From the Toronto Star Weekly, March 1914 “When constabulary duty’s to be done, A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” The risks which a policeman constantly encounters are varied and peculiar. In Toronto, within the last few days, two dastardly assaults have been committed on constables engaged in the performance of their duties. On the…
Category: Toronto
Betting on the Decisions in Toronto’s Police Court (1914)
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From the Toronto Star Weekly, February 21, 1914 Small Sums risked by Regulars in Public Seats By Leo Devaney Just the other day a man who obtained food from one of the free missions in the city of Toronto was arrested as he was about to enter a picture show. He appeared in the Police…
Gas poisoning in hotel at York & Adelaide, 1909
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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…
Canada’s 400th birthday — and Toronto at 100 (1934)
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From the Brisbane Courier Mail, May 26, 1934 CANADA is to be numbered among the new countries, yet it enters in July upon the 400th year of its history. On July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier, mariner of St. Malo, in Brittany, set up a cross on the mainland of Canada at Gaspe, and took possession…
The new Arts & Letters Club opens, 1910
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The Arts and Letters Club will have unique quarters in the York County Building on Adelaide Street From The Star Weekly, August 1910 By Augustus Bridle Less than a year ago a well-known artist in Toronto, whose name is W. E. H. Macdonald, drew a simple picture of a Viking ship with full sails set…
Goel Tzedec opens on University Avenue, 1907
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From the Globe, February 4, 1907 Impressive Dedication Ceremonies Yesterday — Scrolls Removed in State to Their Resting Place in the Ark in Magnificent Meeting Place on University Avenue – Many Gentiles Join Their Hebrew Brethren in Scene of Rejoicing. The opening services at the magnificent new Jewish synagogue on University avenue near Queen street were…
Historic postal station on Yonge needs saving
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The federal government has plans to sell Postal Station K, the historic art deco building at 2384 Yonge Street, several blocks north of Eglinton, and local residents are up in arms at the thought that a condo developer may take over the property. “This building is of great historic significance, and also stands on the site of…
Making a living under the gas jets
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Anybody who has had occasion to be on the streets of Toronto about midnight or shortly after must have been struck by the almost sepulchral quiet which then reigns on the streets. Except the measured footsteps of the policeman as he treads his beat, a sound often audible at a distance of two or three…
Saturday Night casts a low eye upon the Jew, 1904
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◊ Saturday Night, the staunch Canadian magazine, did us a service by preserving in prose the naïve, native prejudicial stereotype of the day. This article from 1904 paints a disgustingly dark portrait of the ugly foreigner, particularly the Jew, who was then collectively making Toronto a cosmopolitan city for the first time. Anti-semitic in its purest…
Dark, dangerous police station in St. Andrew’s Market, 1907
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The Force Quartered in St. Andrew’s Market Have Poor Quarters, and the Cells are Dark, Dangerous, and Unsanitary From the Toronto Star, October 5, 1907 One cannot be a policeman in a day. It is only after a most thorough coaching and training that a man can don the blue uniform with the silver buttons…
