pound and
A.L. Beier, 'Debate: Vagrants and the Social Order in
Elizabethan England', Past and Present, 71 (1976) 369-85.
1
• n dVPW* m «rtV. v
3. i b i_d. , 1774, c. 5. In addition a 1787 statute regulating
servants included a provision that 'disorderly and beggarly
persons' found 'strolling in any part of this Province' who
could not demonstrate how they made their livelihood could be
jailed and/or indentured to a master for up to 7 years:
i^idi, 1787, c.6, s.6.
4. RSNS 1851, c.104
5. SNS 1864, c.81, s.134
6. SC 1869, c.28; 1874, c.31
7. SC 1881, c.43. Its sponsor MacDonald noted that the latter
measure was 'simply a short amendment required by the
omission in an amendment to the Vagrant Act to insert the
words "with or without hard labour".. .[because] one of the
Judges, in administering the Act, held that without these
words hard labour could not be imposed.' Commons Debates,
1881, 1403. In 1886 the first federal statutory revision
repealed the Vagrancy Act, and brought the offences in it
into an 'Act Respecting Offences Against Public Morals and
Public Convenience'. The same provisions formed sections 207
and 208 of the first Cri_mi_nal_ Code in 1892: RSC 1836, c.157,
s.8; H.E. Taschereau, The Cri_0iQ§L Code of the Dominion of
Canada (Toronto: Carswell 1893.) 140-2.
8. (1888), 27 N.B.R. 25 (S.C.); Canadian Law limes, 9 (1389),
378; (1911), 19 C.C.C. 86. See also P. Hogg,
Const it ut i_onal_ Law of Canada (Toronto: Carswell 2nd edn.
1985), 399.
9. Cited in P. Craven, 'Law and Ideology: The Toronto Police
Court, 1850-1880,' in D. Flaherty, ed. , Essays i_n the History
>£',7
X-V- -
>. ; r . j. . :- .■ £ » L ..
of Canadian Law^ Volume Two (Toronto: Osgoode Society 1983)
264
1C. British Colonist, 18 Jan 1870
11. S. Harring, Policing a Class Society^. The Experience of
Amer i_c an Cities 1865-1215 (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers
University Press 1983) 201. In more detailed studies of
Buffalo he demonstrates that the police employed vagrancy
laws to cope with large-scale protests by unemployed and
immigrant workers, and to suppress strikes. See his 'Class
Conflict and the Suppression of Tramps in Buffalo, 1892-
1894,' Law and Society Review, 11 (1976-77) 874-911. See
also Harring and L.M. McMillin, 'Buffalo Police, 1872-1900:
Labor Unrest, Political Power and the Creation of the Police
Institute,' Crime and Sociai Justice, 4 (1975) 5-14 and D.
Rodgers, 'Tradition, Modernity and the American Industrial
Worker', Journal of Int er disciplinary y History, 7 (1977) 660.
12. P. Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Qlld^L ID Amer.yca.j_ I22'2::i222
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press 1978); L. Friedman
and R. Percival, The Roots of Justice^ Crime and Punishment
LQ Aiameda County^ California.,., i.8Z ( 2z!'21 ( 2 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press 1975) 85. See also p.
Ringenbach, Inamgs and RejformerSj. iiZ2zl2i§l Ib§ Discovery of.
Unemgioyment in New York (Westport, Conns Greenwood Press
1973).
13. In addition to the works by Boyer, Harring and Ringenbach
cited above, see also E. Monkkonen, The Dangerous Qiassy
Crime and Poverty in Columbus.,. Ohio*. 1860-1885 (Camb., Mass.:
»=
«r ut Ti Vf»» »'I
i-l^TtCh^ Ain
Harvard University Press 1375); Walking to Wgrky A History of
IUlffiEl IQ Amer i_ca (New York: 1985); and Police in Urban
Affigr ic a^ 1860-1320 (New York: Cambridge University Press
1981); R. Lane, Policing the SiiYl Boston i§22-iS85 (Camb.,
Mass: Harvard University Press 1967), esp. 193-4 and 206;
J.F. Richardson, The New York Police:, Colonial Ti_mes to 1301
(New York: 1970), esp. 264-7; D.R. Johnson, Policing the
Ur ban Underworldg The impact of Crime on the Development of
t he American Poiice^ i§2Qzi§§Z (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press 1379), passim; K. Kusmer, 'The Underclass:
Tramps and Vagrants in American Society', Ph.D. thesis,
Chicago, 1980.
14. D. Jones, 'The Vagrant and Crime in Victorian Britain:
Problems of Definition and Attitude', in Jones, Cr ime j_
Protestj_ Community and Police in NineteenthyCentury Britain
(London: Routledge 1982) 178. See also D. Garland, Punishment
and Welfare (Brookfield, Vt.: Gower 1985) 64 and D. Jones,
'"A Dead Loss to the Community": The Criminal Vagrant in mid—
Nineteenth Century Wales', Weish History Review 8 (1977) 312-
43. Rachel Vorspan argues that concern about vagrants was so
great by the late nineteenth century that, but for the First
WorldWar, Britain might have established penal labour
colonies for the 'undeserving poor'. See 'Vagrancy and the
New Poor Law in 1ate-Victorian and Edwardian England',
SOSliSb Historical Review, 92 (1977) 59-81.
15. J. Pitsula, 'The Treatment of Tramps in 1 ate-Nineteenth
Century Toronto,' Historical Pagers (1980) 116
16. The paper is based on prison records primarily because they
4
are extant for this period, whereas local court records are
only inconsistently available before 1380. The purpose of the
paper is to examine trends over time, and thus I have chosen
not to reproduce partial court statistics which would not be
comparable to preceding decades. It should not be assumed
from the use of prison records that all vagrants were
imprisoned; the evidence presented later in this paper
demonstrates clearly that this was not the case.
17. These distinctions have been drawn to isolate the offence of
vagrancy and to delineate its importance in relation to both
the total number of offences which brought incarceration and
offences other than the most minor and most common one,
drunkenness. Where an individual is noted in the records as
having been guilty of more than one offence, including
vagrancy, I have treated that as a vagrancy committal. The
offences coming under the designation 'others' include
assault, larceny, prostitution offences (lewd conduct, keeper
or inmate of bawdy house), disorderly conduct, nuisances,
breaches of the licensing laws, and a number of other
infrequent crimes. Tables 1 and 2 are compiled from the City
Prison Registers, PANS, RG35-102, Series 1SB, vol. 2 (1864-
73) and vol. 3 (1873-90). The registers are almost complete,
although 3 months are missing from 1881 and 1882, and the
figures for these years were averaged upwards accordingly.
This accounts for the discrepancy between the total number of
committals given in Tables 1 and 2 (1426) and that noted in
Table 6 (1405).
: <
IS. Vorspan, 'Vagrancy and the New Poor Law', SO; M. Hindus,
Prison and Ei^ntat i_onj_ Crime x Justice and Authority i.n
Massachusetts and South Carolina x IZiiZziiZi (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press 1378) S3.
19. See the paper by Jane Price in this volume
20. Acadian Recorder, 10 July 1879
21. See the paper by Jane Price in this volume
22. See below, table 4
23. For Halifax's economy during this period see T.W. Acheson,
'The National Policy and the Industrialisation of the
Wartimes, 1880—1910,' in D. Frank and P. Buckner, eds. , The
Acadiensis Readeri Volume Two (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press
1985) 176-201; L.D. McCann, 'Staples and the New
Industrialism in the Growth of Post—Confederation Halifax,'
Acadiensis 8 (1979) 47-79.
24. See Acadian Recorder, 30 Aug, 20 and 25 Nov 1867; Unionist, 5
and 18 Dec 1867; Morning Journal and !=,:=! [DOS I Adyer tiser ,
13 Mar 1868; British Colonist, 9 Jan 1868
25. Censuses of Canada^ i608yi8Z0, in Census of Canada, 1870-71,
v. 32—33; Census gj[ Canada, 1891, i. 370
26. See JHA 1870, App. 14, Immigration Report, which announces
the government's intention 'to discourage pauper immigration
in whatever phase it may prevent itself.' (2). Similar
comments reappear frequently in subsequent years, along with
laments that 'good' immigrants were not forthcoming.
27. A. Brookes, 'Out-Migration from the Maritime Provinces,
1860—1900: Some Preliminary Considerations,' in Frank and
Buckner, eds., Acadiensis Readery Volume Two, 41. On labour
6
7., -t -y*c' •;i
> ^- 2 — \S£ -1 ^vA? ,::V-Ar ;^
•^uUi
mobility generally see S. Thernstrom and P. Knights, 'Men in
Motion: Some Data and Speculations about Urban Population
Mobility in Nineteenth Century America,' JsyLQSl 2l
Inter di sc i pi i nary History * £1970) 7-35.
28. Contrast this with California where vagrancy increased during
the winter months as vagrants were attracted there by the
climate: Friedman and Percival, Roots of Justi.ce, 84,
29. The information in tables 3-6 has been abstracted from a
complete name list of all those imprisoned. The Prison
Registers list age, religion, place of origin, offence,
sentence and release date. While the information provided by
convicted persons was not always strictly accurate, a sample
of this size is large enough to iron out any significant
errors. Where there wwas doubt as to identity, I counted a
common name as representing more than one person. The
discrepancies between the totals for each year recorded here
and the annual totals in Table 1 are the result of incomplete
information, or, more generally, of counting an individual
only once for some purposes, such as place of origin, no
matter how many times he/she offended in one year. The
unavailability of statistics for average time served after
1880in Table 5 is because release dates stopped being
recorded after 1881.
30. The references to individuals discussed in this and
subsequent sections of the paper are RG35-102, Series 188,
vol . 2 (for 1864-1873) and vol . 3 (for 1873-1890). They may
be located in the registers by date.
7
• i" ' v .’■ V' sl^>» T.*> - ‘ .-^ . . i J. ' <-> ? ■
^*Mr»r»iirl
^ 2^22
31. See the City Marshall's (Police Chief .) reports in the Annuli
Reports of the City of Halifax (hereafter Annual, ■’ f° r
1884-85, 1886-87, and 1888-89 at 118, 169-70 and 112-3
respectively.
32. P.B. Waite, The Man .from Halifax:. Si.r John Thompson (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press 1985) 42; J. Fingard, 'The Relief
of the Unemployed Poor in Saint John, Halifax and St. John's,
1815—1860,' in Frank and Buckner, eds. , Acadi.ensi^s Readerj_
VlBlRQ!® One, 193-4; Report of the Poor Asylum Commissioners,
Annual. Report 1874-75, 155
33. This is a minimum figure; increasingly in the 1880s the
registers stopped noting details of race.
34. For examples of prejudice shown towards blacks in the
operation of the courts, see Acadian Recorder, 8 Sept .1879
and 12 Dec 1884.
35. Ibid., 19 Feb 1872
36. City Marshall's Reports in Annual for 1886-87 and
1888-89, 170 and 112-3 respectively
37. J. Fingard, 'Jailbirds in mid-Victorian Halifax', in T.G.
Barnes et al_, eds. , Law i_n a Colonial. SocketThe Neva
Scotia Experience (Toronto: Carswell 1984) 84
38. She was imprisoned a total of 11 times. See the entries for
Dec 1864, Oct 1866, July 1867, Aug 1868, March and Nov 1869,
March 1870, March, July and Oct 1873, and May 1874.
39. See the cases of Thomas Johnston (convicted 30 Dec 1867, sent
to the poorhouse 6 Jan 1868); Michael Donovan, convicted 21
Nov 1867, sent to the poorhouse 27 Nov); Anne Richards
(convicted 2 June 1880, sent to the poorhouse 10 June); and
8
40.
Mary Gaffney, (convicted 5 Oct 1864, sent to the poorhouse 15
□c t :>
41 .
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
See the cases of Daniel Harvey (convicted 3 May 1880, sent to
the poorhouse 16 June) and Ellen Murphy (convicted 9 Oct
1867, sent to the poorhouse 9 Dec).
See Mayor's Address and City Prison Reports, AQQHsii.
1885-86, xxix-xxx and 121
In June 1875, April 1877, April and Nov 1878, and Sept 1379
Morni_ng Chr.oni.cl_e, 25 Dec 1874
See the complaints of the Prison Governor that no skilled
mechanics were available for maintenance work: City Prison
Report, Annual, Report, 1880-81, 112-3. The best study of
'outcast Halifax' is I. G. Mckay, 'The Working Class of
Metropolitan Halifax, 1850-1889', Hons thesis, Dalhousie,
1975, ch. 5. For skilled labourers' concerns that the rural
semi-skilled threatened their position, see Royal_ Commission
on the Rel.ati.OQS of. Labour and Capital, - Nova Scotia
(Ottawa, 1889), evidence of F'.F. Martin.
Acadian Recorder, 12 Nov 1878
Ibid if 15 Dec 1879. Not all the Halifax homeless were so
lucky. Reports of death from exposure were not uncommon: see
Ntf^ascotian, 9 Dec 1867
47. Acadian E’gcorder f 22 Dec 1879. For a similar attitude to the
prison in other offenders, see the cases of Robert Wiseman
and Henry Turner, 'two roughs' who tried to extort money by
posing as policemen. Given the option of a fine or a prison
term, they 'decided to go up as times is hard': Ci_ti_pen, 3
9
~ “'o'',' 'i
* -a i: ! .l
S«r -rfwn
■^su^S. V
Feb 1878.
48. H. Graff, 'Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth Century: A
New Look at the Criminal % Journal of iQt er cU sclgllnary
Hi_story 7 (1977) 477-81. Judith Fingard's work on Halifax
also notes the use of the jail as a winter refuge but comes
to different conclusions about the significance of this and
about the role of the criminal law and petty criminals in
society. She proposes an analysis of the criminal that places
more stress on individual failings than social dislocation or
economic hardship: see 'Jailbirds', 101.
48. See also similar examples in Acadian B§£2Lh2L* 7 Aug 1379 and
Citizen, a Feb 1878
50. Issue of 11 Dec 1867
51. Mayor's Address, Annual P2E2L£r 1884-85, x/ix. See also
Ibid., 1885-86, xxx.
52. Prison Governor's Report, itud^, 119—20
53. Fingard notes that this can also be seen as one way in which
the victims of the law exerted a measure of control over the
justice system: 'Jailbirds', 101.
54. Rev. F. Wayland, 'The Tramp Question,' PLE'LEShiQSE of the
NsiLEQSl Q2QI2L2Q2E 2l Qh.SLLli.25 and Corrections (1877), 112;
E.R.L. Gould, 'How Baltimore Banished Tramps and helped the
Idle,' Forum 17 (1894), 497—504. For similar attitudes see
also, iQter alia, J. Flynt, Tramming with Jramgs (New York:
1899); J.J. McCook, 'The Tramp Problem: What it is and what
to do with it', PL22EEd.LQQ5 o_f the N§iLL2Q2i Q2Q.iEL2Q.2E ojf
Chari_ti_es and Correction (1895), and 'A Tramp Census and its
Revelations', The Forum 15 (1893), 753-66; 0. Thanet, 'The
10
Tramp in Four Centuries' , LiEBiQEEtt^s !u293S.iQ2? 23 (1879),
565-74; A. Pinkerton, Communist Sj_ IL2CDE5 and
D©tecti_ves (New York: 1878).
Monkkonen, Jhe Dangerous Classes, 150. Similar fears in
Britain are discussed in B. Weinberger, 'The Police and the
Public in mid-nineteenth century Warwickshire', in 0.
Bailey, ed. , Policing and PuDiSbflJSQt i_n Nineteenth Century
Britain (London: Croom Helm 1981), 85. For the Charity
Organization movement of the Gilded Age see Boyer, Urban
Masses and Morale Order, ch. 10. See also this warning given
by a social worker to her colleagues: 'I would not in my
enthusiasm for the work of friendly visiting, lose sight of
the old adage that it is hard to make a silk purse out of a
sow's ear. The best we can do is a sorry patchwork
often....In many cases the more heroic treatment of cutting
off supplies must be resorted to. So long as charitable
people insist that they must forestall the possibility of
"letting the innocent suffer"..., just so long the lazy man
has society by the throat': M. Richmond, 'Married Vagabonds',
EL 2222 di_ngs of the N 2 ti_gnal_ Conference o£ Charyti_es and
C' 2 LL 2 ! 2 ti_gns (1877), 516.
S. Leavitt, 'The Tramps and the Law', Forum 2 (1886), 192
S. Houston, 'The Impetus to Reform: Urban Crime, Poverty and
Ignorance in Ontario, 1850-1875,' Ph.D. thesis, University of
Toronto, 1974, 5. See also Craven, 'Law and Ideology,' 293
and J.J. Bellomo, 'Upper Canadian Attitudes towards Crime and
Punishment, 1832-51,' Ontario History 64 (1972) 11-26.
58. Pitsula, 'The Treatment of Tramps,' 119—20
59. Cited i_bi_d. 122
60. For these see Commons Journals, 1880, 31; 1885, 164, 204,
237, 255, 265, 268, 290, 310, 465, and 555; 1886, 52
61. Local newspapers and visitors to Halifax commented frequently
on its taverns, brothels and slums, congregated in the
streets running north and east from the citadel. The streets
were still largely unpaved in this period, dusty and smelly,
and complete with 'beggars and old drunks.' The combination
of northern winter and an economy geared to seasonal pursuits
meant that the winter months were especially desperate for
those without resources to fall back on, forced to live in
'common houses' that were 'the meanest of their kind to be
found anywhere in this vast Dominion'. Quotations from
Waite, The Man From Halifax, 35 and C. Roger, Gl_i_mgises of
London and At l_ant i_c Experiences ( Ottawa: 1873) 12. See also
Fingard, 'Jailbirds,' EL§ssi_m, and 'The Winter's Tale; The
Seasonal Contours of Pre-Industrial Poverty in British
North America, 1815-1860,' Historical Pagers (1974) 65-94;
Morning Chronigie, 7 Jan 1873; Her aid, 15 Jan 1884; Acadian
Recorder, 3 May 1867.
62. City Marshall's Report, Annual B®E! 2 L£., 1871-72, 55; Heraid,
10 Aug 1889; City Prison Report, Annual Report, 1881-82/1832-
83, 100. See similar comments in the Annuai Resorts for
1871-72, 49; 1879-80, 128; 1880-81, 122; 1884-85, xviii-xix;
1885-86, 149-50; Herald, 27 Dec 1883;
63. Morning £ : b!l!2Di£i®» 21 Jan 1873; Citgzen, 1 Feb 1878; Heraid,
11 June 1884.
12
64. Herald, 19 and 20 Jan 1880. See also the many stories about
crimes committed by tramps elsewhere on the continent.
Examples can be found in Novascotian, 2 Dec 1867 and Citizen,
16 Jan 1878.
65. Herald, 29 July and 4 Sept 1879
66. Acadian Recorder, 19 and 22 Dec 1879
67. Ibid.., 3 Feb 1866
68. Issue of 3 June 1876.
69. See, for example, Presbyterian Witness, 20 Dec 1368 and 20
Nov 1869.
70. Acadian Recorder, 19 Feb 1872
71. See Ibid., 3 Feb 1866; Unionist, 16 July, 15 Oct and 7 Dec
1866 and 29 March 1867.
72. SNS 1867, c.82; 1870, c.38
73. See P.V. Girard, 'Henry Pryor', Dictionary of Canadian
Volume I2j_ 1891—1900, forthcoming, 1989
74. City Marshall's Report, Annual 1866-67, 49. Marshall
Cotter claimed that the new system, and the uniformity it
introduced, had made 'the class known as old of fender s. ..much
more chary of making an appearance in the dock, knowing that
there is a record of previous convictions always at hand to
confront them'.
75. See his summary treatment of litigants reported in Acadian
Recorder, 8 and 21 July and 18 Dec 1879. When Nova Scotia's
Chief Justice Sir William Young spent a morning on the bench
with Pryor, he 'seemed surprised at the expeditious manner in
which the judgments of the Court were given': Ib^d^, 4 July
13
1879
76. Girard, 'Henry Pryor'. On at least one occasion Pryor
received a death threat for his harshness towards those
convicted of selling liquor without a licence. On another
occasion in 1879 an offender was considered 'fortunate...that
there was an acting Stipendiary, with whom the quality of
mercy is not strained': Herald, 9 June 1384; Ac ad i_an
Bl'lSllder, 13 Dec 1879
77. Ac ad i_an Recorder, 4 Jan 1886; 3 Sept and 9 Aug 1379
78. IbicL, 29 Sept, 26 Dec 1879; 9 July 1878. For references to
offenders being 'given a chance', see, inter al_i.a, ibid, 8
July, 29 Aug, 15 Sept and 2 Dec 1879; 27 and 30 Dec 1886;
Hera^d, 12 Aug 1879.
79. This practice might fit Douglas Hay's interpretation of the
criminal law as an ideological construct which combined
harshness with mercy to legitimate social relations: see D.
Hay, 'Property, Authority and the Criminal Law', in Hay et
al. , A^bi_onis Fatal, Tree (London: Penguin 1975). For a more
detailed attempt to apply Hay's thesis to the Toronto Police
Court, which seems to have exhibited many of the
characteristics of Halifax's Stipendiary Magistrate's Court,
see Craven, 'Law and Ideology'.
80. See MG100, vol. 156, no 28 ~ Ms. history of the Halifax
Police Department
81. For example, Citizen, 16 Nov 1869; Acadian E<=!2:2!ld§!!L r 4 Dec
1884; City Marshall's Reports in Annual. Report, 1876-7, 208;
1879-80, 127; 1885-86, 149; 1886-87, 48-49; Mayor's Address,
i.bi.d. , 1884-85, xix-xxi.
14
82. ibid. See also Acadian Recorder, 18 Nov 1867 and 24 July
1879; Ljni_oni_st, 18 Dec 1868; Morni_ng Qb.L£Qi'2i§? 30 ^ an 1333.
Municipal finances were a constant problem in Halifax during
this period, the city coming close to bankruptcy in 1881:
McKay, 'Working Class', 12.
83. For example Citizen, 16 Nov 1869 and 6 and 21 Feb 1878;
Ac adian Recorder, 19 May 1888; City Marshall’s Report, Annuai
Report, 1879-80, 127; 1880-81, 122; Mayor’s Address, ibid.,
1866-7, 11.
84. Royal^ Commission on the Reiat^ons of, Labour and Cagitaij_
Evidence - Nova Scotia, 225. The press published a variety
of 'stories that did not reflect well on the police.
Policeman Brennan was fired by the magistrate for assault and
false imprisonment; policeman Charles Lang’s 10-year old
son fatally stabbed a 15-year old boy in a knife-fight.
(Acadian Recorder, 21 and 29 Aug 1879). Earlier in the
decade one newspaper complained that a man who had assaulted
two policemen with a knife was released on an alderman’s
order. (Morning Chronicie, 21 Oct 1872).
85. RG35-102, Series 16, Section G, Police Committee Minutes,
1884-90
86. There were 35 applications for 3 vacancies in 1874: Morning
Chrgnicie, 30 Dec 1874.
87. See Acadian E : § 22 C£!er , 20, 26 and 31 Dec 1884
88. Police Committee Report, Annual 1871-72 and 1874-75,
33-34 and 131; City Marshall’s Report, ibid., 1877-78 and
1878-79, 99 and 161-2
15
B0. Ac ad i^an Recorder, 12 and 17 Dec 1884
90. SNS 1888, c.52
91. SNS 1864, c. 81, s.538
92. I.bi.d and The Charter and Ordinances of the Ci.ty of Ha.li_.fax
C1864), 170-1
93. Mayor's Address, Annual, Regor t, 1884-85, xlix. See the
discussion above about the use of the prison as a refuge.
94. SNS 1881, c.14, s.l. Ironically, the Prison Governor
objected to doing this as it was less profitable to employ
prisoners on the streets, taking into account the additional
security expenses.
95. See Q. Andrews, ' The Establishment of Institutional Lar e in
Halifax in the mid-Nineteent h Century,' Hons. thesis,
Dalhousie University, 1974, 3-4; Fingard, 'The Winter's Tale'
and 'The Relief of the Unemployed Poor'; SNS 1864, c.81,
ss.567-9.
96. Fingard, 'Relief of the Unemployed Poor,' 193
97. Institutions such as the Inebriate Home, the Industrial
School, and the Insane Asylum were founded at this time. In
1878 a Board of Public Charities was constituted to take over
the hospitals, insane asylum, and poor asylum. When it was
abolished in 1886 these institutions were kept under one
authority - the Commissioner of Public Works and Mines. SNS
1878, c.16 and 1886, c.5; Mayor's Address, Annual. Report
1885-86, x and xxxiii.
98. Report of Poor Asylum Commissioners, Annual 1874-75,
156; B. Potter, 'Poor Relief in Nova Scotia in the 1830s,'
Hons thesis, Dalhousie University, 1978, 5 and 8 - 13. Potter
16
demonstrates that most inmates of the Asylum were over 50
and/or genuinely indigent. See also the comment by a
reporter in the Her aid, 9 May 1884: 'life at Rockhead seems
infinitely preferable to life in the asylum for the poor'.
99. Mayor's Address, Annual, Report, 1885-86, xxxv. See also
Report of Poor Asylum Commissioners, Annual, Report, 1874-75,
156 and 1876-77, 191.
100. Potter, 'Poor Relief', 37-39
101. Citizen, 9 April 1876; Night Refuge for the Homeless, Annual,
Report, (1879), 3 and 5; J. Fingard, Jack ^n Port:,
Sai_Xortowns of, Eastern Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press 1982), 235.
102. Doull was president for many years; he was apparently worth
some $150,000 in 1884. Her al_d, 1 Jan 1884.
103. Halifax Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor,
Report, 1867, 5
104. See the Annual, Reports of the Association, which continue to
1890. See also the many press reports of its work, including
Herald, 9 Jan 1879; 8 and 16 Jan 1884; Acadian Recorder, 5
Dec 1879; 19 Jan 1886; Morni_ng Chronic l_e, 23 Dec 1374. For
similar British campaigns to drive beggars from the streets,
see G. Stedman-Jones, Outcast London (Oxford: Clarendon
1976), 272—3 and 296.
105.
Citizen
, 9 Jan
1878
106.
I^id.,
3 Jan 1878
107.
Issue o
f 23 Dec
1879.
Also ibid., 10 Dec 1879
108.
Her aid.
31 Jan
1881
17
«• fun nir 1 -o
109. Ibid., 13 Jan 1S79
110. Report, 1874
111. See for example, Report, 1883, 7-8; 1889, 5
112. Morni_ng Chron icl e, 23 Dec 1874; Citizen, 3 Jan 1878; A
Recgrder, 13 Jan 1879 and 13 Jan 1886
113. Morning Chronicle, 12 Mar 1875; Chr i_st gan Messenger,
1877; Citizen, 18 Jan 1878
114. Issue of 12 Oct 1879
cadian
21 Mar
18
