Our story takes places in Toronto in the summer of 1855. Toronto at that time was a newish Canadian pioneer town which could best be described as rough. Very rough. Toronto was a town of about 40,000 people, created from the clash of many migrants from all over the world, and to service those 40,000 people, there were 152 public houses and a further 203 licenced premises. This means that for every 113 people, there was either a pub or a off-licence.
In addition to the liquor stores that were seemingly everywhere, there were brothels; lots of brothels. Owing to the fact that the oldest profession was still illegal in the Province of Canada, it is difficult to know how many brothels there were but we do know that there were a lot of them.
In July of 1855, S.B.Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus arrived in town for five days' of circus shows. S.B.Howes' was a proper old-fashioned circus with acrobats, high-wire performers, trick horse riders, as well as lion tamers and their lions, some elephants, and even a giraffe. For sleepy little Toronto, the arrival of the circus was a big draw-card.
On the evening of Thursday, 12 July 1855, after the circus had performed its matinee and evening shows, and after the circus had closed for the day, a group of clowns having the rest of the evening off, decided to take advantage of the local nightlife. By local nightlife, we actually mean visit a brothel. The brothel that they happened to choose was "The Bordello of one Mary Ann Armstrong" on the corner of King Street & John Street; so they decided to settle in for the night and have some fun. Their night would not go as planned.
These were clowns that you would not want to pick a fight with. However, they picked the wrong brothel. What they found that that this was the hangout of the local private fire brigade, The Hook & Ladder Firefighting Company. These were firefighters whom you would also not want to pick a fight with either, for they already had a reputation for being involved in public violence and affray.
In 1855 there was no public fire service. Fire-brigades were owned by private fire companies who would either be contracted to put out fires in buildings that had contracted them through private insurance, or when a fire broke out, the private companies who were nearby would all rush to the scene of the fire with their horse-drawn fire engines to see who would get there first; to then call dibs on who would get to put out the fire and thus, send out an invoice to the building owners.
However The Hook & Ladder Firefighting Company had been involved in an incident a few weeks earlier, when they arrived at a fire on Church Street at the same time as another fire brigade. As neither company would back down, this quickly turned into a flash point and a fight broke out then as well. As the building on Church Street burned to the ground, some of the firefighters from both brigades while both the fire and the fight were burning, then decided to loot and pillage the buildings that they were supposed to be saving. When the local police force arrived, they were also drawn into the ongoing brawl and when some kind of order was restored, a number of firefighters from both companies were charged with battery and assault. This incident was already known in Toronto as the "Firemen’s Riot"; which meant that the The Hook & Ladder Firefighting Company had already gained a reputation for violence but a group of outsiders such as clowns from a travelling circus would not have known that.
The Toronto General Advertiser seems to have no idea about how the fight at Mary Ann Armstrong's Bordello began. One account blames a particularly "large and loud-mouthed clown". One account says that the clowns jumped the queue for service. One account says that a clown knocked the hat off a firefighter’s head.
However it started, and whatever happened, we know this one thing. Do not mess with clowns. In the question of who would win the fight of "Clowns versus Firefighters", we know the answer. It is Clowns. At least two firefighters were seriously injured and/or dragged out of the brothel to safety as the Hook & Ladder company retreated; leaving the clowns in peace to drink the place dry and... do clown things.
The story does not end here however.
Those firemen had friends, a lot of friends. In those days, Toronto was still pretty much entirely run by a small group of Protestant, Tory elites. They were all members of the Orange Order, they hung out together at the Orange Lodge, and they made sure that other Orangemen got all the important jobs in the city. The police were pretty much all Orangemen. And the firefighters were pretty much all Orangemen too. Usually, they focused on beating up Catholics, but here they were willing to make an occasional exception.
The fight at the brothel came on the day of the big annual Orange parade, July 12. And the next day — a Friday the 13th, no less — a crowd began to gather around S.B. Howes’ Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus. An angry, Orange crowd. The troupe had pitched their tents at the Fair Green, a big grassy space on the waterfront, just a few blocks east of the St. Lawrence Market; which the south-east corner of Front & Berkeley Sts. The farmers and merchants who had set up stalls nearby were told to clear out. There was trouble brewing.
They say word reached the police before violence broke out. But of course the Chief of Police, Samuel Sherwood, was an Orangeman. That’s how he got to be Chief of Police. In fact, years earlier he’d helped to organize a conservative Tory attack on a liberal Reform Party parade. One of the Reformers had been shot and killed. So when Chief Sherwood heard about the trouble down at the Fair Green, he dragged his feet for as long as he could. And then, eventually, he sent a few men to check it out.
By the time they got there, it had started. People were throwing stones. While the circus performers and the carnies were apparently able to hold the mob off for a while, it couldn’t last. Eventually, the crowd overwhelmed them. And when the Hook & Ladders arrived, all hell broke loose. They stormed the circus with pikes and axes, overturned wagons, pulled down the tents and the Big Top and set fire to them. They beat clowns to a pulp. Circus folk ran for their lives. Some dove into the lake for safety. It was mayhem.
It took the Mayor to settle things down. He came to the Fair Green in person, is said to have kept a firefighter from killing a clown with an axe by grabbing it out of his hands, and called in the militia to take control of the situation. Once things had calmed down, the circus performers came back for their belongings and then ran like hell.
The police had done pretty much nothing. They just watched. Even Chief Sherwood himself had eventually shown up, but could only claim to have stopped the rioters from setting fire to the cages of the animals. Of the 17 people who were charged in the riot, only one was ever convicted. All of the police who were at the scene claimed they couldn’t remember any of the Orangemen who had been there. Just like they had a few weeks earlier, after the Fireman’s Riot on Church.
That, as far as most people were concerned, was a cover up. And they would keep on coming. A few years later, there was another Protestant vs. Catholic riot — and Chief Sherwood’s memory was again suspiciously fuzzy as far as Orangemen were concerned. A few months after that, he was under fire again after freeing a suspect who had been accused of robbing a bank.
It was a turning point. City council called for deep reforms to the way Toronto’s police force was run. The provincial government agreed. An inquest was launched, and given a boost when a Reform Party candidate was elected mayor for the first time in more than 20 years. In the end, the whole old system was overthrown. Every single police officer in the city was fired and a new force was created from scratch. Nearly half of the old constables would end up being re-hired; it took nearly 100 years before the Orange stranglehold on power in Toronto was finally broken but the foundations of a current, sensible, secular, and modern police force had finally been laid...
...thanks to a bunch of Clowns.
No comments:
Post a Comment