Gas poisoning in hotel at York & Adelaide, 1909

From The Toronto Star, September 9, 1909

Boscol Moses, a young farmer from Audbury (sic), Ontario, celebrated his first night in the city by half suffocating himself in the New York Temperance Hotel at the corner of York and Adelaide streets.

Moses, who knew nothing about gaslight, made the well known mistake of trying to blow out the light when he came in late last evening. The usual results followed, and Moses is now a very sick young man in St. Michael’s Hospital.

Constable Matthews described how Abraham Bornstein, the proprietor of the house, came rushing up to him at half-past-six, and in one word of English to six of Yiddish, told him that some one had left the gas turned on and had died during the night. He dragged the policeman upstairs, and they found Moses in an unconscious condition, vomiting. This doubtless saved his life, as it rid his system of the poison.

An ambulance was summoned, and he was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital, where it is expected he will recover.

No more than an hour previous to this while the night policeman was still on duty, a young man named McKinnon and three others were found in a half-suffocated condition in another room of the same hotel. The constable and an ambulance driver took McKinnon and one of the others outside and walked them up and down until they became well.

They afterwards had their breakfast and went away. Nothing serious resulted in this case, because they had luckily left the window of their room wide open. ♦