
To the Bewildered Ordinary Citizen It Is Merely a Cacophony of Sounds.
Like a Big Bass Fiddle, the Mayor’s Voice Croons Steadily On Through It All.
By Gregory Clark, January 31, 1920.
Toronto’s brand new City Council is assembled functioning. It had its first business meeting and all went merry as a marriage bell. But it is so like all its predecessors that hanged if City Clerk Littlejohn, who has seen forty-six City Councils come and go, can tell, for a minute, whether this is the year 1920 or 1895. You might say, nothing changes in Toronto’s City Council but the names of its members and the fashion in clothes. And as for the latter, they change but slowly – in Toronto’s City Council.
The one thing that marks this year’s Council, the one bright incident that brings a faint ray of relief to the dreary round of City Clerk Littlejohn, in the ennui bred of nigh half a century of the company of City Fathers, is the presence of Alderwoman Mrs. L. A. Hamilton, the first City Mother1.
In the assembled Council, Mrs. Hamilton sits at the toe of the big horseshoe of benches, directly facing the Mayor’s throne. Should any alderman so far forget himself as to us open up one of those pre-1920 barrages of vituperation, the vain cry of “order, order!” is now reinforced with the presence of a lady. And some of our most irate civic parents have thus had their best teeth pulled.
But City Clerk Littlejohn, whenever the day grows drear and the Council meeting unduly tangled, scrambled and undone, raises his melancholy gaze to the toe of the horseshoe, refreshes his spirit with a glance at the lady member, and returns to his task of keeping the Mayor on the tracks, as one who breathes – “Ah, well! There are signs in the sky! A new day may dawn!”
After the manner of college magazines, we might categorize the new Council as follows:
This year’s Handsomest Man: Either Controller Alf. Maguire or Alderman Brook Sykes. It all depends how your taste runs. Controller Maguire is of the rich, autumnal type of manly beauty; somewhat on the stout side of what is called a man’s prime. His election photos temper justice with mercy. Brook Sykes is the youngest-looking member of the Council; blond, quiet, is alert. One could easily imagine him a movie star of the Doug Fairbanks or Tom Moore type; the manly kind, easy to look at. At any rate, he looks like one apart in that circle of Fathers. He looks like a Civic Son.
Homeliest Man: (Censored).
Youngest Man: Alderman Josephus Singer (who, not being Irish, and therefore not superstitious, occupies Seat No. 13).
Heaviest Man: Alderman Birdsall.
Lightest Man: Alderman Miskelly.
Noisiest Man: His Worship the Mayor.
Most Silent Man: This is a race, of apparently, between Aldermen Winnett and F. W. Johnston, with Alderman Cowan running up. Alderman Cowan’s ordinary speech consists of an ejaculation. A sentence is good going. Two sentences is his limit.
This Year’s Prophet: Mrs. Hamilton. The male members are regarding her as a sort of Mrs. Elijah. They are waiting for her to wave her mantle and hurl the challenge magnificent.
Most Serious Man: Alderman Plewman. He engages not in argument or vain clamor. When he sees his chance he points his order paper confoundingly at the assemblage, and says his say.
This Year’s Poet: Alderman Donald MacGregor.
The Most Aggressive Man: Controller Cameron, who in spite of his recent illness. still dominates the meeting, whenever he feels like it, with his Celtic fire.

Now, the plain citizen might regard with some awe and not a little sneaking veneration the assembling of the City Fathers. One would expect of them, dignity, precision, ease.
Let us attend a Council meeting and see.
The meeting is called for two-thirty, o’clock in the afternoon.
At 2.20, we peek into the Members’ Room: a nice, comfortable room furnished with leather chairs and cigar-fumes.
The City Fathers are already gathering. A dozen of them are draped in easy attitudes over the leather chairs and benches. All are smoking either cigars or pipes.
“Hello, Bill!” yells one City Father to another across the room. “Did ye get yer house yet?”
“Sure,” replies the other in the same prevailing tone, “bet yer hide I did.”
“Well, well!” cries another, “if it ain’t my old friend Henry!”
“Yep. Large as life and twice ‘s natural!”
I quote thus to show the easy air of friendly banter, airy badinage, that relieves the lighter moments of the City Father’s life.
The members continue to arrive. The air becomes thick with cigar smoke. Alderman Mrs. Hamilton enters, gently pressing her kerchief to her nose.
Just before 2.30, in stalks the spectacled and solemn Mr. Littlejohn, City Clerk. Several of the older aldermen attempt pleasantries with him. He seems, however, to be thinking of other things.
He sizes up the assemblage, never relaxing his dignified aloofness. Then he disappears for a moment. He has gone to see if his Worship the Mayor is ready. He is.
A loud bell rings in the Members’ Room. City Clerk Littlejohn takes the up his position at the door and stands looking in upon the members with an air of menace.
The members file blithely into the Council Chamber.
Let’s also go there.
The Council Chamber is high, but none too large for the twenty-eight members of the Council. The horseshoe row of little desks is drawn up facing the Mayor’s throne. There is an empty throne on each side of the Mayor’s. These are for visiting potentates. The Mayor’s dais is guarded by the banners of the 180th Sportsmen’s Battalion, one of the unfortunately broken-up.
The members take their seats behind their little desks. Eighteen citizens and two policemen in the steep little gallery lean eagerly forward to see.
“Order gentlemen!” booms a solemn voice from the door beside the throne. It is City Clerk Littlejohn again.
Then, with long strides, cutaway coat-tails flapping, in flies his Worship, the Mayor. The members rise to their feet. It’s a sort of “Parade, ‘Shun!” affair.
Now comes the startling part of our adventure.
Our eyes have scarce left the flying figure of the Mayor to note the rising members, the members are just in the act of sitting down, when a sudden, droning, nasal and unintelligible voice begins-
“Controller Maguire the minutes of last meeting be taken as read, seconded, carried!”
In the rustle and confusion of all the roomful getting seated, we fail at first, to locate the sound. Just as the last syllable is sung, we trace it to his Worship, the Mayor.
Yes, sir! He started his incantation as his foot touched the dais; and just as his coat tails brushed throne, he had got through the first item on the program.
Thereafter that strange, droning monotone was the motif of the whole piece.
For there is only one way to describe a City Council meeting: it is a symphony in jazz.
To be sure, the various members, officials, clerks, etc., seem to enter everything that is being said or done. But to the bewildered, ordinary citizen, it is merely a cacophony of sounds, a human jazz symphony of the cubist school.
The aldermen talk to each other. Four aldermen make at once. The City Clerk and the Mayor’s amanuensis, Mr. James Somers are both explaining something to the Mayor, while the Mayor, in his low cello-jazz voice, is reading a bill and Controller Alf. Maguire, as the chairman of the Council, is on his feet, twiddling his watch-chain and serenely explaining to the Council the meaning of the bill the Mayor is reading.
It’s a sort of mild pandemonium.
Now and then, as in all good jazz music, there is a pause, and somebody with a voice like a piccolo or a melancholy saxophone (one of the aldermen), picks up a new theme, plays it lucidly, daintily, musically, and then with a crash, fortissimo down come fiddle and drums, trombone, cymbals and bazoo; and they jazz that theme to ribbons and run. And like the oom-oom of the bass fiddles, the Mayor’s voice croons steadily on through it all.
And when it’s all over and you buy a copy of the sporting extra, you are astounded to see, all set out, the items of business done.
It’s a miracle, that’s all! A spectacle de jazz.
One thing we did catch, however, Alderman MacGregor (whose mythical voice corresponded to the fiddle in that mad symphony), rose a couple of times to a point of order and found he was just a couple of jumps ahead of the party on the order paper. His musical protestations were rudely stilled by several members.
One alderman, levelling a withering glance at Alderman MacGregor muttered:
“Fer heaven’s sake, sing!”

Editor’s Notes:
- Mrs. Hamilton was the first-ever female city councillor elected in Ontario. ↩︎
Leave a Reply