The Work of Greg Clark and Jimmie Frise

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Legislature Opening Like a Church Function Followed by a Bun Feed—Big Day for the Women

March 13, 1920

By Gregory Clark, March 13, 1920.

The descriptions of the opening of the Ontario Legislature that appeared in the daily newspapers were written for The General Public. The following description of that ceremony is written for The Man on the Street, and is therefore addressed–

Dear Bill-

To get a picture of the opening of the Legislature you must imagine yourself in a large and prosperous Presbyterian or Methodist church of the late Victorian style of church architecture and decoration.

The Chamber in Queen’s Park, has not an arched roof, and instead of pews it has little old-fashioned, leather-topped desks. But in all respects it suggests, on opening day, a church gathering.

This may be due to the preponderance of women, dressed in their Sunday clothes. Or to the ornate brass chandeliers hanging from the fancy ceiling. Or to the numerous high court judges, justices and such officials as Mr. Speaker and the sergeant-at-arms, who wear black flowing gowns and those white two-piece bibs, and who, therefore, can’t be distinguished from ministers of the Gospel.

It is like the induction of a new preacher. The downstairs part, known as the “floor of the House,” is absolutely jammed with women, who fidget and whose multi-colored garments bewilder the eye. The galleries on all four sides are steep, at an angle of about 60 degrees. And they, too, are jammed with moving, fluttering women.

Down the centre aisle is a very churchy strip of dark red carpet leading to the Speaker’s throne; you might say pulpit.

The air is stuffy. A subdued buzz of feminine conversation fills the wide room.

You expect to hear the pipe organ boom gently forth every moment.

Instead, from the vestry, or whatever the Parliamentary term is for the rooms behind the Speaker’s chair, emerge the wives of the Cabinet Ministers. Mrs. Glackmeyer1, wife of the sergeant-at-arms, welcomes each lady and escorts her to one of the front pews. The Ministers’ wives are thus placed in a conspicuous position, and the effect on the crowded congregation is precisely that of the arrival of the family of the new pastor at the induction service. Much rustling, much craning of necks and leaning forward and whispering among the rows and tiers of spectators.

A Burst of Applause

The church-like atmosphere is broken for a moment by the entry of Mrs. Drury2, wife of the new Prime Minister. She is greeted by a burst of applause. But the arrival of ten dignified judges and justices in their ministerial garb restores at once the churchy illusion.

Three o’clock draws nigh. You begin to worry. Here are these hundreds of ladies jammed into the members’ benches. There is hardly room for Mr. Glackmeyer, the sergeant-at-arms, to hurry up and tie down the aisle, in preparation — Why so many women? Fifteen of them to one man!

Then, the door at the far end from the Speaker’s throne swings wide and in strides a dapper lieutenant. Following is Mrs. Lionel Clarke, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, on the arm of Mr. Drury. The congregation Irises to its feet and applauds.

A moment of waiting, then the doors again swing wide, and up the purple carpet come the Lieutenant-Governor and the Prime Minister, again followed by a gorgeous array of generals, colonels and majors.

The House is on its feet. The ladies are thrilled. The craning, leaning. bobbing, rustling has grown furious.

Here the illusion of a church ceremony begins to fade.

The bevy of generals and colonels group themselves standing gracefully about the Speaker’s chair, in which sits the Lieutenant-Governor3. These doughty soldiers represent the majesty and force of the Government. They are all armed with swords, though it is safe to say, Bill, that these swords have never hurt anything yet, unless it was the wallpaper at home. General Sir Henry Pellatt, who was among the military escort, seems ill at ease. Does he fear for his liege, the Lieutenant-Governor, in this unprecedented assembly? Anyway, he tries seventeen different postures in the fifteen minutes he is in the chamber, first on one leg, then on the other; but not even the last one seems to suit, and he appears relieved when the Lieutenant-Governor leads the way out.

I was disappointed about the members. I thought we’d see some fun when the members arrived and found those hordes of women occupying their benches. But it appears that the members don’t sit in their proper places on opening day. They seclude themselves almost invisibly along the sidelines and behind pillars. Opening day is the ladies’ innings. When the Speaker calls for votes on some formal matter of ritual, he says-

“All in favor, say ‘Aye’!”

And you hear “Ayes” said shyly from all over the chamber. This immediately causes a great flurry among the spectators. For many of the ladies, who have been glaring at some impudent and insignificant male who has been trying to catch a glimpse of the proceedings, are horrified to hear him utter the “aye” of a member.

Not Much Punch in It

They talk about the ceremony still being observed, Bill, but it Is all very perfunctory and half-hearted. They seem to hustle it through, as if it embarrassed them. They don’t put any punch into it. You would see ten times the ceremony at any small-degree lodge meeting.

Nobody wears any regalia but the new Speaker, Mr. Parliament. And all he has on is the three-cornered black hat, the bib-and-tucker, the black, braided coat and Minister’s gown. You should have seen the expression on Mr. Tom Crawford, who was standing back in an obscure corner. Tom Crawford is not only an ex-Speaker of the Legislature, but a great Orangeman; and what he doesn’t know about ceremonial! Still, it wasn’t all the hustled ceremonial that brought the wistful expression to Mr. Crawford’s face.

The only other items of ceremonial are the great gold mace, which is a kind of a big club; the funny little sword worn on one pantleg by the old gentleman who carries the mace; and the business of having Mr. Clarke, the Lieutenant-Governor, solemnly march out of the room while the scattered members elect the Speaker, (which was all pre-arranged, anyway, as Mr. Parliament was all dressed up in those fancy clothes beforehand), and then solemnly return to the throne.

The only members in their desks were Premier Drury and Mr. Raney on the one side, and Mr. Dewart on the other. They carried on all the conversation, except the speech from the throne, which Mr. Clarke delivered.

It is all over in exactly one-half hour.

Then the session adjourns. A sneaky smell of coffee, tea and sandwiches has been creeping up into the Chamber the last few minutes, just as at a church social. When the adjournment is moved, the congregation rises, buzzes and files slowly in the direction of the smell.

A big part of the crowd, Bill, seemed to be present to size up the new Farmer-Labor Government. Some of them seemed disappointed when no breaches of urban etiquet were made. It is funny how the professional blatherskite class imagines no outsiders can engage in Government. There were several known has-beens scattered through of the House, whose faces betrayed a mixture of envy and curiosity. They grew pallid and limp as they searched in vain for one grain of hayseed, one wisp of straw, at which to grasp for conversational material for the next few weeks. But not one slip was made. The portrait of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie out in the corridor, cynical of expression enough, seemed to glow with unholy glee as the professionals filed dejectedly past him.

The Prime Minister was the most at ease of all the leading characters in the act. You could hear his voice clear, sharp-cut, and assured, while Mr. Dewart’s was high and muffled, and the others were indistinct.

Best-Dressed in House

And the lady spectators, many of whom were not members wives, but the usual representation of Toronto at this function, were a little taken back when the Ministers’ wives, with all ease and grace, took their place in the conspicuous centre of the scene. They were the best-dressed ladies in the House; not the most brilliant nor the most dazzling, but the most tasteful and dignified. What the Toronto ladies expected of the ladies of the U.F.O-Labor Government is hard to say. But by their neck-craning and staring, it appears they were taken aback.

Another item of interest, Bill, was the conduct of Mayor Church. Yes. he was there. He arrived at the main door just a moment before the entry of the Lieutenant-Governor. He didn’t get a hand, so I suppose his nerve left him, and he stayed by the door all the rest of the ceremony. The expression on his face as the gubernatorial party and escort of generals swept up the aisle with him on the side lines was rich. Here was a function at which he was merely a spectator. He must have felt strange. And it was a unique sight for Torontonians, too, after all these years. He was up by the throne the minute the session adjourned, but the crowd was too quick for him, and he only shook hands with fifteen or twenty.

The newspapers all talked about the “gowns” of the spectators. I counted one section of the House, and found 20 blouses. 11 suits and only three gowns.

But I think we’ll have to take a hand in this ceremonial business, Bill. If they are going to have ritual why not have it good? Take the bowing to the Lieutenant-Governor and Mr. Speaker, for instance, as they sit in the throne. Why, it would cause a scandal in our lodge. We’ll have to initiate some of these officials and show ’em what a real obeisance is like.


Editor’s Notes:

  1. Frederick Glackmeyer was the first Sergeant-at-Arms and served 57 years. He served through 16 different Legislatures, under 9 Premiers and 16 different Speakers.  ↩︎
  2. They would interchange the term Prime Minister and Premier back then. Ernest Charles Drury was a farmer, politician and writer who served as the eighth premier of Ontario, from 1919 to 1923 as the head of a United Farmers of Ontario-Labour coalition government. ↩︎
  3. The lieutenant governor at the time was Lionel Herbert Clarke. ↩︎

The Doctor’s Waiting Room

March 6, 1920

City Council Meeting a Symphony in Jazz

Hanged if City Clerk Littlejohn, who has seen 46 Councils come and go, can tell for a minute whether this is 1920 or 1895.

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.

At any rate, he looks like one apart in that circle of fathers.

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!”

“For Heaven’s Sake, Sing!”

Editor’s Notes:

  1. Mrs. Hamilton was the first-ever female city councillor elected in Ontario. ↩︎

A Christmas Tale

December 24, 1920

By Gregory Clark, December 24, 1920.

Once upon a time there were three wise men living in a hole in the ground.

The hole was deep and dark and cold. In the light of one guttering candle the walls of the hole shone wet. And down the steep, rotting, stairway ran little streams of icy water of melted snow. For it was winter, up above this hole in the ground.

In fact, it was Christmas Eve.

And the three wise men crouched close to an old tin pail, which was punched full of holes to be a brazier, and in it burned a feeble fire.

“Cold!” said the first wise man who was wise in the matter of bombs and knobkerries1 and of killing men in the dark.

“Bitter!” said the second, whose wisdom was of maps and places and distances: a man who was never known to be lost in the blackest night In Noman’s Land.

“Cold as Christmas!” added the third, who was wise in the way of food, who had never let himself or his comrades go hungry, but could always find food, no matter how bright the day or how watchful the eyes of quartermasters or French peasants.

“Christmas!” exclaimed the first. “Why, let’s see! Why, to-morrow is Christmas. To-night, boys, is Christmas Eve.”

And the three wise men stared across the brazier silently at each other; so that only the crackle of the feeble fire and the trickle of the icy water down the stairway could be heard.

They stared and stared. Strange expressions came and went in their eyes. Tender expressions. Hard, determined expressions.

“Right now,” said the first man, finally, “my girl will be putting my two little kiddies to bed. And a hard time she is having. They want to stay down stairs to see what all the mysterious bustle is about.”

He paused to put his hands over the little glow of coals. Then added:

“I sent the boy one of them blue French caps, and the girl a doll I got in Aubigny2–“

The second, who had been staring into the glow intently, said softly:

“I haven’t any kids, but my mother will be hanging up one of my old black cashmere socks to-night. She’ll probably fill it with candies and raisins, and send it in my next box. She’s probably now sitting in the red rocking chair, with my picture resting on her knee, humming the way she used to–“

The third wise man, whose eyes were hard and bright, probably thinking of the Christmas dinners he had eaten of old, drew a sharp breath, stared about him at the wet earth walls, at the rotting stairway and the water and filth all around him.

“Christmas!” he cried, in a strained voice. “Think of it! Peace on earth, good will towards men. And here we are, like beasts in our cave, killers, man-hunters, crouching here in this vile, frozen hole until the word is passed and we go out into the night to creep and slay!”

“Steady,” admonished the first.

For the sound of someone slowly descending the rotting wet stairway could be heard.

And into the hole in the ground came a Stranger. He was dressed in plain and mud-spattered uniform. He wore no rank badges or badges of any kind. In fact, he had neither arms nor equipment, which was odd, to say the least, in the forward trenches.

“I heard you talking of Christmas,” he said, “so I just dropped in to wish you the compliments of the season.”

When he removed his helmet, they saw he was fine looking man with kindly face, but pale and weary.

“Thanks,” said the first, moving over. “Edge up to the fire. It ain’t much, but it’s warm, what there is–“

“What unit are you?” asked the second, as the Stranger knelt by the brazier.

“Oh, no particular unit,” replied the Stranger. “I just visit up and down.”

“A padre?” asked the third, respectfully but doubtfully, as he eyed the Stranger’s uniform, which was a private’s, and his fine, gentle face.

“Yes, something of the sort,” replied the Stranger. “You boys were talking about Christmas and home. Go on. Don’t stop for me. I love to hear that sort of thing, once in a while.”

And as he said it, he drew a breath as if in pain; and his face grew whiter.

“Here,” exclaimed the first wise man. “Let me give you a drop of tea. You’re all in.”

And he placed on the brazier his mess tin to warm over a little tea he had left.

“And eat a little, of this,” said the second wise man, handing the stranger a hard army biscuit. “Dry, but it’ll take away that faint feeling.”

“Say, here’s an orange,” said the third, producing a golden fruit from his side pocket. “The last of my loot, but you’re welcome to it.”

The Stranger accepted these gifts with a smile that touched the hearts of the three.

“I am hungry,” he admitted. “And weary. And sick, too, I expect.”

And as he ate and drank, the three wise men continued, with a somewhat more restraint, their talk of Christmas. The Stranger listened eagerly, drinking in each word, each bashful, chuckle of the three.

And at last, the third, reverting defiantly to his original theme, exclaimed:

“But think of it! Christmas, peace on earth; and here we are like wolves in our den! How can we be here, and yet celebrate Christmas? It is unthinkable. What do you say, sir?

And the Stranger, with an expression of pain and a light on his countenance replied:

“The ways of God are hidden from us. But remember this: out of all this suffering, by every divine law, good must come. On Christmases still to be, you men must recall to-night, so that the sacrifice be not forgotten, and a mocking world again betray those who died for ideals.”

The Stranger rose abruptly.

“I must be on my way,” he said. “I have a long way to go to-night.”

And he handed the first wise man the mess tin.

“Hello,” said the first, remarking an ugly scar on the Stranger’s hand. “I see you’ve been wounded.”

“A long time ago,” said the Stranger.

“On the head, too,” observed the second wise man, eyeing a series of small scars on the Stranger’s brow.

“My helmet,” replied the Stranger, “presses heavily.”

And he bade the three good-night.

But as he stepped up the rotting stairway, the three were staring speechless at one another.

“An hungered and ye gave me meat!3” whispered the first. “A stranger, and ye took me in!”

And the three leaped to the foot of the stairway.

But the Stranger had gone.


Editor’s Notes: This is an earlier version of the story published on December 23, 1939, The White Hand.

  1. A knobkerrie is form of wooden club, used mainly in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. ↩︎
  2. Aubigny-sur-Nère is a town in France. ↩︎
  3. This is from Matthew 25:35 in the Bible. The New International Version has it as: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” I’m not sure what version has it as “an hungered”. ↩︎

“Yes ’tis the Sport of Kings”

October 2, 1920

The Office Picnic

July 17, 1920

Apparently, a “fat man’s race” was a common activity at organized picnics at the time.

Trout Fishing Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be–Not This Year!

Swish, thump! Out came a ten-inch beauty.



The Thrills Prove Chiefly to Be in the Anticipation – Farmers’
Minds Seem Hopelessly Confused on Some Things, But One of Them Breaks All the Traditions of Trout Fishing and Catches Three Beauties in Ten Minutes.



By Gregory Clark, May 29, 1920.

When you go trout fishing, take along a good supply of magazines, novels, an indoor baseball outfit and a ouija board.

For, about 2.30 o’clock of the afternoon of your first day on the fishing ground, you will begin to yearn for one or the other of the above forms of recreation.

Trout fishing consists, in the finer aspects, of anticipation and retrospection. There is no finer thrill than in picking early spring model fishworms in your backyard and visioning the swift stream and the flashing speckled jewel you will catch with each squirming wormlet. The planning, the talking it over, poetically, dramatically, with your friends, the packing, the first railway journey of the season – Ah! It is romance!

And the telling of it afterwards. In June, the eleven poor little trout you caught have multiplied to twenty-five. By midsummer, they are, fifty speckled beauties. By autumn, when a sportsman is at his best, from a literary point of view, that stingy little eleven has grown to many creels-full, with a whacking big realistic, dramatic lie attached to every fish.

There are three trout streams to the average trout expedition. The first is the brook you had in mind when you started on the trip. It is fished the first day, when enthusiasm is still high, and before the truth of the old adage about anticipation has sunk in. This first stream, the scene of all your spring dreams, yields three small trout of doubtfully lawful size.

The second stream is the one about four miles away which the natives inform you is full of fish. You visit it the second day, and after landing five three-inch chub, in one hour, you retire to a sunny bank and wait for the gang to re-assemble.

The third type of stream is the fabulous brook in which trout under one pound in weight are seldom if ever caught. The farmers and residents assure you that it is the real thing in trout streams But it is ten miles inland. And its a dirty and difficult stream to fish.

This third type renders up not even a chub. It runs cold and swift, full of dark, log-bound holes where beautiful trout should be lurking. But the most skilful sneaking of your bait in under these shadowy pools results in merely hooking a log.

At least, this was our experience up Lake of Bays way last week-end. We aren’t grouching, understand. We had our share of sport in planning, in the thrill of the journey, the arrival at Huntsville at 2 a.m., and the departure by boat from Huntsville at the still frostier hour of 7 a.m. But we hadn’t along any magazines or baseball kit.

The trout fisherman is advised to fish in the parts of the stream hardest to get at, because the easier places have been fished out. We tried that. We fought through acres of underbush and swamp and then found our rods were too long. They caught the line on all kinds of unexpected twigs. It is all nonsense to say that trees have no intelligence. After one day’s trout fishing, anyone who would say that all those branches grew where they were merely by chance is lacking in spiritual perception. Trees, especially alders, have a sense of humor, too.

Well, well! So we shortened our rods, and then found we couldn’t reach the best holes. About then, we began to yearn for a snappy detective story.

The confusion in the minds of the farmers and residents in the trout neighborhood is alarming. In the same family, father will say it is too cold for the trout to bite; son will say, it is too warm. At one farmhouse on the third or fabulous stream, where we were to get nothing but, one-pounders, the farmer said the trout hadn’t come up from the lake yet, and five minutes later, his wife assured us that the trout hadn’t come down from the spring sources yet.

Over near Baysville, I fished the second day until I had landed four chub out of a 500-yard stretch of creek. Not a trout did I flush. Not a fingerling. So I retired to a sunny bank and smoked, awaiting the gang’s return.

Down to the corduroy bridge came a young farmer and his small boy and a dog.

“Gettin’ any?” he asked, amiably.

“No. Not biting to-day. Too cold” I replied.

“Well, I’m counting on a couple for supper,” said he.

From behind a stump, he drew from concealment a seven-foot alder pole with a hook and line on it. Out of his vest pocket he produced a worm. The little boy scampered up and down the creek, peering and yelling into the pools I had so warily stalked. The dog excitedly followed the boy, barking at the creek. Dad threw his bait in and – swish, thump! Out came a ten-inch beauty. In 40 yards, be performed this deed three times, whistled for his boy and his dog, replaced his pole in hiding, bade me good evening and went home to a trout supper.

As soon as he was out of sight, I arose from the sunny bank and fished that stream inch by inch, carefully, carelessly; sneaking up to it one time, and standing boldly exposed the next; even yelling like a small boy and barking like a dog. But all I got was one pallid chub.

Where’s the sense in this, anyway?

However, the second phase of trout-fishing, retrospection, sets in early. When we got on the boat to go back to Huntsville, the purser asked us if we had any luck. And without collusion and nary a blush, we jovially assured him we had never had better sport, and we led him to believe our hand-bags were full of trout. By the time we reached the town, among the forty-odd passengers, we were pointed out as ardent trout experts returning from the kill. And thereupon began to form in our minds next autumn’s thundering tales of grand battles amid the alder groves of gleaming brooks.

At the hotel in Huntsville, we found two Presbyterian ministers standing beside a wooden box that was leaking water on the floor. They had ordinary 50-cent brass-jointed bamboo rods tied with string.

We manoeuvred into converse with them.

“Fish?” we asked, glancing at the big leaky box.

“Yes,” they said. “Speckled trout. We only had a couple of days, and we only got seventy. And now, it the ice doesn’t hold out, we’re afraid they might spoil.”

They were ministers. We had to believe them.

Engaged

May 15, 1920

Booze-Running Had its Humors and its Tragedies

An old man in the next chair glared out from behind his paper.

When it was Illegal to Import Spirits from Montreal There was an “Underground Railway” in Operation, Which Succeeded Many Times in Beating the Police, But Which Also Enriched the City Treasury by $500.000 – A Few of the Funniest Stories that are Told.

By Gregory Clark, January 10, 1920.

Now that liquor can be imported legally into Ontario1, some of the tales pertaining to the illegal importation of booze may safely be told.

Sober citizens have snapped their fingers, during the past four years, and said:

“Pah! There is more drinking nowadays than ever before! Liquor is coming into this town by the carload. The police don’t even pretend to stop it. Why, I know four places right now that I can phone to, and have a bottle of whiskey delivered here in five minutes.”

We all know this sober citizen. Needless to say, if he had really known of four such miraculous places, he wouldn’t have been wearing such an old hat. He could have sold his information and made a fortune.

No, the majority of such romancers were either highly imaginative extopers2, who, in the dire dessication of modern times, permitted themselves a free fancy; or merely wise guys of that old type which knows of so many wicked and thrilling places, but which seems content to remain in the haunts of ordinary and gullible men.

Nevertheless, that there have been underground routes for liquor, everyone knows. The whiffs of half-forgotten odors that we occasionally got on street cars were not all from doctor’s prescriptions. The hilarious gentleman on the night-car hadn’t been sitting at a sick-bed. And we all know of somebody who has a friend who safely wangled one lone bottle of rye in his suitcase from Montreal.

Taxicab drivers have been accused of being Toronto’s liveliest source of illicit liquor. All you had to do, the wise guy said, was to phone a taxi stand and the bottle was yours.

We asked one of Toronto’s senior police officials about the underground of liquor traffic.

“Did it exist?” we asked.

“It did,” said he.

“Why wasn’t it stopped like the underground drug traffic?”

“Because,” said the official, “in the drug traffic, there are a few crooks engaged in a sly business. They are hard to find, but once found, are easily squashed.

“But when crooks, bootleggers, lawyers, financiers, professors, bankers, clubmen, business men, aldermen, and even a few church officials all engaged whole-heartedly in the jovial game of booze-smuggling, the police, numerically inferior, were up against a big job. Some liquor was bound to leak in. To say that the police have done nothing is hardly exact. Their activities in Toronto alone, in the past three years, have cost the cosmopolitan booze runners over half a million dollars.”

The first and most popular method of smuggling liquor into Ontario was by freight.

The liquor, cunningly disguised as anything from a bale of hay to a human corpse, was addressed to the consignee who ordered it. Any article of merchandise big enough to contain a quart of whiskey was utilized as camouflage by the imaginative smugglers. The police and Inland Revenue Officers kept as close tab on these methods as was possible. But to probe every item of freight entering Ontario would have necessitated the remobilization of the C. E. F3.

One of the cutest ideas was a dozen cases of Scotch shipped as human body. The whiskey was in a beautiful black coffin inside the shipping box, just to allay suspicion. A case where the body was absent but the spirit present.

The second most profitable system, according to record, was by means of motor cars or lorries. To motor to Montreal or neighboring ports, load up at the alleged hoards, and drive home, was said to have been as easy as rolling off a log. But it had its comedies of error, too.

A Toronto military man decided to replenish his cellar. He drove in his touring car to Montreal, loaded up with $300 worth of assorted delicacies and started home. Outside Belleville, his car skidded into a ditch.

Presidently along came a flivver.

“Quit hoggin’ the hull highway!” yelled its two occupants at the Toronto man. And they got out of their flivver to investigate the Toronto man’s predicament.

While giving him the benefit of their advice, they casually noted the square contents of the ditched car, said contents being vainly covered with rugs.

“Excuse me,” said one of the strangers, “but I’m the county constable. Pardon me if I seem to examine your cargo.”

Luck? Merely luck. The Toronto man was soaked $500 and costs at the nearest court of competent jurisdiction, and the assorted delicacies were confiscated.

The third method of importation was by hand. The police have uncovered many schemes for concealing liquor about the body in hollow metal body shields. But the ordinary suitcase, handbag and trunk were the principal means used.

A Toronto traveling-man, finding himself in Montreal with an empty sample trunk, decided to load it up with liquor. He did so. He had it carefully deposited at the station, and hung around till he saw it safe on board. Then he took a seat in the coach nearest the baggage car, and at every stop between Montreal and Toronto, he hung out the window to make sure that his precious trunk was not put off.

Arriving at the Union Station, he trolled unconcernedly into the baggage room to claim his trunk. Picture his horror when he found his trunk set to one side in the “excess baggage” corner.

He figured he was found out, and that the police had set it aside, awaiting to pinch him as soon as he claimed it.

He was sick with disappointment. But he remembered he had a good friend high up in the railway company. Rushing to his office, he telephoned this friend, confessing all.

“And they’ve set my trunk aside,” he said. “You get it out, and I give you a good share of the contents”

“Sure,” said his friend. “Don’t worry. I’ll do what I can.”

And sure enough that afternoon, the precious sample trunk was delivered up to its owner’s home.

Feverishly, he opened it. It was empty!

Not a smell of liquor in it. Who had done this wicked thing: someone on the train, in the station, or was it his friend?

But the joke was on the traveling man. He could not kick4.

That was more than half the humor of the smuggling game. Whatever happened, one couldn’t raise a kick. Being contraband, liquor could be stolen with impunity.

Two friends were on the train coming from Montreal. Each had a bottle of whiskey in his grip5. They were in the smoking car.

“Look here,” whispered one to the other, “why should both of us run the risk of being caught. You put my bottle in with yours and then if you’re caught, I’ll split the fine with you. You’ll find my satchel back behind my seat.

“Shoot,” whispered the other. “That’s the talk. I’ll do it.”

But into the parlor car he went, drew his friend’s handbag from under the seat and quietly and stealthily withdrew the bottle of liquor from it.

An old man opposite suddenly looked out from behind his paper and beheld this action, glared at him but said nothing.

“Caught, sure,” said the traveler who felt the gaze of his fellow-passenger piercing his very vitals. “That fellow’s a detective and I’ll be pinched as soon as I arrive in Toronto.”

But nothing happened.

On arriving at their hotel, the two travelers opened their grips.

“Hello!” said the one, “I thought you put my bottle of whiskey in your grip!”

“So I did,” replied the other, producing two bottles from his bag.

In silent astonishment, the other produced a bottle from his.

“Great Scotch!” cried the first, “I must have opened that detective’s bag by mistake!”

He had. And the other chap, not knowing who the others might be, the was powerless to raise an objection. He happened to be staying at the same hotel, but when the friends hunted him up and returned the bottle he failed to see the joke.

“Whole carloads of whiskey have disappeared in transit,” say the police “If a foxy railway employe discovers a car of whiskey labelled sewing machines, and can sidetrack that car, he is fairly safe in assuming that the owners of the car, fearing they are discovered, will not raise a run holler.”

As the ravens fed Elijah, so did a jocular fate bring a grateful gift to a little village outside Toronto.

This little village is one of those way-stations which closes up at night, even the locals passing it swiftly by. The station agent goes home about nine o’clock in the evening.

One night, not long ago, a freight car was quietly sided at this station, The agent had gone home. All was silent.

About midnight, one of the village worthies, on his way home, passed the station.

Now this man had sort of a sixth sense. He could smell liquor through a cement vault,

He felt his spine tingling and his hair rising as he passed the station.

“Spirits!” he said, softly.

Just to see if his senses had betrayed him, he came over and investigated the lone box car.

Sure enough, it was packed full of cases of whiskey.

Here was a problem.

“This liquor,” argued the villager with himself, “is contraband. Some wicked man is trying to smuggle this liquor into the country. Is he going to get away with it? Well, not with all of it!”

And the villager hastened to the home of another villager. A working party was secretly assembled, and several buggies, democrats and Bain wagons6 came in the night to the lone freight car.

A working party was secretly assembled, and several buggies, democrats and Bain wagons came in the night to the lone freight car.

In the morning, the station agent, on arriving, found a freight car the siding, broken open, and about a quarter full of cases of whiskey. He Immediately notified railway headquarters and that afternoon a number of officials and police appeared on the scene.

The police scoured the village for the looted liquor. Suspect after suspect was visited. At several places, where they were cheerfully shown over the premises, they were given a quiet snort by the jovial owners. In fact, the police were of the opinion that nowhere had they encountered a village the cellars of which were go well stocked. And such fine, amiable people, too! But a hoard of looted liquor was nowhere to be found.

The police finally gave up the search, deciding that in all probability, some professional gang of booze runners from the city had arranged to have the car side-tracked at the village, and had motored out and taken most of their haul, leaving some because of daylight.

And the village concurs in this theory.


Editor’s Notes:

  1. Even though Prohibition was in effect in Ontario, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had ruled in 1896 that provinces do not have the authority to prohibit the importation of alcohol. Quebec allowed alcohol at the time. This loophole was closed in the 1921 referendum. ↩︎
  2. I’m not sure if this is a typo, I cannot find the definition of this word. ↩︎
  3. The Canadian Expeditionary Force from World War One. ↩︎
  4. Slang for “complain”. ↩︎
  5. Slang for “suitcase”. ↩︎
  6. Democrats and Bain wagons were types of horse drawn carriages. ↩︎

Afraid to Go Home

December 11, 1920

This drawing went with a short article advertising the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund, a charity for the poor. The article talks of the unemployed father who finds it hard to go home to the family for the Christmas season with nothing. It still runs every year, and you can donate at the link above.

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