Beyond Brutal Passions: Prostitution in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal 9780773583887

Citation preview

B E YO N D B R U TA L PA S S I O N S

Études d’histoire du Québec / Studies on the History of Quebec Magda Fahrni et/and Jarrett Rudy Directeurs de la collection / Series Editors

1 Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal Louise Dechêne 2 Crofters and Habitants Settler Society, Economy, and Culture in a Quebec Township, 1848–1881 J.I. Little 3 The Christie Seigneuries Estate Management and Settlement in the Upper Richelieu Valley, 1760–1859 Francoise Noel 4 La Prairie en Nouvelle-France, 1647–1760 Louis Lavallée 5 The Politics of Codification The Lower Canadian Civil Code of 1866 Brian Young 6 Arvida au Saguenay Naissance d’une ville industrielle José E. Igartua 7 State and Society in Transition The Politics of Institutional Reform in the Eastern Townships, 1838–1852 J.I. Little

8 Vingt ans après Habitants et marchands Lectures de l’histoire des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles canadiens Habitants et marchands, Twenty Years Later Reading the History of Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Canada Edited by Sylvie Dépatie, Catherine Desbarats, Danielle Gauvreau, Mario Lalancette, Thomas Wien 9 Les récoltes des forêts publiques au Québec et en Ontario, 1840–1900 Guy Gaudreau 10 Carabins ou activistes? L’idéalisme et la radicalisation de la pensée étudiante à l’Université de Montréal au temps du duplessisme Nicole Neatby 11 Families in Transition Industry and Population in NineteenthCentury Saint-Hyacinthe Peter Gossage 12 The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec Colin M. Coates 13 Amassing Power J.B. Duke and the Saguenay River, 1897–1927 David Massell

14 Making Public Pasts The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories, 1891–1930 Alan Gordon

23 The Empire Within Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal Sean Mills

15 A Meeting of the People School Boards and Protestant Communities in Quebec, 1801–1998 Roderick MacLeod and Mary Anne Poutanen

24 Quebec Hydropolitics The Peribonka Concessions of the Second World War David Massell

16 A History for the Future Rewriting Memory and Identity in Quebec Jocelyn Létourneau 17 C’était du spectacle ! L’histoire des artistes transsexuelles à Montréal, 1955–1985 Viviane Namaste 18 The Freedom to Smoke Tobacco Consumption and Identity Jarrett Rudy 19 Vie et mort du couple en Nouvelle-France Québec et Louisbourg au XVIIIe siècle Josette Brun

25 Patrician Families and the Making of Quebec The Taschereaus and McCords Brian Young 26 Des sociétés distinctes Gouverner les banlieues bourgeoises de Montréal, 1880–1939 Harold Bérubé 27 Nourrir la machine humaine Nutrition et alimentation au Québec, 1860–1945 Caroline Durand 28 Why Did We Choose to Industrialize? Montreal, 1819–1849 Robert C.H. Sweeny

20 Fous, prodigues, et ivrognes Familles et déviance à Montréal au XIXe siècle Thierry Nootens

29 Techniciens de l’organisation sociale La réorganisation de l’assistance catholique privée à Montréal (1930–1974) Amélie Bourbeau

21 Done with Slavery The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760–1840 Frank Mackey

30 Beyond Brutal Passions Prostitution in Early NineteenthCentury Montreal Mary Anne Poutanen

22 Le concept de liberté au Canada à l’époque des Révolutions atlantiques, 1776–1838 Michel Ducharme

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b e yo n d brutal pa s s i o n s Prostitution in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal

Mary Anne Poutanen

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston

•

London

•

Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2015 isbn isbn isbn isbn

978-0-7735-4533-5 (cloth) 978-0-7735-4534-2 (paper) 978-0-7735-8388-7 (epdf) 978-0-7735-8390-0 (epub)

Legal deposit third quarter 2015 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Poutanen, Mary Anne, 1952–, author Beyond brutal passions : prostitution in early nineteenth-century Montreal / Mary Anne Poutanen. (Études d’histoire du Québec = Studies on the history of Quebec ; 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-4533-5 (bound).–isbn 978-0-7735-4534-2 (paperback).– isbn 978-0-7735-8388-7 (epdf).–isbn 978-0-7735-8390-0 (epub) 1. Prostitution – Québec (Province) – Montréal – History – 19th century. 2. Prostitutes – Québec (Province) – Montréal – History – 19th century. 3. Montréal (Québec) – Social conditions – 19th century. 4. Montréal (Québec) – History – 19th century. I. Title. II. Series: Studies on the history of Quebec ; 30 hq150.m6p69 2015

306.7409714'2709034

c2015-901999-0 c2015-902000-x

To Jorge

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Contents

Images and Figures / xi Acknowledgments / xv Introduction Brutal Passions and Beyond: Locating Women’s Experiences in the Montreal Judicial Archives / 3

PAR T I

Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces 1 Disorderly Women and Disorderly Houses: The Social Geography of Prostitution / 33 2 At Home in the Brothel: The Household Economy and Residential Prostitution / 77 3 Kinship, Friendship, and Community: Street Prostitution, Homelessness, and Subsistence Strategies / 132

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PAR T I I

Between Law and Custom: Regulating Prostitution 4 Seeking Justice: Plaintiffs, Prostitution Laws, and Legal Procedures / 177 5 Policing Prostitution: Peace Officers, Prostitutes, and Ambiguity / 209 6 Judging Prostitutes: Encounters, Strategies, and Outcomes at Court / 249 7 Correcting Prostitutes: Harsh Punishment for Brutal Passions / 277 Conclusion: Discourse, Everyday Life, and Women’s Agency / 314 Notes / 321 Bibliography / 373 Index / 397

Images and Figures

Images 1.1 View of the Champs de Mars, Montreal. Robert Auchmuty Sproule, 1830. McCord Museum of Canadian History / 49 1.2 Montreal Plan Showing Position of All Government Buildings. R.J. Pilkingston, 1852. Library and Archives Canada, nmc17515 / 51 1.3 Marché de la Basse-Ville, Montreal en 1829. James Pattison Cockburn, 1829. Library and Archives Canada, Mikan 2896519 / 53 1.4 Nelson’s Monument and Market Place, Montreal. James Pattison Cockburn, 1829. Library and Archives Canada, r9266-154 / 55 1.5 St Ann’s Market. James Duncan, 1839. McCord Museum of Canadian History, m15949.18 / 56 1.6 Priests’ Farm. Charles Dawson Shanly, 1847. McCord Museum of Canadian History m971.171 / 63 3.1 1825 map showing footprint of the Magdalene Asylum. Terriers de l’Ile de Montreal, Boite 6, Terrier de Faubourg Saint-Joseph, Plans des lots 295 à 298, avm / 156 6.1 The Montreal Court House, 1801–1844. Court House. Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, facing page 157 / 255 7.1 The Common Gaol, 1818–36. Old Jail. Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, facing page 157 / 283 7.2 The New Gaol, 1836–1912. New Jail. Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, facing page 157 / 288

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7.3 Interior of the New Gaol. 1837–1838, Cellules d’emprisonnement. J.B. Legacé, 1840? Archives nationales du Québec à Québec, p600, s5, pqa6 / 288

Figures 1.1 Faubourgs of nineteenth-century Montreal. Map by Sherry Olson and Philippe Desaulniers / 59 1.2 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1810–29. Map by Sherry Olson and Philippe Desaulniers / 66 1.3 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1830–37. Map by Sherry Olson and Philippe Desaulniers / 67 1.4 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1838–42. Map by Sherry Olson and Philippe Desaulniers / 68 1.5 Vitré Street neighbourhood. Map by Sherry Olson and Philippe Desaulniers / 70 2.1 Marital status of female keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 83 2.2 Marital status of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 83 2.3 Ethnicity of female keepers of disorderly houses and prostitutes, 1810–42 / 88 2.4 Ethnicity of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 88 2.5 Occupational status of female keepers of disorderly houses and prostitutes, 1810–42 / 90 2.6 Occupational status of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 92 3.1 Marital status of street prostitutes, 1810–42 / 136 3.2 Ethnicity of street prostitutes, 1810–42 / 139 4.1 Relationship of plaintiffs to keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 200 4.2 Time between arrest and bail, 1810–42 / 206 4.3 Time between imprisonment and discharge, 1810–42 / 207 5.1 Number of street prostitutes arrested each year, 1810–42 / 221 5.2 Number of street prostitutes arrested each month in Montreal, 1810–42 / 223

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5.3 Number of women and men arrested in disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 225 5.4 Public order offences, Montreal Police Court, 1838–42 / 235 6.1 Outcome of disorderly house complaints, 1810–42 / 269 7.1 Prison sentences of women convicted of streetwalking, 1810–42 / 303 7.2 Prison sentences of women and men convicted of keeping disorderly houses, 1810–42 / 305

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Acknowledgments

This book has taken a very long time to write. Although the process of producing a manuscript entails considerable solitude, frustration when you sit staring at a blank computer screen, and elation after you write a paragraph, page, or chapter, it is not created in a vacuum. Over the years, family, friends, mentors, colleagues, archivists, and students have contributed enormously to this project in diverse ways. The publication of this book allows me, at long last, to recognize their support. There is always the risk that I may have left someone out and for this I apologize. Beyond Brutal Passions, which began as a doctoral dissertation directed by Bettina Bradbury at the Université de Montréal, has been rewritten to incorporate post-doctoral research on vagrancy, petty theft, and alcohol consumption. I owe a huge debt to Bettina, who, with her patience, grace, encouragement, pragmatism, intellectual meticulousness, and compassion for the subjects she studies, played a large part in my completing this project. Bettina not only read the entire manuscript but made critical comments on earlier versions of the chapters. That being said, I take full responsibility for any errors that remain. Often the borders between thesis director, mentors, colleagues, and friends are indistinguishable. With this in mind, I am grateful to Denyse Baillargeon, Amélie Bourbeau, Sonia Cancian, Liz Kirkland, Andrée Lévesque, Tamara Myers, Sonya Roy, Judith Szapor, Brian Young, and Stacey Zembrzycki (who read the introduction) for their support and certainty that Beyond Brutal Passions was a worthwhile

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work and would contribute to the history of women in Québec and in Canada. I hope I have not let them down. I thank Deborah Rosenfeld, who so long ago in London fostered my pursuit of university studies in Montreal. I am also grateful to Dr Marie Steinberg, whose wisdom, support, and explorations liberated me to pursue this project with renewed vigour. Tamara Myers’ friendship has helped in many ways to make this book possible. The countless occasions we spent over lattes, glasses of wine, and good food discussing research and writing – and the despair and joy they engender – feminism, and the delights as well as the poignancies of daily life kept things in perspective. She took time in her incredibly busy schedule to read parts of the manuscript. Rod MacLeod has been a model of patience and good writing and I thank him for his encouragement, discussions about Montreal, and collaboration. Sherry Olson made the maps, provided valuable data from Montréal, l’avenir du passé (map), took me under her wing as a mentor and friend, and sought to make a social scientist out of me. I apologize publically for letting her down but am grateful to her for not giving up on me. Thanks also to Philippe Desaulniers of Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises at the Université Laval for readying the maps for the book. It was in conversation with Catherine Desbarats that the title for the book emerged. Carolynn McNally helped me prepare the manuscript for the publishers with skill, patience, and cheerfulness. Dan Horner, Darcy Ingram, Valerie Minnett, and Steven Watt contributed to the archival research that informs this book. Staff at the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec à Montréal, Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, the McCord Museum, the McGill Archives, and the Nahum Gelber Law Library, the Osler Library of the History of Medicine, and the Rare Book Room of the McLennan Library at McGill generously facilitated my research. I am pleased to acknowledge the assistance of Gordon Burr at McGill’s Archives, Pierre Cousineau at the Ministère de Justice centre des préarchivages, Conrad Graham and François Cartier at the McCord Museum, Patricia Kennedy at Library and Archives Canada, Evelyn Kolish at the the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec à Montréal, and Pamela Miller and Christopher Lyons at McGill’s Osler Library.

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The research for this book was supported by fcar, sshrc standard research grants, fqrsc research grants, and by a post-doctoral fellowship from the Montreal History Group. An aspp grant made publication possible. At McGill-Queen’s University Press I thank series editors Magda Fahrni and Jarrett Rudy, editor-in-chief Jonathan Crago, managing editor Ryan Van Huijstee, and editor Joan McGilvray, whose interventions as well as sage advice and observations guided me toward a much-improved monograph. I am especially grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for the attention they gave to this manuscript and the constructive spirit in which they made their comments. It is a far better book as a consequence. I am very fortunate to have many intellectual homes where friends, colleagues, and mentors are made, ideas are debated, and history gets written: the Department of History and Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability at Concordia University and the Programme d’Études sur le Québec, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, and the Montreal History Group at McGill University. I consider my membership in the mhg a privilege. A socialist-feminist research collective, it has offered me an indispensable space, filled with intellectual nourishment and amity, in which to become a historian. Richard Rice, Robert Sweeny, and Brian Young invited me to join the Montreal Business History Project as an undergraduate student at McGill and I never left. I have benefited enormously from the passion for history, excellent scholarship, and generous support of all of mhg’s members, which include, among others, Bettina Bradbury, Magda Fahrni, Brian Gettler, Karine Hébert, Daniel Horner, Nicolas Kenny, MaudeEmanuelle Lambert, Andrée Lévesque, Sean Mills, Tamara Myers, Stéphanie O’Neill, Valérie Poirier, Amanda Ricci, Jarrett Rudy, Daniel Simeone, Sylvie Taschereau, and Brian Young. I will be forever indebted to members, past and present, for all that they have given me, which I am certain I can never repay. I include Donald Fyson, with whom I shared so many hours in the archives studying criminal justice documents and in restaurants and at home engaged in lengthy discussions about their significance. Don generously shared his data and responded graciously to frantic last-minute telephone calls in the preparation of the book. So too did Alan Stewart. I thank him as well

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for guiding me through the archives de la Ville de Montreal and the historical geography of the city. Stéphan Gervais at the Programme d’Études sur le Québec and at the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en études montrealaises offered me a welcoming place to work, encouraged my interest in interdisciplinary studies, and provided an indispensible model of intellect and affability. Will Straw at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada furnished another intellectual home from which to teach. At Concordia’s Department of History and Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, I thank all the faculty members and staff who in various ways helped to turn me into a teacher, a colleague, and a scholar. They include, among many, Peter Gossage, Steven High, Norman Ingram, Nora Jaffary, Barbara Lorenzkowski, Shannon McSheffrey, Rosemarie Shade, and Donna Whittaker. Beyond Brutal Passions, from doctoral research and dissertation to manuscript, has been a part of family life for far too long. I thank my sister, Lynda Poutanen, and partner, Jack Sherrard, for their love, encouragement, phone calls, and flowers. My father, Waino Poutanen, wanted his daughters educated and independent but never got the chance to see and celebrate our post-secondary pursuits. My mother, Mary Stadey Poutanen, helped out when it was most needed but owing to illness cannot comprehend how much that has meant to me. To my mother-in-law, Linda Cosoff Palacios, and late father-in-law, Agustin Palacios Lopez, both of whom read my thesis, I treasure their support of and enthusiasm for all of my academic endeavours. My son, Daniel Palacios, has lived with this project his entire life and, rather than rejecting graduate studies as a seemingly endless quest with no end in sight, is presently pursuing a master’s program in Neuroscience. I hope he saw my passion for the project and determination to complete it. I thank him for making the tables for the book and uploading the images. It is to my partner, Jorge Palacios Boix, a constant source of emotional support, encouragement, pragmatism, intellectual rigour, and so much more, that I dedicate this book with love.

B E YO N D B R U TA L PA S S I O N S

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I NTRODUCTION

Brutal Passions and Beyond Locating Women’s Experiences in the Montreal Judicial Archives

Sarah Noxon’s house of prostitution on Dubord Street was well situated. Dubord Street, a short, out-of-the-way, lane-like thoroughfare in Faubourg St-Laurent, Montreal’s oldest suburb, dated back a century and was close to the centre of town. The neighbourhood’s large male population – predominantly labourers, sailors, and soldiers – provided an endless source of clients; the Quebec Gate Barracks was approximately six blocks south, a mere ten-minute walk for any soldier who wished to indulge in his “brutal passions” with the prostitutes who worked there. The brothel was far enough from the usual police patrol route to avoid unwanted scrutiny but close enough to make it easy to obtain assistance if necessary. As the proprietor of “Chez Sal,” Noxon would have been keenly aware of the risks inherent in her line of work. In January 1830, however, this ideal location was not sufficient to protect her. One evening, as she was about to fasten the outside door of her establishment, she noticed a small gathering of people, wearing hooded cloaks that concealed their identity, standing in front of the entrance. Without warning, a man fired a pistol, wounding her in the left arm. He then followed her into the house, uttering threats before exiting abruptly and firing two more shots. Someone else threw stones at the building, shattering a windowpane, before the group eventually dispersed. Noxon responded to this assault by laying a complaint before Police Magistrate Samuel Gale against merchant clerk James Niles and apothecary clerk Daniel Daly. Gale charged them both with maiming.

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Beyond Brutal Passions

According to court documents, these events were part of a complicated narrative involving a prostitute who worked in another establishment, a jealous lover, the possible consequences of vigorous competitive business practices, and a small party of men who began their evening at Tobias Denack’s Eating House, where the accused purportedly loaded their pistols, and ended it at Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland’s1 bawdy house. Noxon herself linked the violence to an incident that had taken place three weeks earlier when Rosalie Beaulieu, a prostitute who worked at Lucie Rolland’s brothel, located in the same neighbourhood, had smashed one of Noxon’s windows and threatened to shoot her if she went near or spoke to George Rea, one of her patrons: “C’est moi Rosalie Beaulieu qui a jetté une pierre chez toi, et si tu vas et si tu parles avec mon ami, je te brulerai la cervelle à coup de pistolet.”2 In the investigation that followed the shooting, the defendents, James Niles and Daniel Daly, claimed that Rea had pointed out “Chez Sal” to them,3 which suggests that they had not previously patronized Noxon’s establishment. Depositions by Lenoir dite Rolland and Rosalie Beaulieu also reveal that Niles and Daly’s final stop that night was Lucie Rolland’s house of prostitution on StDenis Street where, still in possession of the pistols, they spent the night with Rosalie Beaulieu and Adélaide Laliberté.4 Sarah Noxon’s experience with the two accused demonstrates that the classic paradigm of violence between a client and a prostitute tells only part of the story and that relationships among sex workers, neighbours, and clients required tact and strategies to defuse tensions and reduce risk. Moreover, it was not only men who made threats and committed violent acts against women associated with sex commerce – prostitutes did so as well. Furthermore, Noxon’s private prosecution of the alleged perpetrators discloses both her agency and its limitations. The seriousness of the injury led to the case being heard in the Court of King’s Bench. At court, James Niles and Daniel Daly not only plead not guilty but brought a prestigious group of Montreal newspaper editors and merchants, including David Handlow, Thomas A. Turner, Horatio Gates, and Benjamin Workman, as character witnesses. By contrast, the crown’s witnesses were brothelkeepers Sarah Noxon and Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland as well as prostitute Adélaide Laliberté. The jury found the defendants not guilty.5 The incident underscores the everyday work experience of brothel-

Introduction

5

keepers, with its possibilities for potential and real violence, convoluted relationships with other brothel-keepers, prostitutes, neighbours, and men, and need to establish and promote judicious rapport with those with whom they came into contact. Beyond Brutal Passions is a social history of heterosexual prostitution in early nineteenth-century Montreal. It explores the complicated interactions between women accused of prostitution and their families, neighbours, and representatives of the criminal justice system and examines the ways in which Montreal women turned to sex commerce, either full-time as prostitutes and brothel-keepers or part-time as casual acts, at a time when the city and region were undergoing significant upheaval associated with changes in work, demography, and geography as well as in attitudes and laws governing social regulation and enforcement. To maintain good relationships with neighbours and with each other, brothel-keepers and prostitutes had to negotiate the expected normative behaviours of the different communities in which they lived and worked. Sex workers also derived support and protection through the relationships they established with each other. While the intimacy of the brothel encouraged such comradery, homeless streetwalkers also formed bonds of kinship, friendship, and solidarity, sometimes in female communities or with male vagrants and soldiers, sharing resources, food, and shelter. Street prostitutes also established diverse relationships with peace officers, with whom they shared public space. Using both a quantitative and qualitative approach, I argue that women’s sexual behaviour was an expression of agency that was later criminalized by families who sought to correct errant daughters, sisters, and wives; neighbours who initiated the private prosecution of those who transgressed local practices; policemen who stepped into a vacated patriarchal role to discipline single women seemingly outside the influence of fathers; justices of the peace who judged those charged; and even prostitutes themselves, who wished to limit business competition or restrain the behaviour of others involved in marketing sex. Members of a July 1836 grand jury of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, however, had a very different point of view of sex commerce in Montreal and were unanimous in their judgment that prostitutes who worked in city brothels were gratifying their “brutal passions.”6 The city’s elites held similar opinions about street

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Beyond Brutal Passions

prostitutes. Only a few months earlier, the editor of Montreal’s Gazette had described streetwalkers as “horde[s] of female profligates.”7 The grand jury’s facile condemnation of sexual transgression left little room for consideration of the complex daily encounters between prostitutes and residents.8 Moreover, the jurors’ characterization of such sexual activity as “brutish” reflects an ideological view of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality born of a moral discourse that casts aspersions on labouring or popular-class women and men while ignoring the sexual passion found in many relationships, regardless of class.9 Such rhetoric reflected the class and gender chauvinism of male elites, who were especially critical of the labouring classes, believing that they not only had their own set of values, which often ran counter to those of the upper class, but that popular-class women were far too interested in sex and not sufficiently restrained.10 The basis of such discourses, as French historian Alain Corbin has argued for nineteenth-century France, lay in a belief in women’s rapacious sexual appetite, epitomized by sterile and menopausal females who continued to be sexually active despite their inability to procreate and by single women and widows who engaged in sexual relations on their own instigation. As a consequence, men sought to restrain women’s sexuality: “Women who were ‘wild with their bodies’ constituted a dangerous threat to the male sex and a dreadful example to virtuous wives; if prostitutes acted out of thirst for money, the order of wealth and the social hierarchies would be imperiled.”11 The conflation of these beliefs about the popular classes, single women, and sexual passion led to the accepted view that women’s sexuality had to be contained through regulation and punishment by the police and justices of the peace respectively to avoid becoming a dangerous model for other unmarried women. Recognizing this construct of popular-class sexual transgression exposes the divide between bourgeois prescriptive discourses and women’s everyday experiences, The focus of the study therefore moves beyond rhetoric about “brutal passions” to a reconstitution of aspects of the daily lives of women accused of prostitution-related offences. British historian Tony Henderson’s call for “a history of prostitution that escapes from the domination of those who placed themselves in authority over prostitutes – the agents of the law and the moralisers,” informs this study. He reminds us that the institu-

Introduction

7

tions that disciplined women’s sexuality – from the court and prison to Magdalene Asylum – touched only a part of women’s lives.12 Such women’s everyday experiences on the streets, at home, and in neighbourhoods involved not only the police, justices of the peace, court clerks, and prison authorities who comprised the criminal justice system but also neighbours, family members, other prostitutes, and clients. These various negotiated relationships provide both a counterweight to the powers exercised by the local state at the level of criminal justice and a challenge to a monolithic view of how they operated. British historians David Eastwood and David Philips argue that the state in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century England was much more dynamic than scholars have acknowledged, sometimes taking different normative positions in its various roles.13 I follow Quebec historian Donald Fyson in placing the complex interactions between the women at the lower levels of criminal justice whose voices and experiences I seek to explore, the law, and the community – “the banal, the routine, the ordinary, the everyday” – at the heart of this book.14 The study thus has much broader ramifications than increasing our knowledge about sex commerce: it also provides a window onto aspects of popular-class private life such as family and marital relations, informal divorce, and relationships between neighbours, male and female alike, and offers glimpses into aspects of both popular-class and middle-class masculine behaviour. Moral discourses furnished elites with a frame of reference to analyze, rationalize, and judge the behaviour of others. In the world of early nineteenth-century Montreal, such rhetoric provided a language in which to express anxieties about popular-class women, their sexuality, and prostitution through social commentary, as well as a justification to enact laws, restrict benevolence to those defined as “respectable,” and sit in judgment in the courts where alleged prostitutes often ended up. Moral discourse structured an elite belief system in which popular-class women and their sexuality were condemned, disciplined, and pursued at law through accusations of prostitution, which served to reinforce social hierarchies and vindicate bourgeois authority. Sex commerce in Montreal spawned anxieties that were often articulated through assertions of rationality and, in a colonial context, of racial superiority. In their encounters with local authority, women

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Beyond Brutal Passions

accused of prostitution became racialized subjects or “the Other” and thus unable to carry out the civilizing tasks of domesticating white men, for whom they were supposed to serve as a moral influence.15 I draw on the work of Philippa Levine, who has argued that British colonial authorities sought to contain white women’s sexuality within marriage, motherhood, and domesticity as an antidote to what was understood to be the naturally excessive and wandering libidos of colonial men and in an attempt to promote British middleclass rationality and racial superiority vis-à-vis indigenous peoples and the labouring classes.16 Sex commerce in Montreal, while outside these limits, was understood to be a necessary evil to protect the women who were expected to keep men’s so-called vigorous sexuality in check. The work of Michel Foucault is especially important in understanding how and why colonial authorities and other local elites sought to circumscribe and reinforce new standards of sexual behaviour associated with the development of capitalism. Foucault argues that the bourgeoisie endorsed only one model of adult marital sexuality: “A single locus of sexuality was acknowledged in social space as well as at the heart of every household, but it was a utilitarian and fertile one: the parents’ bedroom.”17 In this way, sexuality was first problematised, then reordered, and finally condemned to whispers or silences. Foucault has also claimed that the labouring classes avoided subjugation to such a normalizing discourse about sexual behaviour until efforts at uplifting their morality were made in urban France in the 1830s.18 The fact that local authorities in Montreal sought to restrain popular-class women’s sexuality – especially that of prostitutes – suggests that such attempts at subjugation might have happened earlier, at least in Lower Canada. Feminist scholars have argued, quite rightly I contend, that Foucault’s analysis deprives women of human agency, specifically their experience with and resistance to power. Monique Deveaux writes: “Foucault’s agonist model of power is double-edged. It is useful for feminists to the extent that it disengages us from simplistic, dualistic accounts of power; at the same time, however, it obscures many important experiences of power specific to women and fails to provide a sustainable notion of agency.”19 In Montreal, popular-class women in particular were subjected to a socially constructed bourgeois model of sexuality by

Introduction

9

which they were found lacking, yet they contested such endeavours. To complicate matters further, women of the same social class sought to restrain the sexuality of others by initiating a range of disciplinary efforts, including pursuing them at law. Moreover, women accused of prostitution reconciled the realities of their lives with the exigencies of the criminal justice system, both to resist authority and to use the courts and prisons for their own needs. Beyond Brutal Passions establishes that the same women who were accused of prostitution encountered and engaged with the criminal justice system in diverse ways and with varying consequences. In the following chapters, I explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, and power at a moment in Quebec history that saw an increasing intrusion of the local state and the law into everyday life. Karen Dubinsky and Constance Backhouse’s path-breaking studies, which focus on the relationship between gender, law, and criminal justice, have influenced this book.20 So too, has Donald Fyson’s seminal monograph Magistrates, Police, and People: Everyday Criminal Justice in Quebec and Lower Canada, 1764–1837. These studies of complicated junctures have allowed me to analyze how alleged prostitutes turned to the laws and the representatives of the criminal justice system not only to resist authority but to fulfill some of their own subsistence needs, to reduce the risk of violence, and to accuse those who had wronged them. While it may appear that prostitutes were beyond the protection of the law, the records show that they sought out justices of the peace to prosecute perpetrators of illicit acts against them, whether threats, assault and battery, theft, extortion, or defamation. They also made use of prison to provide shelter, food, medical treatment, and palliative care. By doing so, homeless streetwalkers subverted elements of the criminal justice system to obtain the necessities of life. As Linda Gordon has argued in her authoritative study of family violence, women not only sought out but also resisted state intervention, which allowed them to influence social regulation.21 Montreal policemen, justices of the peace, and prison wardens facilitated prostitutes’ use of the local jail for public assistance, although this resource was not made available to all those who needed it, sometimes with deadly consequences. At court, many of the women resisted the criminal charges levelled against them by putting up a defence or by not appearing on court-appointed days. And while

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Beyond Brutal Passions

these tactics had mixed results, they attest to women’s agency, demonstrating, for example, the choices they made and the resultant actions they instigated in the face of subordination and oppression, as well as their remarkable knowledge of the criminal justice system. This book reveals that brothel-keepers, brothel prostitutes, and streetwalkers encountered and navigated a criminal justice system that could be rigid and punishing on the one hand, yet flexible and tolerant to some extent on the other. In the police or peace magistrate’s office and at court, where justices of the peace carried out their duties, and in the police stations and prison, the attitudes of the authorities were sometimes tempered by their own experiences with the women who came before them. Consequently, the nature of the interactions between accused sex workers and the men who worked in Montreal’s criminal justice system was multifaceted. Their worlds intersected in numerous ways. Prominent men shared the same public spaces and neighbourhoods as prostitutes, engaged in prostitution as clients, or sought to profit from the sex trade through commercial endeavours. Policemen formed various relations with sex workers based on a range of motivations, from friendship and sexual desire to coercion and fraud. Physicians in the prison hospital and justices of the peace who judged prostitutes responded to these women in diverse and even contradictory ways, treating them with callousness and cynicism or with some degree of compassion and perhaps even recognition of their own complicity. Such complicated relationships were encouraged by the ambiguities in the way law and society portrayed and dealt with women. Beyond Brutal Passions interrogates the discourses about women, sexuality, and power through the experiences of women who worked in Montreal’s sex trade and does this by deconstructing the interplay between their experiences and their agency. The study highlights both the shifting discourses on female sexuality and the transformative nature of women’s experiences at a time when Montreal was undergoing significant social, demographic, commercial, and industrial changes associated with economic liberalism. I contend that prostitution has had an important place in the history of Montreal. Clearly, it affected the justice system: in the early nineteenth century, more than 2,000 women engendered over 4,500 prostitution-related charges. The women who marketed sex blurred

Introduction

11

the boundaries between public and private, as well as between nonrespectable and respectable. Too often dismissed as marginal in society, not only were they daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers but for most of them the time they worked as prostitutes was short-lived and they reintegrated into popular-class communities, attaining some degree of respectability through marriage and widowhood. Quebec historians have in general paid little attention to streetwalkers, brothel prostitutes, and brothel-keepers; this book establishes that they were part of the rich tapestry of people who constituted Montreal society and by doing so de-marginalizes them. Sex commerce not only provided an essential source of income for many women but also contributed to the urban economy by encouraging men to spend money on services such as food, beverages, and lodging. Montreal prostitutes also functioned as informal ambassadresses to men, often soldiers, sailors, and labourers, who were newcomers to the city. In some ways the sex trade in Montreal was not unlike that of London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, although perhaps less highbrow and organized. British historian of architecture Dan Cruickshank argues that prostitution in the Georgian period had a central role in London’s social life: “It was a sophisticated and well-organized enterprise that crossed class boundaries, overlapped with most aspects of daily life, and enjoyed a highly ambiguous relationship with the law.”22 Women involved in sex commerce in Montreal had a notable presence in public space, where they rubbed shoulders with men, women, and children of all social classes and ethnic groups while they went about their daily activities. As daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers, they were integral to city neighbourhoods, where they shared housing, purchased goods at nearby markets and stores, frequented local taverns, attended church services, and worked on city streets, in green spaces, and in houses of prostitution. Street prostitutes often navigated these social spaces in groups made up of kin and friends, looking after each other by sharing resources and occasionally fighting with or stealing from those outside such circles. In exploring these dynamics, Beyond Brutal Passions brings together histories of the family, community, criminal justice, sexuality, ethnicity, race, and gender and draws upon a rich body of literature by feminist scholars such as Christine Stansell, Mary Ryan, Judith Walkowitz, and Anna Clark, who explore the complexities of

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Beyond Brutal Passions

popular-class women’s experiences in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.23 In a more modest way, I have uncovered some previously unknown features of the intricate lives of Montreal’s labouring women who were accused of prostitution. Publications by Bettina Bradbury, Ellen Ross, and Olwen Hufton, authorities on poverty and the household economy,24 provide the means to understand the critical role that women – married, widowed, deserted, and single – played in the domestic sphere of residential prostitution. Taking up Olwen Hufton’s notion of spinster clustering, I explore how sex commerce fit into households made up of unmarried women. The narratives of women accused of prostitution, meticulously gleaned from historical documents bearing fragments of their lives, are the focus of this book. Women’s agency, a theoretical construct of feminist history defined by historian Linda Gordon as “a self-directed, autonomous act of will,” is central to the study.25 Nonetheless, it is a cautionary tale. As I, and others, have argued elsewhere, we need to exercise prudence in applying a notion of agency identified with an individualistic perspective to a person situated in a family or a particular community of women. In some cases, needs and values were centred in a kinship structure or in a group of people that included other dynamic agents.26 Women in the past negotiated choices and instituted strategies within a range of possibilities that varied according to signifiers such as social class, ethnicity, race, and marital status as well as individual foibles. Judith Bennett reminds us that women’s agency must always be linked to their ideological, institutional, and patriarchal susceptibilities.27 We need more flexible concepts of patriarchy that take into account the power that women exercised and the concessions that men made. Court records, valuable and sometimes rich in detail, show, as Karen Dubinsky so aptly notes, “the vulnerability of many in the past, but also illustrate the resilience of individuals.”28 The court clerks who wrote up the depositions inevitably imposed a “filter” on what sound like “voices”; their words are, however, the closest things we have to the women’s statements. Prostitutes’ “voices,” mediated through criminal court records, police registers, and newspapers, demonstrate that these women were active agents in the making of their own history. Beyond Brutal Passions reveals women’s economic and social vulnerabilities as well as the strategies they employed to resist authority or to cham-

Introduction

13

pion their own agency and in doing so exposes another layer of the breadth and complexity of women’s historical experiences. The 1836 grand jury’s assertion about women’s passions suggests a changing definition of what constituted acceptable behavior and sexuality for women. This shifting construct of femininity took place in the context of a transition marked by increasing migration, urbanization, altered paternalistic work relations, new definitions of respectability and public behaviour based on liberalism, embourgeoisement of public space, and escalating political tensions, largely the consequence of a desire for responsible government that would culminated in the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838. Old beliefs, conduct, and social relations were increasingly coming under censure. A reworking of ideas of respectability, which began to emphasize individual self-discipline, sobriety, industry, church attendance, and restrained sexuality, resulted in tensions, resistance, and growing complexities in social relations. As the moral economy eroded, the local state intervened through increased regulation of the public and private. My study of prostitution reveals the effect that the enforcement of what Katherine McKenna has referred to as a “new, middleclass, and gendered moral code” had on women accused of being prostitutes.29 The consequences of this enforcement were further complicated by the widespread resistance of the popular classes to regulation of their behaviour in or restrictions on their access to public space engendered by bourgeois respectability or embourgeoisement. The grand jury’s depiction of brothel prostitutes articulates not only a privileged male unease about the capability of the criminal justice system to regulate prostitution effectively but much more. Sex commerce was, following historian Gail Hershatter’s pithy observation, “a meeting point for all manner of anxieties … [about] venereal disease, social revolution, and immorality … and a threat to male mastery.”30 Women who marketed sex aroused profound concern, according to Vivien Jones, about the “boundaries between the public world of commerce and the private sphere of sexuality and domesticity.”31 Such unease, as Philippa Levine has argued, was especially relevant in a colonial context, given the important role assigned to white women in domesticating men. Although Levine’s monograph Prostitution, Race, and Politics focuses on a later period than my study, it speaks directly to a growing apprehension about the behaviour of

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Beyond Brutal Passions

British soldiers in the ports, cities, and barracks of the colonies.32 In Montreal, authorities expressed anxiety about the attraction of lowranking soldiers to local brothels and taverns (while disregarding military officers’ fondness for the same locales) and demanded that the police regulate such establishments more effectively, but were careful not to be overly critical of the military, given its importance to the colony’s defence, especially during the upheaval of the 1830s. The grand jurors’ choice of language – “brutal passions” – in discussing a local problem with residential prostitution demonstrates their frustration. The members of the 1836 grand jury painted brothel prostitutes with broad-brush strokes without regard to their divergent experiences and backgrounds. Such a characterization reflected the view that, as “agent[s] of destruction, prostitutes polluted society,” yet they were also victims of society owing to “feminine weakness and male sexual voracity.”33 By 1836, successive grand juries had relinquished any illusions about the feasibility of banishing sex commerce from Montreal and had begun calling for its regulation, not abolition. These attitudes represent an incongruity between notions of popular morality and legal remedy.34 Grand jurors refused to consider that women turned to prostitution for reasons other than indigence or excess sexuality and refuted, as Clare Lyons argues, women’s sexual and economic independence: “They commanded fees that were believed to be higher than for any other female employment, they generally worked for themselves and controlled their income themselves, and they walked the city’s streets to market their trade.”35 In Montreal, as elsewhere, the experiences of sex workers varied. Relationships among prostitutes and between them and neighbours were complex and attitudes about prostitution diverse. In some cases neighbours, friends, and family members sought out the criminal justice system to discipline prostitutes and a common insult during this period was to call a woman “whore,” a term used to chastise anyone who was seen to have committed some sort of sexual impropriety. Although many popular-class women understood the reasons some of their neighbours turned to sex commerce to earn an income, usually knowing them by name and offering them shelter in situations of spousal abuse, they were ambivalent toward prostitution and pros-

Introduction

15

titutes. Françoise Barret-Ducrocq encourages us to recognize that the lives of popular-class women are better characterized as “a history made up of contrasts: of impudence and morality, cynicism and tenderness, and cruelty and generosity.”36 The fact that plaintiffs often interrupted the legal process once they felt that their accusations had served their purpose reflects the ambiguities of these relationships. The rationale behind why women chose to work in prostitution was complex. There was no single compelling motive; rather, the decision may have served to solve a wide range of problems as well as offering options. Prostitution might have been a temporary solution to a variety of economic needs, a long-term answer to problems associated with chronic alcoholism and homelessness, or a vocation and the means to establish economic and social, as well as sexual, autonomy. As nineteenth-century social commentators, reformers, and researchers grappled with prostitution, they sought moral taxonomies based on facile explanations, linking economic necessity with inherent personal weaknesses such as subnormal morals and intelligence in order to account for women’s work in the sex trade. The renowned French public hygienist Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet (1790–1836) acknowledged that prostitution was an economic issue – “C’est une industrie et une ressource contre la faim” – but nonetheless identified the four general causes of prostitution as laziness, misery, vanity, and abandonment by lovers, thus tying economic factors to individual constitutional failings.37 British venereologist William Acton, a contemporary of Parent-Duchâtelet, emphasized a range of causes of prostitution, from necessity and circumstances of a local nature, such as the presence of a large population of unmarried women and low wages, to temptations that underscored the “depravity” of women, such as desire, the natural sinfulness of women, their avoidance of traditional forms of work, and their vicious inclinations.38 American physician William Sanger surveyed two thousand prostitutes in mid-nineteenth-century New York City and concluded that sex workers were victims – casualties of male deceit, abusive parental authority, recruitment practices, and an inadequate female wage system. Although equal numbers of women told Sanger that they had turned to prostitution because of inclination, he rejected their

16

Beyond Brutal Passions

explanations, including those of the 500 who claimed that they had been attracted to sex commerce to “gratify the sexual passions,” because they implied an innate depravity that, although present “in the bosoms of most females … exists in a slumbering state until aroused by some outside influences.”39 More recent publications on the history of sexuality capture the intricacies of women’s sexual experiences in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sharon Block’s analysis of consensual and coerced sex and Clare Lyons’ study of the changing constructs of women’s sexuality have informed this book.40 Block’s inquiry lays bare the practices of sexual coercion, which were both gendered and related to other social hierarchies.41 In the case of Montreal, Beyond Brutal Passions shows that prostitution encompassed more than the exchange of money, involving an assortment of relationships and interactions between sex workers, clients, and police that included, among others, sexual coercion. Lyons’ monograph demonstrates that during the colonial and revolutionary periods women of the Thirteen Colonies were considered innately passionate. Popular print, diaries, contemporary images, and court documents of the period underscore the belief that sexual intercourse and orgasm not only promoted health but also that women yearned for sex. Female initiatives in extramarital relationships and self-divorce were held to be derived from Enlightenment ideas such as self-discovery, personal freedom, and self-expression. Unmarried women were also recognized to be sexually active, “with male partners, lovers, or acquaintances.” Following the American War of Independence, ideas of female sexuality were reshaped and restrained: women, as guardians of civic good, had to be modest, virtuous, and chaste.42 Those who engaged in non-marital sex were considered unwomanly, an identity usually associated with the lower classes and foreign-born.43 But such transformative discourses about female passion were implanted gradually. Women who did not follow the new, emerging, convention faced censure as part of attempts to force them to rein in their rapacious sexual behaviour or at least to deny it, as Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall have argued for early nineteenth-century England.44 Cecilia Morgan, in her article on duelling in nineteenth-century Upper Canada, has suggested that similar anxieties formed the basis of a discourse that associated sexual virtue with respectability: “seventeenth- and

Introduction

17

eighteenth-century ideas about women’s sexual voracity did not disappear completely; instead, they were incorporated into and underlay arguments about the need for female purity. This uneasiness that surrounded notions of women’s sexual nature may have contributed to the insistence that upper-class women must both be and be seen to be chaste; if the gentry had subscribed unequivocally to the theory of women’s sexual passivity, insults to women’s honour might have been dismissed with greater ease.”45 Bridget Hill reminds us that unemployed single women were often understood as “the source of abnormal sexual appetite, forming bands of lewd and dangerously uncontrolled women roaming the countryside and the towns.”46 In early nineteenth-century Montreal, vestiges of an older view of women’s unbridled sexuality remained, as references to women who indulged their carnal appetites and their brutal passions attest. With respect to the law, such attitudes resulted in an expanded definition of vagrancy and in greater surveillance and thus discipline of women’s sexuality. Given that the law was a powerful vehicle for constructing sexual identity, defining deviance, and regulating women – as Philippa Levine has argued47 – my research highlights the importance of examining not only the changing nature of the law but also legal procedures, their application, sites of enforcement, and impact on the accused. The laws governing prostitution had multiple meanings for men and women with respect to class, ethnicity, and gender as well as serving different, sometimes conflicting, purposes from those their framers had in mind. Equally important is the specificity of place. The adoption of British criminal law following the Conquest allowed justices of the peace to design local police regulations. Vagrancy laws in early nineteenth-century Montreal, for example, combined the regulation of licensed beggars as deployed in New France with regulations imported from England; these laws and their application were not only revised and adapted to fit a colonial context but also changed over time and in relationship to local conditions.48 It is apparent in criminal court documents and police registers of the period under study that the legal regulation of women and their participation in the sex trade might have been of paramount importance to elites and perhaps even popular-class neighbours and family members but prosecuting prostitutes was only one of a myriad of

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Beyond Brutal Passions

tactics in most plaintiffs’ armamentariums.49 Few complaints against brothel-keepers resulted in a verdict because most of the plaintiffs abandoned the process by not appearing in court to prosecute the defendants. The experiences of street prostitutes were much different. In such cases policemen were usually the plaintiffs and the women were frequently committed to prison for long periods. Sex workers also sought ways to resist authority – often male but not exclusively – as exercised by local communities or various representatives of the state, or in sex commerce, and resorted to the same courts, where they encountered the same justices of the peace who had punished them for prostitution, to seek justice.

The Historiography of Prostitution Prostitution has been and remains a popular subject for historical analysis – in many ways a flourishing industry – as a means to deconstruct the process of criminalizing women and their sexuality. The international literature is vast and covers an immense expanse of time. Not long ago, most European and US studies of prostitution concentrated on the structures of power that govern the regulation of prostitution as seen through middle-class discourses around reform campaigns and debates over shifting social attitudes toward the regulation or abolishment of sex commerce, the introduction of the contagious diseases act, and improved policing rather than on brothelkeepers and prostitutes themselves.50 This occurred, in large part, because it is easier to learn about prostitution from institutional records, reformers’ diaries and correspondence, commission reports, and newspaper accounts – which reveal more about the attitudes of those recording the information than about the actual experiences of their subjects – than from the lives of sex workers, who seldom left written sources about their experiences. The rare exceptions are women such as Maimie Pinzer and Madaline Edwards, whose diaries have been edited and published.51 Other prostitutes achieved such notoriety that their life stories have become a matter of public record. The tragic history of Helen Jewett, a New York prostitute who was murdered by her lover, is only one example. 52 Although Judith Walkowitz and Alain Corbin, in their seminal monographs Prosti-

Introduction

19

tution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State and Les filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe siècle respectively, have highlighted the experiences of prostitutes themselves, the regulation of prostitution remains at the centre of their work.53 In recent years, influenced by women’s history, historians now use an integrated approach to prostitution that combines data from a wide variety of sources, such as reformers’ discourses, police interventions, newspapers, and court records, warning against giving too much weight to elite discourses without considering women’s everyday experiences and practices as well as their resistance to new definitions and enforcement of sexual behaviour.54 Such an approach highlights the intersections of prostitution, work, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and in the context of transnational history, empire and migration. In Quebec, studies by Andrée Lévesque, Danielle Lacasse, and Tamara Myers, which focus on the experiences of sex workers and their encounters with the criminal justice system, illuminate the complexities of both their lives and such encounters. Since these investigations cover different periods, we have a much better understanding of how prostitution changed over a 100-year period beginning after the mid-nineteenth century.55 The period before the mid-nineteenth century, however, has received little attention in either Quebec or in Canada, with the exception of my studies about sex commerce and those of Donald Fyson, and for Victorian Halifax.56 Historian Judith Fingard has used court and prison records to reconstruct the lives of the most notorious Halifax recidivist prostitutes. Other Canadian studies include Constance Backhouse’s exploration of Canadian prostitution in her influential book Petticoats and Prejudice: Women and Law in Nineteenth-Century Canada. Since Backhouse focuses almost exclusively on English Canada, prostitution in Quebec receives only cursory consideration.57 Although I recognize that the structures of authority are important in any study of sex commerce, Beyond Brutal Passions shifts the focus from power relations embedded in institutions or the local state to the lives of women accused of prostitution. I seek to better understand the complex, ambiguous, and at times intense relationships the women had with each other, their families, men, neighbours, representatives of the criminal justice system, and colonial authorities as well as agency and power relations.

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Beyond Brutal Passions

Sources and Methodology The particularly rich historical sources available in Quebec have allowed me to examine aspects of prostitution that provide information about the practices and experiences of women who were accused of marketing sex and I have tried to reconstitute the lives of the prostitutes in this period and this place by bringing together both local discourses and women’s experiences. Nineteenth-century Quebec society defined and recorded most legal and familial relationships on paper: notaries documented individual activities within the framework of civil law and the Catholic Church, Protestant denominations, and synagogues chronicled detailed information about key moments in the lives of their parishioners, recording marriages, births/baptisms, and deaths/burials. Until recently, the practice of conserving rather than destroying documents provided Quebec historians with data unequalled anywhere else in Canada. Criminal justice records, particularly police registers, prison lists, and court documents, made it possible for me to identify those women who were accused of prostitution, while parish records, census returns, and notarial documents made it possible to reconstitute information about their families. Such rich data allows us to understand how prostitution fit into individual and family life cycles and sometimes why women turned to prostitution. For the purposes of this study, I have systematically consulted all extant criminal court records of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Petty Sessions, and the Police Court pertaining to prostitution-related offences – keeping a disorderly house, being a common prostitute or being loose, idle, and disorderly, as well as vagrancy – for the years 1810 to 1842. These judicial documents include depositions, indictments, grand jury presentments, recognizances, examinations of the accused, lists of prisoners held in the Common Gaol and House of Correction, and documents listing the request for and granting of tavern licenses. They have survived relatively intact, despite being housed in the basement of the Court House where they were exposed to fire, floods, and rodents. I have also examined coroner’s reports, police court books, police registers, applications and recommendations for clemency, the court documents of the Court of King’s Bench, the court notes of Judge James Reid of the Court of

Introduction

21

King’s Bench, and King’s Bench grand jury presentments from 1770 to 1850. Alleged sex workers also appear in criminal court documents as plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses in cases involving a range of other criminal charges, such as assault and battery, uttering threats, larceny, rioting, and sexual assault. Thus, in order to get a more comprehensive idea of how these popular-class women negotiated the criminal justice system, I consulted all of the criminal accusations involving females in the lower courts listed above as well as in Weekly Sessions and Special Sessions for the years 1810 to 1842. Lower court documents are important for at least three reasons. First, women are highly visible in the documents because they turned to the criminal justice system to meet some of their needs, particularly to bring charges against those they felt had wronged them or to seek incarceration as a subsistence strategy. Second, documents show that the lower courts provided an important venue for the popular classes of both sexes, French and English-speakers alike, to settle disputes. And third, since criminal charges or misdemeanors did not always result in incarceration or even in an indictment, lower court records help provide a much fuller depiction of prostitution than that offered by prison records or cases pursued at court. That being said, judicial records can never present a complete picture of prostitution because women who were able to evade formal judicial scrutiny, often as a consequence of police corruption or through informal settlements with neighbours, are obviously not represented in such documents. Were those arrested less capable, as Clare Lyons wonders, “at manoeuvring through a system of informal rules, corruption, and bribes?”58 Given the dark figure of unreported crime, it is difficult to determine how representative court records are, both because not all of the documents have survived and because clandestine, casual, and high-status prostitutes are likely under-enumerated. Other historical records identify women who were reputed to be prostitutes. For example, when Jacques Viger undertook a census of Montreal in 1825, census takers not only counted sex workers in most of the suburbs but also differentiated between concubines (women who live with men outside of marriage), filles publiques (prostitutes), and maquerelles (madams).59 Contemporary newspapers published the names of women who were apprehended for prostitution-related offences as well as those of men who were arrested as brothel-keepers,

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Beyond Brutal Passions

found-ins (usually men who lived in the establishment or worked for the brothel-keeper), or clients. Police registers for the years 1836 to 1842 provide additional information, including the names of city residents charged with prostitution-related crimes and some of the details regarding the place and time of arrest, the names of those arrested together, and the outcome. Police records as well as court documents also serve as important windows, even if, as historians have pointed out, the glass is perhaps more opaque and beveled than clear,60 onto the relationships between policemen and women accused of prostitution. Finally, government documents, in particular those related to written requests for leniency (“Applications and Recommendations for Clemency”), provide another important source that identifies women who were found guilty of prostitution-related offences and punished by incarceration and/or by pillory. Contemporary visual sources are problematic. Artists have sanitized images of Montreal street scenes to exclude the popular classes – there are no known images of prostitutes and relatively few of the popular classes for this period of study. Artists of Montreal’s imagined urban landscapes, such as John Murray, James Duncan, Robert Auchmuty Sproule, and George Heriot, painted public space as bourgeois – beautiful, grand, not crowded, regulated, salubrious, and respectable – even though it was congested, contested terrain. Borrowing from historian Simon P. Newman’s analysis of the idyllic nineteenthcentury illustrations of Philadelphia’s almshouse, I suggest that James Duncan’s rendering of Montreal’s prison and court house are similarly divested of the “unsavoury” characters judged and punished in them and of the crowded, foul-smelling, and disorganized environments of the city’s Common Gaol and House of Correction.61 It is pivotal to this study that accused sex workers are situated in the larger community. Therefore, using parish records, census returns, coroner’s reports, the databases of the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (prdh), the Montreal l’avenir du passé (map), and, more recently, the on-line website ancestry.ca as well as military sources, government papers, city directories, and the institutional documents of hospitals, religious groups, and charities, I have created a database that contains information on the lives of those women I could identify. Reconstitution of their lives was facilitated by the Quebec legal tradition of using the family names of women who were accused,

Introduction

23

arrested, and/or judged in court, rather than their married names. This made it possible to obtain a much broader understanding of my cohort as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters. Influenced by the methodologies developed by historians of women, I approach criminal justice documents by reading against the grain to locate women’s “voices” and their experiences in order to piece together individual accounts. This technique, as Stephen Robertson has elucidated, “focuses on moments of misunderstanding and conflict – ruptures in the legal process, departures from legal forms, formulas, and language, and information that has not been shaped to fit the terms of the law. In those moments, in those places in texts, can be found the voices of ordinary people.”62 In adopting such an approach, I recognize that depositions were constructed to maximize the goals of the plaintiffs and to follow certain well-established narratives. As historian Shannon McSheffrey has recently argued, court records were “meant to do something, to be, at least potentially, performative, or they were created because they might later be called upon, either by the recording authorities or by the parties involved, to demonstrate that particular people did something in a particular way at a particular time and place.”63 Although McSheffrey’s study focuses on a much earlier period than this book, the purpose of creating particular court records is comparable. Yet, while judicial documents were shaped by a legal, formulaic method or style and written up by a court clerk, a careful reading of these sources reveals that many include detailed accounts of the events, sometimes in very colourful and distinctive language and in the plaintiff’s or the accused own words. This study engages with the records pertaining to prostitution in order to understand who turned to the law for justice, how justice was understood, and the ways in which it was practised, negotiated, and subverted. As Robertson contends, “It is not the way law works as a means of social control but the gap between laws and their enforcement that has framed the way that historians have thought about the law.”64 A word of caution is necessary since there are key epistemological limitations to these documents. For instance, we know little about sexual practices or the fees that prostitutes charged for sex commerce. Nor can we always ascertain with any certainty which of the complaints might have been the consequence of malicious prosecutions.

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Beyond Brutal Passions

At times it is difficult to determine which women accused of prostitution actually worked in the sex trade, particularly as historical studies show that unmarried women’s involvement in intimate, non-commercial heterosexual relations was sometimes recast as prostitution.65 In these criminal court records it is challenging to differentiate between women who engaged in sex for pleasure and those who were coerced by others. Take the example of William Delisle and Jane Higgs. Delisle, the son of the city’s high constable, Adelphe Delisle, leased two rooms from Ann Griffith in a house on Craig Street, which he apparently shared with Jane Higgs. Ann Griffith brought charges of keeping a brothel against both Higgs and Delisle, describing Jane Higgs as a known “lewd woman,” whom Delisle frequently visited to “carry on the most lewd and abandoned life.” Griffith claimed she feared that, owing to their carelessness, Delisle and Higgs would accidentally start a fire.66 (William’s father and his cousin Benjamin Delisle would later arrest Higgs on at least two other occasions for operating a disorderly house and being loose, idle, and disorderly.67) Ann Griffith may well have been using the laws governing prostitution in order to discipline the couple for carrying on a sexual relationship outside of marriage in a very public manner, as there are no indications in the records of other women being involved with sex commerce at this address. Such cases add another layer of complexity and demonstrate the difficulty of disentangling women who engaged in sex commerce from those who did not. The example of Jane Higgs suggests that Montreal women could have participated in prostitution and in intimate sexual relations for pleasure or out of coercion at different points in their lives, indeed even at the same time.

Place and Period Over the course of the first half of the nineteenth century, Montreal underwent significant social, economic, and demographic transformations, which were etched on the city’s landscape. By 1825, according to the Viger census, Montreal’s population had grown to 22,357. A third of its inhabitants were immigrants from the British Isles and the United States,68 in part due to the transatlantic migration of the Irish, which had began as a trickle in 1815, and become

Introduction

25

a flood after 1847. The city was distinguished by a muddy beach that bordered the town’s harbour, a mountain slope with cultivated farmland, pastures, orchards, and summer residences owned by gentlemen farmers, two market squares as well as hay and firewood markets situated on Victoria Square, and a town centre, Place d’Armes, which was bounded by Notre-Dame Church, the Sulpicians’ Séminaire de St-Sulpice, and the newly constructed Bank of Montreal. Steamboats crisscrossed the St Lawrence River between the city and the south shore and navigated up and down the waterway linking Montreal and Quebec City.69 By the 1830s, an average of 100 British ships a year visited the port to discharge goods and passengers and take on timber, potash, and furs.70 The city’s wealthy residents lived in town, occupying stone houses with distinctive tin roofs, alongside administrative, military, religious, educational, and commercial buildings, hospitals, artisans’ shops attached to their households, and warehouses. A zone around the dismantled fortifications provided valuable land on which elites would build new homes, shops, and churches, but it was still poorly developed.71 The town’s main streets extended beyond the demolished walls into the already existing suburbs, or faubourgs, of St-Laurent, Récollets, Québec, and St-Louis, where labourers, craftspeople, and merchants lived and worked alongside distilleries, breweries, a foundry, and a shipyard.72 Municipal services were rudimentary. Water was pumped from the river to a reservoir on the citadel and then distributed to neighbourhoods through a series of wood pipes.73 Popularclass households got rid of human waste by throwing it in their yards or down the privies. It was not until the early 1840s that Montreal had a sewer system of sorts, which collected water or runoff and conducted it into the numerous creeks that ran beneath the city.74 A more efficient public system would have to wait until the 1860s when Montreal’s population had reached more than 90,000. While by the 1820s Montreal was already one of British North America’s commercial and financial centres, it was still a city that was easily negotiated by walking. This would change in the 1840s when the city’s population increase resulted in greater urban density and geographical expansion as new suburbs were created to accommodate Montreal’s growth. By the 1840s, the population had nearly doubled: a census taken in 1842 reveals that 40,400 people called Montreal home.75 The

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Beyond Brutal Passions

majority spoke English. Montreal’s local economy became an engine of growth for the region, providing jobs for newcomers from Lower Canada’s countryside as well as the United States and Great Britain. The city was granted its first charter in 1832, which encouraged urban development by defining the projects the city was responsible for undertaking, such as waterworks and road projects, as well as setting up a system of taxation to support them. Although the charter was not renewed between 1836 and 1840 owing to the growing political tensions around the desire for democratic government that culminated in the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838, justices of the peace, who administered the city during this period, continued to promote municipal improvements, which served business interests. By the end of the decade, proper wharves, a stone retaining wall and promenade, and purpose-built warehouses fronted the river’s edge. These new wharves encouraged river traffic as well as a burgeoning of the number of workers associated with transportation and unloading ships and not only affected property values but also increasingly disturbed the tranquillity of the waterfront.76 Taverns and inns, the haven of sailors, soldiers, dockworkers, and prostitutes, also bordered the harbour. Handsome Catholic and Protestant stone churches and a synagogue provided an array of religious, health, and benevolent assistance to their congregations. Artisans, along with journeymen and apprentices, represented a significant proportion of the population in both the town and the suburbs. The mushrooming suburbs of St-Laurent, Ste-Marie (Québec), StJoseph (Récollets), St-Antoine, and the newly established Ste-Anne consisted largely of one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half-storey houses inhabited by craft families, the unskilled, and small merchants. All of the modest buildings were constructed with wood. While city notables continued to inhabit the town, in the 1830s a small number of middle-class families, such as the Baggs, Torrances, McCords, and Fouchers, had already established villas described as “sober and symmetrical in appearance, however physically imposing” outside the city and suburbs along the flank of Mount Royal, both east and west. Sherbrooke Street was extended westward to the Priests’ farm (which would become the Sulpicians’ Grand Séminaire) and major landowners – John Redpath, Thomas Phillips, and the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning – began to subdivide their property on

Introduction

27

the mountainside in anticipation of the city’s potential growth. Spatial segregation based on class would result in the creation of the Square Mile on Mount Royal’s western slope, Montreal’s new town.77 This study begins in the decade of the War of 1812 and ends in the 1840s, following the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838. Since the military presence in Montreal expanded and contracted with crises, both these upheavals drew large numbers of soldiers to the city. They were quartered in the Récollets Barracks, originally a monastery, until 1818 and then in the Quebec Gate Barracks, an imperial garrison that housed as many as 1,000 men at any one time. After 1838, soldiers were also billeted in Montreal’s first prison, which had been converted into a barracks. At least 2,000 British soldiers were in Montreal following the rebellions and would have provided an inexhaustible supply of men in search of prostitutes. In addition to the military presence, a seven-month shipping season meant that sailors who manned sailing vessels loaded with European goods and passengers destined for Montreal sought food, liquor, companionship, and sexual pleasure on disembarking. Montreal men – single as well as married – also frequented local brothels and engaged in sex commerce with streetwalkers. Leah Leneman and Rosalind Mitchison’s study of sexuality and social regulation in urban Scotland shows that a late age of marriage signalled a sizable cohort of men who were sexually mature but unable to marry.78 This would also have been the case in Montreal, where the average age of marriage for men at mid-century was 25.5.79 For many of the city’s bachelors, who embraced a way of life predicated not only on hard work but also on pleasure, alcohol consumption, and public entertainment, visits to neighbourhood brothels or rambles through public spaces in search of streetwalkers were commonplace. This bachelor subculture, a consequence of migration, with its subsequent loosening of family ties, was normalized in fraternal work relations through a shared sense of masculinity, familiar cultural practices, and camaraderie that was not unlike those of the rich voyageur world of the pays d’en haut or of the rough homosocial society forged by white workers in what would become British Columbia, so thoughtfully analyzed and described by Carolyn Podruchny and Adele Perry respectively.80 Middle-class single men embraced a similar masculinity, although one embodied by a sense of privilege that challenged

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Beyond Brutal Passions

the limits of respectable bourgeois behaviour. Military officers arrived on horseback or in carriages at the front doors of brothels at all hours of the night, announcing publicly their intent to indulge “brutal passions.” Others paid extra fees for sex commerce in private or with several women at the same time. Alcohol consumption was a definite part of the exercise of their manhood. James Niles and Daniel Daly, with their violent behaviour at Sarah Noxon’s brothel, epitomized a youthful, self-indulgent, elite bachelor subculture, which acted with impunity. Court records reveal something of this spectacle of power when middle-class patrons of Montreal’s brothels were robbed of the large sums of currency they carried with them and turned to the police for help in locating both the missing funds and the culprits. Such a “sporting male culture,” according to the historian of New York prostitution Timothy Gilfoyle, was “organized around various forms of gaming – horse racing, gambling, cockfighting, pugilism, and other “blood” sports – [that] defended and promoted male sexual aggressiveness and promiscuity.”81 The growing numbers of immigrants from the United States and the British Isles as well as migrants from Lower Canada’s countryside who settled in the city found waged labour in the expanding local economy as journeymen, artisans, or unskilled workers. The wellestablished ties between masters and mistresses, journeymen and women, and apprentices were undergoing rapid change due to the intrusion of capitalist relations. These transformations in social relations resulted in tensions between capitalists and their workers and in growing inequalities. For many popular-class inhabitants, everyday life was characterized by seasonal unemployment or under-employment, inadequate wages, competition for work, and a struggle to provide food, shelter, and heating while prices continued to increase. Early nineteenth-century Montreal was at the hub of a developing transportation system that united the city with the Great Lakes through a series of canals. In Montreal, a substantial male labour force made up of Irish and Canadien workers – prospective clients in the city’s sexual landscape – constructed the Lachine Canal (which opened in 1825 and was upgraded in the 1840s when five wider and deeper locks replaced the original seven), dredged the St Lawrence River, modernized port facilities, and erected new warehouses to store the goods flooding the city owing to an expanding trans-Atlantic

Introduction

29

trade and local artisan production that was forwarded westward to the Great Lakes region. This workforce also built diverse institutions that included schools, hospitals, churches, banks, markets, and orphanages, and workers also erected their own homes in the fast-growing suburbs. These developments made Montreal an important urban centre in British North America. Living in a garrison and port city in the grips of a transition to industrial capitalism, Montreal’s prostitutes must have seen the supply of potential clients as endless.

Organization of the Book The first section of Beyond Brutal Passions focuses on the women who were accused of prostitution-related offences while the second highlights the procedures involved in processing complaints against alleged prostitutes in the criminal justice system. In the first section, three chapters draw attention to the sites where the women who were alleged to have practised sex commerce lived and laboured. Chapter 1 considers the social geography of prostitution and demonstrates that over the period under study it was ubiquitous in the city. While sex commerce was concentrated on certain streets in diverse neighbourhoods, women also worked out of single rooms, apartments in multi-family buildings, and entire buildings in mixed neighbourhoods and the relationships that they engendered with neighbours and the police were critical in avoiding arrest. Streetwalkers also co-opted public space, transforming elite promenades into sites of solicitation. Chapter 2 focuses on residential prostitution and shows that the home and brothel were usually mixed spaces. Brothels often reflected family life: brothel-keepers formed relationships with clients, who became lovers and even husbands, their children resided with them, and parents provided advice and assistance to daughters wishing to establish their own bawdy houses. Married, widowed, and single women also set up brothels, integrating the business of prostitution into their households. Brothel-keepers had to manage diverse, convoluted, and potentially dangerous relationships with husbands and lovers, children, relatives, men who provided security, prostitutes, and clients. Chapter 3 concentrates on street prostitution and explores the intersections of homelessness, mutual aid, and friendship as well

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Beyond Brutal Passions

as kinship amongst streetwalkers. These women forged close bonds with other streetwalkers, establishing female communities based on shared needs and experiences. The second section examines the encounters between plaintiffs who privately prosecuted alleged prostitutes, the accused, and the various authorities of the criminal justice system. Chapter 4 underscores the complexities of making a complaint against a suspected prostitute or brothel-keeper, the laws associated with keeping a disorderly house or being loose, idle, and disorderly, and the consequences of taking women to court. The criminal justice system often served as a forum of last resort in a family or community’s armamentarium. Chapter 5 considers the very complicated relationships between policemen, watchmen, and prostitutes, all of whom had much in common, whether social class or sharing public work space. Nonetheless, as representatives of the state, the police exercised considerable discretionary power in determining which prostitutes they would pursue at law, ignore, arrest as a form of public assistance, or intimidate to extort money, goods, and sex. Chapter 6 focuses on the court cases themselves and explores the strategies that both plaintiffs and defendants instituted to stop the court procedure at any point in the sometimes-Byzantine process. Only a third of the complaints involving brothel keeping resulted in guilty verdicts and in most of cases plaintiffs either abandoned the accusations or the defendants failed to show up on court-appointed days. By contrast, in almost all of the legal actions involving streetwalking, the women were found guilty and sentenced to prison. Chapter 7 explores punishment and how it changed over the period under study. As elites debated the purpose of imprisonment – to punish or rehabilitate – women found guilty of prostitution-related offences were given lengthy prison sentences; some were also exposed in the pillory, but a few received fines, were displayed in carts in the neighbourhoods where they had committed the transgression, or were asked to leave town to avoid incarceration. Homeless prostitutes and vagrant women also integrated imprisonment into subsistence strategies, blurring the line between prison and community.

PA R T I

Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces

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CHAPTER 1

Disorderly Women and Disorderly Houses The Social Geography of Prostitution

Introduction Montreal prostitutes marketed their trade in most city neighbourhoods, from the waterfront along the town centre and Pointe-à-Callière, beyond the demolished fortifications in the faubourgs as far south as Ste-Anne and to the north at Côte-à-Baron. While prostitution was ubiquitous in the urban landscape, it was not uniform: “red-light” activities were more entrenched in those parts of Montreal where customers were easily accessible. In the town centre, prostitutes solicited in the streets and the abundant taverns and tippling houses and worked out of brothels in stone buildings that mingled with municipal, political, military, and religious institutions as well as the businesses and residences of the local elites. Ann Newman operated one such house of prostitution on the upper storey of a house on Notre-Dame Street that adjoined a property belonging to the late Honourable John Forsyth.1 Nearby, at the corner of Bonsecours and St-Paul Streets, where widower and justice of the peace Moses Judah Hayes lived with his five children, prostitutes and soldiers routinely engaged in drunken and tumultuous behaviour. One particular encounter degenerated into a violent quarrel that resulted in a soldier or soldiers assaulting a prostitute. The next day, when his doorstep was discovered “saturated with blood,” Hayes demanded of his colleagues on the bench that something be done to end these riotous acts.2 Nor were the faubourgs or suburbs exempt from similar practices. Home to the burgeoning popular classes with their low-cost wooden houses, the suburbs were sites of substantial construction

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Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces

and extended well beyond the town centre in most directions. In the Faubourg Récollets, for instance, police raided the brothel of Etienne Billet and his wife, Marie Mattée, after having received a complaint from three of their neighbours who accused Billet and Mattée of keeping a maison de débauche frequented by disreputable characters of both sexes at all hours of the day and night. The plaintiffs claimed that the chaos that reigned inside the dwelling might lead to a fire, thus putting the entire neighbourhood at risk.3 Early nineteenth-century urban public space was filled with men, women, and children of different social and ethnic groups promenading, conducting business, socializing, and disagreeing. In these mixed sites, beggars sought alms, pedlars sold merchandise, basketwomen hawked produce and other goods, women performed household chores with the assistance of their children, prostitutes solicited, and vagrants loitered. An assortment of animals – pigs, horses, and cows were common – roamed the streets, laneways, and green spaces foraging for food. Carters and caleche drivers queued up at stations along thoroughfares, waiting to haul cargo or convey passengers. When weather permitted, shopkeepers used sidewalks as extensions of their businesses to display their merchandise to passersby. The streets also provided relief from cramped and poorly lit and ventilated households by serving as “the drawing-room of the poor,”4 in which people lived “in full view of someone else’s gaze.”5 Historian William Atherton described mid-nineteenth-century Montreal as a primitive village where elderly men sat at their doorsteps “to gossip with passing friends and often the family would be found there of an evening.”6 In this chapter, I argue that Montreal residents shared city streets, public spaces, and lodgings with prostitutes, who were usually tolerated until brothel inmates or streetwalkers breached some aspect of a community-enforced code of conduct. Over the course of the period under study, such toleration waned, the number of complaints laid before the justices of the peace increased, and, as the city’s constabulary took a more explicit role in pursuing alleged prostitutes, women’s sexuality became increasingly criminalized. The porous boundaries between the household and the street and the public nature of everyday life meant that prostitutes and their neighbours shared experiences and social networks, which had implications for

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the city’s sex trade. For instance, brothel-keepers required the acceptance of neighbours to keep their establishments open for business. In the 1830s through to the early 1840s, constables increasingly acted as plaintiffs against brothel-keepers and madams had to negotiate with these intermediaries (as representatives of the local state), which left them vulnerable to police extortion. Complaints by brothel-keepers during this time indicate that they were becoming more vocal about the illicit ways in which policemen exercised authority in neighbourhoods where women undertook sex commerce. By the early 1840s, a growing intolerance for excessive public consumption of alcohol was affecting neighbours’ acceptance of localized prostitution, in which drinking played a central part. Without neighbourhood endorsement, madams risked police raids or, if a justice of the peace and city constabulary failed to respond to local complaints, rioting by neighbours in the offending brothels. Street prostitutes were usually left alone unless they drew attention to themselves but women who exceeded the bounds of acceptable behaviour by being drunk, noisy, or indecent might be arrested. Neighbours sometimes disciplined refractory prostitutes by denouncing them to the authorities but more often policemen, stepping into a father’s role, intervened directly. Constables and watchmen arrested streetwalkers and escorted them to the station house, where they were imprisoned. Only then were formal complaints laid against them. The operation and location of Montreal brothels and street prostitution were mediated not by geographical containment but largely by the relations that sex workers established with neighbours, constables, and night watchmen, and by their adeptness at maintaining good will within these relationships. The intersection between sex commerce and the city’s social geography was complex: Montreal’s sexual landscape was widespread but concentrated in particular areas. Scholars have employed the term “red-light” district – a locale with sharply drawn boundaries known to the public where prostitutes congregated, either seeking or being sought out by clients – to signify an isolated, distinct area of the urban landscape, detached from the daily lives of most inhabitants of a city. In earlier studies, historians of prostitution focused their research on the first decades of the twentieth century and on reformers’ campaigns to confine prostitution to red-light districts once it became

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Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces

apparent that eradication of the sex trade was impossible.7 As a consequence of this somewhat constrained interpretation, historians have routinely equated areas where prostitution was concentrated with segregation. More recent publications show that the creation of differentiated districts for sex commerce was a consequence of regulation policies. For instance, Philip Howell’s study of Cambridge, England, demonstrates that Cambridge University, in conjunction with the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s, had been allocated unique powers to arrest, examine, and detain suspected prostitutes. As a result, the city’s red-light district remained in the neighbourhood of Cambridge’s working poor, rather than expanding into spaces closer to the university.8 Current work, influenced by studies on the gendered use of urban public space, reveals that red-light activities were integral to city neighbourhoods.9 Certainly in the case of Montreal it is more accurate to think of concentrations of red-light activities rather than of districts to which it was confined. Prostitutes coexisted with residents in urban neighbourhoods, as the three examples at the beginning of this chapter show. By the end of the eighteenth century, red-light activities were already present around what would become the Quebec Gate Barracks and along the city’s waterfront. A 1798 grand jury identified nine prostitutes who were “in the daily habit of frequenting the ramparts near the powder magazine.”10 Prostitutes also worked on the streets or out of brothels, taverns, market places, and other public buildings, marketing sex to soldiers who were quartered at the military barracks, sailors who arrived by boat from points east during the shipping season, farmers who brought produce to market, travellers, and local inhabitants. This differentiation of public space was similar to that in London, England, where, according to Penelope Corfield, the streets had become more specialized in function over the eighteenth century. She argues that concentration of red-light activities developed first near streets offering various forms of entertainment that lured crowds, expediting meetings between prostitutes and their clients. Information about sex commerce was disseminated in the streets, market places, and public buildings such as taverns: “An informal street specialization assisted the processes of social recognition. That was particularly important for amorous encounters, which entailed a process of mutual identification and negotiation.”11 Similarly, Tony

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Henderson’s study of London prostitution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries shows that while the sex trade existed in most areas of the city, over time it had became increasingly concentrated in certain neighbourhoods where the public sought out new forms of urban entertainment.12 Montreal’s geography of prostitution also had a pronounced seasonality. In the spring, summer, and early autumn, streetwalkers solicited in the public spaces of the city and sought shelter, food, and clients in the countryside surrounding the city, with its abundant orchards and gardens. Prostitutes, who gathered in front of brothels where they lived and laboured, called out to men as they passed these establishments. By late fall, through winter, and into early spring, the public face of prostitution receded as cold weather drove solicitation indoors into taverns and public buildings. Homeless streetwalkers also sought shelter – often at the prison – and police arrested many of them who were at risk for hypothermia. The links between residential and street prostitution were equally complex. Brothel prostitutes solicited clients in the streets but took them back to the brothels where they worked or to houses of assignation. Angélique Mason and Marie Tessier did not keep prostitutes on their premises but encouraged young men to congregate in their rooms and filles de mauvaise vie to visit their establishment.13 Street prostitutes searched for clients in public spaces and escorted them to their lodgings; some even used abandoned houses to provide sex to men. Thus residential and street prostitution were not always distinct operations: many women worked in both venues, seemingly moving effortlessly between the various sites of commercial sex.

Montreal’s “Hordes of Female Profligates” and “Arenas of Vice”14 Streetwalkers solicited along Montreal’s thoroughfares, in squares and green spaces, at its several markets, the military barracks, and in sentinel boxes, stables, and diverse outbuildings. They moved through the city to solicit clients, wandering in and out of unlit neighbourhoods and potentially dangerous or liminal spaces located along pathways and alleyways, in and around abandoned houses, vacant

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Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces

lots, and the farms and orchards situated on the terraced slopes of Mount Royal. Homeless prostitutes and female vagrants (a “catch all” legal category that could include sex workers, casual participants in prostitution, or those who were homeless, inebriated, or disturbing the peace), sought food, refuge, security, and clients from among the male vagabonds and deserting soldiers who regularly gathered on the mountain. Streetwalkers solicited in the southern most reaches of the city, on the beaches of the St Lawrence River, along the Lachine Canal, and on the roadways that wove through the suburbs. They frequented rough establishments in disreputable and unsafe areas of the city: the low tippling houses along the waterfront that catered to thirsty and randy sailors from the foreign ships in port, the cellars under the public markets that were reputed to be the haunt of soldiers and thieves,15 or the shanties favoured by Irish workers along the Lachine Canal. These sites and city streets provided the venues in which prostitutes conducted their trade in sex, where they rubbed shoulders with pedestrians, policemen, and potential clients. This was comparable to streetwalkers in Philadelphia, who in this same period moved about freely in city parks, on the streets, and in places of amusement, using the public spaces to their own advantage. Their working environment included taverns, streets, parks, and theatres.16 Similarly, brothel-keepers established their businesses in a variety of settings, which included cellars below the markets, rooms above taverns, entire buildings, and apartments or single rooms in multifamily dwellings. Montreal’s bawdy houses were remarkably different in their location, structure, size, patronage, and services. In 1838, Peter McCormick accused Mrs Blanchard of operating a house of prostitution directly above his first-floor apartment in a dwelling located on St-Paul Street in the town centre. McCormick complained to a justice of the peace that the floor separating the two levels was in such a dilapidated state that he had “every opportunity of hearing the lewd practices” of those who frequented the brothel.17 All spaces in a house – from the cellar to the attic – could be used for prostitution. For example, Notary Jean-Marie Cadieux accused Angélique Fournelle of keeping such an enterprise in the attic of one of his houses after he witnessed men going up to the attic accompanied by girls and women.18 Montreal’s diversity in brothel forms was

Disorderly Women and Disorderly Houses

39

similar to that in antebellum US cities such as Philadelphia, where houses of reception, taverns, hotels, and lodging houses all served as bawdy houses. Women also solicited in theatres and taverns and brought their customers to rooms in some of these establishments.19 Keepers of disorderly houses sometimes referred to themselves as boarding-house keepers, dressmakers, or seamstresses, terms that served as euphemisms for sex commerce. When the census-taker knocked at the door of the Vitré Street house of prostitution of the notorious Montreal madam Angélique Leclaire in 1831, she declared that she was a dressmaker.20 Given the size of the city and the reputation of that particular section of the street, he would surely have known that Leclaire’s residence was in fact a brothel. Historian Patrick Dunae has argued that Victoria census-takers in 1891 and 1901 were fully aware of who they were dealing with when they visited brothels to enumerate the women who lived and worked in them. Referring to the interactions between prostitutes and enumerators as a charade, Dunae asserts: “How else can we characterize a process whereby enumerators knowingly described brothel operators as boarding house keepers and prostitutes as dressmakers, nurses, and florists?”21 Rosalie Paquet’s audacious advertisement of her St-Constant Street brothel as a boarding house in the 1842 Lovell’s Montreal Directory provides another example of this pretence.22 Similarly, Chief Constable Thomas Fitzpatrick denounced John Trimble for maintaining a house of prostitution on St Mary’s Street in the Quebec suburbs, rather than a lodging house. Thomas Garvey, a boarder at Trimble’s establishment, corroborated Fitzpatrick’s accusation, declaring that civilians, soldiers, and women resorted there “for the purpose of drinking and indulging in vice and dissipation.”23 Brothel-keepers sometimes shared the same building but conducted separate businesses, as did Francis Timmens the younger and James Dogherty, who ran brothels in Metcalf Heaven’s house on College Street, each inhabiting a separate half of the building.24 The type of housing brothel-keepers chose to operate reflected the social class of their clients and differentiated one establishment from another. Those who occupied handsome stone buildings located along major thoroughfares such as Craig (later St-Antoine), St-Paul, and Notre-Dame served an affluent clientele. So, too, did Marie Solomon’s “house of reception”; she commanded a considerable fee

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Prostitutes, Brothel-Keepers, and Their Workplaces

from anyone who wanted to spend the night in one of her bedrooms.25 (The price of a prostitute would have been an additional cost.) By contrast, Irish canal workers preferred the “cabanes de [sic] planches” or shanties along the Lachine Canal and sweepers and servants frequented Marie Millette, Marie-Euphrosine Metthote, and Marie Livernois’s brothel in the Quebec suburb.26 Those who provided sexual services out of a single room or rented cellars at the Ste-Anne’s market undoubtedly operated very modest enterprises and targeted a more disadvantaged patronage. Such was the case for Mary Anne Shaw and Ann Pierce, “filles de plaisir … des putins [sic]” who set up their room on Salaberry Street in the Faubourg Quebec as a brothel.27 A man in search of sex commerce had to make little effort to locate prostitutes who suited his taste and pocketbook. The city provided what geographer Philip Howell has described with reference to New York and London as “a field of sexual opportunity to men about town.”28 By and large, Montreal inhabitants, soldiers, sailors, and visitors knew either the addresses or the general location of houses of prostitution or sites of solicitation in the neighbourhoods where they resided or stayed temporarily. Blacksmith James Johnson was likely seeking sex commerce when, near the New Market, he stopped Ellen Norris to ask for directions to Charles Taylor’s brothel. Unbeknownst to Johnson, Norris was Charles Taylor’s wife and she offered to accompany him to her residence. His quest for sex commerce proved to be more onerous than he had probably imagined when he first set out to visit Taylor’s house of prostitution: not long after he arrived at the brothel someone stole his pocket book, left unguarded on a chair and containing £15 in bank notes and coins. Johnson responded to the theft by locking the house and procuring the assistance of a watchman, who promptly arrested Norris and her purported accomplice, Susan Waters.29 Newcomers to the city could find out about sex commerce through word of mouth – carters were an important source of information – or by simply walking about the city in search of telltale signs. Since solicitation had to be noisy, tumultuous, and a public activity in order to be prosecuted, all of the descriptions of prostitution in the legal records are of this nature. Drunkenness added to the mayhem and surely intensified local intolerance to sex commerce, especially by the

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1840s when attitudes toward intemperance were changing. Plaintiffs describe prostitutes congregating in doorways, in front of buildings, or across the street from brothels, calling out to men passing by. At Louise Vizé’s bawdy house, policemen John Dredge and Toussaint Garreau observed prostitutes endeavouring to entice men to enter their establishment.30 Others provided pedestrians with glimpses of what awaited them inside the brothel. According to plaintiff Mary Deselle, Marguerite Depaté routinely stood nude at the front window of a house situated on Notre-Dame Street. Deselle denounced Depaté to the authorities for “openly exposing her person by appearing before the soldiers and other persons passing through the streets.”31 Brothel prostitutes also roamed the neighbourhood streets in search of clients to be escorted back to their places of employment. A tourist from the United States accompanied Félicité Bleau to Angélique Paré’s house of prostitution where both Félicité and her sister Marguerite worked.32 We know about this incident because he later accused the sisters of stealing money from him during his visit to the brothel. Streetwalkers explicitly solicited potential clients by displaying parts of their bodies. Margaret Norwood, for example, uncovered her stomach: “shamelessly and indecently exposed her nakedness in the public street to all the people passing.”33 Others pursued men: police apprehended Peggy Dollar, Mary Rice, Catherine Corker, and Eliza Harvey as they followed Francis Grant, Pierre Lemoine, and Jean-Baptiste Laviolette along Papineau Road.34 Street prostitutes also solicited potential male clients more discretely with the suggestion that they should buy them a drink. Although some men may have found the covert signs of the sex trade challenging because they necessitated decoding clothing, behaviour, and verbal cues, others, such as John West, maintained that he could spot a street prostitute by her gait, as an encounter with Marguerite Miron demonstrated. While running an errand for his master in the Faubourg St-Laurent, West “fell in” with Marguerite Miron. He claimed that it was her walk and the proposition that he should buy her a drink that revealed to him she was a prostitute.35 Likewise, certain types of clothing and the manner in which it was worn indicated a woman’s occupation in sex commerce. Historian Judith Walkowitz has described streetwalkers in Victorian London as “bonnetless, without shawls, they

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presented themselves “in their figure” to passersby.”36 Soliciting during Montreal winters obviously required more clothing. Prostitute Catherine Ryan wore a red shawl, a plume of black feathers, and a black ribbon to signal her vocation to would-be clients. These coveted items became the target of a robbery when fellow streetwalkers Margaret Perigord and Eliza Robertson took them from Ryan while she was on the stroll one February evening near Bonsecour Church, located on St-Paul Street, only steps away from the city’s first permanent theatre, the Theatre Royal. The theatre was constructed in 1825 and could accommodate an audience of 1,000 in theatre boxes on the first two levels and in the slips or third tier on the top floor.37 The third tier may have functioned as a setting of solicitation, as historian Claudia Johnson has shown for US theatres in the same historical period.38 For women like Catherine Ryan, Margaret Perigord, and Eliza Robertson, the theatre provided an important source of wellheeled clients. Taverns served as another important locale for solicitation, especially during inclement weather. Prostitutes and men paused over glasses of spirits, beer, cider, or wine to negotiate sex and the cost of sex commerce may have included a pub meal in addition to drinks. Taverns in Montreal, a port as well as a garrison town, were clustered along the streets in the neighbourhood of and in front of the wharves, serving as sites where soldiers, sailors, construction workers, immigrants, and prostitutes congregated. For many transient men and newcomers, street prostitutes were not only purveyors of sex commerce but also, in their role as informal ambassadresses in the city, of information. As Craig Heron’s study of alcohol consumption shows, the tavern was in every sense a public house, serving as a central meeting place in local neighbourhoods and playing an important function in daily life. Men and women gathered not only to consume food and beverages but to socialize, gossip, celebrate, debate, negotiate, organize community events, and watch and participate in a wide range of cultural activities.39 Just who the women were is less clear. Historian Anna Clark has argued that British working-class women made the tavern a regular feature of their lives.40 Julia Roberts, in her study of Ely Playter’s tavern in Upper Canada, contends that respectable women as well as men frequented his public house but that the gendered use of this space was carefully scripted.41 And while

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Roberts found no strong link between taverns and prostitutes in her examination of taverns and tavern-goers in Upper Canada,42 the present study demonstrates that prostitutes in Montreal regularly resorted to drinking establishments in and around the barracks, waterfront, and markets, often at the encouragement of proprietors. Montreal’s geography played an important role in the identification of prostitutes: they were distinguished by the streets or places they frequented as well as by the time of day they were on the stroll. For instance, in 1822 the editor of The Scribbler warned respectable women to stay away from St-Gabriel Street: “Ladies of strict virtue, and [sic] have any sense of decorum, or detestation of bare-face profligacy, ought to be a little circumspect in appearing near certain premises in St Gabriel Street; less strangers should mistaken them for some of the ladies of easy virtue, and numerous impures of all ages and complexions that flock thither as to a public mart for prostitution, and crowd the lobbies, passages, and back offices.”43 Problems arose when these arbitrary rules were applied to all popular-class women. Those exhibiting disorderly public behaviour were judged harshly, as the following two examples show. Mary Elizabeth Williamson may or may not have been a prostitute at the time she was caught having sex with George Hamilton on a butchers’ bench in the New Market.44 Described by police as intoxicated at the time of her arrest, Williamson and Hamilton could have engaged in sex for mutual pleasure or because Hamilton had coerced it from Williamson. Similarly, watchmen present at the time that Mary Smith requested overnight lodging at the Watch House determined that she had “l’air d’une prostituée,” but their assessment may have been wrong.45 Such judgments reflect both a narrow definition of appropriate female sexual behaviour and the view that sex outside of marriage verged on prostitution. Following the rebellions, Montreal women walking alone at night on particular city streets risked their reputation as well as their safety. The constabulary and night watch were especially diligent toward young, single, migrant women they suspected of being prostitutes. As the city’s population rose and the demand for more rigorous surveillance of public space grew, police found it more difficult to differentiate between vagrant women, prostitutes, and popular-class women. Consequently, all but elite women became suspect. Barbara Hobson has argued that in some US cities, the mere presence of a

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woman on certain streets signified that she was a prostitute.46 A letter published in the Montreal Herald illustrates the level of constraint that young, single women in the urban landscape had to endure. In this case, a watchman stopped Mary, a servant girl, one evening while she was running an errand for her mistress. He accused her of being out because of a “bad intention,” which required that he conduct her to the Watch House where she would be incarcerated. It took the intervention of several gentlemen before the watchman agreed to escort Mary to her mistress’s house, where her story was verified.47 Specific behaviour, including consuming alcohol, also became associated with vice, as Ellen Spiring’s woeful encounter with a city constable reveals. On 13 March 1841, he believed that she was intoxicated in the public street and apprehended her for being a loose, idle, and disorderly woman; the presiding magistrate sentenced her to a month at hard labour. Spiring was an epileptic and what the police officer took for drunkenness was probably a post-epileptic state of confusion following a seizure. Dr Daniel Arnoldi, the prison physician, reported that “the day after she came in, she begged of me to represent the hardship of her case, as she was committed under the supposition that she was drunk. I accordingly stated her case to His Excellency, complaining that they sent the sick, maimed, and incurable to gaol, but no specific answer was obtained.” Shortly thereafter, Ellen Spiring became too ill to leave the Common Gaol. She spent the last five months of her life in the prison hospital before succumbing to tuberculosis.48

The Town “The town” (as it was commonly called) was an important sexual landscape, home to Montreal’s bourgeoisie, artisans, and commercial, industrial, educational, civic, judicial, military, and religious life. The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a reshaping of its topography to reflect, according to historian Robert Sweeny, emerging bourgeois notions of civil society. 49 As the fortifications toppled, new squares, markets, and streets were constructed. Nonetheless, the heart of Montreal’s institutional and commercial life remained within the demolished fortifications and town gates. This nerve centre or hub was, as Gilles Lauzon and Alan Stewart have argued, quite separate from the suburbs and enjoyed urban services unavailable to the

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majority of the city’s population, who continued to live beyond the imprint of the razed walls, which persisted as significant class barriers.50 The town encompassed Montreal’s most important institutions, including most of its churches and its only synagogue, as well as markets, hospitals, convents, schools, shops, warehouses, the courthouse and jail, and artisans’ workshops. A significant number of public buildings were located on Notre-Dame Street, described by surveyor Joseph Bouchette as “the handsomest street” in Montreal.51 The town was home to the urban elite, many of whom resided in two- or threestorey stone buildings in the eastern section of Notre-Dame Street, which ran parallel to the much narrower St-Paul Street, where leading merchants conducted their wholesale and retail businesses. Taverns, hotels, boarding houses, and brothels, two of which bordered the home of Judge Gale on Notre-Dame Street in 1836,52 blended with this sombre mix of public and private buildings. City elites thus lived in the midst of sex commerce. Streetwalkers traversed the town, with its characteristic grey stone buildings and tin roofs, resorting to wooden sidewalks, sometimes broken, along narrow, filthy streets, dodging ankle-deep mud, animal refuse, and puddles of water. They had to be especially careful crossing Commissioners Street, which was “covered with heaps of rubbish, stagnant pools, deep ruts, and in some places half covered with logs of timber.”53 Although a building program to install stone sidewalks and to macadamize major streets had been inaugurated in the early years of the nineteenth century, it would take decades before the project was completed. Not surprisingly, the best-paved streets in the town were Notre-Dame and St-Paul. Prostitutes walking along most of the town’s roadways also had to beware of Montreal carters, who were notorious for driving their horses at full gallop through city thoroughfares. Some of the lanes and alleyways were so narrow that the women had to press up against the walls of buildings to avoid contact with passing horses and carts.54 Street prostitution was integral to the local economy of the town. Women marketing sex attracted clients to drinking establishments where patrons were encouraged to purchase beverages and food. Neighbourhood surveillance by local residents and the police provided a degree of protection to women caught in dangerous situations: if prostitutes encountered violence, their cries for help could bring

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assistance. The introduction of lights on certain streets also contributed to their safety. It was no accident that St-Paul Street, where Montreal elites had established their commercial enterprises, was lit first, with the suburbs not lit until much later. Despite an increased risk of arrest for solicitation in this part of Montreal, the presence of street lamps along St-Paul Street and the number of constables and night watchmen who patrolled regularly55 made being on the stroll more secure. It was ironic that, as Daniel Dicaire has argued, the lamps that were supposed to discourage crime in the town may well have encouraged moral disorder.56 By 1815, the western section of St-Paul Street had been illuminated with twenty-two whale oil lamps, put in at the initiation of Samuel Dawson and others residing on the street, who had collected funds to purchase and maintain street lamps in the area between the Old Market and Griffintown Bridge.57 Two months later, inhabitants of the eastern section of St-Paul Street, between Mr Lilly’s corner and Bonsecour Church, started a similar collection.58 By 1818, oil lamps began to appear on Notre-Dame Street and it was the responsibility of the newly created watch to light and extinguish the lamps each evening and morning. Twenty years later, when the Montreal Gas Light Company asked the municipal government for permission to take over the operation of existing street lights, including their conversion to coal oil, maintenance, and lighting, there was a network of at least 150 lamps in the old city.59 Montreal’s lighting practices followed those of other nineteenth- and twentieth-century North American and European cities. Street lights were first established in elite commercial and residential areas and then crept slowly across the urban landscape until the poorest quarters were eventually illuminated.60 These lamps were intended to protect elite property and to regulate public space so that bourgeois women and their children could walk without encountering notorious persons. The editors of the Montreal Herald advocated the systematic lighting of city streets, arguing that it would “encourage ladies to make evening promenades and occasional visits to friends.”61 Not surprising, there were problems with the system, as exemplified in a letter to La Minerve in 1827. The disgruntled writer complained that nearly half of the lamps did not function at all and at least a dozen of the remaining half were

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extinguished at ten or eleven o’clock in the evening. He proposed that the city use oil that did not burn so quickly, hire someone to maintain the lamps more expediently, and light them at a better time each evening.62 Such lighting practices also served, as M.J.D. Roberts has suggested, to make visible that which was hidden, thereby facilitating police detection of disreputable behaviour and allowing them to increase surveillance of the potentially disruptive habits of the urban poor.63 City notables were preoccupied with imagined nocturnal activities: in particular, they worried about popular-class men and women participating in an array of illicit activities under cover of darkness. From their perspective, night camouflaged the criminal intentions of men such as Edmund Lund, a convicted criminal who purportedly disguised himself by wearing feminine clothing, or of women such as an unidentified stranger to the city who apparently wandered the streets at night in men’s clothing and whose gender was not recognized until she became ill and was placed under the care of a physician.64 Since darkness obscured “debauchery,” street lamps illuminated immorality by casting a moral light upon “indecency,” such as Betsey Dunn and François Neau having sexual intercourse under a street light on Notre-Dame Street near the business of auctioneers’ Cuvillier and Company. The illumination of the act facilitated watchman Antoine Gospel’s arrest of Dunn for vagrancy,65 while the spotlight on Neau’s participation in this act of sex commerce escaped legal censor. The presence of street lights permitted male ramblers, drawn to sites of leisure, to use city thoroughfares at night to seek out sexual pleasure.66 Mary Crechetelli’s encounter with Lieutenant John Deacon of the 23rd Regiment of Foot provides a glimpse into the convoluted and perilous street choreography between a prostitute and a male flaneur. In this case, Crechetelli was the object to be consumed and Deacon was the subject who decided whether to consume it.67 Crechetelli described being approached by Deacon who, after paying particular attention to her face as she passed near a street lamp, pursued her until the Hay Market; there, he grabbed her by the neck and demanded to know where she was going. As they walked in front of the mess hall, Deacon invited Crechetelli to his room. She refused. He then followed her to Ste-Anne’s Market and took from her a bundle of

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clothes that she was carrying, whereupon she accompanied him back to his room where Deacon attempted, in Crechetelli’s own words, “to have charnel [sic] connection with me but he could not succeed from my resistance.” Deacon’s alleged coercion eventually resulted in sex and an offer of money, which Crechetelli apparently refused; she soon left, taking with her only part of the bundle. When she returned later to retrieve the rest of her belongings, Deacon accused her of stealing his watch. Even though police had found the stolen item at her residence, the trial jury found Crechetelli not guilty of the charge,68 possibly as a result of Lieutenant Deacon’s involvement with a known prostitute. The town was home to two military complexes. The Récollets Barracks, located on Ste-Hélène Street, had been a monastery before it was converted into a military installation in 1796. It closed in 1818. The second complex was a cluster of buildings and green space that included the Quebec Gate Barracks as well as the garrison hospital, commissariat stores, stables, wood yards, and the Champs-de-Mars parade ground. Demarcated by a row of Lombardy poplars on its north and south borders, the Champs-de-Mars – illustrated in image 1.1 – offered the public the spectacle of concerts and troop reviews while reasserting Britain’s imperial presence and authority. It also served as a popular promenade. Montreal’s notables frequented what historians Alan Stewart and Gilles Lauzon have identified as the “first space designed for public enjoyment … to see and be seen.”69 The embourgeoisement of this public space, which involved a scripted formality shaped by notions of respectability, also signified its regulation and, as Robert Sweeny has so aptly suggested, “more than just clothes were being fashioned by Montrealers promenading on the Champs de Mars.”70 As night fell, the esplanade was transformed from an elite promenade into a space for sex commerce where men sought out the prostitutes who gathered there to solicit. The Champs-de-Mars was a favourite site for streetwalkers Angélique Cataford, Louise Perrault, Marie Gagnon, Catherine Clarke, Marie Casavant, and Marie Gagnier to stroll together and Constable Louis Malo apprehended them there for being vagrants and women of bad fame.71 It was a multi-use space where social class, social regulation, and agency intersected overtly. The Court House and prison were on its northern

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Image 1.1 The Champs-de-Mars

incline, visible to anyone standing in the town or in the suburb of StLaurent. Members of an 1836 grand jury of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace condemned “ces scènes dégoutantes” that occurred there regularly because “ce lieu est infesté de filles publiques qui y mettent le désordre.”72 Their denunciation recognized the social tensions that, as geographer Henry Lawrence has argued, arise from competing private and public use of a particular space.73 Despite a strong police presence in the town and the denunciations of the 1836 grand jury, prostitution was practised virtually on the doorstep of the criminal justice system. The Quebec Gate Barracks, erected in a heavily populated part of town on the north bank of the river and on the town’s eastern boundary, was an imposing compound. Image 1.2 shows its main gate,

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which opened onto Dalhousie Square, a space bordered by the elegant stone homes of the bourgeoisie.74 Such places, according to Henry Lawrence, offered a social setting or an intimate neighbourhood where “the comings and goings of each resident were easily visible to all others.”75 It, too, served as a public promenade and, like the Champs-de-Mars, attracted a coterie of prostitutes and vagrants who traversed the plaza in search of barrack soldiers. Jane Wallis was one such streetwalker and, while strolling on Dalhousie Square, was apprehended by High Constable Benjamin Delisle and charged with being loose, idle, and disorderly.76 From the early 1830s until mid-century the Quebec Gate Barracks accommodated up to 1,000 soldiers at any one time; surplus soldiers were quartered in public buildings that had been appropriated for defence purposes, such as the old gaol and buildings on Île Ste-Hélène and in Hochelaga. Almost all of these regular soldiers were either single or had left their wives and children at home in Great Britain. Only six percent of married soldiers were permitted army rations and barrack lodgings for their families, so most could not afford the cost of transporting their families to Canada or of supporting them once they arrived. For many prostitutes and brothel-keepers, soldiers provided an important clientele and the neighbourhood around Montreal’s largest military complex was an obvious place to establish houses of prostitution. The type of brothel a soldier frequented depended upon his rank. Military officers patronized a higher class of bawdy house, such as one operated by Josephine Faucas dite Raymond, widow of John George Dagen, who had been a town crier and bailiff.77 Regular soldiers were more likely to resort to brothels located under the cellars of the Ste-Anne’s market, operated out of single rooms, or disorderly houses such as Peter Fontaine’s in the Quebec suburb, which also catered to recently arrived sailors. Historian Elinor Senior acknowledges that the brothel was a favourite haunt of soldiers but argues that the routine of barracks life curtailed their presence in these establishments, suggesting that officers handed out late-night passes sparingly, or even refused them altogether when tensions existed between the community and the military.78 Court documents provide a very different characterization. Regular soldiers were often caught in brothels after tattoo, which took place at eight o’clock in the

Image 1.2 The Quebec Gate Barracks

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evening, suggesting either that late passes were easy to obtain or that soldiers routinely left the barracks without permission. Thomas Kiernan, who leased two apartments to Catherine Jordan and her twenty-year-old daughter Margaret Chrisholm, complained that they repeatedly entertained soldiers after tattoo.79 The regular soldier’s supposed penchant for women and drink earned him the condemnation of at least one commander for being “a creature of routine” who had “no occasion to think for tomorrow . . . [and] no recreation but sensuality. His general haunts are the Grog Shop and Brothel, and the monotony of his daily life makes him susceptible to change [desertion].”80 That soldiers were mere steps away from known sites of sex commerce facilitated illicit meetings. Not long after Catharine Raigan, the widow of soldier Daniel Burke, leased a room in a house on St-Paul Street, her landlady, Mary Fraser, complained that Raigan entertained and sold sex to disorderly persons and military men who were quartered nearby.81 Similarly, Mary Martin allegedly kept a house of ill repute on Dubord Street, which bordered Viger Square and was only five minutes by foot from the barracks.82 Montreal’s urban geography played a pivotal role in streetwalkers’ work, leisure, and security. They sold sex, consumed food and alcohol, argued, courted, promenaded, fought, committed theft, and slept rough within this cacophonic and tumultuous public arena in what historian Linda Woodbridge has referred to as an “improvisational, hand-to-mouth subsistence.”83 Their use of public space to search for food, shelter, and security as well as to solicit speaks to the permeability of the public and private, and to blurred divisions between everyday life and the illicit. The spaces that they carved out for themselves were intermediary on the continuum between public and private. For the homeless, certain locales did double and even triple duty. Although highly regulated, bustling, and popular spaces, markets provided prostitutes not only with clients but with food, drink, shelter, and benches that could be used for sex commerce and to sleep at night. Such was the case for prostitute Ann Taylor, who furnished sex to a soldier on a market bench, after which she fell asleep. At midnight, watchman Antoine Charbonneau woke up Taylor to arrest her.84 The Old Marketplace, erected during the ancien régime on what is now Place Royale, was popular with farmers, who transported

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Image 1.3 The Old Market

their products to the market from the parish of Montreal or from as far away as the United States, city residents who shopped there, and streetwalkers on the stroll. People, horses, and carts crammed neighbouring streets on market days when locals frequented the stalls set up in the “low, wooden shed-like building” shown in image 1.3.85 In 1810, the market operated from Tuesday to Friday; by 1814 it was open every day except on Sunday and holy days.86 Nearby taverns offered farmers and shoppers opportunities to purchase drink, food, and sex. Historian Donald Fyson’s analysis of the 1819 and 1820 Thomas Doige’s Directory shows that a quarter of the city’s drinking establishments were located around the old and new marketplaces. Tavern-keepers carried on a brisk business on Capital Street, which was close to the Old Market, dispensing beer, wine, and spirits to visitors who patronized the eighteen taverns located there.87 The largest was the very popular L’Auberge de Trois Rois (the two-storey building featuring a campanile located to the left of the market in image 1.3.), which fronted the square and was operated by Thomas Delvecchio, who was also referred to as Thomas L’Italien.88 The

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street’s notoriety became the subject of a petition initiated by the Widow Joseph Perrault and presented to the House of Assembly in 1816 wherein petitioners urged that the taverns and a section of the street be closed.89 Image 1.4 shows the New Market, erected in 1808 on land known as New Market Square and later as Place Jacques Cartier. It had been designed to surpass the Old Market and its forty wooden stalls were built on a larger, more central, and prestigious site.90 A year later, a group of Montreal residents raised sufficient funds to erect a monument commemorating Lord Nelson’s naval victory at Trafalgar and in July 1809, a large crowd gathered at its unveiling. For those who extolled British imperial authority and associated icons and architecture, the statue added to the square’s legitimacy and prestige, but for those less enamoured with the British, Nelson served as a constant and likely bitter reminder of Lower Canada’s colonial relationship with Great Britain, a consequence of the defeat of New France on the Plains of Abraham. Despite the architect’s attempt to bestow status upon the space and attract city dwellers to the market’s superior stalls, city inhabitants continued to frequent the Old Market in large numbers. Moreover, as with so many other public places, streetwalkers had their own designs for the square and before long a traveller described the New Market as “not only a shabby, but dirty building,”91 perhaps in reference to the sex commerce carried out there and to the taverns and inns that bordered the square. In 1833 the opening of Ste-Anne’s Market, located at the western extremity of Place Youville between the town and Pointe-àCallière, resulted in the closure of the Old Market. Ste-Anne’s Market, only a fifteen-minute walk from the Quebec Gate Barracks, was another popular site for prostitution. It was the first market in the city to be designed on an English plan with an interior market space.92 In 1844 it accommodated the parliament of the newly united Canadas and five years later was deliberately set on fire in protest against the passing of the Rebellion Losses Bill. Newton Bosworth described the two-storey market, made of cut stone, as “a very handsome edifice … Porticos have been erected at each end of the building, thus maintaining the truly chaste and architectural character of the design.”93 His description ignores the “unchaste” activities that took place daily below the market, where madams employed young women to lure

Image 1.4 The New Market

soldiers to its numerous seven-foot high cellars, which served as bawdy houses. These sites became the focus of an 1840 grand jury report that condemned the illegal drinking establishments and brothels found there: “not only are soldiers enticed there into unlicensed tippling houses and seduced from their duty, and petty thieves harboured, but female children of a tender age are entrapped and sacrificed to the purposes of guilt and debauchery.” To put an end to these illicit activities, jury members recommended that a police magistrate review and authorize all cellar leases.94 Soldiers could also purchase sex at the legion of drinking establishments that dotted the neighbourhood landscape. Traveller J.H. Dorwin wrote that in 1816 St-Paul Street was distinguished by “a succession of grog shops and market people, making that neighbourhood very rough.”95 The 1819 Thomas Doige’s Directory listed twelve taverns on St-Paul Street and twenty-six on Ste-Marie, Lafabrique, and Water streets, all located within the immediate vicinity of the barracks. By 1842, the number and ownership of drinking establishments in Montreal had diminished, a likely consequence of temperance campaigns and on-going debates over who qualified for coveted tavern licenses. Nonetheless, there were still twenty-one

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Image 1.5 Ste-Anne’s Market

taverns on St-Paul Street, fifteen on St Mary Street, six on Lafabrique Street, and three on Water Street.96 At the end of the decade, an analysis of the municipal tax role or rôle foncier for the area reveals that sixty percent of the licensed drinking establishments in the town were located between St-Paul Street and the river,97 making it easy for keepers of taverns and grog shops to target sailors, soldiers, immigrants, and labourers who had close connections to waterfront culture. In contrast to Julia Roberts’ observation that in Upper Canada tavernkeepers and tavern-goers regulated drinking behaviour in their establishments,98 in Montreal policemen monitored specific taverns to arrest patrons who imbibed past closing time or were noisy and intoxicated, patrolled the streets for violations, fined refractory owners, and passed on information about suspicious establishments to fellow officers. Constable Cocker, for example, reported that Stewart’s on Water Street was “a very irregular tavern it is a harbour for all vagrants and they are sanctioned by Stewert [sic].”99 Similarly,

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Chief Constable Fitzpatrick accused tavern-keeper Thomas Hughes of allowing soldiers and common prostitutes to drink in his tavern, located on Ste-Marie Street, and to assemble outside his door and “shew [sic] the most disgraceful conduct on the public street.”100 Since policemen exercised a great deal of discretionary power, tavern regulations were not always strictly enforced, causing great consternation among other tavern owners and the elites. City notables and respectable tavern-keepers expressed concern that city police did not implement tavern regulations rigorously or broadly enough and, uneasy about the riotous behaviour, drunkenness, and kinds of individuals admitted to disreputable places, in 1832 they formed an association aimed at suppressing these enterprises and protecting their own reputations. Policing of drinking establishments in Montreal probably resembled that in Paris where, as historian Thomas Brennan has argued, Parisian police generally chose not to enforce closing hours as long as taverns did not open during Sunday mass. Consequently, city residents became accustomed to drinking in local taverns past closing time. Policemen opted instead to restrict accessibility by patrolling streets, taverns, and suspicious houses, and by arresting dubious people, thieves, and vagrants: “The poorest men, the vagabond and beggar, were subjected to summary justice and repression.”101 Joseph Nolin and Joseph Millette attracted a diverse clientele to their Montreal tavern, including soldiers, locals, parish farmers, and sailors, by offering them the services of prostitutes in addition to their customary trade in drink, food, entertainment, and accommodation. These women dispensed sex commerce from the backrooms and upstairs bedrooms.102 Other tavern-keepers simply encouraged prostitutes to patronize their places of businesses. At Robert Brandon’s business, prostitutes openly socialized with soldiers, sitting and drinking in his barroom and, according to one policeman’s description,“exhibiting a public scandale [sic].”103 Offering their customers the services of prostitutes provided tavern-keepers with an edge over their competitors and may have succeeded in enticing men into the establishments. They also offered other items for sale in addition to traditional fare, drink, and sex commerce; some were grocers who retailed foodstuffs.104 As a port and garrison town Montreal shared many features with Quebec City and Halifax. Historian Judith Fingard has argued

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that competition in Halifax was so vigorous among merchants who catered to soldiers and sailors that they offered an array of services – even hair cuts – to lure customers away from other businesses: “The availability of women attracted customers for food and liquor or whatever else was normally on sale and gave a marginal shop the edge over its equally unstable neighbour without such extra services.”105 However, tavern keepers who encouraged prostitutes to frequent their establishments or kept prostitutes on their premises risked their livelihood by jeopardizing their tavern licences or leaving themselves vulnerable to denunciations by fellow bar owners. In 1817, town sergeant Bernard Kelly and tavern keepers David Baird and William Ireson, who owned an establishment at 1 St-Paul Street, accused their neighbour William Waters, who kept the same sort of business at 3 St-Paul Street, across from the Quebec Gate Barracks, of harbouring a number of common prostitutes in his house and tavern. According to Baird, the women had been plying their trade in the city streets for the past three months but had only started patronizing Waters’ establishment a month earlier.106

The Suburbs The suburbs, home to most city residents – a mix of French-Canadians, Protestants, Irish-Protestants, and Irish-Catholic – surrounded the town on its three sides: “On the south-west are the divisions called the St. Anne, the Recollet, and the St. Antoine suburbs; on the northwest the St. Laurent, St. Louis, and St. Peter’s; and on the north-east the Quebec.”107 Although the size of their populations varied – the Faubourg St-Laurent was the oldest, most populated, and extensive – patterns of development in the suburbs were similar. By and large, successful artisans, shopkeepers, and members of the liberal professions inhabited two-storey stone buildings along the main thoroughfare, which served as the commercial centre. Suburbs also had their own promenades. Flirtation Lane, located between Bleury and Dorchester streets in the St-Laurent suburb, was a popular site for young couples, who walked there on summer evenings.108 Taverns were another common feature. E.T. Coke, a traveller who visited Montreal during the summer of 1832, described the suburbs as replete with small taverns, each of which had seats and trees in front and a sign, in English and French, strung across the street advertising its wares.109 Skilled

Figure 1.1 Faubourgs of nineteenth-century Montreal

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and unskilled workers and their families lived in leased, low-cost, one- or two-storey wooden houses situated on streets parallel to or crossing the main thoroughfares. The suburbs, or faubourgs, were also important sites of sex commerce. The demolition of the town’s fortifications both integrated Pointe-à-Callière into the town centre and improved access to the suburbs. The principal streets of the town were major thoroughfares into the suburbs, connecting Montreal to the countryside: “farmers’ traffic to city markets justified commercial activities along these tentacles of the commercial core.”110 As in the town, at various times of the year streetwalkers would have found it difficult to negotiate the thoroughfares and laneways of the suburbs, which were made even more hazardous by the lack of street lighting. In winter, the streets were covered with ice, in some places as much as two to three feet in depth, and not always sanded. In summer, the wider unpaved streets of the suburbs turned to dust and in rainy weather to mud. During the spring and autumn seasons, Sherbrooke Street was passable only in daylight. The warm summer air conveyed the stench of rotting animal carcases, unwashed market stalls, abattoirs, accumulated garbage, horse dung, pools of stagnant water, and open privies. Brothel-keepers were active in the suburbs and operated houses of ill repute along major streets in all of the neighbourhoods. As in town, they chose locations in close proximity to sizeable male populations. The wide-ranging geography of suburban brothels drew the attention of the Montreal Gazette and in July 1824 the newspaper demanded better police regulation of these establishments: “We cannot help remarking, that the number of these sinks of infamy with which the suburbs of the city abound require the active interference of the police to keep them in check, they are here, as in all other places, the resorts of the most depraved character, and no doubt, afford shelter to many whose only means of living is to prey upon others, and violate the laws of civil society.”111 Nor was the northernmost border of the city exempt from prostitution. Côte-à-Baron, which overlooked the city, began at the boundary of the Faubourg St-Laurent and ended just above Sherbrooke Street. On its eastern border, some of Montreal’s bourgeoisie had substantial lots of a half to three-quarter acre on which they had built prestigious homes. To the west, poor dayworkers and construction workers inhabited run-

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down wooden houses. In 1832, the long arm of the law stretched from the station house in town to Côte-à-Baron, where police raided four brothels over a nine-month period. The first of these raids took place in January after Benjamin Durand and Constable Louis Malo denounced William Murphy’s brothel.112 Eight months later, acting on formal complaints made by neighbours, police constables arrested fourteen people in a sweep of three houses of prostitution.113 Brothel-keepers also operated establishments in Pointe-à-Callière, the original site of European settlement and beyond the fortifications of the town, where they catered to an impoverished but growing immigrant community in addition to port workers and tradesmen. Although the first locus of economic activity had centred on shipbuilding, the export of potash, and warehousing, by the 1820s the area had undergone appreciable change. Shipbuilding had disappeared and various fires had led to reconfigurations of the built environment, including new manufacturing enterprises. Accessible to the deepest part of the shipping channel, Pointe-à-Callière became the nucleus of Montreal’s port activities and by the 1840s significant transformations were taking place: substantial stone warehouses, which stored British goods destined for Upper Canada and local products such as potash for overseas markets, lined the harbour along Common Street. Pointe-à-Callière also served as a gateway to the city and the site of disembarkation for the thousands of immigrants arriving from Europe. Local inns, established on the three corners of Common, Port, and Foundling Streets, accommodated these new arrivals as well as the prostitutes who provided some of them with sex commerce. Destitute Irish newcomers made their way to Griffintown in the suburb of Ste-Anne, which was located just south of Pointe-àCallière at the opening of the Lachine Canal. While Irish immigrants had began to settle in that area in 1815, the suburb was created in 1825 to coincide with the canal’s opening. It eventually became home to Protestant and Catholic Irish, British, and Canadien workers. Irish immigrants had first found work constructing the Lachine Canal, which was initially designed to handle imperial trade to Upper Canada, and later worked in the small industrial workshops that lined the canal or were located nearby. By the 1840s, Irish-Catholic immigrants, who made up a third of all households in Griffintown, were employed to redevelop the canal. With the introduction of hydraulic

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power in 1846, the Lachine Canal became a principal site of manufacturing. The port underwent further renewal, followed by the creation of rail service as well as the construction of the Victoria Bridge, solidifying Montreal’s pre-eminent position as the colony’s economic powerhouse.114 For the impoverished workers and their families, daily life was a constant struggle to survive owing to insufficient wages, defective housing, and susceptibility to diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis. Moreover, Griffintown’s proximity to the low-lying shore of the St-Laurent River left it unprotected from recurrent flooding. Nonetheless, what began as an Irish shantytown quickly grew into a close-knit community that provided its teeming population with a variety of services, including sex commerce. By 1838, neighbours were complaining to authorities about local houses of prostitution as well as taverns frequented by streetwalkers on William, King, and Queen Streets. Police accused William Millen of allowing “common prostitutes” to patronize his tavern, located on the corner of William and King Streets.115

The Periphery of the City Streetwalkers – especially those without shelter – often solicited at the farms located on the lower slope of the mountain and bordering the city. These social spaces, like city markets, served multiple purposes, allowing them to meet soldiers who had deserted the army and were laying low on the outskirts of the city, to seek refuge in the farm buildings, and to eat from the abundant orchards and gardens: “[T]he latter producing vegetables of every description, and excellent in quality, affording a profuse supply for the consumption of the city. All the usual garden fruits, as gooseberries, currants, strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apricots, and plums are produced in plenty … The orchards afford apples not surpassed in any country; among them the pomme de neige remarkable for its delicate whiteness and exquisite flavour; the sorts called by the inhabitants the fameuse, pomme gris, bourrassa, and some others.”116 Like their counterparts in Victorian Halifax, vagrant women and streetwalkers in Montreal gathered in the common land around the city, reputed to be a place where homeless people could live.117

Image 1.6 Priests’ Farm

Farmers complained to the police that “women of bad fame” loitered with men on their farms, where they helped themselves to fruit and vegetables from their orchards and gardens and milked the cows pasturing in nearby fields. Image 1.6 shows the Priests’ Farm, located below Mont Royal to the west of Côte-des-Neige Road on Sherbrooke Street (presently home to the Grand Séminaire), which was especially popular. It was supposed to serve the Sulpicians and their students as a “place of recreation, where, during the summer time, all the members of the establishment, superiors and pupils, resort once a week.”118 To the indignation of Catholic religious authorities, it was also a preferred site for deserting soldiers, vagrants, and prostitutes to congregate. A music band accompanied black-robed seminary teachers and pupils outfitted in “long blue surtouts with sashes

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of colored worsted”119 as they walked to and from the farm, giving this subaltern group sufficient warning of their arrival and departure. Such assemblies of homeless men and women could be dangerous, especially for policemen. Following complaints that soldiers and prostitutes had broken into Mr Brechenridge’s garden and orchard, located at the end of St-Joseph Street, the police officer on duty went to arrest the women. On arrival, he discovered three well-known prostitutes and approximately thirty soldiers. He refused to arrest the women “under these circumstances.”120 The year before, a soldier had stabbed the chief constable with a bayonet when the police engaged in a similar foray to arrest soldiers and women of “loose character” who had taken possession of a Sulpician property situated near Gregory’s Farm.121

Mapping Sex Commerce Maps that identify the sites of brothels and places where streetwalkers had been denounced and/or apprehended122 provide a more dynamic image of Montreal’s sex trade by showing change over three periods: 1810 to 1829, 1830 to 1837, and 1838 to 1842.123 Since it was rare for a clerk of the court to record the street numbers of brothels in the depositions, it is beyond the scope of this study to identify the actual buildings used by keepers of disorderly houses. Almost threequarters of the depositions note the street; slightly less than a tenth mention only the suburb. Neither do we know with any certainty if brothel-keepers leased the same houses or the locations of brothels whose madams avoided prosecution (obviously not included on the maps). As for streetwalkers, court clerks did not usually record the precise place where the arrests occurred and for that reason these locations are conspicuously under-represented. Nonetheless, the maps explictly demonstrate the patterns of movement of Montreal streetwalkers as well as, implicitly, those of the police, over the three periods. Until 1838, most arrests of street prostitutes took place in the town centre near the markets, Champs-de-Mars, and the Quebec Gate Barracks. One streetwalker was especially familiar with the interior of the barracks, having made a habit, according to the arresting constable, of sleeping in the soldiers’ quarters with different men.124

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That a number of street prostitutes were arrested on Notre-Dame Street may have been the consequence of overzealous policing in an effort to keep this toney thoroughfare – home to urban elites – free of sex workers: for instance, Betsey Kennedy, Eliza Martin, Caroline Parrant, Emelie Gauthier, and Josephte Guerrier were arrested for disturbing the peace after Augustin Cadieux denounced them to authorities for quarrelling while loitering in the street on a late summer day in 1831.125 By the third period (1838 to 1842), street prostitutes were being arrested in all parts of the town, in the suburbs, and in the fields and farms that bordered the city. A number of the women with reputations as non-respectable were arrested simply for lingering in these areas. The maps give us a sense of residential prostitution in the town and the suburbs. They demonstrate both the reach of the local state in regulating the sex trade as well as Montreal residents’ growing displeasure with brothels in their neighbourhoods. Locals met at the communal water tap, on the streets in front of their houses, in courtyards, at local shops, and in the markets, gathering places that provided opportunities to pass on information or voice complaints. David Garrioch’s study of neighbourhoods in Paris and Milano shows that water tap encounters served to reinforce neighbourhood identity and promote relationships as well as informal systems of assistance, and to gossip, complain, and perhaps even to decide how best to deal with refractory neighbours.126 With the extension of the police and watch system into the suburbs by the 1830s and the re-organization of the Montreal police in 1838, constables began to take a larger role in prosecuting those inhabitants who kept disorderly houses. These maps indicate that city dwellers were incriminating keepers of houses of prostitution in their neighbourhoods in ever-increasing numbers over the span of the study. Take the example of St Mary Street, which was an extension of Notre-Dame and the most important roadway in the faubourg of Québec. By the 1820s, it had become home to a few of the city’s elites: “It consisted of a score or two of buildings, scattered along both sides of St. Mary Street, and extending out beyond Molson’s Brewery. A foundry and a shipyard completed the commercial picture. Four fine residences belonged to Bishop Mountain, Judge Reid, Baron Grant, and the Honorable John Richardson.”127 Even so, by 1821 the Montreal Herald had already identified

Figure 1.2 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1810–29

Figure 1.3 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1830–37

Figure 1.4 Sites of brothel and street prostitution, Montreal 1838–42

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a lane leading from the main street as allegedly being frequented by disreputable people.128 Home to a growing number of impoverished workers who laboured in nearby workshops and their families, the quartier centre-sud would, in the next century, be referred to by local residents as the Faubourg à la Mélasse to indicate their widespread poverty.129 Between 1810 and 1829, neighbours did not make a single complaint against brothels and only one was made in the second period. However, by the third period, 1838 to 1842, residents had denounced at least nine to authorities. Although brothel-keepers operated houses of prostitution throughout the city, the maps show that they were concentrated in certain areas, close to a steady supply of clients who frequented public markets, taverns, or military installations. Locations between Lagauchetière and Craig streets on the west side of the St-Laurent suburb and Chenneville and Bonsecours streets in the east, and in the Québec suburb from the Quebec Gate Barracks to Salaberry Street catered to the military crowd. City residents also established brothels on the four major routes leading out of the city into the countryside – Ste-Marie, St-Laurent, St-Joseph, and St-Antoine – in increasing numbers over the period. Keepers of disorderly houses may well have offered farmers on their way home, pockets brimming with coins from market sales, an opportunity for leisure in the form of food, drink, and illicit sex. While setting up houses of prostitution close to areas where men congregated or in quarters reputed for their red-light activities made good business sense, maintaining brothels in city neighbourhoods brought sex commerce to local men, who also sought it. After 1830, Montreal inhabitants increasingly protested against the houses of ill repute in their midst by prosecuting the keepers of these establishments, some of whom had been operating at the same address for as long as a decade. In specific areas of the city, local residents made concerted efforts to clean up their neighbourhoods. Figure 1.5 shows a notorious section of Vitré Street, east of St-Laurent Street in the suburb of St-Louis. Its central location – two blocks from the St-Laurent market, home to the Près-de-ville market between Coté and Chenneville Streets, and a block from the Champs-de-Mars – in addition to its small network of back lanes and open spaces made Vitré Street an ideal site for the sex trade. Moreover, the Près-de-ville market had the advantage of being the only one in the city permitted

Figure 1.5 Vitré Street neighbourhood

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to remain open until 8:30 on Sunday mornings. Vitré Street was in a mixed neighbourhood that included brothel-keepers and prostitutes, artisans, labourers, merchants, members of the liberal professions, and gentlemen and their families, with St-Laurent Street serving as the dividing line not only between two faubourgs but also between social classes. Vitré Street residents living in the west occupied highrent buildings while those who resided in the eastern section inhabited wooden houses, which were inexpensive to rent. Its lower ground, in comparison to Viger Square and Sanguinet Street, which resulted in poor drainage, accumulation of filth, and susceptibility to flooding, may have made the area unappealing to a more middle-class population.130 In the years between 1830 and 1837, city inhabitants censured at least ten brothel-keepers who kept houses of prostitution on Vitré Street; between 1838 and 1842 they made five more complaints. Etienne Benêche dit Lavictoire was one of the plaintiffs who objected to the presence of five brothels, four of which were accommodated in two wooden dwellings131 probably located across the street from each other between St-Dominique and St-Constant Streets. That section of the street contained only a few houses (depicted on the map in dark grey), so neighbours would likely be less inclined to complain, and the north side of the street bordered a large open space (represented on the map in light grey), allowing for outdoor solicitation. In a raid that followed from the five depositions, police apprehended thirty-seven men and women: five madams, twenty prostitutes, and twelve clients. Vitré Street brothels were also the subject of at least one grand jury complaint,132 one petition,133 and numerous police sweeps, including four that took place in April 1835.134 Since the police never succeeded in closing down the Vitré Street sex trade, these forays were meant to serve at least three functions: inform prostitutes that the police were well aware of their operations, warn brothel-keepers that they were responsible for enforcing neighbourhood rules governing public peace and controlling the activities that took place within brothel walls, and demonstrate to neighbours and the local elite that police took the regulation of vice seriously. In the US city of St Louis, similar police raids yielded dozens of prostitutes and only a few clients. Historian Jeffrey Adler has argued that these raids were instituted to respond to pressures exerted by moral crusaders,

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control nonsexual criminal activity such as larceny, regulate brothels, which were unusually disorderly, and remind brothel-keepers of their implicit arrangements with city authorities.135 Not all city brothels, however, garnered the same police attention. Constables and watchmen were well aware of the locations of brothels on their beats and noted their addresses, yet walked past them without arresting the inhabitants. Policemen also responded to clients’ or prostitutes’ complaints of threats, assaults, and larceny by restoring order and processing the depositions without charging and arresting inmates for keeping a disorderly house. When Marie Lamarche requested police assistance to quell a disturbance that had taken place in her house of ill fame, the police intervened but never arrested her for keeping such an establishment.136 Another telling incident occurred in Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire’s house of prostitution. and involved a young man who complained to police that while on business at this popular establishment, he had been assaulted with a poker. Before dressing him down with the following advice, “to prevent accidents [he should] keep better company in future,” the policeman on duty told the would-be victim to take his complaint to the Police Office in the morning.137 Even if Marie Lamarche and Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire had paid for police protection against unexpected raids, it was undoubtedly still in their interest to maintain a certain level of decorum in their brothels: neighbours were less likely to complain and police were more likely to tolerate such establishments. Promoting good relations with others in the neighbourhood made sense, given the close proximity in which people lived. Privacy, according to Bridget Hill, was never possible in popular-class neighbourhoods: “Good neighbourliness was immensely important to the poorer members of society not only because their economic circumstances forced them to be dependent on each other but because their living conditions threw them into constant contact with their neighbours.”138 Some brothel-keepers had operated houses of prostitution at the same address for years until an incident or a campaign to rid a particular neighbourhood of sex commerce provoked a neighbour or neighbours to seek legal recourse. Aware that the time between processing complaints and going to court could be months – the appropriate court met four times a year – and that brothel-keepers and prostitutes needed to earn an income in the meanwhile, many re-opened

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their establishments under a recognizance to keep the peace until the next meeting of the Court of Quarter Sessions, when their cases would be heard. This was the position of a brothel-keeper on St Peter Street whose neighbours complained that those charged had returned to the house and “renewed their misbehaviour worse than before.”139 Some complainants had to go to great lengths to discipline errant neighbours. When Mary Ann Burns, Eliza Johnson, and Margaret Burns reappeared at their brothel following a police raid and their agreement to enter into a recognizance to keep the peace until the October session of court and recommenced the same activities, neighbours made a second trip to a justice of the peace to lay another complaint. This time, one of the conditions of the new surety was that the two Burns and Johnson agree not to return to the house where they had been arrested.140 Brothel-keepers worried that others might take advantage of their absence and damage their property or steal household goods and clothing. Montreal brothel-keeper Marie Bricault dite Lamarche denounced her husband, Charles Sansquartier, who with others had allegedly removed goods, furniture, and other property from her home and brothel while she was imprisoned in the Common Gaol. Bricault dite Lamarche claimed that police had arrested her on the basis of a malicious prosecution effected by three of her husband’s acquaintances, Antoine Dufresne, Agathe Perrault, and Marie-Anne Thibault, wherein she had been accused of physically abusing her husband and operating a brothel on Sanguinet Street.141 In Quebec City, madam Marie-Anne Hamel petitioned the governor for clemency on the basis that while she was incarcerated someone had removed clothing and belongings from her house.142 Other keepers of bawdy houses dealt with accusations by moving to new locations, where they resumed their operations. This is apparent in Mary Ann Crawford’s brief history as a brothel-keeper. Over the course of five months, Crawford established consecutive houses of prostitution on three streets within a four-block radius. In August 1837, she was operating an establishment on Amherst Street when eleven neighbours signed a petition demanding that the police close her establishment. Two months later, police raided her bawdy house on Lagauchetière Street; she was arrested and sent to jail. In November 1837, she moved to Panet Street. Shortly thereafter, neighbours

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complained to authorities that not only did the activities in her brothel disturb the public peace but also inmates assaulted pedestrians as they passed in front of the house. By the end of the year, Crawford had returned to Amherst Street and was once again operating a house of prostitution when police detained her. At the beginning of 1838, she made a dramatic move, relocating from the Québec suburb to St-Simon Street in the faubourg of St-Laurent. St-Simon Street was situated between St-Urbain and Bleury streets to the west and just south of St-Catherine and north of Dorchester. This further change of address did not keep her at arm’s length from the police: she was once more imprisoned for marketing sex.143 Even though brothelkeepers relocated within the city and prostitutes changed establishments, the sex trade as a whole continued to concentrate on certain streets. We have no way of knowing if the same buildings were leased, as was the case in New York City where madams transferred their businesses within a network of buildings, thus ensuring that the city’s sex trade was not disrupted.144 Depositions also reveal that neighbours worried about specific activities associated with particular houses of prostitution that not only threatened the moral well-being of sons, who were accosted outside their homes, or of daughters, who might be tempted into prostitution, but also their personal safety or that of the neighbourhood. Neighbours denounced prostitutes who had tried to solicit them and rowdy clients who assaulted or robbed them or others who walked in front of certain brothels. For example, Robert Wood claimed that the lives of pedestrians passing by one bawdy house were put in danger because men who frequented the house subjected them to ill treatment. Only a few nights previously, Wood had been assaulted and robbed.145 Soldiers armed with bayonets and firearms, which they sometimes fired while frequenting known brothels, also made neighbours uneasy, as did brothel inmates who walked off with goods that had been left in backyards. Neighbours worried as well that strangers would break into their homes. Bénomie Allin was exposed to this danger at first hand when a group of young men who had gathered outside a brothel near his dwelling tried to enter his home by force.146 But above all, they feared that, owing to the disorder that prevailed inside the brothels, a fire originating in these houses could ravage their neighbourhoods of wooden houses.

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There were also more personal reasons for denouncing brothelkeepers and their inmates. George Mackin had apparently tolerated the presence of Catherine Crumbie’s brothel in his neighbourhood until he became embroiled in an altercation with one of the prostitutes. On a Saturday afternoon in August, one of Mackin’s acquaintances was “rudely insulted” by a prostitute, who used “language the most abominable” in reference to Mackin’s wife. Perturbed by these disparaging comments, Mackin struck the “notorious harlot” across the cheek. The next evening, she returned to his home, where she threw stones at the building and uttered the following insults and threats: “Come out here you Dublin Jackson (Jackeen).147 I have a knife here for you and I’ll run it through yours guts.”148 When George Mackin made an official complaint to the authorities, he effectively banished Catherine Crumbie, Maria Jordan, Catherine Brutton, and Mary Macdonald from their residence on Salaberry Street. Having lost their neighbours’ endorsement, the four women were arrested, imprisoned, and charged with keeping a disorderly house.

Conclusion Prostitution flourished throughout Montreal’s urban landscape. Streetwalkers practised their trade in the town as well as the suburbs, in fields, and on roadways around the city, even transforming daytime elite promenades into nocturnal sites of solicitation. Brothel-keepers established bawdy houses in the old city and in the suburbs as far north as Côte-à-Baron and to the south at Pointe à Callière. Street prostitutes were arrested in ever-greater numbers by constables, who expanded the areas they patrolled to include suburb streets and green spaces in and around town. Nonetheless, Montreal’s sex trade concentrated in particular locales close to a large male clientele; these designated vice areas were integrated into mixed neighbourhoods rather than being located in isolated spaces. Sharing urban space resulted in diverse and complex relationships between prostitutes and their neighbours. The permeability between households and public spaces, lack of privacy, and intimate nature of neighbourhoods encouraged both close contact and complaints when neighbours wanted to rid their localities of the sex trade or

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when inmates of these establishments broke with prevailing codes of conduct. Prostitutes and their clients who made too much noise, offended their neighbours in a variety of different ways, or threatened the safety of the neighbourhood risked sanctions. Brothel-keepers had to foster good relations with their neighbours to reduce the risk of police raids. Over time this became more difficult to do and city residents denounced them more often. The same was true for streetwalkers, although it was the police rather than neighbours who were likely to discipline street prostitutes. As more police regulated larger areas of the city, arrests increased. Prostitution was woven through the social geography of Montreal. The city offered soldiers, sailors, immigrants, and residents spaces to satisfy their demands for drink and sociability as well as for sex. The establishments that met these needs were concentrated in places that attracted large numbers of men and a turnover of cash, but were spread throughout the city, the suburbs, and beyond. The change of seasons modified the sexual geography of the city, as did the demands for a little leisure on a summer evening or a warm place in the winter. In the two chapters that follow, I examine first residential and then street prostitution in more detail.

CHAPTER 2

At Home in the Brothel The Household Economy and Residential Prostitution

Introduction In 1822, Elisabeth Deganne, a married woman and the mother of eight children, set up a brothel in her home on Dorchester Street. Adapting her household to the requirements of prostitution allowed Deganne to earn an income without leaving her home, which permitted her to nurse her dying husband, care for the youngest of her children, and ensure that essential domestic tasks were completed. Deganne’s incursion into Montreal’s sex trade demonstrates how women with some capital could blend prostitution into domestic space. Within the year, constables had raided her establishment and charged Deganne, her daughter Marie-Emélie Marcotte, and her cousins Jean-Auguste and Joseph Moses with keeping a disorderly house.1 Since one of Elisabeth’s sisters and a brother-in-law were also arrested for working in and keeping a brothel respectively, involvement in the Montreal sex commerce was presumably a family work strategy that the Deganne siblings initiated in difficult times. It was probably not a permanent vocation since, before her death in 1827 at the age of forty-two, Elisabeth Deganne was arrested on at least three other occasions for receiving stolen property and theft but never again for prostitution.2 Residential prostitution was a strategy that some Montreal women used to meet their personal or their families’ subsistence needs. Historians have usually pictured prostitution as occurring in the context of a woman alone, isolated from family, friends, and community, and

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have thus given the impression that family and sex commerce are irreconcilable. In recognition of the critical role women played in the household economy, scholars now acknowledge that brothels were sometimes integrated into the homes of those who laboured in the sex trade, but few explore how this was done. Stefano D’Amico’s examination of the relationship between poverty and prostitution in seventeenth-century Milan reveals that at that period a woman’s sexuality was understood to provide the means to fashion a better life. Popular-class single, married, deserted, or widowed women turned to brothel-keeping and street prostitution to avoid wretchedness, make ends meet, or improve their standard of living.3 Similarly, Angel Kwolek-Folland’s study of women’s participation in the economy of Laurence, Kansas, shows that families, widows and former prostitutes operated the majority of brothels.4 And Bettina Bradbury has described how widows in mid-to-late-nineteenth-century Montreal incorporated a wide range of remunerative activities, including prostitution, into their households in order to carry out their family responsibilities while earning much-needed cash.5 I argue that home and brothel were not distinct or separate operations. Brothel-keeping was a commercial venture, easily integrated into households with some capital and initiated by single, married, and widowed women as well as by unmarried couples and occasionally by men. These broad civil categories conceal other types of relationships, such as women who remained legally married although they had abandoned their husbands or their husbands had deserted them and women who lived with men outside of marriage yet were considered officially single. The conflation of the household economy with married or widowed women hides those domestic spaces that were managed by single women. Olwen Hufton, in a seminal study of widows and spinsters in eighteenth-century France, has argued that single women who could not or would not stay with family members sought alternative shelter not only as servants or lodgers but also with other women. Such “spinster clustering” allowed women to share the costs associated with rent and heat as well as to divide household tasks, chief among them going to market, preparing food, and conveying wood and water.6 A word of caution is necessary, however, because we should not treat the households of widows and single women as if they were the same – they could face very different sit-

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uations. One of the challenges in this chapter is to identify how single women managed home-brothels, either on their own or with others, given that these households often accommodated a host of people, including women who worked as brothel prostitutes, children, and relatives (including mothers, daughters, sisters, and cousins). Hufton, unfortunately, does not elaborate on the organization of domestic arrangements. We need to ask who coordinated the activities and in what way women might have negotiated their roles within such households. Like married or widowed women who operated brothels, keepers who were single had to ensure that all the duties related to running a household were carried out in addition to managing complicated human relations while overseeing the business of brothel-keeping.7 The relationships that women who headed such establishments created at home and in their neighbourhoods are at the heart of this discussion. Men – as husbands, lovers, fathers, sons, and hired workers – also inhabited city brothels but, with few exceptions, historians of prostitution have by and large ignored or minimized the assorted roles that they played in bawdy houses. The multifaceted gender relationships that existed are obscured in large part by a binary construction that equates nineteenth-century women with marketing sex and men with buying it. Even scholars who have acknowledged that women and men kept brothels together seldom consider how they organized and managed these establishments.8 Another goal of this chapter, then, is to tease out the intricacies of women and men’s personal and work associations as they were enacted in residential prostitution. The pragmatism and flexibility of household economies in strategically deploying resources was particularly apparent in early nineteenth-century Montreal. Household economy refers broadly to the manner in which a family unit or another constellation of individuals allocated its resources to maintain its members. Such allocations varied historically and across cultures as well as in terms of the particular configuration of relationships within homes. As historian Gregory Smith has pointed out, the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century household was less private and more intricate than the nuclear family unit and included relatives, stepchildren, members who were not related by blood, and servants, apprentices, and lodgers.9 Family historian John Gillis suggests that the elasticity of the family

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and the permeability of family relations in this period made the family unit more flexibile in meeting the demands of economic and social transformations and in creating new forms of families.10 As for households headed by single women, British scholar Bridget Hill argues persuasively that such arrangements were mutually beneficial: “Their common problems and their aloneness tended to draw them together to share a house or other accommodation, pooling their meagre resources to make some kind of permanent home.”11 The interaction between the local economy and the household must be taken into consideration when examining the strategies that women initiated in their homes. According to Bettina Bradbury, women’s revenue-generating and revenue-saving activities were crucial to the integrity and standard of living and the overall comfort of those who inhabited the household. To make ends meet, women earned income through a variety of means, not always monetarily remunerated but often related to their domestic responsibilities at home. The household was able to maintain its self-sufficiency and independence through a woman’s labour.12 Montreal, in the period under study, was characterized by turmoil and transformation in the social, economic, and demographic fabric of the city and the surrounding region as inhabitants experienced social dislocation, the decline of the fur trade, epidemics, and growing immigration. These features had significant repercussions for many popular-class residents, migrants from the countryside, and newcomers. Daily life was punctuated by seasonal unemployment or under-employment in addition to inadequate wages and the struggle to provide food, shelter, and heat at ever-rising costs, especially during the winter months. Changing economic forces and circumstances required family members to reformulate how they would contribute to the household economy. Labouring families and single women employed a variety of tactics to obtain much needed income and merging prostitution with the household was one such strategy. For single women, keeping brothels provided the means to achieve their own subsistence independently. Women’s introduction of brothels into their households was clearly at odds with elite discourses that sought to dictate the proper behaviour of Montreal women, particularly their role in civilizing men. The early nineteenth-century bourgeois home was understood to be

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the locus of morality and residential prostitution was clearly an affront to this claim.13 The brothel represented disorder, acknowledging and encouraging unrestrained female sexuality – “the passionate temptress” – and self-indulgence in the form of illicit and uncontrolled alcohol consumption. By the 1820s, city notables decried such establishments as nuisances: “the greatest evil to which society falls prey … the receptacles of all that is criminal.”14 Indeed, they argued that the keepers of these disorderly houses sought “the ruin of the young of both sexes” while facing few legal consequences.15 Alcohol consumption in these unregulated spaces, as grand jurors noted in October 1838, fuelled disorderliness and contributed to rioting, violence, and even larceny.16 For elites, then, the persistence of such disorderly houses not only caused untold anxiety but was also an indirect expression of the difficulty they encountered in imposing their version of respectability on the popular classes. This chapter begins with an examination of the demographic characteristics of brothel-keepers and prostitutes, addressing some of the reasons Montreal women established brothels or worked in them. Then we move inside the brothel to look at its culture, the diverse relationships that existed within its walls, and the dangers associated with residential prostitution.

The Demography of Brothel-Keepers and Brothel Prostitutes Civil Status Elisabeth Deganne, who at thirty-seven established a brothel in her home, shared many of the demographic features of the city’s brothelkeepers. She was a middle-aged married woman, soon to be widowed, although, as a Canadien, she was part of a significant minority among those accused of being keepers. Figure 2.1 shows that of the 1,248 women denounced for or charged with keeping a disorderly house for whom information is available, married women and widows made up nearly a third (twenty per cent and eight per cent respectively) of the total. Most of the accused (seventy-two per cent) were identified as unmarried women. The proportion of single, married, and widowed women in the records remained stable over the period under

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study but the numbers of unmarried women accused of keeping disorderly houses are misleading as most of them were actually employed as brothel prostitutes. When plaintiffs denounced alleged houses of prostitution or police executing a warrant of arrest raided them, it was customary for all of the women identified as brothel inmates and apprehended by police to be charged. The laws governing such places did not differentiate between madams and prostitutes and the charge assumed that all inmates of the particular brothel contributed to the disorder. As noted above, Elisabeth Deganne, her eldest daughter, Marie-Emélie Marcotte, and Elisabeth’s cousins Auguste and Joseph Moses were all accused of keeping a disorderly house. In a police raid on Julie Tremblay’s brothel, plaintiffs Louis Malo and George Graff’s description of Julie Tremblay as the keeper and Margaret Molloy, Marie Cabana, Catherine Gosselin, and Louise Vizé as “filles publiques,” one of the contemporary terms for prostitutes, is exceptional.17 Because such distinctions are rare, there is usually no way to separate brothel-keepers from brothel prostitutes. What the arrests show us, then, are the numbers of women identified as married, widowed, or single who turned to residential prostitution as madams or prostitutes. The arrests demonstrate that prostitution appealed to women in a wide number of situations. As figure 2.2 makes evident, more than a third (forty-one per cent) of all accused brothel-keepers were men, most of whom worked with women (inside and outside the bonds of matrimony), children, and future spouses. Often identified as security men, bartenders, or handymen, none were accused of being prostitutes. A very small number (four per cent) of the alleged male brothel-keepers worked alone; partnerships between men were rare. Figure 2.2 demonstrates that where marital status was recorded, the majority of male brothel-keepers were listed as married and usually to women I have identified as madams. The ratio between married and single men remained stable over the period. Widowed men appear only in the period 1830–37, perhaps as a consequence of the 1832 cholera epidemic, which claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 city inhabitants. Elisabeth Deganne’s brotherin-law, Barnabé Leroux dit Cardinal, established a brothel in his home following the death of his wife and Elisabeth’s sister, Angélique Deganne, and his four-year-old son, Alexis, from cholera. His first arrest

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Figure 2.1 Marital status of female keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42

Figure 2.2 Marital status of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42

took place four months after their deaths and in 1834 he was rearrested for keeping a disorderly house on Ste-Catherine Street.18 The detention of widowers may also have been the result of a crackdown by the judiciary and police on disorderly houses and disorderly women in the early 1830s. The law specified that both a wife and husband could be indicted for keeping a disorderly house and police may have relied on this provision to apprehend married men in a concerted effort to regulate sex commerce. Although not all spouses were automatically accused of brothel-keeping simply because they shared the same residence, as demonstrated by Elisabeth Deganne’s husband, Hyacinthe Marcotte, who was never arrested for this offence, integrating a

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brothel into the family’s household would surely have required a husband’s consent and, given that some men and women explicitly objected to their spouses’ foray into residential prostitution, those who did not oppose the inclusion of brothels in their homes were probably in collusion. Husbands who disapproved of their wives’ involvement in sex commerce expressed their objections in diverse ways. Some denounced their wives’ brothel-keeping ventures in newspaper advertisements and announced that they had severed all economic obligations for their spouses, initiating what US historian Clare Lyons has referred to as self-divorce.19 In July 1837, James Davison placed such an announcement in the Montreal Transcript, claiming that he would no longer be financially responsible for his wife, Mary Ann Crawford, who had, “by her late dissolute conduct, rendered herself unworthy of my confidence.”20 Police arrested Crawford the following month for keeping a disorderly house. Others exercised patriarchal control through intimidation or by laying complaints before court authorities, as was the case with Thomas Rousby, who first demanded that his wife, Isabella Tomlinson, return home with him and then denounced her as a brothel-keeper when she refused.21 Bailiff and public crier John Degan made a similar gesture after his wife, Josephine Raymond, allegedly assaulted him and “deserted his bed and board and carried away his moveable property.”22 As most married women depended on male wages and were under the legal authority of their husband, it must have been difficult for them to object if their husbands were involved in organizing brothels in the households. Nevertheless, this patriarchal hurdle did not dissuade Josephte Collare (Collard) from condemning her husband, Antoine Fontaine, to a justice of the peace. Fontaine had a history of offering their home to local prostitutes for use as a brothel, but Collare objected to his most recent foray into sex commerce after he invited thirty-two-year-old Marguerite Laurent, who had been married to Alexis Godin since 1791, her daughter, and Catherine Dubois to live and work in their household. Although she continued to share a house with her husband, Josephte Collare was never charged with keeping a disorderly house but Antoine Fontaine was arrested, stood trial, and was found guilty of the charge and punished.23

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Age Older widowed and married female brothel-keepers were probably dependent upon young, single women to provide sex commerce to patrons and upon daughters to assist them in managing their establishments. Although the age of the accused was rarely recorded in depositions, there are occasional references to women as fille mineur and fille majeure or fille usant ses droits. Studies show that single daughters, such as Elisabeth Deganne’s eldest daughter, Marie-Emélie Marcotte, played an important role in household economies. Olwen Hufton has suggested that daughters of widowed women were more likely to remain single if they were in mutually sustaining relationships24 which may have been the case for mother-daughter brothel-keepers. Widowed brothel-keepers, in those instances where their ages can be determined from depositions or other sources, were usually older than their married counterparts. Josephte Courcelle dite Chevalier was already fifty-one years of age when she was accused and apprehended for keeping a brothel in Cadieux Village with her daughter Emélie Lorrain.25 The offspring of a voyageur, Courcelle dite Chevalier had married carter Charles Lorrain at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Church in July 1804. It is unclear when she became a widow but the accusation against her for keeping a disorderly house occurred in 1836. One of the oldest women charged as a brothel-keeper was fiftyeight-year-old Marie Cardinal; police re-arrested her for the same offence two years later.26 It can be expected that the age differences between Montreal brothel-keepers and brothel prostitutes followed US trends for the same period. In New York, for example, madams tended to be the oldest women in the brothels, frequently over the age of thirty-three; brothel prostitutes were more likely to be young and native-born.27 Similarly, in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia, brothel prostitutes were young and mostly city-born. Almost eighty per cent of them were between fifteen and twenty-five years of age. Half of the women who worked in brothels had grown up in Philadelphia; the rest came from the countryside, New York City, and overseas.28 Young madams were exceptional in the sexual landscape of the city but not unknown. One of these younger madams was Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland, who was a mere nineteen years old when she was first arrested in 1828 for keeping a house of prostitution.29 The

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capital Rolland required to establish a brothel presumably came from family members. Her father, Germain the elder, and her brothers Germain and Georges were shoemakers and members of an extensive kin network involved in shoemaking and tanning. Lucie Rolland’s brothers were no strangers to prostitution, having accrued numerous arrests as found-ins and keepers of houses of ill fame. In September 1830, for example, they were arrested together in a brothel situated on the corner of St-Louis and Lacroix streets.30 Twenty-four-year-old Françoise Ouimet, the eldest child of six, was another young brothelkeeper who seemingly worked under the tutelage of her parents, Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné dite Laliberté, who appear in court records in 1823 for keeping a bawdy house. Ouimet and Laliberté had married in 1798 at St-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville, a farming community located in the Richelieu Valley, but by the early 1820s had migrated to Montreal. At the baptism of their first two children, Françoise and Marie-Charlotte, at Longueuil in 1799 and 1801 respectively, Toussaint was self-described as a farm labourer. They returned to St-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville, where Charlotte gave birth to four more children between 1804 and 1809, one of whom died at the age of six months. We know from court records that in 1823, Françoise managed a brothel on Campeau Street within walking distance of her parent’s bawdy house.31 We have no idea what role, if any, Françoise’s sisters may have played in the family brothel; Charlotte, Emilie, and Florence were never accused of prostitution-related offenses. In both examples, family members already involved in the sex trade were in a position to provide young novices with capital, expertise, protection, and supervision in maintaining brothel discipline. Members of the Rolland and Ouimet families likely recruited Lucie and Françoise into sex commerce and its normalization within these families would have made refusal difficult.

Ethnicity Overall, the majority of women who worked in residential prostitution in Montreal as keepers and prostitutes were francophone. They were likely to be older than their immigrant counterparts, to have an extended family close at hand, and to have strong links to the communities in which they lived. Such kinship ties would have made it

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easier to establish brothels catering to a more affluent clientele, engage suitable prostitutes, purchase goods, and, if necessary, lease appropriate accommodations in particular neighbourhoods. If women already had space and furniture and other goods at their disposal, their outlay on entering residential prostitution would not have been great. Over the period under study, increasing numbers of anglophone women were denounced as brothel-keepers. Dividing brothel-keepers and prostitutes into these two broad categories of language-related ethnicity hides a small number of accused who were of African origin or Irish. Women identified as Aboriginal are absent in court documents. Unlike British Columbia, where studies by Adele Perry and Penelope Edmonds draw explicit links between colonialism, urbanization, and the racialization of Aboriginal women’s sexuality,32 there was no Aboriginal community in Montreal in the period under study. Indigenous individuals lived off the island in the community of Kahnawake, visiting the city frequently to shop and to sell goods. Mohawk women, for example, found a ready market in Montreal for their handicrafts33 and artists such as James Duncan and Cornelius Krieghoff have captured their presence in sentimental paintings. Figure 2.3 demonstrates that the percentage of alleged francophone brothel-keepers and prostitutes revealed in court documents diminished from nearly three-quarters (seventy per cent) in the first period to less than half (forty-five per cent) in the last period. This shift corresponds to the changing composition of the city’s population as growing numbers of English-speaking immigrants travelled over land from the United States or arrived by boat from the British Isles. By 1832, English-speaking Montreal residents, Catholics and Protestants alike, were in the majority.34 Like their female counterparts, Canadien men accused of keeping disorderly houses were dominant in the first period. Over time, the number of francophone brothel-keepers decreased, as revealed in figure 2.4, from more than half (fifty-six per cent) in the first period (1810 to 1829) to less than half (forty-two per cent) in the last period, 1838 to 1842. In the second period, non-francophone brothelkeepers made up the largest group and continued to be in the majority in the last period, although the differences between the two groups

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Figure 2.3 Ethnicity of female keepers of disorderly houses and prostitutes, 1810–42

Figure 2.4 Ethnicity of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42

had narrowed. The non-francophone category included a small number of men of African origin and Europeans identified as German, Maltese, and Italian.

Social Class The ease with which women could set up brothels almost always depended upon the financial and material resources and the social connections of their husbands or fathers.35 In the previous chapter on the social geography of prostitution, we saw that diverse types of brothels, which required different amounts of capital investment, dotted the urban landscape, ranging from the rough cellars below Ste-Anne’s Market to the stone buildings along Notre-Dame Street. In most cases it is a challenge to find any information about the financial resources or occupations of these women’s fathers, siblings,

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or husbands. Figure 2.5 is based on the relatively small number of cases in which court documents reveal the occupation of a woman’s father or spouse. These figures suggest that the majority of female brothel-keepers came from craft families. However, across the period, those whose husbands or fathers were unskilled were increasingly represented in accusations of keeping disorderly houses. A middling group, made up of traders and boardinghouse-keepers, dropped by half (from 6.5 per cent to three per cent) over time. The remaining group – elites, farmers, and the marginal, usually soldiers – accounted for less than five per cent. The large proportion of artisans followed by the unskilled corresponds to the occupational structure of the city. Historians Jean-Paul Bernard, Paul-André Linteau, and Jean-Claude Robert’s analysis of the 1825 Viger census reveals that artisans represented nearly a quarter of the population – 18.2 per cent.36 (This does not include the construction trades, which account for another 10.3 per cent.) By 1842, the proportion of artisans and the unskilled had grown. Sherry Olson’s study of the Montreal workforce as indicated in the 1842 census demonstrates that artisans, most of whom were male, constituted almost a third (30.5 per cent) of Montreal’s acknowledged workers, the building trades accounted for nearly a tenth (9.6 per cent), and labourers close to a quarter (21 per cent).37 Family members of those in the construction trades were well represented in residential prostitution, as this work, which made up nearly a third of all crafts, was especially vulnerable to seasonal variations and economic downturns. Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire, a descendant of a notable building trades family, was known in the community and by the police as “Madame Lavictoire.” With strong family ties to Montreal, Marguerite was the daughter of carpenter Jean-Baptiste Benêche dit Lavictoire and Marie-Josette Pérrier, and sister of Eloi, Eustache, and Etienne. She had married twice before police arrested her for keeping a house of prostitution. Her first husband, François Proulx, was a carpenter when, in 1814, a month before their wedding, they went with their parents, siblings, and friends to notary Thomas Barron’s office to draw up a marriage contract. By the time that forty-one-year-old François died in May 1832, they had been living apart for three years.38 In 1836, Marguerite remarried. Three months after her wedding to plasterer and widower Charles Bonnier, Robert Wood and William Wilson accused her of operating

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Figure 2.5 Occupational status of female keepers of disorderly houses and prostitutes, 1810–42

a brothel on St-Dominique Street.39 Her brother Eloi Benêche dit Lavictoire had been arrested for keeping a disorderly house in 1831 and again in 1837.40 In 1843, he married long-time madam and boardinghouse-keeper Rosalie Paquet, at which time he described himself as a labourer. Eloi was a grocer on Visitation Street over the course of his marriage while Rosalie advertised her business as a boarding house on St-Constant Street. In 1846, in declining health, Eloi dictated his last will and testament to notary J-B Vallée, who attended him at his bedside in their home located on Lagauchetière Street in the faubourg of St-Laurent. The change in his self-identification, from labourer at the time of his marriage to bourgeois on his deathbed, suggests a remarkable transformation; the marriage to Rosalie Paquet had improved his fortunes considerably! Having no children, when Eloi died on 14 February 1846 he left all his property to Rosalie to use as she wished.41 Rosalie lived another thirty-two years before dying at the age of sixty-seven in the Hospice de St-Jean-de-Dieu, likely from tertiary syphilis.42 Both Rosalie Paquet and Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire had the resources to rent suitable quarters and to furnish and supply their

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enterprises. While such establishments were not out of reach for some dependents of unskilled workers, this was probably not the case for the majority. Women such as Elisabeth Deganne, who already had access to housing, would have found it easier to establish a brothel. Deganne’s husband, Hyacinthe Marcotte, was an unskilled worker throughout his working life: a voyageur at the time of their nuptials in 1801, he laboured as a sawyer through the births of their nine children until his death in autumn 1823. Since both these occupations were seasonal, he faced annual periods of unemployment, which demanded creative strategies to make ends meet. If we compare the women who were accused only once or twice of keeping a disorderly house with those apprehended three or more times, some differences are apparent. A majority (seventy-two per cent) of the brothel-keepers in the first category account for fortytwo per cent of the incidents of accusations and arrests; recidivists, who were a little over a quarter of brothel-keepers (twenty-eight per cent), made up the largest proportion (fifty-eight per cent). These numbers suggest that for most of the women accused of keeping a disorderly house involvement in prostitution was either short-lived or bribes to the police succeeded in limiting of brothel raids and subsequent arrests. Some of the accusations may have been a consequence of malicious prosecutions or a pretext to discipline women’s sexuality but this is impossible to determine. Francophone madams had a much greater presence among serial offenders in the first two periods, but by the last period their numbers were similar to those of the overall group of accused women. Artisans continued to dominate as husbands and fathers of these career brothel-keepers, representing slightly more than half of the group. Labourers followed at about one-third. For many of these men, long-term involvement in sex commerce reflected the dependence of the household economy on other forms of revenue. Although the numbers are small, figure 2.6 shows that, among the male brothel-keepers for whom data is available, the majority were craftsmen, followed by the unskilled. Artisans dominated in the first and third periods. A significant percentage of men involved in operating brothels were unqualified workers. Pierre Forgette and Joseph Auger, for example, were identified as labourers when police arrested them for keeping a house of prostitution on Lagauchetière

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Figure 2.6 Occupational status of male keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42

Street, assisted by Mary Ann Kennedy and Amable Breton.43 Presumably the men managed the brothel and the women furnished the sex. In the case of Forgette and Auger, keeping a house of prostitution provided an alternative to low-paid, seasonal, and backbreaking work as unskilled workers. That there were couples with children involved in sex commerce reflected the fragility and the dependence of the household economy of labourers on other forms of revenue. Take the example of Agathe Florentin and labourer Guillaume Laverdure. Six years after their marriage, police arrested them for operating a house of prostitution. Florentin and Laverdure shared their home and brothel with two young daughters. Two more children, a son and daughter, had been born by the time of their second arrest in 1838.

Choosing Residential Prostitution The decision to work as a brothel-keeper or as a brothel prostitute was based upon a complex variety of opportunities, or lack thereof, which differed according to individual character and circumstances, social class, race, ethnicity, and marital status. While grinding poverty narrowed the choices available to many women, some of whom established houses of prostitution in abandoned buildings, single rooms, and cellars, indicating their wretched social and economic status, this study reveals that a variety of circumstances drew women into sex commerce. For many of them, incorporating brothels into their homes provided the means to obtain ready cash. Wives – such as Elisabeth Deganne – with ill or unemployed husbands, deserted women, those

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fleeing abusive or drunken spouses, single women, and widows were involved in residential prostitution. It is no accident that women turned to the business of keeping brothels to earn a living. Historian Brian Young’s examination of married female traders in nineteenth-century Montreal shows that women had a history of operating small businesses that involved “foodstuffs, alcohol, lodging, or clothing.”44 Residential prostitution merged women’s historical experience in all four areas of commerce. The ease with which women could integrate brothel-keeping into the household economy while continuing to provide essential childcare if they were mothers, perform household chores, and earn income helps explain why at least eighty-five married couples identified in court documents kept brothels. This same ease of integration also accounts for those men who entered into partnerships with women who were not their wives, with family members, or with future spouses. Household economies were more precarious if primary wage earners were underemployed or worked most of the year in low-paid jobs, or in jobs where there were seasonal variations in wages. Geographer Sherry Olson’s study of ethnic divisions in Montreal’s workplace shows that in the 1840s workers on the Lachine Canal earned three shillings a day until January, when their wages were reduced to two shillings owing to a reduction in available work.45 Under any of these circumstances, couples may have decided to integrate prostitution into their household economy to make ends meet. In electing to pursue residential prostitution as a means of earning money, women like Elisabeth Deganne participated in what Olwen Hufton has referred to as “economies of makeshift.”46 Tony Henderson has suggested that in England “many women may have moved in and out of prostitution, or combined it with another occupation or periodic calls on private charity and parish relief, in order to cover periods when ‘respectable’ employment was unavailable or to supplement the inadequate earnings such employment brought.” 47 Although we know little about how much Montreal brothel-keepers charged for sex commerce, there is a consensus amongst scholars that women could earn more as brothel-keepers than from traditional and respectable women’s work. Historian Marcia Carlisle found that it was difficult to ascertain how much madams earned from brothelkeeping in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia: some houses charged

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two dollars per visit, and others more.48 Timothy Gilfoyle has argued that operating brothels gave a small group of New York women not only wealth without marriage but fame as well.49 Similarly, Judith Fingard has claimed that the bawdy house business in Halifax offered women opportunity for economic betterment.50 Montreal keepers would have levied a range of fees, given their varied male clientele and the different costs related to the operation of their establishments, including charging prostitutes for room, board, clothing, and alcoholic beverages. Marie Solomon received $2 (the equivalent of 10 shillings) for the overnight rental of a bedroom in her house of reception – five times a canal worker’s daily wage of two shillings.51 Some clients offered brothel prostitutes payment in kind. Pedlar Abraham Davies, who patronized Sarah Murphy’s house of prostitution to sell his goods, allegedly endeavoured to negotiate the sexual services of Murphy’s daughter by offering her a pair of earrings in exchange. Sarah Murphy turned down his proposal to her daughter and ordered him out of the house; he responded by shouting insults and threatening to throw a box at her. When Murphy failed to stop Davies from disturbing the public peace, she complained to the magistrate about his behaviour, particularly the incident involving the earrings.52 It is unclear whether Murphy preferred cash for sexual transactions or was especially protective of her daughter. While it is especially challenging to try to determine the financial rewards Montreal women received for marketing sex, archaeological evidence in the United States has provided important material clues to the economies of prostitution. US anthropologist Rebecca Yamin’s recovery of artifacts from brothel privies in New York’s notorious Five Points area demonstrates that the material well-being of madams and their prostitutes was higher overall than that of their middle-class equivalents and that even those who catered to a more modest clientele were still better off than their popular-class neighbours.53 Elisabeth Deganne’s experience as a brothel-keeper may have given at least one of her siblings a unique perspective on sex commerce and led her to work in a bordello during difficult economic times. Elisabeth’s sister Adélaide Deganne was a prostitute in Esther Guilbeault’s bawdy house on Dorchester Street around the time she became a widow. When the police raided Guilbeault’s business fol-

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lowing a complaint lodged by Peter Brackin and Guilbeault’s husband, Antoine Delonais, Adélaide had been a widow for only three months. Three years later, she was re-arrested in François Compagna and wife Félicité Lamontagne’s house of prostitution on Victoria Street along with twenty-six-year old Adé, her only surviving child.54 Bettina Bradbury’s examination of enumerated households in the census returns from 1861 to 1891 shows that one in five households in Montreal was headed by a single-parent, suggesting that a substantial number of women faced economic hardship in the absence of support from wage-earning husbands. With domestic labour and childcare to manage, even if providing food and clothing to their sons and daughters was a measure of love, as Ellen Ross has so persuasively argued,55 the loss of a husband meant that widows faced challenges not encountered by widowers, who were more likely to remarry to secure someone to care for their children. Widows initiated a variety of strategies to support themselves and their offspring. These included sending their children to work or placing them in apprenticeships, seeking work themselves, operating small businesses, some of which may have been inherited from their husbands, reorganizing their living arrangements to reduce rent or ensure help with childcare, selling produce they had grown or purchased at the market, fabricating goods, such as food and baked goods, for sale as hucksters in city streets, taking in boarders, and turning to charitable institutions for assistance.56 Respectable and deserving widows were favourite clients of charitable organizations “because their poverty was quite clearly not their fault, unless they drank or indulged in vulgar behaviour.”57 By contrast, those who turned to brothel-keeping had great difficulty accessing charity and none of their names appear in the records of the Grey Nuns, Sisters of Providence, and Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society for the period when they were active in prostitution. A small number of widows received assistance years after they had left sex commerce, although charity had sometimes been extended to their children or spouses. The Sisters of Providence, for example, assisted Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire in 1860 when she was already sixty-one years old and a widow, suggesting that in time widowhood brought respectability for some.

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Bradbury has also argued that independent business women, poor or not, could combine work, domestic duties, and childcare: “In most such enterprises home and work did not need to be separate. They could watch their children and even do some forms of housekeeping while tending to business.”58 Although she refers to widows who were involved in their own commercial enterprises, it almost certainly applied to women such as Claire Auger. When her husband, FrançoisXavier Day, a thirty-seven-year-old shoemaker, died suddenly in June 1832 (likely a consequence of the cholera epidemic), only seven months after their marriage ceremony at Notre-Dame Church, Claire Auger found herself in the unenviable position of being pregnant with their second child, responsible for four-month-old Joseph-Jacques, and without a male wage-earner. Keeping a brothel allowed her to look after her young children, manage her household, and earn an income. Although it is difficult to know when exactly Claire merged brothelkeeping with her household, she and Elizabeth Benson were arrested for operating a disorderly house seven years after her husband’s death.59 Women who had separated from or been abandoned by their husbands also turned to brothel-keeping to support themselves and their children. Marie-Angélique Fournelle kept a house of prostitution after her husband, Etienne Crete, left her.60 Both had already lost previous spouses when they married in November 1810, but within two years of taking their marriage vows at Notre-Dame Church, Crete had departed the household. Similarly, Mary Martin’s shoemaker spouse, George Powell, was living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and had been absent from Lower Canada for twelve years when police arrested her for keeping a disorderly house.61 Women also initiated the marital separation. Thomas Rousby claimed that his wife Isabella Tomlinson (whom we met earlier) had left him and their children to establish a brothel. When Rousby went to the house where she was living to assert his patriarchal legal rights, demanding that she obey his wishes and return home, Isabella Tomlinson refused. When he insisted, Tomlinson responded forcefully to his assertions: “But instead of her so doing and obeying the lawful commands of the deponent she assaulted the deponent and attempted to thrust him out of doors.”62 Although it is impossible to determine why Isabella Tomlinson aban-

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doned their marital bed, her departure surely represented self-divorce. Court records reveal that many Montreal women quit their households to escape spousal abuse and alcoholic husbands. Women’s legal incapacity, the result of marriage, left those who were deserted or informally separated with few options. A husband had lawful claim to a wife’s earnings regardless of their living arrangements, unless they had a marriage contract that arranged a separation of goods and gave the wife control over at least some of them and it is unlikely that any of these women had such a contract. Bettina Bradbury’s recent study of widowhood shows that in the 1820s, most couples did not make marriage contracts and by the 1840s, fewer still were doing so.63 Indeed, even if a wife took her husband to court for failure to provide, support payments could not be legally enforced.64 While residential prostitution offered the possibility of economic autonomy to those wanting to avoid financial dependence on drunken or brutish husbands and fathers, women entering into it put themselves at continuual risk. Prostitution was a commercial venture rife with violence, which was usually perpetrated by the men who patronized brothels, rioting neighbours, or madams and security men disciplining wayward prostitutes. Paradoxically, women who had escaped calamitous relationships with alcoholic or abusive husbands found themselves in a brothel workplace where alcohol consumption was encouraged and the prospect of violence pronounced. Newcomers to British North America, who lacked access to a kin network or friends for support during periods of under-employment or unemployment, faced even more daunting challenges than the local population. While the majority who turned to sex commerce chose streetwalking, residential prostitution afforded women with some capital a possible solution to economic woes. Irish immigrants Mary Brennan and Patrick McGloan operated such an establishment in their home during the early years of their marriage. During this time Mary Brennan gave birth to four children – James, Mary Ann, Daniel, and Bridget – none of whom reached three years of age. McGloan, who identified himself in parish records either as a labourer or a carter, would have experienced periods of unemployment at a time when his wife was occupied with pregnancies, nursing infants, and

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sick toddlers. Mary Brennan was already thirty-one years of age when she married. She had her first baby at age thirty-four and died ten years later, in 1848.65 In contrast to the vulnerability of Mary Brennan’s family and work life, single women such as Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland, a career madam with kinship ties to the shoemaking trade, chose prostitution to gain economic, social, and sexual independence. Indeed, for some single women residential prostitution provided an income far beyond that typically associated with female wage earning as domestic servants, seamstresses, and day labourers in pre-industrial Montreal. Recent scholarship shows that single women engaged in a variety of economic activities as boarding-house keepers, moneylenders, needle-trade workers, pawnbrokers, and teachers to explicitly promote their own economic autonomy.66 Judith Bennett and Amy Froide remind us that single women – “femes soles” – could manage their own capital as they wanted.67 Like women traders in England, whom Bridget Hill asserts became partners and pooled their capital in order to enlarge their inventory of goods, single women in Montreal may well have combined their capital to establish houses of prostitution.68 Since living on their own would have been difficult, “spinster clustering” allowed them to meet their subsistence needs with more ease. Could that have been the case for Angélique Archambault, Sophie Proulx, and Marie Menie? All three were single women who, according to Adin Ayers and John Dodge, kept a bawdy house on Vitré Street in the Faubourg St-Laurent “for the purpose of the public and personal prostitution (by carnal communication) for hire or pecuniary reward.”69 While historians have argued that it was women alone, outside the supervision of male family members, who were more likely to be recruited into prostitution, Lucie Rolland’s brothers – Georges and Germain who had a history of frequenting brothels – presumably had some influence regarding the operation of her establishment. Over a thirteen-year period, which began in 1828, she was accused at least five times of keeping a disorderly house before she married wigmaker Abraham Richard in September 1841.70 Lucie Rolland was thirty-two-years of age at her wedding and forty-two-years-old when she died. Abraham Richard had predeceased her in August 1847. For such women, prostitution provided a career and not a temporary so-

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lution to financial woes. It may have been the Lucie Rollands of Montreal’s demimonde whom grand jurors had in mind when they denounced disreputable women for parading in the public streets sporting bourgeois accoutrements: “They have observed with pain, that women of ill fame, are allowed to travel about the city, in vehicles, and on horseback; dressed very expensively, and in the extreme of fashion.”71 The grand jury was articulating a wide-spread fear amongst the rising middle class: “emulating ‘persons of quality’ in manners and dress would degrade middle-class identity.”72 As historian Mariana Valverde has persuasively argued, the moral meaning attached to the type and display of certain clothing served to regulate popular-class women’s moral compass and to reinforce class divisions in the nineteenth century. Labouring women were expected to wear plain, honest, and practical clothing – even a soiled shawl – to signify their virtue and authenticity. To do otherwise represented dishonesty, vice, and impersonation, characterizations many would have wanted to avoid. The ability of women like Lucie Rolland to breach well-defined bourgeois borders materially allowed them to stand in sharp contrast to their impoverished sisters. By deconstructing the material and moral value of their clothing, the Montreal grand jury reshaped their highpriced dresses into showy apparel, “a cheap imitation of upper-class womanhood,” that signified “moral cross-dressing.”73 Grand jurors reminded the court that prominent residents would never be fooled by such imitation: “To the more worthy and respectable classes of society; these polluted females, frequenting our most public thoroughfares, and conducting themselves, with all that boldness of demeanour, which distinguishes their caste – must be an eyesore, and the sooner a stop is put to this evil; the more credit will result to those, in whose hands, lies the government of the city.”74 Such public displays of material success, grand jurors feared, would lure popular-class women into prostitution: “This is certainly presenting vice in too seductive a guise; and it is impossible to surmise, how far its evil influence may extend. Many females as yet of virtuous character, but placed in situations where they are obliged to work for a subsistence; may be tempted in an evil hour, to depart from the paths of virtue, and embrace what they may ignorantly consider an easy, if not a happy method of providing for all their wants and wishes.”75 Incidents of moral or class cross-dressing reminded elites once again

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of their inability to regulate the popular classes, in this case in the expression of status through clothing. Parents and their children worked together in what I suggest were “family-enterprise” brothels. For instance, the Breton family’s brief flirtation with prostitution launched a daughter’s lengthy vocation in the sex trade. Amable Breton first appears in the court records in 1822, when she was indicted for keeping a disorderly house along with her parents, Henri Breton and Marie-Des-Anges Duclos, and siblings Henri Junior and Emélie (baptised Marie-Eulalie). Her parents had married in 1801 in La Prairie, where all three of the children were born. At the time of their nuptials, Henri self-identified as a labourer. While most of her family were found guilty of the charge, imprisoned, and pilloried, Amable was dropped from the indictment before a verdict was rendered.76 Nonetheless, her family’s short-lived venture into the sex trade initiated Amable’s long history of marketing sex in city brothels. Less than four years later, on 24 June 1826, Amable was re-arrested as a prostitute in a brothel operated by Louise Lajeunesse and Joseph Lamarche.77 Lajeunesse and Lamarche were found guilty of keeping a disorderly house but Breton was never convicted.78 Three days later she was charged with aiding and assisting in keeping a bawdy house.79 This time she was imprisoned until 19 July.80 Between 1826 and 1839, Amable Breton was apprehended at least seven times on the charge of keeping a disorderly house, although she worked in these brothels as a prostitute and not as the madam. She was charged at least eight times for being a streetwalker. Amable Breton died in 1864 at age sixty, having never left Montreal. Neighbour Catherine Zacharie dite Desjardins, wife of Pierre Dufresne, accused widower Joseph Monjon (Mongeon), his daughters Dorothée and Julie, as well as Mary Sutherland of operating a similar family-run brothel next door to her house on Ste-Catherine Street in the suburb of St-Louis.81 Dorothée and Julie’s mother, Charlotte Prévost, had married their father, Joseph, in 1795 at Varennes; when Prévost died is unclear. It seems likely that following their mother’s death, Dorothée and Julie stepped into the role of “surrogate wives.”82 Another daughter, Emélie, had already left the family home to marry Antoine Laurent in 1824. It was her father-in-law, Joseph Laurent, who posted bail for the three Mongeons, allowing them to stay out of jail until their court appearance. None of the

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Mongeons were ever again accused of or arrested for prostitution; Dorothée was a minor when she wed Pierre Lamontagne dit Poitevin a year after being indicted for keeping a disorderly house; Joseph Mongeon died eight years later in Boucherville. Clearly some Montreal women, as in Philadelphia, were initiated into the sex trade by relatives and often worked together in the same establishments.83 Other young women who worked as brothel prostitutes left home against their parents’ wishes, having been recruited into sex commerce by family members, friends, or strangers. Policeman Charles Coulombe and crier of the court Louis Malo denounced Susan Filiatreau for procuring young women into prostitution. According to them, she was reputed to earn her living by loitering about the city streets or by entering the houses of respectable residents of the city as a seamstress “for the purpose of seducing virtuous females.” Police considered Filiatreau “a most dangerous woman to the morals of the virtuous part of the sex,” a reputation she likely earned for having tried and succeeded in enticing women to market sex.84 British architectural historian Dan Cruickshank’s analysis of prostitution in London shows that a great number of Londoners believed women were manipulated into the sex trade by conniving harlots: “As late as 1835, despite many social changes, the machinations of an unscrupulous bawd and her bullies were still perceived to be the most usual means by which a female would enter into prostitution.”85 Some parents undoubtedly had difficulty accepting that their daughters had become prostitutes by choice and, as a rule, they declared to the authorities that their offspring had been tricked or seduced into prostitution and even hidden in city brothels against their will. Such was the opinion of Raphael Belisle dit Lafleur. He claimed that his thirteen-year-old daughter Adeline had been in service when she disappeared. After five weeks had passed without any news of her whereabouts, Raphael Belisle dit Lafleur appeared before a justice of the peace to swear out a complaint.86 While the youthful Adeline may have been tricked into prostitution and held in a Montreal brothel against her wishes, historian Tamara Myers’s many studies of juvenile sexuality suggest that a thirteen-year-old was capable of exercising agency and thus of choosing to market sex.87 Other young women turned to residential prostitution to escape strict or violent parents as well as untenable working conditions and

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low wages. In 1844, city notables, serving as grand jurors, put pen and paper to their perturbations about young women choosing to become prostitutes: “Many females as yet of virtuous character, but placed in situations where they are obliged to work for a subsistence; may be tempted in an evil hour, to depart from the paths of virtue, and embrace what they may ignorantly consider, an easy, if not a happy method of providing for all their wants and wishes. – To the more worthy and respectable classes of society; these polluted females, frequenting our most public thoroughfares, and conducting themselves, with all that boldness of demeanor, which distinguishes their caste, must be an eye-sore, and the sooner a stop is put to this evil, the more credit, will result to those, in whose hands, lies the government of the city.”88 François Grossman and Rosalie (Marie Fortunata) Magnana, widow of Jean Grossman, accused MarieMarguerite, their eighteen-year-old sister and daughter respectively, of leaving the service of Monsieur Tétu to live in Marie-Anne Paquette’s brothel where she led a life “déreglée et y est prostituée et a des connections charnel avec des personnes à l’autre sexe.”89 In another case, a Monsieur Proulx went to Angélique Fournelle’s bawdy house late one evening in search of his errant daughter.90 That he arrived at the brothel equipped menacingly with a long cane may indicate why his daughter had left the family home in the first place. There is no explicit proof that Monsieurs Tétu and Proulx were exercising patriarchal control over their wayward daughters, as there are a range of possibilities available to interpret such paternal behaviour. The father who wielded the cane to retrieve his daughter from a brothel and the father who turned to the law to demand that his daughter be arrested for prostitution may not have been tyrants but simply acted out of concern for their offspring. Their responses can also be interpreted as acts of agency, especially in the face of potential brothel violence. That said, Tamara Myers has demonstrated, albeit for a later period, that parents disciplined defiant daughters who refused to obey household rules by complaining to the authorities of the city’s juvenile court.91 Therefore, it is equally plausible that Rosalie Magnana and Tétu and Proulx’s daughters had entered into prostitution in an attempt to gain more control over their lives, especially economic independence, which an income derived from sex commerce provided.

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We now enter the brothel to explore the conditions under which sex commerce was negotiated and furnished, the dangers associated with brothel prostitution, and the strategies women enacted to increase security and reduce risk. The culture of the brothel was shaped by the illicit nature of prostitution, which made it a very dangerous place to live, work, and visit. Nonetheless, the boundaries between lawful and illicit were never rigid and brothel inmates traversed all gradations of space from the private and intermediate to the public, as Philip Howell has argued, “blurring the boundaries between public and private worlds, between the commercial and the conjugal.”92

The Culture of the Brothel Just as daily life in this period had a public face, so too did the activities of brothels. Lower court records and newspaper accounts offer glimpses into the interiors of disorderly houses and illuminate aspects not only of their physical environment but of their culture. Neighbours, police, and pedestrians witnessed the interior bedlam, which spilled out beyond brothel walls into city streets, and listened to a cacophony of drunken shouts, laughter, singing, shrieks, and screams interspersed with music, gunfire, and the clatter of horses’ hooves on macadamized streets. Carriages and carts, transporting clients at all hours of the day or night, thundered past open windows and doors and the noise of their passing pierced paper-thin walls. Such unwelcomed clamour disturbed neighbours, who often lived in apartments in the same buildings or shared streets, alleyways, and back yards. Moreover, some of the men who resorted to local brothels as well as the women who worked in them walked about these establishments, presumably in front of open doors and windows and in back yards, scantily clad, partially nude, or completely undressed. Joseph Bélanger accused his neighbour prostitute Josephine Mainville of indecent exposure for being “always naked in the upper part of person” whenever he saw her in the yard.93 The establishments that became targets of judicial complaints share several features that are highlighted in the evidence because they conformed to the requirements of the law concerning disorderly houses. As I have already argued in chapter 1, they were raucous and

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lively, sometimes dangerous, and always disturbed the public peace. Yorkshire-born builder Teavill Appleton, who denounced Elisabeth Deganne’s brothel to a justice of the peace, lived directly across the street from her dwelling on Dorchester near St-Denis Street. He and his wife, Elizabeth Horsley, literally had a front window onto the comings and goings of inmates and visitors as well as being assaulted by sounds coming from her dwelling. When Appleton protested to the brothel residents about the noise they were making, the Moses brothers threatened to set fire to his home and to the neighbourhood.94 Bachelors Jean-Joseph and Auguste Moses, thirty-one and twenty-three years of age respectively, the orphaned sons of JohannAugust Moses and Marie-Louise Deganne, must have made an unfavourable impression on Appleton: in his deposition, he could recognize only the two Moses brothers, not Deganne or her prostitutes. By contrast, neighbours who denounced local houses of prostitution often had extensive knowledge of the people who inhabited them, a level of intimacy suggetive of members of a community. Plaintiffs identified many of the occupants by name and distinguished the various relationships between prostitutes, family members, and visitors. For example, John Brown and Jean-Baptiste Billetdoux knew that their neighbour Marie-Anne Lauzon kept a bawdy house and that Emélie Gauthier, Emélie Masson, Euphrosine Blais, and Françoise Vaillancour were common prostitutes who “aided and assisted Mary Anne Lauzon in her debaucheries.”95 Similarly, Patrick Murphy and Benjamin Edwards identified the inhabitants of a comparable house on Waters Street as Elisabeth Leblanc, Josephte Leblanc, and Adélaide Leblanc, all spinsters who furnished sex, and Olivier Leblanc, a labourer who sold liquor to soldiers from the Quebec Gate Barracks.96 Historians of prostitution have argued that keepers of houses of prostitution participated in an informal sex commerce network that extended beyond the confines of their households and included landlords, merchants, and tradesmen. Joel Best has shown for St Paul, Minnesota, how brothel-keepers had to maintain these ties or risk denunciation by dissatisfied businessmen and women who normally profited from prostitution.97 Such links remain uncharted in Montreal. That said, depositions do reveal that keepers of disorderly houses leased space in buildings owned by prominent city families. While it is unclear if these notables knew to whom their properties were rented,

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some plaintiffs claimed that they did, although none were prosecuted for doing so. Grand jurors of the January 1840 Quarter Sessions of the Peace expressed their criticism of elites’ willingness to lease their buildings for illicit purposes: “[which], they regret to remark are the property of persons of family and respectable standing, who cannot but be aware of the character of the individuals to whom their dwellings are leased or of the traffic carried on by them.”98 Neighbours who complained to authorities about local houses of prostitution incriminated landlords by deliberately citing their names in depositions. Take the example of surveyor William Hall and High Constable Adelphe Delisle who accused Monique Panneton and Sophie Morrison of establishing a brothel in a house belonging to either the prominent notary public Joseph Labadie or his wife, Marie-Louise Grénier.99 By identifying property owners, complainants raised a possible link between them and sex commerce, which may have served to pressure proprietors to act against brothel-keepers and their prostitutes. Montreal’s population was small enough that, since prostitution tended to be a public activity, proprietors would have been cognizant of rumours or grumblings issuing from neighbours and lessees. Many landowners would not have been directly involved in renting their properties, since houses were customarily let out to individuals who in turn sublet parts of the buildings, including rooms or apartments. Nonetheless, some proprietors routinely leased their property to brothel-keepers. Over a fifteen-year period, merchant George Wurtele rented houses to at least five known keepers of disorderly houses. Such property owners probably stood to gain financially because they could charge madams higher rents. Jacob Marsten, Montreal’s high constable, had a reputation for leasing property to sex workers. Given his job, it would have been extremely difficult for Marsten to claim at court that he was unaware of the occupations of those to whom he let out apartments. His penchant for renting to prostitutes came to light after Marsten denounced Jean Lebeau for assaulting him while he was on police business to quell a riot. Two witnesses, Antoine Delaunay and François-Xavier Poitras, suggested that Marsten had simply acted to put an end to the drunken revelry that was taking place in his own house, which he had let to prostitutes Fanny and Elisabeth Proulx. Delaunay and Poitras also accused him of leasing another of his houses to a woman by the name of “Renois” who was

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reputed to keep a brothel.100 Montreal’s sheriff, Frederick William Ermatinger, rented one of his houses, located near the middle of StCharles-Borromée Street, to the local hangman, Benjamin Field, who was US-born but of African descent. Field had only recently been discharged from prison after Thomas McCord had sentenced him in 1820 – his second offence – to an astonishing four years of incarceration for keeping a disorderly house.101 Typically, those found guilty of keeping a brothel were imprisoned for no more than three months. Field reopened a brothel in Ermatinger’s house with the assistance of Richard and William McGinnis, Mary Field (one of his daughters, who was married to Anthony Billow), Jane Graham (wife of Henry Garret), and Ellen Purcell.102 As sheriff, Ermatinger would have known about Field’s earlier foray into sex commerce. For reoffending, Benjamin Field was returned to prison for another two years.103 Field’s race and social status undoubtedly played key roles in both these unusual and protracted prison terms for a victimless crime. Ermatinger, on the other hand, remained the city’s sheriff. Pointe-à-Callière proprietor Pierre Morreau clearly knew exactly what his tenant Elisabeth Duffault was doing with his property and condoned it since he served as a bondsman for Duffault after police arrested her for operating a disorderly house. Duffaut took on a surety to keep the peace for six months; Morreau put up £10 and Elizabeth’s husband, Louis Cabarra, provided the other £10.104 Keepers of bawdy houses routinely entertained male patrons by providing drink and food, sometimes music and dancing, and, occasionally, gambling. At John Trimble’s disorderly house, soldiers and civilians not only amused themselves with women and sex but also with “playing cards and knocking on the table,” an early version of gin rummy.105 Brothel-keeper Pierre Lafrance offered inmates and their clients music and dancing,106 as did Joseph Perrault and MarieAnne Tellier, who held bi-weekly balls at their Bleury Street establishment. When neighbours complained to the magistrate that prostitutes and young men attended these dances, police raided their house.107 It was the constant singing and drinking at Thomas Harvey and Ellen Graham’s house of prostitution on St-Maurice Street that prompted neighbours to complain to authorities.108 In Halifax, brothel-keepers provided a range of services, including possibilities for dining,

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imbibing, dancing, and other forms of entertainment in addition to retailing ready-made clothing or groceries, barbering, and pawnbroking.109 These diverse activities attracted clients in a growing marketplace of city brothels where competition was brisk. To avoid police raids, Montreal brothel-keepers promoted relations with the city’s constabulary and watch by offering food, beverages, and sex to the peace officers who walked beats in their neighbourhoods. The consumption of alcoholic beverages was an integral part of the rituals associated with prostitution and a major source of revenue. Brothel-keepers plied their customers and prostitutes with drink. Except in certain improvised disorderly houses, such as one operated by Catherine Jordan and Margaret Chisholm where clients supplied their own bottles of liquor,110 most brothel-keepers retailed drinks. Isabella Tomlinson’s husband, smarting from her rejection of their marriage to take up the life of a bawd, claimed, “she keeps and sells spirituous liquors and harbours persons of bad character.”111 At Alexandre Vallée’s brothel, soldiers and prostitutes passed their time drinking and “whoring.”112 Since tavern hours were regulated and tavern-keepers were subject to fines for staying open past closing113 or for selling liquor on Sundays, offering alcoholic beverages along with sex enticed men to local brothels. Nevertheless, excessive alcohol consumption not only contributed to the mayhem associated with residential prostitution but also left the madams more vulnerable to the charge of keeping a disorderly house, particularly in the post-rebellion period when elite residents of the city were strongly advocating temperance. Daily alcohol consumption took a toll on prostitutes’ health. While it is impossible to determine the proportion of Montreal brothelkeepers and prostitutes who abused alcohol, court records disclose that some of the women drank excessively: they are portrayed as “given to drink” or had histories of alcoholism. Coroner’s reports not only describe the circumstances resulting in a sudden and unexpected death but also identify the reason for the person’s demise. While implicit judgmental attitudes may have affected the choice of causes assigned to many of the deaths, some Montreal women must have been correctly identified as having died of chronic alcohol abuse and alcohol poisoning. Mary Solomon, whom we met in chapter 1,

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was described by the coroner as a “woman of abandoned character and intemperate habits, [who] kept a house of ill fame in the city of Montreal.” Her unexpected demise on 12 November 1842 from “the effects of intemperance” is one example of such a death.114 Other textual documents describe in detail the immoderate drinking that took place in some brothels. Hugh Mins and John Trimble reported that Catherine Jordan and her twenty-year-old daughter Margaret Chrisholm were “drunk almost every night and while so drunk very abusive and noisy so as to disturb all the other inmates of the said house.”115 Historians of prostitution have noted this proclivity to alcohol consumption, owing largely to its availability. In Jill Harsin’s study of Paris prostitution, drinking became a health problem for sex workers in part because they passed long periods in cafés and cabarets, where they solicited clients.116 We know little about the cost of a drink in houses of prostitution but information obtained from depositions against women and men who sold liquor without a licence reveals what clients paid for alcoholic beverages at some of these establishments. High Constable Benjamin Delisle accused brothel-keeper Marie Lamarche of selling rum to Olivier Perrault, who paid Lamarche 5 sols, or 5 shillings,117 for each half-pint of rum118 he consumed at her bawdy house. Catherine Larose, acting as a witness for the defence, denied that Lamarche retailed alcohol, claiming she sold only soap, candles, and other small articles. The court did not believe her and fined Lamarche £10 plus court costs.119 Brothel-keeper Henry Thain demanded twice that amount for beverages at his business. In 1832, Benjamin Delisle accused him of charging Joseph Carrière 10 sols, or 10 shillings, for a half-pint of rum. He, too, was penalized £10 plus court costs.120 The only other reference I found to the cost of buying a drink in Montreal is in Thomas Fowler’s travel account: “The cheapest which I saw sold, in the various places we visited, was four pence per glass, and some as high as six pence. A glass of soda water, lemonade, beer, and cider, is the fill of a small tumbler containing about half an imperial pint; but a glass of spirits or wine in this country exceeds one penny per glass wholesale, and some kinds not so much. However, in the ordinary taverns they generally charge four pence a glass for any kind of liquor; but in the hotels they charge six pence per glass,

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and for some particular kinds more.”121 Given that twelve pence was equal to one shilling, brothel-keepers Marie Lamarche and Henry Thain charged more for alcoholic beverages than did licensed, “respectable” taverns. Purchasing drinks at inflated prices in Montreal brothels was similar to what took place in New York City, where madams sold liquor at two to three times their cost.122 A disparate clientele patronized city brothels. At least thirty-six of the men apprehended in brothel raids were identified as found-ins and eighty-seven as clients. Clients represented nearly a fifth (nineteen per cent) of the total number of men arrested or denounced but most men who frequented houses of prostitution are invisible in the court records. This discovery reinforces my contention that women’s behaviour and reputation were scrutinized more intensely than that of men. Historian Karen Dubinsky has argued: “Here we have a new twist on an old feminist story, for, ironically, men are the ones who are ‘hidden from history,’ precisely because of their power.”123 Just who these men were is difficult to determine. Michael Mason, in his examination of Victorian sexuality in England, has suggested that although most studies argue that the largest portion of clients were working-class men, all social classes visited prostitutes “to much the same extent.”124 Similarly, Timothy Gilfoyle’s analysis of arrest records of clients in New York City shows that most of them were young but included those who were single, married, or widowed, “clerks and apprentices, immigrants and native-born, tourists and residents.”125 In other words, men who participated in New York’s pleasure culture represented all social classes. What is more, the illicit nature of residential prostitution meant that men also turned to these establishments for other purposes, including selling stolen goods or hiding from the police, as was the case with accused burglar François Charbonneau. When High Constable Adelphe Delisle led a raid on Sophie Morrison and Monique Penneton’s brothel on Papineau Road, he discovered Charbonneau in bed with Morrison.126 Montreal policemen were selective about whom they arrested in these raids: the clients who appear in depositions were usually non-francophone, and, where occupations are known, tended to be artisans rather than unskilled workers. Men of the middling classes were seldom included in the names of those apprehended during brothel raids.127 This contrasts

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with the practice in other judicial documents: larceny complaints, for example, disclose the names of elite men who had been robbed while frequenting city brothels. While men of all military ranks patronised brothels, police conducted only rank-and-file soldiers back to barracks. Officers acted with impunity and were not disciplined in the city’s courts of law for their pursuit of “brutal passions” in neighbourhood disorderly houses. In June 1839, Constables James Smith and Théophile Foisey encountered several officers, representing different regiments stationed in Montreal, pounding on the door of Josephine Raymond’s brothel, demanding to be let in. When she refused and called for Smith and Foisy’s assistance, the military officers “ordered the police to report Mrs. Raymond for keeping a common bawdy house” and threatened to advise Smith and Foisy’s superiors if they failed to do their duty.128 Raymond thus paid a heavy price for denying this group of military elites’ entrance to her establishment. As the widow of Bailiff John George Dagen, she may have believed that her status afforded her the luxury of being selective with respect to clients or perhaps she felt that she was immune from arrest because she paid for police protection. Men from middling occupational groups were rarely if ever detained. An exception was Henri Bothillier (Bouteillier) whom MarieLouise Benêche dite Lavictoire identified as a gentleman and accused of suggesting that he “se serait rendu maître et taisez-vous ou vous allez avoir affaire à moi.” The justice of the peace offered him bail until the next sitting of the Quarter Sessions.129 We know very little about the explicit proclivities of elite men in Montreal regarding sex commerce, although the odd diary excerpt reveals that bourgeois men paid for sex under a variety of circumstances. Quebec City merchant Abraham Joseph, for example, described regular secret sexual trysts with Ann Ross, who worked as a maid at the boarding house where he lived. For continued access to this sexual relationship, he gave Ross money and clothing.130 The women who marketed sex encountered a judicial system preoccupied with the regulation of women’s sexuality as well as a range of other behaviours, including intemperance and loitering, that ran counter to a new definition of respectability. Labouring women, Françoise Barret-Ducrocq points out, met with relentless bourgeois censure.131 While the sexual proclivities of popular-class men were

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also the subject of bourgeois discourse, their visits to local brothels were understood to be unexceptional. The idea, which cut across class lines, that sex commerce was a necessary evil in light of uncontrollable masculine sexuality may also account for the low level of arrests of clients in general and especially of men from the middling classes. Neighbourhood brothels serviced local men too, providing young men with their first sexual experiences and married men with extramarital sex. Silversmith William Delisle accused Marguerite Lecuyer of keeping a brothel on College Street that was frequented by his fourteen-year-old son.132 Similarly, when Amable Gaudry discovered his seventeen-year-old son, Jean-Baptiste Gaudry, in Elizabeth Gibson’s house of prostitution, he lodged a complaint against her establishment with the judicial authorities.133 Married men who resorted to local brothels engaged in sex commerce with different prostitutes or formed long-term relationships with particular sex workers. Julie Bertrand, for instance, accused Louise Vizé of keeping a brothel on the corner of St-Constant and Lagauchetière streets where on several occasions she found her husband, Toussaint Sigouin, lying in bed with Emélie Duval.134 Married in 1831 in Terrebonne, Bertrand likely could not stop her husband of eight years from visiting Duval but by laying a complaint against Louise Vizé’s brothel she could at the very least temporarily thwart their encounters. Prostitutes typically passed the night with their clients and these long periods of time together likely nurtured the sorts of relationships about which Julie Bertrand complained. The prevalence of this practice is made clear by Joseph Spraker’s advice to William Castle on the best method of stealing from clients. Spraker had learned at Lucie Rolland’s house of prostitution that clients were easy marks for theft precisely because they stayed the night. He urged Castle to enter the rooms at night, rob the men, and then rise early and act as if nothing had happened.135 Louinda Hoadley, a servant at Marie Solomon’s house of reception, claimed that the women and “gentlemen” who frequented the establishment retired to the bedrooms and “generally remained the whole night together.”136 In other words, there is no evidence that Montreal prostitutes furnished serial sex to a number of different men in a single evening or in what historian Marilynn Wood Hill has referred to as assembly-line prostitution

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characteristic of a later period. Wood Hill argues that this organization of the sex trade did not exist in the first half of the nineteenth-century in New York regardless of the type of brothel.137 While Montreal prostitutes provided sex commerce to their clients in diverse settings and circumstances, many carried out their trade in the seclusion of brothel bedrooms. Angèle Normandin, who worked three days a week as a prostitute at Goyette’s house of “rendezvous,” was always directed by Goyette to a particular bedroom with the client he had chosen for her.138 According to British historian Tony Henderson, brothel-keepers charged extra for services that ranged from discretion to sex commerce with more than one prostitute.139 What brothel-keeper Mary Ann Davidson demanded from John Sparling for her participation in a menage à trois for an entire night in the privacy of a bedroom is anyone’s guess but, Sparling, a goldsmith and jeweller, was clearly willing to spend extra money for these privileges.140 Confectioner Joseph Monette could well afford whatever price he was charged to have sex with three prostitutes. He claimed to have had $160 in bills (the equivalent of £40 – two-thirds of the yearly salary of a female teacher (£60) and slightly less then half that of a male teacher (£100) at the British and Canadian School in 1823) from different banks in his possession at the time he visited Mrs Marcenant’s apartments. Monette accused Bridget Anderson of taking $35 from him after he fell asleep; she retorted that at the time she left the bedroom, he was not drunk but in bed with Mrs Lyons and Mrs Marcenant.141 Prostitutes might also have provided sex commerce in full view of others. Privacy was a luxury for most Montreal residents, as it was in urban cities elsewhere. In Philadelphia, Clare Lyons has observed: “Certainly in a city that had yet to develop the physical infrastructure to provide couples with privacy, some of this sexual activity was observed. But it was not deemed worthy of public intervention.”142 Margaret Chrisholm, wife of soldier Charles Pervor, may have been unaware that John Trimble had watched her “in a state of copulation with a soldier not her husband.”143 Privacy was completely disregarded in Hannah Hopkins’ house of prostitution; Hopkins held a candle while an inebriated client attempted to have “carnal knowledge” of Jane Dunn on the kitchen floor surrounded by three inmates and an equal number of policemen.144 Under such circumstances,

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Jane Dunn might have found it difficult to object to furnishing sex as a public spectacle. Frequenting houses of prostitution brought many risks, not the least of which was theft. We have only to return to the case of Joseph Spraker, who had further advised William Castle how he could “get cash from some of the old Southerners in the night” at the Duclos brothel because “they were very careless and left their purses anywhere and did not mind losing a few hundred dollars.”145 John Sparling, however, did mind losing his property and protested vehemently when he discovered that someone at Mary Ann Davidson’s disorderly house had stolen his silver watch, silk guard, and a small brass key while he lay asleep.146 Similarly, Montreal hardware merchant William Thompson Richardson, accompanied by local butcher Jean-Baptiste Houle, probably regretted a visit they made to a disorderly house in the Récollets suburb. A short time after entering the brothel, Richardson realized that someone had pick-pocketed his wallet containing £150 in bank notes and drafts. He immediately accused the inhabitants of the brothel, specifically Joseph St-Louis dit Flamand, Betsey Kennedy, Elizabeth Belleau, Mary Redden, Jane McKay, and François Mailloux, of theft. When he found his empty wallet lying on the floor, apparently thrown there by one of the women, Richardson went in search of a policeman. In the investigation that followed, the police determined that one of the women had given part of the money to tavern-keeper Joseph Barron and that Mary Redden had kept a small portion for herself. Most of the money was never recovered.147 Prostitutes took advantage of opportunities to steal. Presumably brothel inhabitants had no idea that Richardson had come to the establishment with so much money in his wallet but they certainly would have considered £150 a windfall. Kennedy, Belleau, Redden, and McKay responded to his accusation the same way prostitutes did elsewhere, by refuting any involvement. In his study of residential prostitution in St Paul, Minnesota, US historian Joel Best has argued that brothel-keepers and prostitutes usually denied that a theft had taken place, claiming that the client had been drunk and mistaken about how much money he had brought into the establishment.148 In Montreal, as elsewhere, only a percentage of thefts involving prostitutes were likely reported to the authorities. Some clients may have

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been reluctant to approach the police or they may have resorted to rough justice to rectify the problem. Maria Jordan was exposed to the perils of vigilante justice when John Hart and James Burrell viciously beat her after they allegedly caught her stealing from Burrell in a house, presumably a brothel.149 Jill Harsin has reported that in Paris in the same period, most incidents involving theft were settled informally. Similar to what took place in Paris, Montreal prostitutes targeted easily concealed valuable objects such as money, watches, and jewellery.150 Brothels were dangerous places to patronize and their patrons complained to the police of intimidation and assault and battery. Residential prostitution brought together men who sought sex from women who were physically vulnerable if they refused their demands in settings where alcohol played a significant role. A male culture organized around gaming, sports, intemperance, and sex commerce encouraged drunkenness, rioting, brawling, and loitering.151 Watchmen and policemen also indulged in such activities as well as making use of prostitutes. City watchmen entertained streetwalkers in the Watch House and frequented brothels, as did constables, and then ate and drank instead of patrolling the streets.152 This mix of illicit sex, alcohol, and patriarchy was a prescription for trouble. Clients perpetrated violent acts – threats, assaults, riots, and even murder – on each other and on prostitutes. One of the most deadly attacks took place at John Griswold’s “très mauvaise maison,” where a pregnant prostitute died after being assaulted and punched during a brawl.153 The aggression committed at Mrs Farlane’s brothel seems subdued in comparison but was still serious. Neighbours James Seath and Robert Akin complained that fights occurred nightly at Farlane’s establishment, the most recent altercation resulting in five or six men lying “senseless” in the snow.154 Ironically, elites, including grand jurors and editors of local newspapers, saw this violence as a symptom of the local constabulary’s inability to regulate prostitution rather than as crimes against the person perpetrated by men on women or on other men that required the interventions of a criminal justice system to punish violent men and thus reduce risks to women who marketed sex. Sarah Noxon, keeper of “Chez Sal,” whom we met in the introduction to this book, was the victim of a premeditated violent act,

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which left her wounded by a gunshot to the arm. Even though Noxon held merchant clerk James Niles and apothecary clerk Daniel Daly responsible for maiming her, the trial jury found the defendants not guilty. Literature concerning the violence associated with prostitution has often focused anecdotally on notorious murder trials155 or on statistical data, which measures incidents. Such approaches are not only detached from the lived experience of women but tend to focus rather simplistically on assaults regularly perpetrated by clients on prostitutes. Investigation of the events that took place at Sally Noxon’s brothel revealed that the accused were not even clients at her establishment. Instead, their last stop – at Lucie Rolland’s bawdy house – suggests that the classic paradigm of violence between client and prostitute ignores others who participated in hostile acts, in this case, neighbours, prostitutes, and clients. Perhaps weary of the disorder and danger associated with local brothels, neighbours sometimes took the law into their own hands when police failed to act, resulting in brothel riots and vigilante justice. US historian Patricia Cohen has suggested that the ambivalence of the authorities in dealing effectively with prostitution encouraged men to intervene in brothel activities in order to uphold community standards of morality, to justify their engagement in campaigns of terror against so-called “bad women,” or to assert male power.156 In the same way, individuals such as Niles and Daly, two “brothel bullies” as Timothy Gilfoyle would have designated them, may well have rationalized their mob behaviour at Sarah Noxon’s bawdy house.157 The violence that clients perpetrated against prostitutes and brothelkeepers or that occured when neighbours and other groups rioted in local houses of prostitution made sex commerce extremely dangerous. Individual acts of aggression were commonplace. Drunken clients attempted to and sometimes succeeded in forcing their way into the city’s houses of prostitution. These brothel invasions could result in property damage, threats, and assaults. On two separate occasions in 1838, brothel-keeper Euphrosine Auger complained to a magistrate that clients had assaulted her. In the first case, Auger accused tailor James Nicholson of an assault after he threatened to break down the door of her house if she did not open it. When she relented and allowed Nicholson to enter, he hit her.158 In the second instance, Auger denounced Antoine Galarneau to authorities after he had

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allegedly assaulted and threatened to kill her. According to Auger, an intoxicated Galarneau had arrived at her house between four and five o’clock in the morning requesting to stay. When he woke that morning “dans une parfaite état de sobriété” Galarneau brutally assaulted and threatened to take Auger’s life: “si il ne pouvait pas lui ôter la vie qu’il mettrait le feu à la maison.”159 Some men’s sense of their entitlement to sex commerce had egregious consequences for prostitutes who refused their demands. Having forced his way into her house by “fit partir le crochet de la dite porte,” Louis Crépeau went to Louise Horn’s bedroom, threw her on the bed, and attempted to sexually assault her. A male inmate of her establishment intervened when he heard her cries for help and managed to stop Crépeau before he could rape Horn. She laid a complaint before the justice of the peace, accusing Crépeau of attempted sexual assault.160 Marie Lussier was not as fortunate. Nobody came to her assistance when, after refusing William Collin’s demands for “un commerce charnel,” he sexually assaulted her.161 Lussier also turned to the law for restitution. Both Louise Horn and Marie Lussier would have known that the likelihood of a guilty verdict in either case was slim at best as their non-respectable status would have made it almost impossible that justice would be served on either Louis Crépeau or William Collins. Sandy Ramos has argued that women in Montreal who pursued alleged rapists at court entered a murky, masculine world where a rigid definition of respectability and conflicting ideas about sexual violence came together: “The criminal court for the District of Montreal becomes a veritable microcosm in which societal ideas about relationships between men and women were articulated, constructed, contested, and imposed – sometimes simultaneously.”162 Ramos’ study reveals that character was critical to outcome: “sexuality was really at the core of the ideal of good womanhood.”163 While Horn and Lussier’s complaints stood no chance in a court of law, at the very least their experiences at the hands of Crépeau and Collins were now a matter of public record. Brothel-keepers initiated various measures to make their establishments more secure. To reduce risk, they leased better buildings in safer neighbourhoods, called on family members, friends, and spouses for assistance, and hired men to protect those who lived in their houses of prostitution. Montreal was similar to New York City in that brothel-

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keepers engaged men to protect brothel inmates following a series of attacks on these establishments in the 1830s. Timothy Gilfoyle refers to such men as pimps but does not define the term or situate it historically.164 In Montreal, brothel-keeper Geneviève Patrice counted on Benjamin Sansfaçon to deal with Jean-Baptiste Parriquette, Nicholas Pominville, and Pierre Roseau when they attempted to forcibly enter her house of “bad fame” at two o’clock in the morning. To stop the three men, Sansfaçon, who had been asleep in the attic, shot Parriquette in the stomach and thighs with pigeon pellets.165 Some of the security men acted aggressively in situations where it was unwarranted: in the process of preventing a Miss Cooney from shutting the door of the brothel where he worked, James Lang fractured her leg.166 Paying for security was out of the question for keepers of disorderly houses who catered to a very modest clientele. Because Mary Burk did not have a male resident in her brothel to provide security when François Derome dit Decareau and Barthelemy Couturier threw stones at her house and made verbal threats against her, she took matters into her own hands by firing a warning shot to rein in their behaviour.167 When three men forced their way into Catherine Minan’s brothel, located in a cellar at the Ste-Anne’s Market, it would have been difficult for anyone to stop the destruction they perpetrated. Richard Clarke, armed with an axe, and Martin Cooney and William Woolfe, each carrying sticks, smashed the door and the window, and struck a boarder on the head with the axe.168 Minan’s only option was to either keep quiet about the incident or turn to the criminal justice system to privately prosecute the aggressors. In early nineteenth-century Montreal the brothel was a semi-public place. In addition to sex commerce, inmates offered visitors a range of leisure activities associated with drinking and dining, as well as entertainment such as music, singing, dancing, and gambling. Interior activities spilled out beyond the doors, windows, and enclosures. Sounds, images, and odours assaulted the senses of those living nearby. The brothel was home to a sordid, ever-present but simmering, potential for violence. Brothel-keepers and prostitutes were the usual targets, but so, too, were the men who patronized their establishments. As we shall see, violence also characterized the relationships of those who inhabited brothels.

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The Vicissitudes of Living and Working in Brothels Brothels were often cramped spaces that accommodated assorted people involved in convoluted and ambiguous relationships. The inmates, from the women and men who kept the enterprises, their spouses and lovers, other brothel-keepers, prostitutes who serviced the patrons, clients, servants, and male assistants, to children and relatives such as parents, siblings, and cousins, wielded varying degrees of power rooted in gender relations. Women had to manoeuvre around a volatile field of human landmines, which included the brutality of conjugal violence, clients’ threats and assaults, and parental coercion of daughters, as well as brothel-keepers’ intimidation of prostitutes. Overcrowding added to the unpredictability and risk. A larger establishment, which catered to a more affluent clientele, would have servants, cooks, security men, possibly barmen, musicians, and repairmen, all of whom required a keeper’s close supervision. As well, although more difficult to detect explicitly, given the nature of court documents, the brothel was characterized by loving relations between husbands and wives, lovers, parents and their children, and brothel prostitutes. As we have already noted, a significant proportion of women accused of keeping disorderly houses did so in partnership with men, usually their spouses.169 Some couples never married but cohabited as lovers. In 1836, William Collins (the same man Marie Lussier had accused of rape three years earlier) was living with reputed brothelkeeper Mary Woolscamp when four male patrons of her establishment attacked him while he lay sleeping on a sofa in their home.170 By 1841, he had moved to another house of ill fame kept by Catharine Watkins, where he died suddenly from an inflammation of his lungs and liver.171 Men like Collins had a predilection for cohabiting with prostitutes, probably in order to live off the proceeds of sex commerce in return for providing emotional and physical security. Participation in residential prostitution did not rule out matrimony and some couples who lived together in brothels without the benefit of a church certificate eventually married. Clare Lyons argues that prostitutes were involved in a subculture that chose sexual autonomy as an alternative to marital sexuality with the partner of their choice and as a vehicle to earn greater income. Since working as a

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prostitute did not preclude marriage, for many the sex trade served as a transition for women seeking new, independent lives.172 Couples not only instituted self-divorce but also entered into irregular or clandestine marriages. We have only to turn to the long-lasting relationship between Rosalie Paquet and Eloi Benêche dit Lavictoire, who lived together for at least twelve years before eventually marrying. In December 1831, they were apprehended and indicted for keeping a disorderly house on St-Constant Street.173 Six years later, they were re-arrested for the same offence on the same street.174 While Eloi was never again charged with keeping a disorderly house, Rosalie was arrested at least three more times and always at the same address.175 Similarly, Euphrosine Lapointe (widow of John Brower) and Antoine Vaillancour operated brothels in the early 1830s while claiming that they were married.176 A priest at Notre-Dame Church would not officially perform their nuptials until 1845. Others married soon after having been accused of and/or arrested for keeping brothels. MarieVénérance Imbeau dite Matha and Narcisse Lecuyer were united in matrimony less than a month after police detained her for operating a disorderly house. Eight years later, they were once again accused of keeping a brothel together. Marie-Louise Gravelle and widower Pierre Desjardins wedded only days after police apprehended them for the same offence. Arrest and incarceration did not seem to alter matrimonial plans. Remarriage could place additional stress on existing and reconstituted relationships between stepparents and children as historian Peter Gossage has shown for Quebec.177 Since court documents only detailed such tensions if a violent act or threats were brought before a magistrate, only possible difficulties can be highlighted. When Marie-Louise Gravelle and Pierre Desjardins married in November 1814, Gravelle became stepmother to Desjardins’ four children, Marie-Rose, Jerôme, Marguerite, and Thérèse. Although they had operated a brothel together before their marriage – with the assistance of Desjardins’ daughters Marguerite and Thérèse – we can only imagine what sort of tensions might have existed within this blended family. The role of Desjardins’ two daughters in the home brothel could have been a potential source of conflict, especially after Gravelle gave birth to a baby girl. That Marguerite left the household within a year to marry Antoine Monty may have been symptomatic

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of a strained relationship. When police arrested Gravelle and Desjardins, their infant daughter, Charlotte, accompanied them to jail.178 After spending nearly a year with her mother in prison, she was finally discharged as “being an infant” at the 1815 October Sessions.179 At the very least, Charlotte’s birth in her parent’s brothel underscores the coexistence of home, symbolized by the family, and of the business of prostitution. Brothels accommodated children and extended family members such as grandparents, some of whom were swept up in brothel raids along with clients, prostitutes, brothel-keepers, and servants. In an incident involving the theft of household goods and clothing, keeper Lucie Rolland identified two young girls aged nine and ten as living in her house of prostitution.180 Court records also reveal that when young children were living in brothels, police usually allowed one of the adult residents to remain in the house to look after them. Thus, after the constabulary raided Ellen McConvey and Patrick Thomas’s bawdy house in April 1841, Margaret Delany stayed behind to attend to her five children, who lived there with her.181 It is not surprising that very young children accompanied their mothers to prison, as did the infant Charlotte Desjardins whom Gravelle was still breast feeding. Women incarcerated for keeping a disorderly house sometimes implored authorities to release them from prison so they could look after their children. Two Quebec City widows used clemency applications to seek reductions in their sentences because of family responsibilities. In the first petition, Charlotte L’Heureux claimed that her husband’s death eight years before had left her the sole supporter of her young children. After serving half of her sentence, she requested clemency in order to care for them.182 In the second petition, Catherine Lafrance,183 who had been convicted of keeping a disorderly house in 1817, had already finished her term of imprisonment before she was to be exposed in the pillory. Being the mother of two young children and their only caregiver, she claimed that while she did not object to spending three months in prison, she was appealing to the governor-general to exercise his royal prerogative of mercy and thus stop her from exposure in the pillory on the basis that, “elle deviendra un objet d’opprobre d’ignominie et sera privée à jamais de moyens honnêtes de gagner sa vie.”184 L’Heureux and

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Lafrance’s concern for the well being of their children adds another important element to the complicated relationships nurtured within brothel walls. The violence and alcohol abuse associated with brothels could lead to very troubled relations between some mothers and their children. William Bingham reported Mary Burk to authorities after he witnessed her severely beating her child on Notre-Dame Street. He was convinced that “the child’s life would be endangered by its being restored to the care of its mother who is a prostitute, a drunkard and a woman of great violence of character.”185 Bingham’s deposition was unusual given that authorities in the period under study rarely became involved in matters concerning children and that elites rarely if ever expressed moral outrage about boys and girls inhabiting brothels, a disregard predicated on the belief that parents had almost total authority over their children. In his study of family violence in Montreal in the same period, legal historian Ian Pilarczyk contends that paternalism, the primacy given to the privacy of family life, and the legal position of children as chattel meant that little protection was afforded them.186 It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that efforts by a child protection movement resulted in protective legislation, in this case the Industrial Schools Act of 1869. The act allowed justices of the peace to intervene summarily in the lives of so-called refractory, neglected, and abandoned children under the age of fourteen and place them in a Catholic- or Protestant-run industrial school.187 Renée Joyal has argued that the act was a response to industrialization, which led to an expanded role of the state and charities in the lives of the labouring classes.188 Previous to that time, there were no specific laws to safeguard children from parental excesses, including physical and sexual abuse or, in the case of brothels, to protect children from exposure to sex commerce, excessive alcohol consumption, or violence. Although men constituted a third of all those accused of or arrested for keeping brothels and, in addition, many assisted in the operations of disorderly houses, the historiography of prostitution provides little information about whose these men were or about the complicated gender relations of residential prostitution. Timothy Gilfoyle’s analysis of New York City’s male sporting culture and the sex

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trade, for example, fails to note the multifaceted bonds that city prostitutes and men established with each other, perhaps because the voices of the women who provided sex commerce are overwhelmed by the bravado of the swaggering nineteenth-century urban males Gilfoyle has depicted so meticulously.189 Equally, he disregards the significance of the household economy in the lives of men and women and the responsibilities that they shared. The presence of “security” men or “brothel bullies”190 underscores the level of decorum that was expected of visitors and inmates alike in some of the brothels: rowdy behaviour, which could result in the destruction of property or injury to the person, was to be kept in check. Such security measures imposed discipline on the women who worked there, including the brothel-keepers themselves, but they could not keep brothel prostitutes safe in the wider community. Guillaume Baumette allegedly attacked Amable Breton while she attended mass at Notre-Dame Church: he first grabbed her by the hair, then delivered kicks and punches, and finally ripped her clothing.191 The protection that the men provided was complicated by the personal relationships some of them formed with madams. Notwithstanding Eloi Benêche dit Lavictoire and Rosalie Paquet’s lengthy relationship and eventual marriage, one winter evening he forced his way into her brothel against the wishes of the inmates. As he pushed the door open, Eloi assaulted prostitute Adélaide Cinqmars, wounding her in the face before evicting her from the house.192 Although we do not hear from Rosalie, it is possible that her relationship with Eloi had soured and he was conveying his anger, even jealousy; he may have, at Rosalie’s behest, set out to discipline Adélaide; or he may have been simply asserting his male authority in the brothel. Since households in general could and did harbour violence,193 women’s work in the home also included, as Bettina Bradbury has argued, tension management associated with difficult life situations.194 Kathryn Harvey’s examination of wife battering in Montreal after the mid-nineteenth century reveals that conflict around “drink, struggles over money, jealousy, and authority over children” precipitated assaults.195 The home-brothel was no different and men were more likely to initiate acts of aggression. In their respective studies, both Donald Fyson and Ian Pilarczyk have argued that spousal abuse was a significant prob-

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lem in Montreal.196 Such violence was surely a consequence of men’s legal and social right to physically discipline or admonish their wives in an atmosphere of tensions and strains associated not only with daily living in the brothel but with alcohol abuse, perhaps the intimidation of wives who may have been uneasy about operating a brothel, especially if it involved their children, and the jealousies associated with sex commerce. Brothel-keeper Louise Corbeille’s long history of abuse, which included emotional as well as physical violence at the hands of her husband, Antoine Delaunay, is but one example. Not only did he allegedly threaten to kill her but on several occasions he had thrown knives at her head.197 When Louise Corbeille’s interventions failed to stop the violence, she sought legal remedy to deal with his mistreatment. While the act of laying a complaint before a justice of the peace served to limit the right of a husband to discipline his wife by making his past actions part of the public record, it was usually a strategy of last resort in a family’s armamentarium. Women may not have wanted the courts to treat their husbands severely. Gregory Smith has argued that their goals were straightforward: “aside from seeking to halt the abuse itself, these women were seeking some recognized, authoritative power (in this case that of the state) to add weight to their own personal opposition to harsh physical treatment.”198 Marie Bricot dite Lamarche, who had married widower Charles Boisseau dit Sanscartier in November 1832, pursued him at law after several incidents of assault and battery and threats made against her life. Only a few months before her first arrest for keeping a brothel, Lamarche complained to a magistrate that Sanscartier had beaten her for fifteen days. After the complaint he resumed his reign of terror, even though he was on bail to keep the peace. The justice of the peace responded to this renewed aggression by extending the peace bond to six months. On another occasion, Lamarche accused Sanscartier of conspiracy to defraud her property, defamation, and unlawful incarceration in the local prison.199 In the face of Sanscartier’s continued abuse, Lamarche fought back by laying a number of complaints about his behaviour before a justice of the peace. In these situations, alcohol abuse often escalated the violence. Félicité Hirbour dite Mathurin denounced husband James Young who had beaten

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her while in a drunken state: “depuis plusieurs années et particulièrement hier la déposante aurait été assaillie, battue et maltraitée par son mari.”200 Neighbours sometimes intervened on behalf of battered wives. Roderick Phillips’ study of domestic violence in late eighteenth-century Rouen shows that abused women and their children sought out female neighbours, who comprised a moral community, for support, comfort, refuge, and medical aid.201 While the boundaries between the respectable and non-respectable could be blurred, popular-class women were ambivalent about those who marketed sex. On the one hand, such women shouldered domestic responsibilities, including efforts to stretch inadequate wages, no matter their reputations; on the other hand, money paid to prostitutes diminished household revenues, associating with prostitutes could tarnish their reputations, and men who visited prostitutes might infect wives with venereal disease, since prostitutes had unprotected sex. Anna Clark has argued that “when ‘respectable’ women snubbed their fallen sisters, they were expressing their solidarity with injured wives rather than with ‘unfortunate’ women.”202 Nevertheless, there are examples of female neighbours who intervened in cases of conjugal violence involving brothel-keepers. Ann Hartley, who lived next door to Peter Fontaine, denounced him to authorities for keeping a bawdy house, being a habitual drunkard, and beating his wife.203 Abused wives could expect little from a criminal justice system that was reluctant to intervene in family matters that were considered a critical thread in societal patriarchy. At best, women were offered temporary respite from spousal violence when justices of the peace incarcerated their husbands, bound them to keep the peace, or fined them. Donald Fyson’s study of female complainants who came before magistrates makes evident that magistrates sent brutal husbands to jail.204 At worst, the abuse continued or even escalated, since the legal system was both inconsistent in its response to spousal violence and sentences were not devised to serve as deterrents.205 In addition to the costs of pursuing an abuser at law, having an incarcerated breadwinner meant that his wife and children were deprived of his wages. Moreover, there was no guarantee that a woman who chose to leave an abusive husband would be free of his brutality. After Thomas Day forced his brothel-keeping wife, Mary Ann Turner, out

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of the family home, thus reinforcing his supremacy in the household, he continued to mistreat her: “she succeeded in escaping from him but he was determined to catch her and blacken her eyes. That he has frequently come to her house with a view to annoy and injure her and hath on some occasions struck her and on others torn some of her clothes as he could lay his hands upon.”206 Day entered into a six-month recognizance to keep the peace in the amount of £40.207 Even in the worst cases of spousal abuse, women were more likely to seek temporary refuge with a family member or neighbour rather than abandon the household altogether.208 Some might have initiated informal or formal separations, deserted their households temporarily, or exiled their spouses. As Bettina Bradbury has argued, “permeable and moving boundaries divided non-support, desertion, and separation, leading to a situation where the boundaries between male- and female-headed households were not always clear.”209 Violence visited upon brothel prostitutes by keepers and other men was another frequently reported problem. Christine Rodier privately prosecuted brothel-keeper Hélène Fortier along with David Smith and Nathaniel Prowley after they attacked her in Fortier’s house, where Rodier worked as a prostitute: they having “cruelly beaten, scratched, bruised and ill treated her without any provocation.”210 Two decades later, a woman residing and working in Helen Ross’ bawdy house reported similar brutality to constables James Millard and Charles Colombe. She informed the policemen that brothel-keeper Helen Ross “had been most unmercifully beaten and illtreated.”211 Brothel-keepers also perpetrated acts of intimidation and physical violence on young women who seemingly had little or no apparent association with their establishments. Fifteen-year-old Eliza Peebles accused Isabelle Blondin and Sarah Singleton of attempting to coerce her into prostitution by thwarting her attempts to leave Blondin’s brothel, where she had been visiting her friend Catharine Ryan, who lived and worked at the establishment. Given that Eliza had used her leisure time to meet someone who worked in sex commerce suggests that she may have been harbouring the idea of becoming a prostitute; police would arrest her for solicitation years later.212 In what appears as a forerunner to the classic turn-of-thetwentieth-century white slavery narrative, Pierre Doyer deplored brothel-keeper Betsey Martin’s unlawful confinement of his daughter

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Julie in her house of prostitution. According to Doyer, Julie had left the family household in Quebec City to travel to Montreal, where he had arranged for her to live with an aunt. When she arrived in the city, Julie discovered that her aunt no longer resided in Montreal and, having no place to go and no employment, followed the advice of a young man when he directed her to Betsey Martin’s house of prostitution. Julie told her father and the justice of the peace that Martin took away her clothes, held her prisoner for three days, and, on the morning of 19 October 1823, permitted, indeed encouraged, a group of soldiers to sexually assault her. Police arrested Betsey Martin on a charge of theft, assault and battery, and assisting an unknown person to rape Julie Doyer.213 Brothel-keepers also threatened and assaulted fellow madams; they raided each other’s establishments which was, as Joel Best has argued, symptomatic of the rivalry in the vice marketplace. These episodes could be triggered by a jealous lover or by a coveted prostitute choosing to move to another brothel.214 Julia Donaghue was one such person. She left Henry Thain and Desolives Gauthier’s brothel for the Laverdures’ establishment and in April 1830, Thain accused Agathe Florentin and Guillaume Laverdure of hiding Donaghue in their house. Julia Donaghue responded by denouncing Henry Thain to the authorities for intimidation: “the defendant hath threatened her and actually caused her to be indicted for larceny and to be arrested and treated with personal violence. Upon the bill of indictment being rejected by the grand jury the defendant has threatened revenge.”215 To get the young prostitute back, Thain allegedly hired three men to break into the Laverdures’ brothel and abduct her. Donaghue reported overhearing his threats to “do worse tonight, than last night; if possible he added and if he could have no other revenge, he would have the house torn down over our heads on account of Agathe Laverdure keeping me in her house.”216 What else could women like Julia Donaghue do? In Halifax, brothel-keepers who browbeat, assaulted, or evicted prostitutes from their establishments risked revenge from women who turned police informers.217 At the very least, when victims of violent acts laid complaints against brothelkeepers before justices of the peace, these legal proceedings served as reminders to authorities of the presence of such houses of prostitution and would have invited closer scrutiny of them.

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Lucie Rolland had a long history of antagonistic relations with other brothel-keepers and was a formidable opponent when it came to defending her business interests. While it is unclear what sparked the events that unfolded at Rolland’s bawdy house on a late winter evening in 1838, brothel-keeper Mary Anne Burns was present when Rolland grabbed a pair of iron tongs and threatened Burns with them. Burns consequently fled the house, fearful that “it will be morally impossible for her with safety to discharge her affairs in the city.”218 Rolland, like other madams, also resorted to the criminal justice system to denounce fellow brothel-keepers. In the summer of 1829, Rolland was occupying the same dwelling as Margaret Conroy when she laid a complaint before the justice of the peace accusing Conroy of operating a disorderly house. Rolland’s denunciation forced Conroy to move her brothel elsewhere.219 These examples of aggression in the world of sex commerce were not dissimilar from the antagonisms between plebeian women in city neighbourhoods. While the close proximity of their lives allowed them to create local borrowing networks that provided obvious material and social benefits, it also fuelled tensions, which resulted in gossip, threats, name-calling, and assaults. British historian Shani D’Cruze has argued that the violent quarrels between labouring women that ended up in the lower courts serve as a barometer with which to gauge the tensions and strains associated with neighbourly relations220 and the same may be said of disorderly houses. The everyday world, meticulously depicted by D’Cruze, resonates with that of brothel-keepers and brothel prostitutes. Intimidation, assaults, and thefts represented one aspect of the complex relationships between brothel-keepers and prostitutes as well as between brothel prostitutes. A “subculture of solidarity” also existed among prostitutes, cultivated by the risks they shared, such as participating in an illicit marketplace, unwanted pregnancies, venereal disease, arrest and imprisonment, and non-respectable status.221 Camaraderie is inferred when prostitutes and brothel-keepers were protective of or loyal to one another or when sex workers left one brothel to move together to another. Such was the case with Ellen Labrie and Julie Lafleur, who worked together at the same house of prostitution, and for siblings Félicité and Marguerite Bleau, who provided sex commerce at Angélique Paré’s bawdy house at the same

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time.222 Friendships can also be discerned in depositions involving violence perpetrated by men on women. When Abraham Burwell assaulted brothel-keeper Josephine Raymond, otherwise known as Widow Deagan, it was Sarah Turner, one of the resident prostitutes, who came to her aid by laying a complaint before a justice of the peace. Turner alleged that Burwell, who had a history of beating Raymond, had forcefully pulled her out of bed and kicked her.223 Adélaide Dufresne had demonstrated a similar allegiance to Raymond only a year earlier when she had accompanied her and two others to Maria Cunningham’s bawdy house; there, urged on by Raymond, they demolished household furniture, doors, and windows and pulled down the stove pipe.224 By 1841, Josephine Raymond’s involvement in operating disorderly houses may have ended when the widow married bachelor Horace Brown Dickinson at Christ Church in Montreal. Brothels were also sites where women transgressed relationships by turning against one another. Julie Mathurin and Scholastique Lavictoire had been living and working together at Joseph Perrault’s house of prostitution when Mathurin accused Lavictoire of pilfering a black veil from her suitcase. Mathurin demanded a warrant to search the house of Lavictoire’s mother, where she was convinced the veil had been hidden.225 To ensure restitution at court, it was critical that the stolen objects be recovered: without this evidence, the grand jury would not have allowed the trial to proceed. Those with stolen property in their possession were easier to prosecute.226 Mary Kenneway, for example, purportedly stole garments consisting of a blue silk pelisse, plaid mantle, and shawl belonging to the widow Margaret Conroy. Police eventually caught up with Kenneway in Quebec City soon after she arrived there on the steamboat Chambly, accompanied by her sister. Constables located the pelisse on the steamboat and the plaid mantle and shawl in the possession of Mary’s daughter, Ann Kenneway.227 Brothel-keeper Rosalie Laprise accused prostitutes Marie Diller of stealing her “robe d’Indienne”228 and Caroline Locas of taking a shift, gown, and ribbon from her house and hiding the articles in Angèle Belanger’s house.229 The economic and social relationships between brothel-keepers and prostitutes were often characterized by tensions and disagreements, especially over money. Diller and Locas may have felt entitled to the items, given that brothel-keepers

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kept a sizeable portion of the proceeds derived from the sex that brothel prostitutes furnished. Some of the same brothel-keepers who accused prostitutes of stealing from them were themselves charged with receiving stolen goods. For example, police inspector Alexander Comeau denounced Rosalie Laprise for having in her possession a fur tippet that had been stolen from a house on Ste-Marie Street.230 The Marcottes were a particularly notorious family that police had targeted for being receivers of stolen goods. Its matriarch, Elisabeth Deganne, her daughters, and her cousins, the Moses brothers, garnered numerous arrests but few convictions for this offence. Seemingly Deganne had left residential prostitution but carried on other illicit activities. Deganne’s daughter Elisabeth Marcotte and Joseph Moses were both charged and found guilty of being accessories to theft and receiving stolen property.231 On another occasion, James Benny accused Deganne of stealing two boxes of window glass from his courtyard. Upon discovering that these items were missing, Benny visited local stores that specialized in the product to determine if any of the merchants had recently been offered glass for sale. Oilman Rosco Corse informed him that a “woman of bad fame” had tried to sell him glass but he refused to buy it. Benny and Corse went together to the store of W.S. Phillips and discovered Elisabeth Deganne and Louise Briand in the act of delivering the boxes of window glass to the storekeeper. In her defence, Deganne claimed that her late husband had purchased the glass at an auction sale held at Cuvillier’s; the grand jury decided that there was not enough evidence to support an indictment.232 If women were unhappy with the arrangements at one brothel, they could move to another. Many did. Amable Breton changed bawdy houses at least eleven times over a twelve-year period. The marketplace for sex in Montreal, as elsewhere, was competitive and rivalries and disputes between brothel-keepers over prostitutes and clients sometimes resulted in violence. These women committed a variety of aggressive acts in public: archetypal forms of verbal assaults, including name-calling and threats of physical force, denunciations to authorities, assaults, and riots. These episodes of violence reflect the tensions that existed between brothel-keepers. In cases of name-calling, women incorporated a variety of the vernacular for

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“prostitute” and hurled insults at each other, sometimes leading to defamation complaints. Insults and gossip thus served to regulate women’s behaviour. Marie-Anne Joyalle accused neighbour Modeste Guertin of calling her “a whore and other ill fame names” and to add further offence Guertin apparently exposed herself to Joyalle “in a most scandalous manner.233 The brothel, then, was home to a collection of people with complicated relationships, wives, husbands, lovers, siblings, children, parents, and prostitutes. These associations were forged by diverse emotions that included love and friendship on one hand and intimidation and aggression on the other hand. It took tremendous adeptness on the part of brothel-keepers to maintain these personal associations in the face of poverty, class differences, and patriarchy.

Conclusion The brothel was a site of sex commerce, a home to families with children, siblings, other relatives, and women who worked as prostitutes, as well as to an assortment of people who provided a range of services from security to domestic care. The coexistence of the home and brothel meant that different people with varying levels of power and competing interests lived and interacted within its walls. As such, brothels were places of contrasting and conflicting relationships, which could be based on love and solidarity or friendship as well as on patriarchy and brutality. It was the contested interests between employer and employee that made residential prostitution so unstable, vulnerable to a wide range of violent acts and gender inequalities. Brothel-keepers came from a variety of backgrounds and had different reasons for integrating prostitution into their households. Residential prostitution allowed women, such as Lucie Rolland, financial, social, and sexual autonomy not only when they were single but also when they could no longer depend upon a male wage owing to widowhood, migration, being orphaned, desertion, illness, or unemployment, or when they needed to escape dependence upon their families. Some women embraced residential prostitution as a vocation while others kept brothels as a means to avoid violent husbands or fathers, trading the certainty of spousal or parental abuse for the

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possibility of brutality. Operating a brothel also permitted women with children, represented best by Elisabeth Deganne, to counterbalance periods of unemployment or underemployment and maintain their household responsibilities of childcare and housework while earning much-needed revenue. Since the state did not intervene in these establishments by removing children from exposure to residential prostitution until mid-century with the introduction of the 1869 Industrial Schools Act, some families remained together in Montreal’s disorderly houses.

CHAPTER 3

Kinship, Friendship, and Community Street Prostitution, Homelessness, and Subsistence Strategies

Introduction On a late summer day in early September 1836, Constable Henry Hébert observed Catherine McDonald, Betsey Allcart, Eleonor Galarneau, and Harriet Hamelle in a drunken state, lying in a street near the Quebec Gate Barracks in the town centre. The women were reputed to be lewd, idle, and disorderly, common vagabonds and prostitutes who solicited soldiers in and around the military compound; Hébert arrested them for vagrancy.1 Street prostitutes and vagrant women, two-thirds of whom were soliciting at the time of their arrest, spent large parts of their lives on the streets, in squares and green spaces such as the Champs-de-Mars, in the fields and farms that surrounded the city, and in buildings, including markets, taverns, and the prison.2 They navigated public space alone, in couples, or in groups with kin, friends, and casual acquaintances. In order to exist in a hostile environment, they established bonds of mutual dependence, often in moments of need. These relationships did not always ensure survival but helped them to get through a day, a night, or a season. Such bonds were linked to a wide range of behaviours that suggest intimacy, warmth, and love on the one hand and tension, anger, and mere tolerance on the other. The variable habitats and diverse relationships amongst the homeless challenge historians’ usual understanding of affective relationships as rooted in domestic and private, rather than public, space. Most social historians who study communities, kinship, and family use historical sources that locate men, women, and children within dwellings. The census, in particular, lends a sense of permanency to

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people’s relationship with a particular place and to the social relationships that occur within it. Family historians place the family at the heart of intense ties of emotion. Feminist historians insist that reproduction must be understood in terms of how it occurred within families, highlighting women’s prominence as bearers of the next generation and primarily responsible for a range of tasks that ensured that other family members were sheltered, clothed, and fed. Historians of the criminal justice system usually ignore the family, focusing their attention on crimes, criminal processes, sentencing patterns, or the intent of the court system. In the discussion that follows, some of the questions of family and community studies are applied to the lives of streetwalkers within the criminal justice system. In contrast to the prostitutes and madams who worked in brothels, not only did few of these women have access to permanent shelters of their own but the very act of securing food and clothing was likely to involve them in crime or some form of charity. As criminalized subjects, these women appear bereft of friendship, kinship, and community, but I contend that they were not without emotional ties. Although their range of choices was limited, streetwalkers and vagrant women’s alliances and survival strategies explicitly underscore their agency and reveal both their vulnerability and tenacity. This chapter explores the complex and diverse relationships that streetwalkers established for themselves and their dependents as they sought to procure the daily requirements of shelter, food, warmth, emotional support, and comfort in a world often characterized by danger, poverty, homelessness, hunger, cold, and social ostracism. The pursuit of subsistence brought prostitutes and vagrant women into contact with a cast of characters facing similar challenges. As non-respectable poor, they had difficulty securing charitable aid, and as women alone, free of the influence and authority of a father or husband, they presented a threat to demands for a disciplined and orderly society. As Philip Howell has suggested for mid-nineteenthcentury Cambridge, the streetwalker was viewed as both spreading “moral and physical contagion” and inserting “the public character of commerce and cash into intimate relationships that were regarded as properly private and domesticated.”3 Their questionable liaisons, drinking habits, and proximity to vice increasingly brought them under public scrutiny as bourgeois attitudes about respectability became hegemonic. Local newspapers,

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resorting to disparaging and judgmental language as well as broad brush strokes to describe situations involving prostitutes and vagrants, deplored the fact that women deemed non-respectable were discovered inebriated in the city’s streets and green spaces or died in public and semi-public spaces. For instance, when an intoxicated Elizabeth Thomson, the wife of a soldier, succumbed to exposure in early November 1816, having taken refuge in a boat since she had no lodgings, the Montreal Herald reported that religious authorities had refused her a Christian burial. After she had lain at the site of her death for a day and a half, three city residents took it upon themselves to bury her in a nearby field.4 The newspaper found no fault with the church’s flagrant disregard for a human being or the injustice of interring the body in a field and not a cemetery. Two other examples, published by the Montreal Transcript in 1840 and 1841, are especially telling. In the first instance, the newspaper denounced a homeless married woman who had been discovered on the street “in a disgusting state of intoxication” surrounded by her two children, aged three and seven. The editor depicted the husband who was also drunk, as follows: “whose disgraceful state, like that of the mother, told at once the cause of their misery.”5 In the second instance, in late December 1841 a recently released homeless female prisoner was found twenty-four hours later lying in a courtyard, inebriated. Her clothes were frozen to the ground, as were her lower legs and feet. She was recommitted to the Common Gaol, where she received medical treatment for her “black and greatly swollen” extremities.6 What the media never noted was that the task of seeking out the necessities of life brought many women together in a common purpose. Impressions of these relationships of kinship, friendship, and solidarity can be discerned in the historical documents generated by their misdemeanours. They provide glimpses into the lives of streetwalkers and vagrant women and the complex and ambiguous relationships that they established with the women and men who shared their world and their neighbourhoods. These bonds involved mothers, daughters, sons, sisters, and cousins, husbands and wives, and women and men such as soldiers and vagabonds in relationships that transcended the client/prostitute paradigm. Unrelated streetwalkers, who shared a female subculture and travelled through public space in groups, also forged a “community” of outcast women.7

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Historian Luise White takes issue with feminist scholarship that presents prostitution as hierarchical, where keeping brothels is considered an elite form of sex commerce and streetwalking its poor cousin. She argues that this binary model removes labour from the discussion of prostitution and that each labour form represented a specific organization of work and rate of payment. Moreover, forms of prostitution did not delineate stages in a prostitute’s life cycle or a hierarchy of respectability or status. She also objects to the commonplace view that women entered prostitution when family ties were weak and asserts the opposite: the sex trade allowed families to stay together.8 I begin the chapter with an examination of the demographic features of street prostitutes and then consider some of the reasons why women became prostitutes. Next, I explore the diverse bonds that they developed as members of communities of women, as single parents, and as kin. I conclude with an analysis of the kinds of relationships they established with the men with whom they shared public space.

The Demography of Street Prostitutes Of the nearly 1,000 women (993) arrested for street prostitution between 1810 and 1842, most (sixty-five per cent) were single and non-francophone and many were arrested and found guilty only once or twice (twenty-two per cent of the total); approximately a tenth of the women were married or widowed. Figure 3.1 shows that these percentages remained stable over the three periods under consideration. There is little information about social class because the clerk of the court seldom recorded a father or husband’s occupation in the depositions and the women were characterized only as prostitutes.9 The four women we met at the beginning of the chapter – Catherine McDonald, Betsey Allcart, Eleonor Galarneau, and Harriet Hamelle – were representative of a small number of women (thirty-five per cent) who were repeatedly arrested for prostitution-related offences. Such serial recidivists account for two-thirds of the total arrests of street prostitutes in the period under study. In the period under study, Irish-born Mary Ann Green holds the dubious distinction of having accumulated the largest number of

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Figure 3.1 Marital status of street prostitutes, 1810–42

arrests for vagrancy and being loose, idle, and disorderly, charges associated with the street life of a prostitute: she was arrested at least thirty-five times over an eight-year period and given sentences that ranged between three days and two months; she was imprisoned eighteen times in 1841 and 1842. She probably continued this pattern of arrests until her death. The demographic features of those in the recidivist group matched those of all streetwalkers. Some had turned to street prostitution to provide for themselves and their children, while others suffered from chronic alcoholism and homelessness. Police, who knew these women well, arrested them repetitively based in large part on their presence in public space and on their reputations. As historian Judith Fingard has argued with respect to a similar group of “notorious” women in Halifax, their high visibility in the public streets meant that the police repeatedly harassed them.

Age While it is very difficult to determine the ages of streetwalkers, as court clerks seldom entered the age of the accused in the depositions, most were probably young. When family members denounced a relative to a justice of the peace for street prostitution, they often emphasized the recalcitrant’s youthfulness. When, fifteen days after she had left the family home, Judith Latourelle accused her daughter Charlotte Goulet of “ne tient pas une conduite régulière” she noted that Charlotte was eighteen.10 In other instances, the alleged prostitutes were

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referred to in court documents as minors, as was the situation for Eliza Kennedy and Sophie Beauchamps. Hospital registers and parish records are useful in determining the ages of some streetwalkers. Most streetwalkers who sought treatment for venereal disease at the Montreal General Hospital were in their teens or early twenties. Canadian-born “ML” was eighteen years of age when she requested medical care for syphilis.11 “SB” was treated for syphilis at sixteen and apprehended at seventeen for working as a brothel prostitute.12 And nineteen-yearold “LC” was taken into police custody six times over an eight-year period for prostitution; her first arrest occurred one year prior to undergoing the “cure” for venereal disease at the hospital.13 Extant prison registers include a list of women arrested in the late 1830s who were classified as either above or below the age of eighteen, but the data from this method of organization is unreliable. In a study of nineteenth-century prison registers for Montreal and Quebec City, Donald Fyson and François Fenchel argue that age recording was notoriously inaccurate owing to prisoner misreporting or turnkey estimates.14 They did find, however, that the vast majority of women incarcerated in Montreal for being loose, idle, and disorderly were unmarried and would have been, I suggest, young.15 Nonetheless, like their brothel counterparts, the ages of streetwalkers could vary and older women also worked on the city streets. Marie Trémoulie was twenty-seven years old in 1813 when she first appeared in the court records as a common prostitute; over the next sixteen years, police apprehended her at least ten more times for streetwalking. Trémoulie’s multiple incarcerations in the Common Gaol and House of Correction were not only the result of charges for a variety of public order offences but for petty larceny as well. Scottish-born “AT” was forty-two when police arrested her for street prostitution.16

Ethnicity and Race Many of the streetwalkers had been born in the United States, Ireland, Scotland, England, Upper Canada, and other parts of Lower Canada. Some had migrated to Montreal from the countryside. Véronique Fleury, the youngest daughter of François Fleury and Marguerite Forgue, came from St-Vallier. In the prison calendars, where place of birth was sometimes recorded, the majority of women incarcerated for being common prostitutes are shown as having been

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born outside Montreal.17 For example, in 1819 police arrested Mary Ann Thompson, originally from Philadelphia, for street prostitution.18 A small number of women were of African origins: Ann Taylor had been a resident of New York City before moving to Montreal. As non-respectable and Black, Ann Taylor encountered what Frank Mackey describes as “a wall of prejudice” in a city with a long history of slavery, which ended officially only in 1834.19 Mackey reminds us that any historical account of the Black community in Montreal must take into consideration its complexity and ambiguity: not all Black residents were involved in the worst jobs; – some were property owners and even businessmen – and, mixed marriages were not exceptional. Others, like Ann Taylor, turned to illicit occupations to make ends meets.20 Most (in terms of overall numbers) of the streetwalkers were Irish immigrants. As racialized subjects, being single, Irish, and Catholic presented a host of problems for these newcomers, who found themselves near the bottom of a hierarchy of whiteness.21 Colonial authorities and local elites often considered the Irish to be inferior racially and felt that, as part of the “Others within,” and unfit for democracy, they required civilizing, which meant internalizing the changing values of respectability, such as temperance, self-discipline, and hard work, that were fundamental to the rise of capitalism. Such attitudes were conspicuously discriminatory and, as we will see later, ultimately contested.22 That unmarried female Irish immigrants were considered outside the purview of appropriate male authority embodied in fathers and husbands – having migrated on their own – adds another layer of complexity. These women were targeted because of their ethnicity, marital status, social class, and, as recent immigrants to British North America, because their livelihoods were precarious and thus considered suspect. This large Irish presence in public order offences mirrors John Weaver’s findings for Hamilton in roughly the same period. His analysis of those women who were incarcerated for prostitution, vagrancy, and being drunk and disorderly reveals that the majority of female offenders were Irish, between the ages of sixteen and twentyfive, single, and newcomers.23 In Montreal, the ethnicity of those arrested for street prostitution changed significantly from 1810 to 1842. As Figure 3.2 makes evident, between 1810 and 1829 the numbers of francophone and

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Figure 3.2 Ethnicity of street prostitutes, 1810–42

non-francophone women accused of street prostitution or vagrancy were almost evenly divided. By the second period, 1830–1837, fewer Canadien women were charged with such misdemeanours and their proportions continued to fall. Between 1838 and 1842 non-francophone women composed over three-quarters of those charged with prostitution, albeit under the rubric of vagrancy or being loose, idle, and disorderly. As already indicated in the previous chapter, the growing presence of anglophones in prostitution echoed the changing ethnic landscape of the city. Given the under-representation of francophones and the over-representation of the Irish, these arrest numbers support the argument that Erin’s daughters were treated as racially inferior and therefore in need of “civilization.”

Choosing Prostitution When Frédéric-Auguste Quesnel stood up in the House of Assembly on 22 December 1831 to address the issue of funding the city’s Repentant Female Society – an asylum for what were also termed “Magdalene women,” in a reference to Mary Magdalene, a repentant prostitute in the bible – he declared that, because they were being denied access to charity, prostitutes were “victims to seduction” without any opportunity “to abandon their disordered life” and were

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being forced into a life of “lewdness” because of “poverty and extreme indigence.”24 Quesnel’s social construction of prostitutes reflected a commonly held view among US and European elites at the time that naive young women were recruited into sex commerce by cunning harlots, devious men, and abduction.25 It was inconceivable to them that a woman would deliberately choose prostitution: they preferred to see such women as the victim of unrestrained male sexuality, their own “brutal passions,” or misery. Their victimhood was epitomized in a poem, “The Dying Prostitute; An Elegy,” that had been published decades earlier in the Montreal Gazette. In the lament, the poet describes the subject’s fall from grace as the sacrifice of her youth, beauty, virginity, reputation, and ultimately health to a deceitful man who took her “love of truth and trust” and replaced it with “want and woe, disease and endless shame.” The poet summons the reader to allow some measure of understanding and benevolence: Curse not the poor lost wretch, who ev’ry ill That proud unfeeling man can heap, sustains; Sure she enough is curst o’er whom his will, Enflam’d by brutal passion, boundless reigns.26 To view her otherwise would have revealed a community’s deep unease about her agency and the insidiousness of the sex trade. Women chose streetwalking for diverse reasons. For many, prostitution was a temporary but pragmatic strategy initiated to meet their daily requirements for subsistence. For others, sex commerce provided the means to live independently, to escape from the tyranny of fathers, husbands, and unhappy marriages, to leave objectionable work conditions, to negotiate sex in a culture where men generally took what they wanted, to sustain an alcohol addiction, or to provide for dependent children. Historians generally argue that poverty, limited employment opportunities, poor prospects, and the lack of adequately remunerated female work induced women to choose prostitution. Timothy Gilfoyle, for example, contends that the major factors persuading young female New Yorkers to take up sex commerce were low wages resulting from a large pool of cheap female wage labour and seasonal outwork with its concomitant under-employment.27 Others have suggested that it was often the most vulnerable

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who turned to prostitution: the poor seamstress, the widow with a young family, the immigrant Irish woman, and the naive country girl who left home to live in the city. It is clear that not all women chose the streets of Montreal for the same reasons or had the same marital status or the same needs. For some women, especially those who were alcoholic, ill, destitute, or newcomers to Montreal, it may have been easier to turn to casual prostitution than to find work in a brothel. However Josephte Cuillerier, Eliza Cunningham, and Margaret McGinnis all began their long careers as prostitutes in brothels before moving on to the streets. Any number of reasons might explain their change of venue. In the brothel, they were subject to the authority of the madam and security men, while on the streets they were autonomous. Some may not have needed the shelter a brothel offered. For older prostitutes, the move to the streets may have been a consequence of alcoholism, aging, or illness. Lucie Rolland, for instance, evicted prostitute Emélie Blanchard from her establishment on the basis that she was insane; Blanchard was eventually incarcerated in the local prison for vagrancy and mental illness.28 Writing about late eighteenth-century London, Sarah Lloyd has argued that elites believed that women who were destitute, idle, ill, unemployed, uneducated, victims of sexual assault or seduction, and susceptible to attempts at recruitment by sex workers were highly disposed to prostitution.29 The notion that young people could be enticed into vice caused Montreal notables – consider FrédéricAuguste Quesnel’s speech to the House of Assembly – great consternation. These anxieties were sometimes expressed in fictional narratives published in local newspapers to reinforce bourgeois sensibilities about appropriate female behaviour and to provide a moral antidote to prostitution. “The Milliner’s Apprentice,” which appeared as a five part serial in the Montreal Transcript, showcases the experiences of a seventeen-year-old milliner’s apprentice, Caroline Archer, who had been placed in the craft following her father’s death. To support her infirmed mother, she sold her four “perfect” front teeth. Caroline was eventually rewarded for the forfeiture of these teeth by marriage to a rich, handsome, young, bourgeois man whom she had secretly loved. This sentimental chronicle of self-sacrifice not only provided an important contrast to the public image of the inadequately

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remunerated apprentice who was forced to turn to casual prostitution but also suggests that a woman could be rewarded with companionate marriage above her station without having to market sex. To achieve this she had, of course, to make a noble gesture of personal sacrifice. 30 This maudlin account can be contrasted with the classic “sentimental prostitute narrative,” described by English scholar Laura Rosenthal, where the protagonist begins a downward spiral in social mobility following a family tragedy, which leaves her vulnerable to poverty, seduction, and then prostitution.31 Elites also expressed such fears explicitly. For instance, they demanded that prisoners be properly classified in order to separate hardened criminals from young novices who had been imprisoned while awaiting trial but had not yet been found guilty. Montreal notables referred to bawdy houses as factories for vice and to low tippling houses as places that corrupted the youth and newcomers. In November 1820, citing an escalating rate of crimes and misdemeanours, grand jurors lamented the fall of “the simple, quiet and sober character of the Canadian People” a consequence of an excess of taverns and tippling houses as well as “ the dissipation and debauchery of Camps, and the mixture of Emigrants from different countries.”32 A tract warned emigrants to exercise great prudence in avoiding hastily formed relationships with people they did not know: “Without attention to the characters of the persons with whom you become associated, you may find yourselves exposed to all the evils attendant on bad company, before you are aware, and you will either prove by it, that your habits have been heretofore bad, or expose yourself to such temptations as are calculated both to corrupt, and to confirm you in evil habits; and you may rest assured that the more sober and respectable part of mankind, will form their opinion of your character by the company that you keep. ‘Tell me your company!’ says the Spanish proverb, ‘and I will tell you what you are.’”33 Historian Helen Cowan has suggested that emigration commissioners, benevolent societies, and poor law unions in Great Britain made a concerted effort to promote and effect the immigration of poor, single Irish women to British North America. These women were supposed to meet a market demand for brides, domestic servants, and labourers, while providing some relief for counties burdened with excessive pauperism.34 By the 1820s, the Irish made up a significant

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proportion of Montreal’s population, representing what Sherry Olson and Patricia Thornton have referred to as a “third community, distinctive in its demographic behaviour and institutional allegiances,” and by 1842 the Irish population had grown to just over 11,000, of which most (nearly 7,500) were Catholic.35 On arrival, Irish immigrants found themselves in a Catholic, bilingual city, which made adjustment easier in some respects and more difficult in others. Being Irish Catholic meant that newcomers were immediately part of the majority Catholic population of Lower Canada and did not have to face the influential and significantly anti-papist and conservative Orange Order, as was the case for those who had settled in Upper Canada. Nonetheless, Irish immigrants encountered very real prejudices. Not only was their status in the hierarchy of whiteness insecure but city residents held Irish newcomers responsible for transmitting communicable diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever to Lower Canada, causing epidemics and great loss of life, as well as for undermining wages, especially for francophone workers. A penniless, young, single Irish woman disembarking after a long and treacherous voyage crossing the Atlantic did not have the same breadth of options from which to choose as did a Canadien woman with access to an extended family and long-standing links to the community. Margaret Hazette illustrates the situation that many of those who came from Ireland faced: she confessed to a policeman that she was unemployed, unable to maintain herself, and “in danger of getting into improper courses.”36 For such immigrant women and recent migrants from the countryside, prostitution was a viable option in the face of bleak employment possibilities. The reading public was well aware of the hardships that newcomers faced: local newspapers not only described their plight but appealed to the public for support. In 1818, for example, the Montreal Herald expressed concern for poor emigrants “who are wandering about our streets, sunk in the lowest state of misery and want.” The article implored the public to employ those who were able-bodied and to furnish charity to those too ill to work.37 Two years later, the Montreal Gazette pointed out that, after surviving rough ocean crossings under crude conditions in crowded ships, their situation in the city became desperate if they did not have savings. Employment opportunities plummeted in the winter season, and without access to

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charity, most found themselves in dire straits.38 An 1832 British report on emigration from England, Scotland, and Ireland to Quebec or New Brunswick noted that “the best months for leaving England are certainly March and April; the later emigrants do not find employment so abundant, and have less time in the colony before the commencement of Winter.”39 Even those who found employment would have been inadequately remunerated. Sherry Olson’s analysis of the 1842 census reveals that earnings on average were low and that women (along with youth and day labourers) were relegated to inferior jobs characterized by low wages and a high turnover rate.40 The daily struggle to procure food and shelter is well illustrated by twenty-five-year-old Mary Smith, a widow from Guernsey. She told a Montreal watchman that since arriving in Quebec five weeks earlier she had been unable to find more than three days of work. She survived by “receiving small gifts from others” but presently had no place to live or food to eat.41 In 1837, similar concerns were conveyed in a letter to the editor of the Montreal Transcript, which criticized the lack of employment opportunities available in Montreal for emigrants and the insufficient funds available to the Emigrant Society to relocate new arrivals.42 Immigrant women sometimes tried to eke out a temporary living on the streets to solve fundamental issues related to daily subsistence until new opportunities arose or they could develop a contingency plan to move to Upper Canada or to the United States, find employment, or marry. For most, prostitution was a temporary solution, as the high transiency figures suggest. Anna Clark’s study of plebeian culture in the same period in England reveals that a young woman’s value as a worker, mother, friend, and neighbour was considered more important than her chastity.43 Similarly, Barbara Hobson has argued that prostitution served as a transitory phase in women’s lives and many quit at the age when most women would have married.44 Local women also turned to street prostitution to earn money when they found themselves in difficult economic circumstances. Henriette Duperoux, whose husband Louis Perrault was absent from Lower Canada, worked as a street prostitute,45 as did Jane Rodgers while her husband William Dunn served a prison term for grand larceny.46 Unmarried women usually had fewer resources. The situation that Marie-Françoise Gamache found herself in is an example. The

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daughter of voyageur Antoine Gamache and Marie-Anne Loriau (Lauriault), she grew up in utter poverty. Following her parents’ marriage in 1771 in Lachenaie, seven children were born: two in Repentigny, one in Ile-Jesus, one in Longue-Pointe, and two in Montreal. By 1783, the family had settled in Montreal where Marie-Françoise’s two-anda- half-year-old brother, Michel, died the following year. Since the family could not afford a proper burial, he was laid to rest in the “cimetière des pauvres.” Following the death of Marie-Françoise’s father in 1788, her widowed mother worked as an egg-seller. MarieFrançoise left home to take up the life of a streetwalker; she died homeless in 1821 at the age of forty-three. Poverty and recent immigration are easily accepted explanations of why some women became prostitutes, but the reasons are not as clear for those who did not have to contend with the same harsh economic realities. For such women, street prostitution may well have been an astute way of dealing with predatory male sexuality rather than an act of desperation. Feminist historians who have looked carefully at sexual coercion contend that, in the choreography of sexual encounters between men and women, men tried to take what they desired. Sharon Block, in her study of rape in antebellum United States, concludes that victims of sexual coercion likely knew the perpetrators and that it was often difficult to differentiate between persuasion and force.47 The rapacious nature of male sexuality was expressed, according to Clare Lyons, in a scripted ritual, which involved male pursuit and persistence, and eventually female submission.48 Christine Stansell suggests that some young popular-class women quickly learned how to manoeuvre within this culture of patriarchy by selling sexual favours for money.49 Like their brothel counterparts, a number of women may have turned to the street to escape family tyranny and domestic abuse. It is impossible to know exactly why Angélique and Elizabeth Goodwin became street prostitutes. That their father Nathaniel asked a justice of the peace to issue an arrest warrant against them suggests that he was exercising his patriarchal prerogative to control his daughters. Goodwin claimed to the magistrate that even when he ordered them to return home, Angélique and Elizabeth had refused.50 Parents used the laws governing disorderly women to discipline their daughters’ sexuality, as was the case of Charles Leclerc who denounced

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Alexis Dumond to the authorities for having “débauchée” his daughter Josephte. Consequently, the two “courraient les rues comme des vagabondes, n’ayant aucun lieu de résidence, ni aucuns moyens de subsister et seraient tous deux des personnes de mauvaise vie et de moeurs dissolues.”51 Prostitution could also be practised in what Christine Stansell has referred to as “a street trade of independent workers”52 that required little or no capital investment, unlike brothel prostitution or other forms of female labour. As with their brothel counterparts, it is difficult to determine what street prostitutes charged for sex commerce. In one example, Eliza Peebles charged lawyer Charles Titus Greece five dollars “for acting as a wife to him,” which involved three hours of sex “stripped naked” with an intoxicated Greece who insisted that she imbibe alcohol as well as drink his urine.53 Greece was married at the time to Anna Walton Greece, who shared his love of drink but may have refused to indulge his sexual appetites, particularly for urolagnia.54 When Greece refused to pay for the three hours of sex commerce, a feisty Eliza Peebles pinched his cloak.55 Peebles rate was exorbitant, given that five dollars was at least five times the daily wages of an unskilled canal worker. Most fees were likely much lower. Clients’ accusations of theft against street prostitutes tell us something about what streetwalkers thought was a reasonable trade for sex and perhaps give some idea of men’s sober re-accounting of the previous night’s cost of sex commerce. Larceny perpetrated by street prostitutes as part of a culture of dishonest activity blended into theft as payment-in-kind and streetwalkers sometimes countered denunciations of theft with declarations that the stolen objects had been given to them as payment-in-kind for sexual services rendered to clients or had been taken when men refused to pay for sex.56 Their responses reflect a sense of entitlement to some form of remuneration. Private James Brown accused prostitute Mary MacDonald of taking a half dollar out of his pocket “whilst he was sitting conversing with her in a tavern in the Ste-Anne’s suburb.” When police arrested her, MacDonald retorted that Brown had given it to her.57 Although the deposition does not provide any other information, the half dollar may have been the cost MacDonald charged for sex. Julie Deschamps declared during a police interrogation on a

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charge of stealing an axe that she had accepted it “en payement d’un maçon pour avoir couché avec lui.”58 Whatever the reasons for choosing street prostitution, its advantages were clear: it required little if any capital and could be practised on a casual basis. The majority of streetwalkers left sex commerce as soon as other opportunities arose. Of the small number of women who accumulated most of the arrests, many were homeless and sought sustenance, lodging, and security in a variety of places, including the local prison.

The Search for Subsistence and Security In November 1841, Martha Hyers died unexpectedly from the ravages of homelessness, having “suffered lately from the inclement weather.”59 She was only twenty-one-years old and had already been a widow for two years. Described as Black and illiterate, Martha Hyers was the daughter of labourer John Hyers and Catherine Salter; at the age of fifteen she had married US-born Richard Jackson in the city’s Baptist Church. Their life together was characterized by drunkenness, quarrels, and stretches in the local gaol for being disorderly. Hyers and Jackson earned their living operating a brothel until 1839, when Jackson died.60 Martha Hyers was well acquainted with the local jail, having been imprisoned at least sixteen times over an eightyear period. She was also well known to Daniel Arnoldi, the prison physician, who, in a letter to the coroner, described her as “a depraved and loose character, she had been frequently committed to the Common Gaol for vagrancy and disorderly conduct, suffering with venereal disease.”61 Over a five-year period, Dr Arnoldi had ministered to Martha Hyers’ numerous ailments associated with malnourishment and recurrent exposure to cold as well as to her genital chancres – a consequence of unprotected sex – which he treated with mercury, the accepted therapy for syphilis at the time. For most of the period under study, physicians believed that there was only a single venereal disease. Jay Cassel’s prudent reading of local medical journals reveals that Montreal doctors were slow to respond to the epidemic of

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venereal disease, even though by 1838 doctors could distinguish between syphilis and gonorrhoea, thanks largely to medical research by French surgeon Philippe Ricord. It would not be until 1860 that scientists were able to isolate gonorrhoea, syphilis, and “cancroids.”62 Streetwalkers with venereal disease resorted to the prison for free treatment of their venereal disease with mercury, an aggressive, painful medical intervention. Some, as early as 1784, even petitioned authorities, requesting “the cure” for syphilis.63 Records of the House of Correction from 1811 to 1815 and for 1826 indicate that at least thirty-four women were treated for and “cured” of syphilis.64 Prostitutes could also seek treatment for genital chancres at the Montreal General Hospital. Between 1829 and 1834, an average of nineteen individuals received medical treatment each year; in 1835 the number rose to forty-three, then fell to thirty-one a year later. Yearly hospital admissions for venereal disease remained at thirty-one between 1836 and 1842.65 Peter Gossage’s examination of newspaper advertisements for patent medicines promoted to cure female problems associated with “irregularity” shows that women could purchase a small number of items that claimed to be aborticidents or treatments for venereal disease.66 Venereal disease was one of a cluster of health problems associated with prostitution. Others included tuberculosis, alcoholism, malnutrition, hypothermia, unwanted pregnancies, and the sequelae of violent acts perpetrated on sex workers. Martha Hyers’ world was characterized by wretched poverty, chronic alcohol use, violence, and homelessness; a daily search for subsistence signalled that living “rough” was gruelling and life threatening. Her life was representative of that of many homeless prostitutes who turned to the prison hospital for treatment of a variety of illnesses, including venereal diseases. In letters to the coroner, Dr Arnoldi expressed dismay that the prison hospital was used to minister to city inhabitants who should be seen and treated elsewhere. Often seen as occupying a place between the deserving poor and a criminal sisterhood,67 homeless vagrants and prostitutes were accused of fomenting many of society’s ills and blamed for everything from corrupting the city’s youth to unsolved robberies. Newspaper editors repeatedly warned residents to beware of unrepentant vagrants roaming the city streets: “As the criminal term closed at the

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end of last week, the usual clearing out of the jail took place. Our citizens ought, therefore, to be on the watch against the depredations of the incorrigible vagabonds now at liberty. Some robberies have recently occurred, and have no doubt been effected by these perpetual inmates of our prison.”68 The offence of vagrancy was constructed out of a fear of disorder and contributed to the growing power of a centralized state. Used against suspicious persons, it was not, Linda Kerber contends, about what a person had done – since similar behaviour had no legal consequences for property owners – but about what someone appeared to be. Thus, homeless women were assumed to be idle and therefore susceptible to the charge of vagrancy.69 To survive under difficult circumstances, streetwalkers instituted a patchwork of subsistence strategies that included, among others, seeking charity, requesting shelter in the local prison, and larceny. Historian Peter Lawson has argued that “the preference for casual pilfering reflected the essential character of women’s economic role; by its very nature petty theft can be seen as a natural expression of their subsistence identity.”70 Court records provide a window onto the circumstances under which streetwalkers committed larceny as well as their legal agency and demonstrate the importance that the street played in their lives. Thus, these documents provide an understanding of their gendered experience not only as purveyors of sex commerce but also as thieves. They stole an assortment of goods related to their work as prostitutes and to their responsibilities as mothers and wives, on the street and in a variety of other public spaces, alone or with the help of others. They also served as the accomplices of men who stole. Many of these thefts were impulsive and random acts indicative of the need to rely on their wits to subsist.71 Grand jurors may have had such prostitutes in mind when they expressed alarm about Montreal women’s growing role in larceny: “in present circumstances even women are emboldened to associate with the leading thieves; and having first cheered them forward to the general plunder of the Country, they next play the part of receivers of stolen goods and the procurers of false witnesses.72 Streetwalkers pilfered out of back yards, courtyards, and military facilities, on the streets, from market places and taverns, in public spaces on the Champs-de-Mars and along the Lachine Canal, as well as in dwellings. The goods they took resonated with women’s daily

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lives and included clothing, footwear, food, and household goods. Women took advantage of opportunities to steal, choreographing these thefts by hiding small items in their clothing, splitting up the goods, or passing a stolen object from one person to another. Sophie Dupéré, Sophie Proulx, and Joseph Dollar likely believed that they had a fail-proof system until their encounter with Irish-born Bartholomew O’Brien, a silver broker and boarding-housekeeper. While O’Brien was visiting a cellar at the Ste-Anne’s Market, Proulx took his purse, containing six American half dollars, twelve quarters, and change, which he had left unattended on a table, and slipped it to Dupéré, who in turn passed it to her son, Joseph Dollar.73 Given that these market cellars were typically places of sex commerce and that both Sophie Dupéré and Sophie Proulx were known streetwalkers, O’Brien’s reason for being in the cellar was highly suspect. The boarding house he shared with his wife, Eliza McDugald (sic), on the corner of St John and Hospital Streets, was only three blocks north of the market, which suggests that he would have known about the marketing of sex in the cellars. Nevertheless, this knowledge did not deter him from initiating a private prosecution of the three alleged thieves. Food theft exemplified the struggle to subsist. Streetwalkers stole food and live poultry from market stalls and bread from carts. Around suppertime in late November 1835, baker John Tassie left his bread cart unattended on Craig Street while he made a delivery to George Shepard’s house. Upon returning, he discovered that ten loaves of bread were missing. Tassie noticed a woman running away and took off after her. When he caught up with her, she had three loaves in her arms while a partner in crime had made off with the other seven.74 Streetwalkers Adélaide St-André and Betsy Lafranchise’s were alleged to be responsible for the theft, a crime that was likely spontaneous, executed by splitting the proceeds of the crime and reducing the likelihood of being caught by running off in different directions. As they were living rough, it is equally plausible that St-André and Lafranchise were hungry and stole some of the bread for nourishment and some to sell. A study of larceny in eighteenthcentury Paris by the French historian Arlette Farge demonstrates that food theft was by and large a response to endemic poverty owing to under-employment and unemployment. Stealing bread in particular indicated both real misery and a political act as expressed in food

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riots as well as in popular sentiments: “le pain en est le symbole le plus vital, le plus frappant.”75 Nevertheless, food theft did not represent a final expediency before starvation but was usually a means to avoid a more miserable life. Not surprising, Farge found that larceny cases increased during periods of famine, food shortages, and high prices. Three-quarters of food thieves had been born outside the city, suggesting that newcomers found it especially difficult to afford food. For Farge, Paris symbolized both their hopes and disillusions: “Paris est une promesse, lorsqu’il devient difficile à la campagne de trouver du travail, ou lorsque le salaire reçu parvient mal à assurer le nécessaire.”76 Perhaps Montreal played the same role in the eyes of newcomers, offering a promise of a better life. Montreal streetwalkers and vagrant women moved across a criminal underworld made up of a network of pawn shops, lodging houses, brothels, taverns, and diverse other public buildings. Streetwalkers targeted household goods, included dishes, teapots, cutlery, pots and pans, and bedding and linens, usually pinched from back yard clotheslines where they had been hung out to dry. Clothing was another popular commodity because it was valuable and easy to pawn or sell door-to-door. Marie Trémoulie, for instance, stole two dresses and a handkerchief from the yard of a house in Côteau St-Louis.77 Shopkeepers accused women of stealing fabric, dress patterns, buttons, and ribbon while visiting their stores on other pretences. Prostitutes also made off with small, valuable, but easily concealed objects such as watches and coins, which they took from clients who were distracted, intoxicated, or asleep. When Magdeleine McDonald came across Joseph Dodds lying on a wharf besotted with drink and sleeping it off, she used the cover of darkness to slip her hands into his pockets and remove bank notes and a silver watch.78 A study by Gathine Walker of larceny in Chester, England, confirms that women there knew the value of the items they stole.79 Since they typically had access to many of these goods, being seen in public with them would not have drawn much undue attention. Stolen goods were consumed, sold in the streets and door-to-door, or converted into much-needed cash at pawnbrokers, fences, and receivers. Eliza Peebles pawned Charles Titus Greece’s cloak for seven shillings and six pence at Mr McDonald’s shop in the faubourg of Quebec.80 Grand jury members, uneasy about the proliferation of pawnbrokers,

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condemned the pawnshop as “a convenient receptacle to thieves for the disposal of their plunder” and recommended that they be placed under police control or be abolished.81 Some disorderly women preferred to sell stolen items themselves, hawking them in the streets or going door to door. Since female participation in the second-hand trade was well established, the street provided an important venue in which to dispose of goods. At the same time, hawking stolen goods in public left thieves more exposed to police surveillance, as the following example illustrates. When Julie Deschamps tried to sell a large brown cotton sheet to a group of carters, Constable George Wells became suspicious. Given that Deschamps was unable to provide a believable account of how she came into possession of the bedding, Wells arrested her.82 Biddy Handley and Jane Hicks were more discrete when they went door to door offering clothing belonging to Martin Duval for sale. Handley tried to hawk a cloth jacket83 and Hicks was desperate to sell a dress, telling brothel-keeper Josephte McFarlane that she needed money to buy food for herself and her children. McFarlane acted as a pawnbroker and agreed to loan her money for the dress but when Hicks did not return to reclaim the dress, McFarlane accused her of selling stolen property.84 Subsistence strategies also included seeking shelter in a variety of settings as circumstances changed. These sites included public buildings, abandoned houses, outhouses, and farm buildings. In mid-November 1836, Apoline St-Germain and fellow streetwalker Emily McIntosh found refuge in a hayloft.85 Two years later, St-Germain, along with Mary Milligan, Mary Ann Smith, Sarah Mitchell, Edward Lawrence, John Leines, and Joseph Charpentier, erected their own shelter in the heart of the city. Police arrested them at their campsite in a vacant lot on St-Paul Street. The city brewer, George Bourne, had labelled them vagrants “of the worst description” and, despite their attempt to create a refuge, they were deemed homeless, unemployed, and in need of prison discipline.86 Some of the women who could afford to pay rent lived alone; Adélaide Menard leased a room in a house on St-Paul Street, where she was accused of admitting men into her lodgings through a window.87 Others shared living space in single rooms in multi-family dwellings, cellars below the Ste-Anne’s market, in

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small apartments, in run-down wooden houses, or moved between the brothel and the street. A week after police raided Ellen McConvey and Patrick Thomas’ bawdy house on 21 April 1841, prostitute Margaret Delany and her five children found themselves homeless.88 They turned to one of the city’s police stations to request overnight lodging. This incident suggests that brothel-keepers provided shelter to prostitutes and their children who would otherwise have been living on the street. While the sources say little about who looked after the children – neglect was almost certain – brothel residents probably shared minimal childcare responsibilities. Undoubtedly, women like Margaret Delany were expected to work, since brothel-keepers did not dispense charity. As we have already seen, the worlds of the brothel and the street intersected: prostitutes solicited in the streets to entice men to brothels where they worked and streetwalkers and clients searched for uninhabited buildings where they remained until forced out by the authorities. Elizabeth Austin, Elmire Perrault, and two soldiers broke into an abandoned house belonging to notary Pierre Beaudry; police removed them from the house a few days later and arrested the women after Beaudry complained to a justice of the peace.89 Women also turned to the few existing private philanthropic institutions founded by genteel ladies to aid non-respectable women. In February 1829, Agathe-Henriette Huguet dite Latour opened the Charitable Institution for Female Penitents, otherwise known as the Magdalene Asylum, on the corner of Ste-Geneviève and Latour Street in the faubourg of St-Antoine, on property that had been in her family since 1786. The daughter of the renowned merchant silversmith Pierre Huguet dit Latour and of Marie-Josephe Valois, AgatheHenriette grew up in a bourgeois home located on Notre-Dame Street. In December 1816 she married steamboat captain Duncan Cameron McDonell. The deaths of her father in 1816, her husband in 1824, and her brother Pierre in 1825 secured Agathe-Henriette’s financial independence and allowed her to raise her four young children in relative opulence. According to E-Z Massicotte, Agathe-Henriette’s brother Pierre was so inspired by her “qualités de coeur et d’esprit” that he left most of his property to her at his death, including the land and building that she used to build the refuge.90

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We do not know why Huguet dite Latour took a particular interest in the plight of prostitutes. Undoubtedly the purpose of any Magdalene asylum was to curb “brutal passions” and reform fallen women by turning them into wives and mothers. At the encouragement of Bishop Lartigue and Sulpician priest Nicolas Dufresne, Agathe-Henriette Huguet dite Latour accepted the task of establishing and directing the institution. Emilie Tavernier, widow of Jean-Baptiste Gamelin and founder of the Sisters of Providence, added her support and assistance.91 With the financial aid of public grants, private donations, and a loan of £400 from the bishop of Montreal, Huguet dite Latour operated the charity for seven years. The primary objective of the refuge was to change the sexual behaviour of prostitutes through repentance, discipline, and work. Frederic-Auguste Quesnel argued in the House of Assembly that the establishment served a much broader purpose: to “prevent libidinous conduct and corruption of manners by removing the incitement.”92 From Quesnel’s perspective, the responsibility for sexual transgression lay unequivocally at the feet of women. The institution was dependent upon the labour of its inmates to function and by 1834 Huguet dite Latour was requesting additional funding from the House of Assembly to pay the balance on a house she had constructed and to purchase “manufacturing machines and materials, similar to Mr Perrault’s Establishment at Quebec” with the goal of becoming financially independent.93 The refuge’s most notorious penitent was Maria Monk. In November 1834, two years before she authored the anti-papist and much discredited tract, Awful disclosures of Maria Monk, as exhibited in a narrative of her sufferings during a residence of five years as a novice, and two years as a black nun in the Hotel Dieu nunnery at Montreal,94 Maria’s mother placed her under Huguet dite Latour’s care, noting that she had “for many years led the life of a stroller and prostitute.” Maria found submission to the strict rules and isolation of the refuge very difficult. Four months after her admission, Huguet dite Latour ejected a pregnant Maria from the asylum following a succession of refractory and wilful behaviours, which included secretly speaking with a man – an act strictly forbidden – who had scaled a fence of the establishment.95 Maria Monk died in a US prison

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in 1849 after having had been arrested for theft in a brothel located in New York’s infamous Five Points.96 The asylum was not a particularly agreeable place for other “magdalenes” either. Marie-Louise Campbell, for instance, requested readmission to prison even though she had been “recently discharged from the gaol to enter the Magdalene Asylum.”97 In both Rodney Hessinger and Lu Ann De Cunzo’s studies of the Magdalene Society of Philadelphia, inmates were at odds both with society’s view of them as outcasts and with the discipline of the institution. Like Maria Monk, Philadelphia’s magdalenes exhibited unruly behaviour, challenged the rules, and escaped or were thrown out. Furthermore, they used the asylum for their own purposes: as a refuge of last resort where they remained for only a short time.98 In 1831, when the census-taker visited the two-storey stone house of the Magdalene Asylum, he recorded that one man and thirty-six women lived in the building, thirty-four of whom were under the age of forty-five, unmarried, and Roman Catholic. 99 Image 3.1 shows the footprint of the building and property, which was located on a substantial but irregular plot of land bordering Ste-Geneviève Street between Lagauchetière and Latour (see plot numbers 295, 296, and 297). Sisters Hyppolyte and Clothilde Fournier assisted Huguet dite Latour at the asylum. The institution was fenced, as was typical of Magdalene asylums elsewhere. A magdalene had to give up contact with the outside world since her reform necessitated isolation, confinement, and enclosure.100 The rituals of Catholicism played a central role in the rehabilitation of these mostly francophone Montreal magdalenes. In Huguet dite Latour’s deposition describing Maria Monk’s stay at the asylum, she maintained that “many of the rules and habits of conventual life were in use and practice before, since, and at the time the said Maria Monk was an inmate.”101 An inventory of goods and effects taken in 1836 shows that there were eight bilingual catechisms102 and fourteen Stations of the Cross, which penitents were presumably expected to visit routinely. Monk’s sensational account of convent life, which she ascribed solely to the Hôtel Dieu in Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, was, according to Huguet dite Latour, fallacious:103 “the description given of the Hôtel Dieu Convent is

Image 3.1 1825 Map showing footprint of the Magdalene Asylum

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alone applicable to the Magdalen Asylum.”104 In otherwords, Monk had lied. Her depiction of the Hôtel Dieu was that of the interior of Huguet dite Latour’s establishment. Monk described a large room on the first floor of the building where the penitents gathered to sew and an equally large bedroom on the second storey that contained beds, laid out in rows. There were no curtains between the beds so an assistant could keep constant vigil over the women while they slept. All aspects of community life were regulated. Each day began and ended with communal supplications and the remainder of the day was taken up with work and recreation, which consisted of conversations on authorized topics interspersed with frequent periods of prayer.105 In late 1836, the refuge had been forced to close, in part because Huguet dite Latour remarried. But mounting costs, inadequate funding, and an obvious disinterest in its continued operation on the part of the elite religious and secular population played a key role.106 It may also have been a victim of the growing standoff between a liberal House of Assembly and the conservative Legislative Council. In November 1836, Agathe-Henriette Huguet dite Latour wedded bourgeois Louis-Augustin Lemay dit Poudrier and moved to Trois-Rivières, thus ending her work as a dame de charité with the city’s magdalenes. Huguet dite Latour had taken in 300 magdalenes over the refuge’s seven-year history. After its closure, the Fournier sisters continued their charity work by managing the École St-Jacques for ten years. In 1847, Clothilde joined the Sisters of Providence and a year later Hyppolyte, along with her sister Luce, entered the Order of the Bon Pasteur.107 Following the rebellions, as elites sought to contain prostitution, they decried the lack of a penitent asylum in the city in newspaper articles and grand jury presentments. Most other Catholic and Protestant charities refused to assist disorderly women. The House of Industry, which opened in 1819, offered aid only to the city’s “respectable poor.” Denying assistance to the disreputable is hardly surprising, given that elites managed the city’s charitable institutions. Janice Harvey’s study of nineteenth-century Protestant benevolence in Montreal reveals that the policies of charity institutions reflected the viewpoints and biases of their benefactors more than the needs of the poor and thus served as a form of social

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regulation.108 The urgency of their need for food and shelter notwithstanding, prostitutes were disqualified because of their notoriety. By 1821, the House of Industry was failing to attract even the industrious poor,109 many of whom saw it as an institution of terror from which they feared they would never be released.110 The situation was much the same in other countries. In Ireland, workhouses were both dreaded and loathed. John O’Connor’s examination of these establishments indicates that, even during the potato famine, the Irish preferred immigration and the uncertainty of surviving the so-called “coffin ships” to remaining in Ireland where the alternatives were confinement, chronic hunger, malnutrition, risk of fatal diseases in local workhouses, or death from starvation.111 The historian Lynn Hollen Lees found that in England, during the same period, the vast majority of the urban poor avoided the draconian state-run institutions that had been designed with them in mind. The indigent sought other solutions to their homelessness and poverty, turning to kin and neighbours for help, resorting to pawnshops, obtaining credit, stealing, and begging.112 More recently, Tim Hichcock has suggested that the strategies employed by beggars and the responses by almsgivers were integral to the moral economy but, unlike food rioters who had the backing of neighbours, beggars required more subtle appeals to the social responsibility of the rich to look after the poor if they were to succeed. A prostitute’s custom of soliciting a drink was at the very least a cursory or superficial appeal for charity, demonstrating that she was poor and in real need given her willingness to exchange sex for money.113 A comparison of the names of women listed in the registers of the city’s Grey Nuns, Sisters of Providence, and the Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society (institutions active in the period under study) as recipients of charity with the names of those arrested for street prostitution reveals that few streetwalkers received assistance.114 The Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society divided women into respectable and non-respectable, which created a major barrier in accessing aid for those deemed disreputable. As bourgeois women carved out intermediate spaces for their charitable activities, the Ladies Benevolent Society failed to expand either physically or ideologically to accommodate female vagrants and streetwalkers. Rather, the organization provided poor women who were above reproach with employment,

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food, clothing, fuel, and sometimes rent money. The names of those judged unworthy were apparently made public in order to prevent their dependence upon the magnanimity of others and to force them either to work or to leave the city.115 Presumably, these same charitable women worried that city inhabitants would be duped into giving alms to those they had appraised as undeserving. The refusal by most city charities to assist such women was but one of countless abuses that streetwalkers encountered every day. Since streetwalkers lived large parts of their lives together in public, crisscrossing spaces with fluid boundaries, they participated with popular-class women in what Katherine McKenna has referred to as “street theatre,” acting out vocal assertions of amity or disapproval.116 Ordinary residents also took it upon themselves to discipline street prostitutes even as they pursued activities of daily life, whether attending church services, walking along city streets, or frequenting urban amusements. Two incidents are especially relevant. In the first instance, Cecilia Jackson tore Jane Grames’ (Graham’s) cap and pulled out “a great quantity of her hair” while Grames was walking one of the city streets.117 In the second incident, Hélène Angelière denounced butcher Edouard Perrault to a justice of the peace after he allegedly assaulted her at the circus, which she had attended as a spectator.118 Such aggressive acts perpetrated against streetwalkers were not unique to Montreal and were part and parcel of sex commerce elsewhere. Jill Harsin’s study of Parisian street prostitutes, for example, demonstrates that they too were frequent victims of violence.119 In light of the narrow range of alternatives open to them, homeless prostitutes such as Martha Hyers often sought overnight lodging at the local police station or confinement in prison during the coldest months.120 Police also apprehended women they believed were in danger of perishing from hypothermia, hunger, and disease. As well, the Common Gaol served as a refuge for palliative care. Lydia Corneille was a chronic alcoholic and notorious streetwalker who received wine and beer at the prison infirmary before her death.121 Prison officials sometimes sought longer periods of incarceration for homeless women who had not completed treatment for medical conditions or who did not have adequate clothing to deal with inclement weather. Death from hypothermia did not sit well with the public. Exasperated by the demise of a woman on Notre-Dame Street, the editor of the Montreal

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Herald recommended that the old jail be opened as a refuge for the homeless: “our streets swarm with drunkards, and, now that winter is setting in without a home to shelter them, to die in the streets is their inevitable doom.”122 Incarceration thus served as an important resource that streetwalkers and vagrant women could access as an alternative to sleeping rough. In this way, like their British counterparts, they blurred the boundaries between prison and community.123 Historian Judith Fingard has noted a similar use of carceral facilities among Halifax’s mid-nineteenth century underclass. There, a small number of families routinely turned to public asylums and prison for refuge during the winter months. They sought admission to the poorhouse during episodes of illness or when aging made it difficult to live on the streets, or they went there to die.124 A comparable use of institutions by families has been described for European cities.125 Women also created a network of female solidarity and forged relationships with men in similar situations as they faced the worst features of being homeless: competition for food and shelter, for alcohol, and for clients; the illicit nature of their activities; and living rough on city streets in the culture of danger arising from both their work and leisure. In the section that follows I explore the ways that groups of streetwalkers and vagrants lived together outside a physical household. Could, as Anthony Vidler claims, the street be considered the “dwelling of the outcast poor”?126

The Solidarity of Street Prostitutes Streetwalkers negotiated urban space in in pairs or in groups made up of friends and relatives. Together, they sought leisure and the daily necessities of food and shelter, solicited, and were arrested.127 These same mutual bonds helped to control aspects of sex commerce – especially with respect to reducing incidents of violence. It was safer to solicit with others; Tony Henderson’s study of London’s street prostitutes shows that most worked in pairs.128 Prostitutes also appeared in court and were confined to prison collectively and in this way shared large parts of their lives, even being instrumental in recruiting friends and relatives into the sex trade.

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These female bonds of mutual dependency were critical to their survival and were formed in ways similar to the “radical community of women” that historian Maria Luddy argues existed among the “wrens of the Curragh.”129 Her study of these women, who lived as camp-followers on the margins of society near the Curragh army camp in county Kildare in Ireland – prostitutes, vagrants, ex-convicts, and alcoholics – is based on a book written in 1867 by journalist James Greenwood, who went to the site to observe and interview these women or wrens. Although Greenwood described their relationships as familial, Luddy rejects his notion of “family” on the basis that the structure was neither nuclear nor extended and therefore did not fit the Victorian ideal of a family organization. She proposes instead that this group of outcast women formed a radical community. Their lives, she contends, were organized around women and children to the exclusion of men. She also draws a fascinating parallel between their lives and the convent life of nuns.130 Simon P. Newman has made a similar observation. Prostitutes who frequented Philadelphia’s almshouse formed a community, turning to each other for sustenance: “Much to the annoyance of civic authorities, this community functioned as a support network that helped these women survive, if necessary bringing them into the almshouse for medical treatment or rescuing them from it once recovered.”131 Vagrant women in Halifax exhibited a solidarity akin to that of Montreal’s female vagabonds. In the face of challenging life circumstances and without the support of men, they lived, worked, drank, and went to court and prison together. Upon release from incarceration, they regrouped to persevere once again on the city streets and nearby green spaces.132 Group members sometimes shared the same ethnicity. Since a significant proportion of city inhabitants lived together without having long-standing ties to others, their neighbourhoods, and the community, immigrants forged new relations when they had no kin locally or when they could no longer access them. Police constables arrested a party of Irish women – made up of Mary Burnet, Catharine Morrison, Mrs Bland, and the widow Catharine Raigan – because they had been living together for several months in an abandoned building at the corner of Hospital and St-Alexis Streets. A neighbour, lawyer Peter Rossiter, complained that the house, which belonged to merchant

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Benjamin Demers, had been deemed unfit for human habitation.133 Other women banded together in ethnically mixed groups. Adelaide St-André, Henriette Hamelle, and Peggy Dollar assembled regularly on the Papineau Road where, according to a city butcher by the name of Charles Picard, they solicited men.134 In Montreal, vagrant women pooled whatever resources they had, be it food, shelter, or drink. Ann Crawley, Eliza Ferguson, Eliza Martin, Eliza Taylor, and Mary Mahoney loitered together at the St-Gabriel farm where they procured, albeit illegally, shelter and sustenance. They slept in farm buildings, searched for food in surrounding fields and orchards, and milked the cows together.135 Rarely did sharing resources have tragic results as it did in the case of Mary Anne Bothwell and Ann Grimes. When prison authorities freed the two street prostitutes from the Common Gaol in January 1841, Bothwell used a cheque that she had found to acquire liquor for the two of them. While under the influence of alcohol, Bothwell lay down on a snow bank on Victoria Road, fell asleep, and froze to death.136 Streetwalkers fought with those who endeavoured to steal what little they had. Police arrested Antoine Delaunay and his wife, Louise Corbeille, for petty larceny after they pinched a hat belonging to Marguerite Bleau as she strolled along a street in the Ste-Anne suburb, but their attempts to snatch her coat as well failed because Bleau put up such a vigorous struggle; a coat was essential wearing apparel at the end of December in Montreal.137 Although street prostitutes established a similar informal network of help in London, England, Judith Walkowitz argues that such arrangements were unstable owing to their arduous life and the temptation to steal from each other or those who offered them aid. The same holds true for Montreal. When Jane Ferguson allowed Martha Hyers to warm herself in her house in late autumn, Hyers stole some of Ferguson’s clothing, which she later pawned.138 Some women were literally sisters in crime. Félicité and Marguerite Bleau worked together as street and brothel prostitutes and occasionally as thieves. In 1839 they confessed to having stolen bank notes from an intoxicated US visitor. You will recall that in chapter 2, Marguerite enticed him to Angélique Paré’s bawdy house, where her sister Félicité had sex with him. Together they took his money.139 Within a year of this theft, police had arrested them several more times for

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vagrancy.140 Thirty-year-old Marguerite died of tuberculosis in the prison hospital during her final incarceration.141 Following her sister’s death, Félicité Bleau sought out a group of vagrant women for companionship. In May 1841 police arrested her and fellow associates Amable Berthier, Augustine Squire, Louise Wagner, Mary Fob, Catharine Murphy, and Mary Dear in a farmer’s field on the outskirts of the city.142 The membership of groups changed as women died, were arrested and incarcerated, or found alternative shelter and other means to subsist. In March 1840 police apprehended Susan Smith along with Maria Reeves, Esther Hewitt, and Susan Murray.143 Two months later Susan Smith was re-arrested, this time with Ellen Lee and Elizabeth Austin.144 The bonds that these women forged with each other were undoubtedly complex. As Marilyn Wood Hill has suggested regarding the relationships between New York city prostitutes, they were probably characterized by competition, jealously, and antagonism on the one hand and by female solidarity on the other hand. Prostitutes “assumed an emotional centrality in each others’ lives, which often led to deep, mutual friendships characterized by strong female bonding and a special sense of solidarity.”145 That being said, as I have argued elsewhere, vagrant women in Montreal, like their popular-class sisters who slandered, threatened, and assaulted their neighbours, also resorted to violence against one another.146 You will remember that in February 1827, Catherine Ryan and Sarah Singleton accused fellow vagrants Margaret Perigord and Eliza Robertson of violently assaulting them and stealing Ryan’s large red shawl and a plume of black feathers while they were soliciting in front of the Bonsecour church.147 In another incident, Margaret McGinnis assaulted Elizabeth Reid, wife of John Ross, in her courtyard and attempted to stab Reid’s thirteen-year-old son, James Ross. When Reid tried to protect her son, Margaret’s sister, Grace, struck Reid with a shovel, wounding her on the head.148 Struggles to find food, shelter, drink, and clients, in addition to the illicit nature of their activities and the danger associated with work and leisure, produced tensions and conflict. Competition for clients in the form of safeguarding territorial proximity to local sources of men likely played a role in these antagonisms. What provoked a brawl between Jane Hicks, Emelie Gauthier, and Eliza Lewis is unknown but High Constable Benjamin Delisle apprehended them

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at the old market for disturbing the peace by fighting and quarrelling with each other.149 Some mothers roamed the streets with their children in circumstances comparable to those in eighteenth-century London, where the homeless included widows and their offspring and abandoned, married women with young children and infants.150 One unidentified Montreal woman, in a state of utter destitution, homeless, and without any means of support, took refuge with her six children in an outbuilding belonging to a Mr Lloyd.151 Similarly, streetwalker Mary Ann Day and her young child were homeless when police arrested them on a wintery Montreal street in January.152 Others had shelter but navigated the streets in search of drink or nourishment for their families. Remember Jane Hicks who, in the process of going door to door to sell clothing she had stolen from Martin Duval, confessed to Josephte McFarlane that she had nothing to eat and needed money to buy food for her children.153 Within a month of this incident, police apprehended Hicks for prostitution. Margaret Delany, whom we met earlier, was a well-known street prostitute when she sought shelter at the police station for herself and her five children in April 1841.154 A few months later she was released due to her advanced stage of pregnancy: the authorities thought the prison an unfit place to give birth.155 We have no idea what happened to her children, but without waged work and as their sole parent, Margaret Delany tried to keep them with her despite the family’s impoverishment. Marguerite Matin also took her son with her to the House of Correction when she was recommitted for vagrancy.156 While streetwalking allowed families to stay together, some women deserted their children and husbands. When this occurred, street prostitution served women as a means to economic independence. In 1831, Julie-Archange Daigneau left her four daughters, Marie-Elmire, Archange, Marie Henriette, and Caroline, with her husband, Jean Dérouin, and moved out of the family home. Daigneau had been pregnant and a minor when she married Dérouin ten years earlier in June 1821 and their four daughters were born in the first seven years of marriage. What propelled Daigneau out of the marital bed is not clear. Dérouin claimed that she had simply abandoned him and her children for a life on the streets.157 A year after she left, he died, presumably in the cholera epidemic, yet Daigneau did not return home.

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What happened to her four daughters, the youngest of whom was only four years old at the time of her father’s death, is not known. In contrast, the Love family – Andrew, Francis, Matthew, and Maria – survived in the streets precisely because they stayed together and, when necessary even served jail time collectively after their father Andrew Love, a labourer, died.158 Historians have alluded to family-like relationships existing between groups of vagrants and streetwalkers. John Gillis’ reconstruction of past families is useful when considering these women, for he reminds us that the “house did not occupy the same place in the temporal or spatial imagination that the modern home does. It was a place of the moment, neither anticipating the future nor recalling the past.159 Before the nineteenth-century, most adults lived some of their lives in someone else’s home or in temporary shelters. They were not considered homeless but could be part of another household or were “at home” in the fields, markets, streets, local taverns, and in front of the hearths of others. Ideas of home thus contrasted sharply with the increasingly sentimental bourgeois depiction.160 Montreal court records and police registers reveal something about the bonds these women formed with other women in the same situation as themselves, as well as about family ties between sisters and mothers and children. This solidarity, forged out of necessity and out of a continuum of emotions ranging from love to mere tolerance, helped them to survive on the streets of the city. What it meant with respect to the men they confronted on the streets and with whom they established bonds as well is the subject of the next section.

Relationships with Men In their daily jaunts in public, streetwalkers and vagrant women also encountered a coterie of men – police constables and watchmen, soldiers, sailors, labourers, artisans, and vagrants – with whom they had frequent contact and forged diverse relationships. Some men provided prostitutes and female vagrants with protection, shared money, alcohol, and food, or scavenged for food and searched for shelter with them. Victoria E. Bynum’s study of poor women in the American south reveals that some of them were willing to forsake their reputations in

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order to establish relationships with “non-respectable” men in exchange for physical and economic security. In North Carolina, she argues, the rigid colour barrier did not deter women from entering into interracial relationships, even though they had to relinquish their status in white society: “At the price of utter condemnation by white society [they] gained greater physical protection – something outcast poor women generally lacked – by crossing the color line.”161 In Montreal, Mary Kelly was impoverished, homeless and separated from her husband, who had been incarcerated in the city jail, when she found lodging, of a sort, with a vagrant man. His hut, on the beach where he squatted, was “so imperfectly constructed as to be pervious to wind and rain and hardly to deserve the name of a shelter.” After her death from hypothermia and malnutrition, Mary Kelly’s body was described as “reduced to the last degree of meagreness and emaciation.” Authorities discovered her male companion tearfully lamenting her demise.162 Streetwalkers and vagrant women cultivated an array of relationships with men in their leisure and their working lives. These ranged from the casual to the intimate. They shared poverty and straddled a fine line between criminal activity and self-help. Given that most of the women were prostitutes, these men likely profited from their remuneration in sex commerce. What role they might have played in the business-side of street prostitution is unclear. Some of these men and women surely provided sexual and emotional solace to each other in ways not unlike that furnished in families, especially if they were estranged from their own kin. For others, sex was more likely coerced or endured in exchange for a meal, a drink, or security. Thus streetwalkers and vagrant women interacted with men as clients, as spouses (legally married or cohabiting), or as protectors, in relationships that could be exploitative, combative, congenial, or mutually beneficial.163 These intimate relationships could quickly degenerate into gossip, harassment, and assaults. Anna Clark has argued, “although much camaraderie existed between prostitutes and their customers, sexual commerce could quickly ignite the sexual antagonism that smouldered in plebeian culture.”164 Historians are beginning to identify such unofficial relationships in a range of times and places. Bronislaw Geremek suggests that people who lived on the margins of society in late medieval Paris forged relationships based on the similarity of their lives, their mobility, and

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the regularity of meeting the same companions in their favourite haunts.165 “For people without hearth or home, the inn provided a haven: not lodgings, but a place to pass the time, a special sort of family circle.”166 Arlette Farge’s examination of Paris’s criminal court records reveals that men and women who were members of gangs were often lovers and that some of the women were passed from one man to another. Moreover, both vagrant couples and homeless family members, including siblings, cousins, and nephews, roamed the city streets and green spaces, sticking “together for survival through thick and thin.”167 In Montreal, married couples were sometimes arrested and charged with vagrancy: police apprehended Catharine Hicks and her husband, Michael Riley, for vagrancy168 and Louis Bonin and Henriette Mercier were detained by Constable Adelphe Delisle after they created a disturbance in the street.169 Biddy Noah and Patrick Hanley were not married but cohabited in a wooden shed – police elected to call it a den of thieves – where men and women gathered to drink and for sex commerce.170 Thomas Rawdon, a shoemaker and proprietor of a house on Williams Street, complained to a justice of the peace that Hugh McLaughlin and Catherine Clarke lived there together outside the bonds of marriage. Clarke, it seems, was already married to Ambroise Nugent.171 Cohabiting couples encountered moral censure from family members and neighbours. William Lemon, Henri Latreille, and Marie Anne Labonne wanted one Charbonneau and his lover, Véronique Fleury, arrested for vagrancy because “in keeping Véronique Fleury at home with him, Charbonneau would cause a huge scandal.”172 Remember Charles Leclerc, who had requested that police apprehend his daughter and her lover following an argument he had with Alexis Dumont over her wellbeing. They were, he argued, homeless and “roamed the streets like vagrants.”173 Some prostitutes and female vagrants established long-term, intimate relationships with soldiers. Judith Fingard found similar relationships between soldiers and street prostitutes and between soldiers and abandoned wives in Halifax.174 A number of soldiers’ wives who were economically dependent on their husbands became unofficial wives of replacement soldiers when regiments departed, leaving spouses behind.175 Others turned to prostitution after their husbands’ departures. Catharine Daly, who was married to a British soldier of

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the 37th Regiment, was living in Montreal when he deserted her after being garrisoned at Kingston in Upper Canada. She was arrested for street prostitution some time later.176 Similarly, when Elizabeth Thomson succumbed to hypothermia and acute alcohol poisoning, her husband, a soldier of the 10th regiment, was not present to claim the body or to organize her burial. Funeral arrangements were left to the high constable.177 The population of the city streets contracted and expanded as soldiers came to Montreal during episodes of conflict. Such was the case during the War of 1812 and again in 1837 and 1838 when military troops were transferred to Lower Canada to repress the rebellions in the region around the city. Many of these soldiers turned to street prostitutes for intimate relations. Sex workers served as informal cultural ambassadresses of the city, advising new arrivals where they could find suitable taverns and leisure activities in Montreal.178 Catharine Raigan, the widow of soldier Daniel Burke, rented a room in a house near the soldiers’ barracks for that purpose.179 She and other female vagrants depended upon these soldiers as an important source of income. While they received money for their services, some stole from the soldiers when the opportunity arose. They also benefited from their protection against the physical abuse of other men. London streetwalkers, for example, depended upon soldiers for security and for assistance in extorting or robbing clients.180 These paradoxical liaisons were fraught with danger and required extraordinary shrewdness on the part of the women if they were to remain safe. Take the example in chapter 1 of a streetwalker who had been assaulted so badly by a soldier in front of the home of Justice of the Peace Moses Judah Hayes that the doorstep was “saturated with blood.” She and a few companions had been in the company of a group of soldiers in the town when the incident occurred.181 Tension management was especially important in such difficult life situations.182 The three prostitutes who accompanied thirty soldiers to Mr. Brechenridge’s garden and orchard must have been especially adept at defusing a potentially violent situation. Police officers sent to the site to arrest the women refused in light of the circumstances.183 Prostitutes also retaliated against the aggression of men by physically attacking them. The most extreme criminal transgression involved prostitute Julia Campbell, who was arrested after stabbing Antoine

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Demarais in the ribs with a knife. One summer morning in July 1837, Campbell had been observed in the company of an unidentified man and a fellow prostitute, Elizabeth Austin, near Ste-Anne’s Market between five and six o’clock. The victim, Antoine Demarais, had apparently approached her and they got into a shouting match and threatened each other. After Campbell threw a stone at him, he retorted that should she do that again he would kick her. This altercation eventually culminated in Campbell’s knife attack upon Demarais, who told a witness that “a damned whore had stabbed him.”184 Before succumbing to his injuries at the Montreal General Hospital, he identified Campbell as the perpetrator, corroborated by the bloodstained murder weapon the high constable found on Campbell after he apprehended her.185 She was eventually found guilty of manslaughter, not murder as originally charged, and sentenced to twelve months in prison.186 Soldiers who might have dominated streetwalkers and vagrant women also used intimidation to prevent their companions’ arrests. Sub-constable James McGough must have been unnerved by a group of soldiers who rescued a vagrant woman he had apprehended. In the melee, the female prisoner lost a shawl, which Sub-constable John Kinch brought to the station house when he reported the incident.187 Farmer Pierre Parent also learned how menacing soldiers could be when he complained to police that soldiers and vagrant women regularly stole apples from his orchard. The large number of soldiers who had gathered on his property repelled the constabulary by threats and acts of violence.188 Constable Jeremie knew just how dangerous it was to intervene in situations involving soldiers: a soldier had stabbed him with a bayonet after he and a group of policemen tried to eject soldiers, vagrant women, and streetwalkers from a barn located on the bank of the Lachine Canal.189 Soldiers, popular-class men, and male vagrants resented and resisted the police’s interference in their accustomed use of public space; they rescued prisoners, intervened in police matters, and taunted and assaulted them. The constabulary responded to these threats, insults, and assaults by making their own formal complaints to the city’s justices of the peace.190 Donald Fyson and Bill Bramwell have noted the ambiguity of such relationships for Montreal and Birmingham respectively. In Birmingham, police intervention in popular-class street life –

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informal assembly, loitering, noisy private quarrels, and boisterous drunken behaviour – was unpopular. Men and women were defiant and hostile to these intrusions in matters not considered criminal, so much so that they assaulted policemen and rescued their prisoners.191 Prostitutes and vagrant women also interfered in matters between soldiers, vagrant men, and the police and participated in a variety of illegal activities in ways that speak to their mutual dependence. Emélie Millette smuggled tools into the prison to help Benjamin Johnson break out.192 This suggests that in Montreal, as in Paris, vagrant women who were paramours of thieves were expected to help them escape from prison if they were incarcerated. They may also have played an important role of influence and support as “repositories of precious information.”193 Some misdemeanours involved furnishing alcoholic beverages to men under dubious circumstances. Police apprehended Margaret Kane after she supplied liquor to soldiers who were on duty.194 Emélie Masson smuggled alcohol into the court house in order to provide drinks to vagrants Belotte and Fournelle while they waited in the prisoner’s dock. When they became so intoxicated as to cause a disturbance in the court, the police arrested Masson. The presiding justice of the peace sentenced her to spend the remainder of the session in jail.195 Police arrested women on a charge of vagrancy although they were accessories to crimes such as larceny, desertion, and fraud. Jennet L’Huissier was apprehended for sheltering Charles Mitchell who, while hiding out to avoid arrest for fraud, had entrusted her with a considerable amount of money that he had obtained illegally. According to Mitchell “she was much attached to him and the only woman with whom he had been since he was in the country.”196 Prostitutes also assisted men to perpetrate violent crimes such as highway robbery. Both Betsey Robertson and Eliza Martin, in the company of soldiers, allegedly accosted pedlar James Smith while he was walking on the Champs-de-Mars. When he refused to give up his money to two soldiers, their partners-in-crime, Robertson and Martin, pinned him to the ground, rifled his pockets, and took a purse containing bank notes and money.197 Eliza Martin seemed to have a predilection for highway robbery – William O’Brien accused her and Thomas Berry of stealing $30 in bank notes, which he carried in a leather purse. According to O’Brien, he was sitting on a bridge of the Lachine

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Canal when Thomas allegedly approached him, knocked him down, and held him on the ground while Eliza rifled through his pockets. Thomas eventually let him go when Eliza, who had run off with the money and wallet, was sufficiently far away that he could not catch her. It would have been quite a feat for O’Brien to give pursuit to the highway robbers in any case, since he had lost a leg in a work accident. He claimed that the $30 had been given to him by “charitable persons” to enable him to return to his family in Ireland.198 In a different incident, city constables detained Mary Molloy and charged her with vagrancy for enticing a soldier to desert. Both Molloy and soldier John Hunter had managed to travel as far as La Prairie before they were apprehended.199 Since deserting soldiers had to keep ahead of the authorities in order to avoid arrest, their illicit status encouraged dependence on their female companions. As noted in chapter 1, prostitutes, vagrant men, and soldiers frequented the farms located near the mountain where they sought food, lodging, and anonymity. Notwithstanding their attempts to avoid authorities, a party of constables from the west and east stations was organized to proceed to Griffins farm to scour the woods and arrest all vagrants and soldiers “who by their tattered and other suspicious appearances may be considered deserters.”200 Vagrant women took stock of opportunities and constraints in order to manoeuvre around oppressive circumstances and often formed relationships with women and men in similar situations. Together, they struggled to survive on the margins of city life. And in this way, they persevered until other prospects materialized. They established bonds of mutual dependence to help get them through a day, a night, or a season.

Conclusion Montreal women had different reasons for marketing sex in the streets. For a small number of them, especially those who were homeless and alcohol dependent, it was a permanent occupation. Streetwalkers such as Catherine McDonald, Betsey Allcart, Eleonor Galarneau, and Harriet Hamelle, whom we met in the introduction to this chapter, were part of a small group of streetwalkers who comprised a majority of arrests.

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Many of these women were homeless and typically sought out the local prison for shelter, food, medical treatment, and palliative care. For most other street prostitutes – arrested one or two times only – sex commerce served as a short-term subsistence strategy. That women from the countryside, the United States, and the British Isles were drawn to sex commerce is evident from the changing ethnic composition of street prostitution. Francophone streetwalkers dominated in the early period but in the second period (1830–37) fewer Canadien women were arrested and charged with vagrancy or with being loose, idle, and disorderly. By the third period (1838–42), the street had become the preferred work site for many Irish women. Prostitution represented a transitory occupation for most women, who abandoned it as soon as new opportunities – marriage was one of the most common – presented themselves. Homeless streetwalkers inhabited a harsh, illicit, and dangerous world. They did so accompanied by sisters, mothers, children, and other kin, sometimes in communities of women and at other times in the company of male vagrants and soldiers. Whatever the constellation, they formed mutually dependent relationships in order to search for shelter, food, comfort, and protection. Constantly mindful of the risk of injury both at work and leisure, they navigated public space in groups to reduce the danger. Branded as non-respectable poor, the choices that they could make were limited, but by sharing resources and by resorting to prostitution and to illegal means to find food and shelter, some managed. The competition for clients, food and shelter, aggravated by hunger, cold, alcohol abuse, and illness, bred antagonism between streetwalkers and vagrants. It also led to a female network of assistance. Some women formed complex alliances with men who were in similar situations, walking a fine line between the danger of abuse and their desire for emotional and physical security. Occupying the same urban space, contending with the same abject poverty, and trying to solve problems of survival on a daily basis, street prostitutes and vagrant women and men forged unique and varied relationships. Single women without kin had access to few resources in early nineteenth-century Montreal. A woman’s non-respectable status meant that many doors were closed to her, although the Charitable Institution for Female Penitents or Magdalene Asylum offered some assistance

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over its brief existence. Mothers sought food and shelter for their children; friends and relatives looked after each other. Streetwalkers and vagrants formed communities of women with whom they could share resources and services. Some women provided sex, solace, and the potential for emotional relationships. Men furnished protection, money, and the same potential for intimacy. Sex, in addition to being a source of income, was also something to put up with in order to survive. The way in which these women lived demonstrates the futility of trying to make hard divisions between family and work, public and private, agency and victimhood, as well as between dwelling and street.

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PA R T I I

Between Law and Custom: Regulating Prostitution

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CHAPTER 4

Seeking Justice Plaintiffs, Defendants, Prostitution Laws, and Legal Procedures

Introduction On a cold winter day in early January 1840, John King and his wife, Mary Blay, went together to the Peace Office at the Court House to lay a complaint before Police Magistrate Pierre-Édouard Leclère about the women and men who congregated at neighbour Fanny O’Brian’s bawdy house on St-Ignace Street. From their perspective, this wanton crowd met “for the indulgence of their carnal appetite” and in so doing disturbed the public peace on most nights.1 To prosecute someone for keeping a disorderly house, two or more individuals had to give written notice before a justice of the peace.2 When the clerk of the peace recorded King and Blay’s rendering of events, he created a legal document – in this instance a deposition – in a format that incorporated elements of their description of the problem as well as snippets of the actual words they used. In cases involving disorderly houses, it was up to the justice of the peace to evaluate the complaint and determine whether or not to issue an arrest warrant to bring the accused before him to answer to the charge.3 In the raid that followed from King and Blay’s denunciation, the police arrested five women: Fanny O’Brian (wife of John Haines), her daughters Euphrosine and Emelia Haines, Jane Bells (wife of Peter Montgomery), and Elizabeth Montgomery (widow of Strong Bains).4 King and Blay’s complaint launched a series of legal interactions between magistrates, clerks, constables, and prison personnel in the criminal justice system, plaintiffs King and Blay, and defendants O’Brian, her two daughters, Bells, and Montgomery. It also resulted in a sequence of legal documents that described these diverse interactions.

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John King and Mary Blay’s legal pursuit of O’Brian’s brothel suggests popular knowledge of the criminal justice system and its purposes and practices, as well as a willingness to engage in a process that would result ultimately in some financial outlay. British historians have noted this familiarity of residents with the justice system. Writing about eighteenth-century Londoners, Jennine Hurl-Eamon argues that “it would have been difficult to move about on London’s streets without receiving some sort of informal education on the workings of the criminal justice system.”5 Popular knowledge about and use of the justice system underscores what Shannon McSheffrey has shown for late medieval England – that the law was an instrument used by the popular classes for their own purposes.6 Similarly, Peter King, in his study of larceny in England from 1740 to 1820, demonstrates that plaintiffs exercised wide-ranging discretionary powers in their pursuit of wrongdoers at law.7 For police historian Andrew T. Harris, the popular classes’ exercise of such discretionary powers speaks to their elastic assessment of what constituted criminal behaviour.8 King and Blay had probably considered several goals and possible outcomes before they arrived at the Peace Office to lay their complaint before Pierre-Édouard Leclère. By initiating this private prosecution and the police raid that followed from it, King and Blay served notice to O’Brian, her daughters, and her other associates that neighbours disapproved of the activities taking place in their household. King and Blay could have turned to the police or even the grand jury to denounce their neighbours but chose instead to make the complaint themselves. E.P. Thompson sees such actions as indicative of a moral economy in which the legitimate right of the popular classes to defend a community’s traditional customs was predicated on a consensus of social norms and responsibilities as well as on the economic obligations of its various members.9 The magistrate could have decided that there was no basis for their grievance and dismissed it outright. He did not. King and Blay could have stopped the legal process at any point as their complaint wound its way through the system by not appearing to testify. Instead, they pursued the case in court until the jury rendered a verdict. Most plaintiffs were not prepared to take their participation in the justice system as far as King and Blay did. Typically the pre-trial fees associated with laying a complaint were significant but not prohibitive, but, as Donald Fyson explains for cases involving disorderly

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houses in Quebec City, by the 1830s the court was increasingly absorbing the fees. In Montreal, King and Blay may or may not have paid pre-trial fees of twelve shillings, six pence, which represented, as Fyson has reasoned, a week’s wages for the unskilled. For the indictment, they may or may not have incurred another one pound, two shillings, and six pence in addition to £2 in remaining court costs.10 Plaintiffs who decided to abandon the process could use numerous legal and illegal means, the most common being not to appear at court, which many did. In cases involving street prostitution, Montreal residents could lay complaints before the justice of the peace. More often, a peace officer acted as the plaintiff: he apprehended the streetwalker, conducted her to the police station, Watch House, or jail, and then swore out the deposition before a magistrate. The arrest was usually both immediate and public. To use Donald Fyson’s description of arrests in general, the street prostitute underwent the public act, perhaps for some a humiliating experience, of being conducted through city streets by a constable “who was generally a long-serving professional and thus well known to the inhabitants.”11 When Constable Richard Hart came across streetwalker Marie Trémoulie behaving in a way that disturbed the peace and tranquillity of those frequenting the New Market, he detained her. Hart escorted Trémoulie back to the Police Office and afterward met with a clerk to draw up the required deposition before she faced the justice of the peace. In it, Hart described Trémoulie as “a loose idle woman as such a common prostitute and destitute of any viable means of subsistence.”12 Those unable to walk to the Police Office were conveyed by other means, as was the case when police officer John Prénouveau arrested Angélique Bourdeau near the Old Market. Determining that she was too inebriated to accompany him on foot, he arranged for her to be transported by cart to prison the House of Correction.13 The ambiguities in prostitution laws, their application, and customary practices pertaining to the prosecution of those who marketed sex are the subject of this chapter. Examining the interplay between the law and local customs or practices, highlighting the encounters and experiences that city residents had with ordinary criminal justice, makes it possible for us to understand the effects of both law and custom on residents’ daily lives.14 Such a focus also draws attention to the legal methods that criminalized women in

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early nineteenth-century Montreal. I argue that laws related to prostitution had multiple meanings for men and women of diverse social classes and served different, sometimes conflicting, purposes from those the framers had in mind. Montreal residents who resorted to the criminal justice system to denounce brothel-keepers and streetwalkers did so for disparate reasons; the echo of their voices can be found in the resultant legal documents. That the criminal justice system was patriarchal is without question. Nonetheless it did, at times, exhibit flexibility. I contend that, as the moral economy came under attack and eroded a community’s ability to scrutinize and discipline its refractory members, the local state – embodied in peace officers – appropriated a larger role in regulating disorderly houses as well as disorderly women and thus in public prosecution. Over the period of the study, policemen and watchmen, who acted as plaintiffs in the majority of cases involving disorderly women, began initiating an increasing number of complaints in circumstances involving disorderly houses. The chapter begins with an analysis of the laws pertinent to prostitution, demonstrating how they changed over the period and what impact they had on alleged sex workers. I then explore the demographic characteristics of the plaintiffs, detail the process involved in making complaints, and determine what responsibilities plaintiffs had if they decided to prosecute disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses privately. As the laws furnished the structure in which complaints could be initiated and processed, the different ways in which city inhabitants employed them to serve their immediate interests are also considered. Finally, the plaintiffs’ search for justice had diverse consequences for defendants in cases where magistrates determined that the complaints had merit. In the final section of the chapter, one such consequence – preliminary detention – is explored.

Prostitution Laws In Lower Canada, as elsewhere, prostitution was largely regarded as an offence when brothel inmates or streetwalkers annoyed pedestrians, neighbours, or others or disturbed the king’s peace. British historian Tony Henderson has suggested that in eighteenth- and early

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nineteenth-century London, justices of the peace sought to contain vice by considering prostitution as a violation of the public peace: “their jurisdiction was based principally on the doctrine that many sexual offences, including prostitution and its related activities, were breaches of the peace that it was their duty to prevent.”15 To judge women marketing sex, Montreal justices of the peace and magistrates relied upon imported English manuals, particularly Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England as well as Richard Burn’s widely consulted range of editions of The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, all of which established legal guidelines for their courts. In 1789, Quebec City clerk of the peace and protonotary Joseph-François Perrault translated sections of Burn’s work into French.16 British criminal law had been introduced in Quebec in 1763, following the English conquest of New France, and adapted to the colonial situation, as legal historian Jim Phillips reminds us: “the role played by law and legal institutions in different places at different times was fundamentally determined by local material, social, and intellectual conditions.”17 Thus, the law mirrored how a community, albeit from the perspective of its male elite, viewed particular problems and what recourse could be taken to resolve them.18 In the case of regulations pertaining to street prostitution, Montreal’s justices of the peace were responsible for not only creating but revising them to adapt to changing local conditions. For example, early nineteenthcentury Montreal notables demanded better methods of maintaining social order, which led to the fine-tuning of police regulations applying to vagrancy under which streetwalkers were apprehended. The legal definition of what constituted a vagrant person gradually incorporated a growing number of behaviours and, in 1838, was defined more broadly, giving city constables and watchmen considerable flexibility in how they applied vagrancy statutes. Quebec historians have usually seen the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 as a watershed in both the law and policing. While the political crisis associated with armed insurrection resulted in the suspension of democratic government and its replacement by a Special Council made up of Lower Canadian elites loyal to Britain and personally appointed by the governor, the council implemented changes, such as those concerning prostitution, that had been discussed and debated

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well before 1837. In its short tenure the Special Council reorganized the city police and rewrote a number of laws, some of which directly affected street prostitution. The results of these ordinances, which dealt with which city residents could be considered vagrants and had a decided impact on law enforcement itself, were short-lived. In the face of budgetary constraints and with fewer police officers available to regulate public space, the number of arrests began to fall by 1841. To argue, however, that the actions of the Special Council had few consequences would be misleading: it exercised, as Brian Young has argued, a crucial role in reshaping state and institutional structures, blending the new with the old, pre-industrial, relations and ideology.19

Disorderly Houses Under the British common law system, as adopted in Lower Canada, keeping a bawdy house or a disorderly house was considered an indictable offence if it involved creating a common nuisance – “an offense against the publick, either by doing a thing which tends to the annoyance of all the king’s subjects, or by neglecting to do a thing which the common good requires”20 or that “endanger[ed] the publick peace, by drawing together dissolute and debauched persons, also in respect of its apparent tendency to corrupt the manners of both sexes.”21 Disturbing the public peace was not sufficient for an indictment but had to be accompanied by causing a nuisance to his/her majesty’s subjects.22 A careful reading of John King and Mary Blay’s deposition reveals how the clerk used specific elements of the law to accuse Fanny O’Brian and her inmates of keeping a disorderly house. They were said to have disturbed the public peace and were “persons of both sexes and of ill fame [who] assemble and meet together” in O’Brian’s house of prostitution where they “indulge their carnal appetite.”23 The brothel therefore unequivocally represented a public nuisance. Open lewdness was also punishable by indictment under common law, resulting in fines and/or imprisonment, as well as whatever other punishment the court deemed proper. According to Richard Burn, a surety for good behaviour could be demanded for offences that did not directly breach the peace but could be defined as mis-

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behaviour, which affected those resorting to and maintaining bawdy houses, “common whoremongers, common whores,” night-walkers, and “persons who live idly yet fare well or are well apparelled.”24 A surety for good behaviour could also be demanded of a man who haunted bawdy houses occupied by women of bad fame, or who kept such women in his own house. However, to indict someone for frequenting a bawdy house it had to be shown that he was aware of the nature of the house and that the establishment was a brothel and not merely suspected of being one. Thus, there had to be sufficient proof that a house’s disorder and nuisance had existed over an extended period of time.25 A woman could not be indicted for being a “bawd” since the “bare solicitation of chastity” (asking someone to fornicate or to commit adultery) was neither an indictable offence nor illegal.26 Bawdy houses were considered nuisances because they promoted idleness and drew together disorderly persons.27 Since idleness was judged to be an offence against the public economy, all idle and disorderly persons or vagrants could be imprisoned in a house of correction for up to one month.28 That Fanny O’Brian was married to John Haines and presumably a feme coverte made little difference in the way she was dealt with by the justice of the peace and the court. In theory, married women, as feme coverte, were understood to be subservient to husbands, marriage having made them legally invisible; in practice, the court held married couples equally responsible for their criminal activities, an attitude that increased over time. G.S. Rowe’s study of feme coverte in Pennsylvania demonstrates that in criminal prosecutions involving married couples wives and husbands were treated the same way. Rowe has proposed that the reason for such a lack of compassion shown toward married women is that they were judged according to the paradigm of the household economy: a woman was thought to be intimately partnered with her husband in establishing and maintaining the family economy and, in the same way, they were considered to be bound together when involved in the commission of a crime.29 In Quebec, in cases involving keeping a disorderly house, women’s contribution to and responsibility for the running of a household was held to be critical: “a wife may be indicted together with her husband and condemned to the pillory with him for keeping a disorderly house; for this is an offence as to the government of the house in

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which the wife has a principal share and also such an offence as may generally be assumed to be managed by the intrigues of her sex.”30 In certain situations, however, the status of feme coverte worked in a woman’s favour. In February 1841, Montreal brothel-keeper Marie Solomon, who advertised her establishment as a boardinghouse on Lagauchetière Street,31 employed her status as a feme coverte as a strategy against High Constable Benjamin Delisle’s accusation that she sold liquor without a licence. Solomon, who had married cooper George Glass of Quebec City in 1808 in Montreal’s Christ Church Cathedral, had been referring to herself as “Widow” Glass until her lawyer argued in her defence that she could not be charged with selling liquor without a licence, “she being femme [sic] couverte.” The case was dismissed after witnesses Charles Laberge and Louis Malo stated that they believed George Glass “to be alive never having heard that he had died.”32 As chance would have it, the “widowed” Marie Solomon died in 1842 – the “deceased” George Glass outlived her by twenty-three years. The Special Council had little to say about houses of ill fame in the 1838 ordinance. However, under the new laws, police could arrest on warrant anyone deemed loose, idle, and disorderly, including those hidden in brothels, taverns, and lodging houses. Such indidivuals were to be brought before a justice of the peace to answer to the charge and to provide him with “a satisfactory account of themselves” or risk imprisonment in the Common Gaol or House of Correction for not more than two months.33

Disorderly Women The new ordinances of the Special Council were the first to make explicit reference to common prostitutes. Prior to 1838, vagrancy laws employed to arrest streetwalkers did not use the term “prostitution” to describe the offence. Vagrants, according to English law as set out by Sir William Blackstone, were defined as “such as wake on the night, and sleep on the day, and haunt customable [sic] taverns, and ale-houses, and routs about; and no man wot [sic] from whence they come, nor whither they go.”34 They were divided into three classes: idle and disorderly, rogues and vagabonds, and incorrigible rogues. While all offended the public order, each class had a specific punishment: idle and disorderly persons were to be confined in a house of

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correction for one month, rogues and vagabonds were to be whipped and imprisoned for up to six months, and incorrigible rogues were to be whipped and imprisoned for up to two years. Being idle and disorderly or being a vagrant without any visible means of support were grounds for immediate arrest. Police regulations in themselves did not delineate who were considered disorderly women, referring to them as unlicensed beggars, the idle and disorderly, or simply vagrants. The only other textual references to vagrancy are found in Joseph-François Perrault’s guide to criminal law. In it he outlines the grounds on which an arrest could be made, who was responsible for apprehending a vagrant, how it was to be done, and what punishment justices of the peace could impose. For instance, a watchman or policeman could arrest a nightwalker without a warrant from a magistrate.35 Perrault demarcated vagrants as “les Fainéants et Debauchés, les Gueux et Vagabonds.” His translation of English law pertaining to vagrants included those who threatened to abandon or actually abandoned their families to the charge of the parish (a reference to “English Poor Laws” never in force here), those who returned to their parish without permission after having been expelled by two justices of the peace, the idle, beggars, street performers, Bohemians attired as Egyptians, those who played illegal games, unlicensed pedlars, the homeless, those caught carrying tools used to commit burglary, and those who bore arms for criminal purposes.36 By 1802, with the establishment of a House of Correction to complement Montreal’s Common Gaol, constables were expected to apprehend and bring before a justice of the peace all vagrants or idle and disorderly persons except those who had been furnished permission to solicit alms, who were distinguished by the letters P and M (signifying pauper and mendicant) cut out of red or blue cloth and worn on the upper right-hand sleeve of their clothing.37 Begging was outlawed in 1819 in anticipation of the creation of a House of Industry that could accommodate beggars but the original licensing system was reinstituted in 1821, although regulations that prohibited soliciting alms remained in place. Even in 1833, when beggars and vagrants were to serve three months in the Common Gaol, a provision for some beggars to apply for permission to solicit money or beg remained. The co-existence of the laws banning begging and a licensing system directed at those who were felt to be “proper” subjects for

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charity allowed authorities to differentiate among the poor and arrest those deemed non-respectable.38 The laws dealing with vagrancy were ill defined, incorporated a host of infractions, applied to a broad group of people, and furnished policemen and watchmen with substantial discretionary power when it came to applying them. They construed a wide range of female activities as illicit and therefore subject to local state intervention. The policy of encouraging police diligence in apprehending streetwalkers was predicated on the idea that officers should step into the patriarchal role vacated by absent fathers and husbands. In his study of female criminality in early-modern England, Peter Lawson has argued that the bonds of patriarchy were loosened when young, single women migrated or emigrated: “A woman who stood outside marriage also stood outside at least some of the controls inherent in patriarchy. In addition, she of course also stood outside the economic benefits of marriage, and in consequence, as a number of historians have noted, the economic prospects of the early-modern single woman were problematic at best. Taken together, the relatively greater freedom of the single woman, combined with her relatively greater economic need, can be seen to have led to disproportionately higher levels of crime.”39 Such women were subjected to increased police surveillance, as was the case in other parts of the British Empire. Women in Australia, for example, who departed from class-based definitions of proper female behaviour were viewed with suspicion and subjected to additional and different surveillance than men, especially at night. Being in a convict colony added to the scrutiny. Paula Byrne has argued that police in New South Wales watched women closely, viewing their sexuality with scepticism, and therefore laid more accusations of vagrancy against women than against men.40 Vagrancy laws could also be broadly applied. Montreal peace officers turned to vagrancy regulations to arrest women who had committed other misdemeanours – a tactic referred to as down-charging – because such cases were easier and less costly to prosecute and outcomes were usually more successful. Since policemen and watchmen typically acted as plaintiffs in vagrancy cases, their regular attendance at court to give evidence guaranteed swift justice. In contrast, magistrates could not count on city residents who initiated private prosecutions to appear at court on appointed days.41 A larceny case

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involving brothel-keeper Agathe Florentin and Anthony Jones illustrates this point. When the court dropped the original charge of larceny and discharged them, the magistrate imprisoned Florentin and Jones as vagrants on the deposition of policemen James Dunwoody and Augustin Welling.42 Thus vagrancy statutes were, as Nicholas Rogers has argued, a catchall category for social undesirables and used to facilitate the policing of the poor.43 In London in the 1820s, vagrants were increasingly subjugated to new forms of policing because, as Judith Walkowitz has proposed, police intervention in the lives of street prostitutes allowed authorities to scrutinize poor neighbourhoods.44 These prostitution-related regulations remained the law until 1838, following the rebellions. The 1838 and 1839 statutes that reorganized the system of policing in Montreal, Quebec, and Trois-Rivières included guidelines for magistrates in dealing with loose, idle, and disorderly persons. Notwithstanding the influence of place and custom in the ordinance, its framers probably looked to Great Britain and its vagrancy acts as a model, given the similarity in language and substance, although punishment in Lower Canada was more severe.45 The 1838 ordinance was the first to specifically mention prostitutes46 and permitted the police to apprehend “all common prostitutes or night walkers wandering in the fields, public streets or highways, not giving a satisfactory account of themselves” and “persons in the habit of frequenting houses of ill-fame, not giving a satisfactory account of themselves.” A magistrate could dismiss the case, issue a loose, idle, and disorderly person with a recognizance to appear at the next court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace to answer to the charge, or find the accused guilty. Those found guilty by the magistrate could be committed either to the Common Gaol or to the House of Correction at hard labour not to exceed two calendar months. If any person described as loose, idle, and disorderly was suspected of being “harboured or concealed in any house or houses of ill fame, tavern or taverns, boarding house or boarding houses,” a warrant could be issued so that a constable could enter any of these establishments and arrest all individuals found within, forcing them to appear before a justice of the peace. These individuals could also be treated as loose, idle, and disorderly persons and imprisoned in a common gaol or house of correction.47

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This ordinance, then, crafted a direct link between a woman deemed a prostitute and one considered loose, idle, and disorderly and ostensibly permitted authorities to more easily detain women in either category and subject them to the same punishment.48 A woman no longer had to have committed a particular act to be arrested but merely had to be known as a common prostitute and be unable to give a satisfactory account of herself. This modification in the law allowed police to detain women solely on their reputation as sex workers. Criminalizing women on the basis of status rather than because they had displayed particular types of offensive behaviour meant that they could always be considered suspect and hence in peril of arrest and punishment. In reality, however, police and watchmen had been apprehending prostitutes on the basis of their reputation as women of ill fame long before passage of this ordinance. Legal historian Constance Backhouse has argued that Canadian law was significantly harsher in its treatment of prostitutes and their clients than English law: in Lower Canada, a prostitute found in a public area could be arrested simply for being a prostitute but in England, a prostitute could be detained only if she exhibited specific, offensive behaviour.49 Tony Henderson has claimed the contrary, arguing that Britain’s Vagrancy Act of 1822 represented a radical change in the regulation of street prostitutes since police could arrest women on the evidence of their reputations as streetwalkers in conjunction with not being able to give a satisfactory account of themselves: “in theory, at least, reputed streetwalkers were now required to prove their innocence. In practice, there was little change in the numbers of women suffering arrest and prosecution although a slightly larger proportion of these were subsequently sentenced to brief terms of imprisonment.”50 Jeffrey Adler has suggested that in the US city of St. Louis, police did not begin to pick up single women indiscriminately, “before any problem arose,” until the 1860s.51 Although in the post-rebellion period Montreal policemen detained reputed street prostitutes simply for wandering the streets, green spaces, or fields and orchards bordering the city, they also continued to arrest streetwalkers who exhibited some type of illicit behaviour, such as disturbing the public peace, indecency, or impeding pedestrians in the streets or on sidewalks. In February 1841, for example, Constable Charles Coulombe arrested Eliza Smith, whom he de-

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scribed as “a common whore” who routinely obstructed pedestrians in the streets of the city.52 Four months later, Coulombe apprehended Mary Hannah for being a common prostitute and lying in Commissioners Street indecently exposing herself to a soldier.53 Thus, ambiguities continued among the laws, their application, and the impact they had on iindividuals.

Montreal’s System of Criminal Justice Ordinary people, such as plaintiffs John King and Marie Blay, defendants Fanny O’Brian, her daughters Euphrosine and Emelia Haines, Jane Bells, and Elizabeth Montgomery as well as Marie Trémoulie, encountered a criminal justice system that was, as a rule, masculine, elite, conservative, and loyal to the British crown. It was made up of men who represented a range of social positions in the community: from justices of the peace, jury members, and court officials such as clerks and their subordinates, bailiffs, criers of the court, and coroners, to police constables, night watchmen, and gaolers. Men also designed the laws that were enforced and penned the law books that the magistrates consulted.54 The city’s criminal justice system was embodied in a complex of buildings situated in the town centre, which included a court house, watch house, police station, common gaol, and house of correction, and in official sites of public punishment and executions. Hangings were carried out within the prison walls and exposure on the pillory took place at the New Market. Until a new prison was built in 1836 on Longue-Pointe Road in the suburb of Quebec, the Common Gaol and House of Correction were located beside the Court House on Notre-Dame Street, where their proximity helped facilitate the administration of justice. Donald Fyson has described Montreal’s criminal justice system as quasi-independent, meaning that there was some bureaucratic oversight of the magistrates, separated into upper and lower criminal court divisions, and characterized by its own language, regulations, and practices, which were shared by those who dispensed justice.55 In the lower courts, where prostitution cases were heard, justices of the peace or magistrates played two critical and simultaneous roles: an administrative function associated with making

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appointments and issuing licences – framing, reviewing, and redesigning municipal police regulations – and a judicial function that included pre-trial procedures related to the prosecution of offenders and presiding at court. These roles were never separate but were, as Fyson has argued, a “conflation of legislative and judicial powers.” The justices of the peace, and not the local municipal government, had the power to design police rules and regulations and to enforce them in their courtrooms. Thus, a magistrate’s role was multifaceted. He exercised considerable discretion, autonomy, and power and it was rare for plaintiffs or defendants to appeal rulings made by magistrates.56

Making and Processing the Complaint Looking at how prostitutes were pursued through the law highlights an important interaction between the purveyors of justice and the public who sought legal redress. Such initiatives, as Clare Lyons has argued, reflected public opinion, since it was the responsibility of individuals to privately prosecute wrongdoers.57 But would-be plaintiffs had much to consider before initiating any legal pursuit of brothel keepers. Historian Peter King has identified at least three characteristics of the judicial process that deterred many potential plaintiffs from laying formal complaints before a justice of the peace. First, legal redress was expensive for most people. At least until the 1830s, a plaintiff had to disburse additional monies at every step as his or her complaint against a disorderly house wound its way through the judicial system. Second, it was time-consuming, because plaintiffs did not receive a specific time when their cases would be heard over the course of each court session. A complainant had to wait at the court house, sometimes for days at a time, before being called to appear, in large part owing to the strategies of defendants, who found ways to defer their cases being heard and therefore avoid verdicts being rendered against them. Defendants often traversed, or moved, a case to the next session and a plaintiff would then have to return to the court house under the same circumstances and possibly have his or her prosecution of the complaint delayed again. Third, the process was complex. Since plaintiffs had little responsibility for gath-

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ering the evidence and organizing the arrests of offenders, tasks that were up to justices of the peace and police, they risked reprisals from the accused and the outcome of their complaint was uncertain. All the necessary documents had to be filled out correctly and the evidence had to be sufficient or compelling. Despite this, plaintiffs still had a great deal of discretionary power, which allowed them not only to influence the outcome but to abandon the court procedure at any point before a verdict was handed down by the jury and without penalty.58 By contrast, prosecution of streetwalkers was rapid and decisive: although a plaintiff’s appearance at Petty Sessions or at the Police Court was necessary in order to give evidence, the magistrate alone assessed the proof and handed down a verdict. Historians have argued that resorting to the legal system was part of an armamentarium used by communities to resolve conflicts when extra-legal means had proved ineffective.59 Katherine McKenna’s scrutiny of and findings related to the Prescott’s Board of Police are relevant to Montreal: “More often it was a tool used by the local populace for their convenience, as a strategy for negotiating dissent within their neighbourhoods.”60 Ordinary people policed their neighbourhoods, dispensing personal and community injunctions against wayward members by way of the charivari, riot, public ridicule, intimidation, and violence. Neighbours spoke directly to inmates about troublesome activities taking place inside brothels and the disturbances that they and their visitors created. Remember Teavill Appleton, who confronted Jean-Joseph and Auguste Moses about the repeated pandemonium that erupted in Elisabeth Deganne’s brothel where they both lived. When Jean-Joseph and Auguste Moses threatened to set fire to his home and to the neighbourhood, Appleton laid a complaint before the justice of the peace.61 Neighbours also forced the closure of brothels by rioting, destroying property, frightening inmates with threats of violence, assaulting brothel-keepers and prostitutes, or publically accusing women of marketing sex. As soon as James Keenan spotted Ellen Welsh walking past a neighbour’s house, he denounced her as a “damned barrack whore.”62 Montreal residents also appealed to the grand jury, whose responsibilities included voicing opinions on any public matter or nuisance in a written report or presentment submitted at the end of each sitting of the court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace. That city residents petitioned grand

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juries about local annoyances, including the presence of brothels, suggests, following historian David Murray, that they understood the role of the grand jury and the influence or power it exercised.63 In 1830, several proprietors and occupants living on College Street petitioned the October grand jury about three local houses of ill fame where inmates and visitors “give themselves to all kinds of vice disturbing the Public Peace & corrupting the morals of the people.” After examining witnesses, members of the grand jury determined that the allegations in the petition were legitimate and therefore requested that the court institute whatever means necessary “for the removal of a nuisance so demoralizing in its tendency.”64 If such interventions failed, city residents could and did turn to the justices of the peace to prosecute specific offenders. In the 1810s and 1820s, anyone who wanted to lay a formal complaint before the magistrate went to the Police Office, which was located in the Court House on Notre-Dame Street. Staffed with a messenger, constable, and clerks who drew up legal documents (depositions, arrest warrants, and bail bonds) and kept records pertaining to court activities, the Police Office was open to the public between the hours of nine o’clock in the morning and three or four o’clock in the afternoon.65 Salaried and professional magistrates Thomas McCord and Jean-Marie Mondelet were in attendance to receive depositions, issue warrants and summons, and offer bail. Samuel Gale replaced them in the 1820s. By the 1830s, the Police Office was renamed the Peace Office in an attempt to return to an earlier period that had seen voluntary justices of the peace working out of parlours in their homes. Nonetheless, clerks, messengers, and constables continued to staff the Peace Office and in late 1837 professional and salaried magistrates once again replaced voluntary ones.66 It was here that King and Blay denounced O’Brian’s disorderly house to P.E. Leclère. To reach the Peace Office, King and Blay would have had to penetrate bureaucratic and segmented spaces, as Donald Fyson has charted, by walking past the courtroom of the Quarter Sessions of the Peace and the offices of the clerk and then climbing the stairs to the Peace Office, which was located on the second floor.67 There they gave their account of the problem, on oath, to presiding Justice of the Peace Leclère, who sat at an elevated desk in an enclosed space demarcated by ornamental wood railings. The room had been de-

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signed to keep the public and administrators of justice separate and to highlight the pomp and ceremony of British justice. Yet these cramped quarters meant that magistrates, plaintiffs, and defendants rubbed shoulders, therefore diminishing the majesty of the administration of everyday justice. The ritual of laying their complaint before Leclère was reinforced by a legal procedure and language that dated to the reign of Elizabeth I. The solemnity of the act notwithstanding, King and Blay likely noticed that the turn-of-the-century court house was badly in need of repair. By 1841, the roof leaked, the furniture was worn, and the building reeked from its overused toilets. Those who lived in its immediate vicinity and pedestrians passing in front of the building could not escape the privy stench and made their displeasure known in complaints to the appropriate authorities.68 Quite clearly, the court house did not live up to the imagined spectacle and sombreness of British justice. Similarly, the pre-trial process lacked solemnity. Susan Lewthwaite has described one such pre-trial examination conducted by an Upper Canada county magistrate in a crowded, airless room with an atmosphere that was both tense and informal: “The magistrate evidently attempted to defuse tension and make the participants more comfortable by chatting with them before he began to hear the case. People wandered around during the proceedings and peered over the magistrate’s shoulder. Such informality may have encouraged participants to freely state what they knew … The presiding magistrate tolerated interjections from persons other than the participants until they began to interfere with the proceedings and to escalate tension.”69 A comparable culture probably existed in Montreal’s magistrate’s office and in the Police or Peace Office. In the pre-trial investigation instigated by King and Blay’s accusation, it was incumbent upon Justice of the Peace Leclère to determine whether O’Brian and her cohorts had committed the offence of keeping a disorderly house. To do so, he was expected to follow a sequence of legal procedures. First, if after hearing what King and Blay had to say Leclère had dismissed the complaint outright, O’Brian and her cohorts would not have known that there had been legal action initiated against them. Because Leclère accepted the legitimacy of the charges, he issued an arrest warrant, which the constables served. While they were not required

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to show the warrant, constables were encouraged “to acquaint the party with the substance of it.”70 The role of the police was critical because it was the constables who raided the disorderly house, read the contents of the warrant to the defendants, and shepherded them to the local station or watch house, where they remained until brought before a justice of the peace to answer to the charge. High Constable Adelphe Delisle described one such raid made on William Miller’s disorderly house in 1839: “soir, servi d’un warrant contre William H. Miller, accusé de tenir une maison appartenant à George Wurtele, marchand. Je me suis transporté à la maison vers 10 heur du soir, & la j’ai trouvé les personnes suivantes: Charlotte Fortin, Angélique Fortin, Françoise Ouimet, Emelie Charbonneau & Joseph Fournier, François Payette, Alexander McKenville, Denis Larivière & Léphire Laneville qui aidaient & assistaient aux débauches & contribuaient aux désordres de la dite maison. Je les ai en conséquence arrêtées & les ai conduit à la maison du guet.”71 Following the arrests, and in the presence of both the defendants and plaintiffs, Leclère would have conducted a preliminary hearing to evaluate the evidence. In this examination the witnesses gave their statements under oath; the accused, however, did not answer to the complaint under oath since they could not be expected to provide evidence that might be used against them at trial.72 Leclère then had to decide whether the case could be resolved forthwith by granting a peace bond; that is to say, the defendants would agree to get along with the complainants and/or be on good behaviour for a specified period of time. At pre-trial, according to Susan Lewthwaite, the justices of the peace in Upper Canada “evaluated the reliability of the participants, the nature of the offence, the circumstances behind the dispute, the strength of the evidence, and the options for settlement.” They were careful to encourage community rapport and thus sought to assuage differences that might result in continued conflict.73 Even in prostitution cases magistrates occasionally permitted a recognizance to keep the peace, as exemplified by a complaint that Nicolas Fournier initiated against Angélique Clairemont, Elisabeth Larammé, Josette Brousseau, Scholastique Sanschagrin, and Hélène Foretier. Laramée agreed to keep “une maison décente et regulière pendant l’espace d’une année.”74 After Leclère concluded that the case involving O’Brian and her cohorts would go

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to court, he granted the defendants bail on their agreement to appear at the January sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace. The alternative would have been to confine them in prison until the court heard the case. Leclère would also have required that witnesses for the prosecution enter into a recognizance to ensure their attendance at the January Quarter Sessions. Streetwalkers, such as Marie Trémoulie, whom you will recall Constable Richard Hart arrested for being a common prostitute, appeared at Petty Sessions before the justice of the peace, who summarily decided their guilt or innocence as well as their punishment.

Constructing Legal Narratives The language of the depositions was a blend of the formulaic and the original. Those made out against alleged keepers of disorderly houses were always hand-written and included information about the street or suburb where the establishment was located, the names of the men and women who frequented the brothels and who were known to the plaintiffs, the names of those whom police arrested, and a description of the problem. These documents were constructed to fulfill a basic judicial function, that is to say, to meet a legal standard, but they also provide insights into the plaintiffs’ understanding of the problems that particular brothels in their neighbourhoods posed and of the goals they had formulated to resolve them. Thus affidavits comprised, sometimes in very colourful language, original accounts of the activities that had aroused the plaintiffs’ ire. Take the encounter between shoemaker William Brackenridge and Jane Rogers. Brackenridge described in dramatic detail a confrontation he had with Jane Rodgers, who operated a bawdy house in an apartment in the same dwelling where he lived. When Brackenridge went to investigate a particularly rowdy disturbance in her room, he discovered two very inebriated and quarrelsome soldiers. Upon ordering them to leave the premises, Rodgers, angry that Brackenridge would interfere in a private matter, apparently attacked him with a brick. He sustained a laceration to his upper lip so deep that he was “obliged to have it sewed up” by Dr. Digsby.75 Some of the court documents indicate that plaintiffs, manifesting

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their unease about the flexible boundaries around female roles, chose the words they used to denote sexual transgression deliberately in order to separate respectable women from non-respectable and to include an image in their narrative that served to condemn and punish. The word “lewd” was especially effective. According to literary scholar Katharine Kittredge, it shrouded a woman’s individual characteristics and status in a “female antitype,” thereby contrasting the accused with the feminine ideal and constructing a new punitive identity.76 The same may be said about other signifiers of sexual transgression. As Amanda Anderson reminds us, even the term “fallen” denotes a loss of control.77 Historian Joel Best has argued that the variety of synonyms that newspaper editors used to refer to brothels signified the cultural importance of the sex trade and I contend the same can be said about linguistic variations in Montreal court records.78 Bernard St-Germain and Joseph Lemoine, for example, depicted those attending twice weekly balls at Joseph Perrault and Marie-Anne Tellier’s “maison de débauche” as “filles de joies” and “des jeunes gens de la dernière classe de la société” who disturbed the peace of the neighbourhood with fights and threats to passersby.79 In this particular case, the plaintiffs St-Germain and Lemoine explicitly linked sexual transgression to social class. Equally revealing are the various uses of the vernacular for prostitute in everyday life. Montreal women employed such terms to insult others and in so doing to discipline sexual behaviour that verged on impropriety or in an attempt to reclaim their status as respectable. Marie-Anne Dufond, for instance, pursued Salamé Despaty at law for calling her “a common prostitute” who “slept with her son.”80 The term “whore” was a universal insult that women hurled at each other. In Katherine McKenna’s examination of the records of Prescott’s Board of Police, the largest number of complaints concerned namecalling using variants of the word “whore.” McKenna argues, quite rightly I believe, that name-calling reflected the tensions around changing social values concerning women’s honour. It also reflected the judicial practice in which a disreputable reputation was enough to prosecute a woman as a prostitute. Historian Anna Clark has suggested that name-calling served as a means to both promote women’s conformity to a particular standard of sexual reputation and to resist such constraints by being loud and aggressive.81 Laura Gowing’s

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study of slander in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century church court documents reveals that women were up to five times more likely than men to litigate against sexual defamation. Since this sort of slander attacked the immoral behaviour of an individual, the act of filing suit was an attempt to restore an individual’s standing in her community. The term “whore” suggests some sort of sexual impropriety that represents “the exact opposite of the honest woman.” There was no male equivalent and thus insults such as “whoremonger” implied that male sexual behaviour was measured by control over women’s sexuality. Since sexual honour was mostly a woman’s concern, women had the authority to regulate the sexual behaviour of others to avoid sullying the reputation of the neighbourhood.82 In Montreal, Ann Connor accused Samuel Stevens of committing a breach of the peace when he knocked at the door of the widow Mary Robinson on Commissioner’s Street and shouted out, “let in the sailors to the whores.”83 The words that plaintiffs, grand jury members, and justices of the peace chose and clerks inscribed on depositions, in presentments, and in charges to the jury to portray residential prostitution varied considerably. City inhabitants referred to disorderly houses, the legal term of indictments, as “houses of debauchery,” “houses of prostitution,” and “houses of ill-fame,” “arenas of vice,” “common bawdy houses,” and “receptacles for bawds and vagabonds” or “receptacles of all that is vicious and debauched.” Frequently used French-language terms included “maison de débauche,” “bordel,” and even “espèce de Lèpre, la peste de notre Société.” While Richard Burn equated prostitutes with “women of bad fame, bad women, and women of evil report,”84 city residents used these terms as well as many more variations that included most depraved characters, women of ill fame, and women of evil name and fame.85 Eyewitness testimony strengthened the complaint, as did representations of dissolute sexual practices, which the plaintiffs claimed to have surreptitiously observed. Thus, Peter McCormick described hearing the “lewd practices” of those frequenting Mrs. Blanchard’s brothel through the floorboards above his apartment,86 and Samuel Wilson told the magistrate that he had observed Ann Newman “lying in bed with a man.”87 Vagrancy depositions have a different history. Before 1837, they were hand-written, often consisting only of the minimum of information required by law. Nonetheless, some documents yield details about

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facets of streetwalkers’ lives and occasionally the very words that they uttered. (After 1837, court clerks used printed forms on which they inscribed only the names of the women accused of the misdemeanour in the blank spaces provided. The circumstances of their arrests thus disappeared from the depositions.) The term “streetwalker”88 was captured in “common prostitute,” “whore,” “strolling wanton lewd woman,” “woman of ill fame,” “woman of dissolute habits,” “bad woman,” “woman of bad fame,” “and female profligate”; in French, a street prostitute was deemed “femme de mauvaise moeurs,” “personne de mauvaise vie et de moeurs dissolues,” “femme abandonnée à tous les vices,” “femme déréglée,” “fille de plaisir,” “fille publique,” “fille de débauche,” “putin” (sic), and “prostituée publique.” Plaintiffs referred to sex commerce as “shameful debauchery,” “indecency,” “carnal connexion” (sic),” illicit intercourse,” “copulation,” “indulging in vice and dissipation,” and to prostitutes as “cohabiting with men both night and day,” “meeting together for the purpose of lewdness and debauchery,” “for sensual and licentious purposes or for the indulgence of their carnal appetite,” and “give themselves to all kinds of vice.” French-language descriptions included “passions brutales,” “commettant du mal et des dépravations,” “en flagrant délit,” “au détriment de la morale,” “se libèrent au libertinage et à tous les excès d’une vie corrompue,”89 and “exercent une influence bien nuisible et bien pernicieuse.” Plaintiffs identified the consequences of prostitution as corrupting the morals of the people, having a tendency to demoralize, and setting a poor example for children. They articulated other grievances against brothel-keepers and streetwalkers in their depositions that served to enhance their legal denunciations of brothels as nuisances and disturbing to the public peace or against street prostitutes as being idle, disorderly, and unable to give a good account of themselves. Depositions involving street prostitutes included loitering in the streets and markets of the city, having no honest means of earning their livelihood, living off the fruits of a debauched life, threatening personal injury to the prosecutor, drunkenness, and exhibiting indecent and scandalous behaviour in the public streets. Common grievances concerning disorderly houses included the fear of accidental fire caused by brothel inmates’ negligence, the lewd behaviour of prostitutes, and the insults, threats, and actual assaults that neighbours encountered from men who frequented

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these establishments. Plaintiffs also bolstered their denunciations by demonstrating that a particular brothel had been disorderly over a period of time. In November 1814, François Dyon, his wife Marie-Anne Poirier, and Joseph Dyon argued that Pierre Desjardins, Marguerite and Thérèse Desjardins, along with a Miss Gravelle, kept a disorderly house “depuis le mois de mai dernier au premier jour du mois courant.”90 Thus, city residents constructed legal narratives – sometimes carefully choosing their words for the greatest impact – to discipline sex workers, seek redress against a perceived wrong, and settle disputes.

The Demography of Plaintiffs Like most city dwellers who denounced keepers of brothels and their inmates in the period under study, John King and Mary Blay were from the popular classes, neighbours, francophone and non-francophone, and male and female. Figure 4.1 shows that the vast majority (eighty-six per cent) of the plaintiffs of prostitution-related complaints in the first period were neighbours, while peace officers, landlords, and kin made up fourteen per cent.91 The number of policemen acting as plaintiffs rose over the three periods, from five per cent in the years 1810 to 1829 and fifteen per cent in the second period to fortyone per cent between 1838 and 1842. Overall numbers show that less than a tenth of complainants involved relatives, other brothelkeepers, and proprietors or landlords who had leased houses to brothel-keepers. When Louis St-Romain demanded that Madame Charette leave a dwelling house that he had rented to her, she threatened to assault him if he should ever return. St-Romain claimed that Charette operated a “maison de débauche” based on his observation of the presence of two young women, one of whom was “très indécemment vêtue,” and on the noise he heard in the house.92 Former or present brothel-keepers, pedestrians, and city elites also prosecuted madams. The notorious Lucie Rolland denounced Margaret Conroy for keeping a brothel in the same building as she did.93 Presumably a dispute had arisen between the two brothel-keepers or perhaps Rolland simply sought to limit competition in the immediate vicinity of her house of prostitution.

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Fathers, mothers, siblings, and spouses laid complaints of prostitution before the magistrate to discipline wayward daughters, sisters, and wives. Marie-Anne Loriau (Lauriault), widow of Antoine Gamache, denounced her daughter Marie-Françoise as an incorrigible prostitute: “sa fille serait depuis nombre d’années livrée à la débauche & à la cassure & mènerait une vie scandaleuse & déréglée; serait en réalité une fille prostituée & de mauvaise vie & n’aurait pour subsister que le fruit de ses débauches.”94 Husbands also accused wives of marketing sex. Thomas Rousby, whose marriage to Isabella Tomlinson was in crisis in the fall of 1823, is a case in point. You will remember that Rousby, the aggrieved spouse, had complained to a justice of the peace that Tomlinson had abandoned her family and openly kept a house of “bad” fame where she sold liquor and harboured “bad” people, all of which provided a poor model for her children.95 Relatives also denounced brothel-keepers when family members were found in brothels. As we saw in chapter 2, Pierre Doyer’s accusation against Betsey Martin for having tricked his daughter Julie into going to her brothel, holding her prisoner against her wishes, and then arranging for soldiers to sexually assault her led to Martin’s arrest.96 Police imprisoned her on a charge of theft, assault and battery, and assisting an unknown person to ravish Julie Doyer. Editors of the Montreal Herald expressed outrage: “the accusation is of so shocking and disgusting a nature that we trust, for the sake of humanity and the reputation

Figure 4.1 Relationship of plaintiffs to keepers of disorderly houses, 1810–42

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of her sex, the charge will be found without truth.”97 Members of the grand jury decided that there was not enough evidence to support an indictment,98 so the newspaper’s proprietor and editors were likely assuaged, their sensibilities not affronted. However, Julie and Pierre Doyer must have been extremely disappointed by the grand jury’s decision. Parents prosecuted brothel-keepers after discovering that their sons had resorted to these establishments. William Woodhouse laid such a complaint against Mrs O’Brian before a justice of the peace after he found his son lying in bed with her at a local house of prostitution.99 Antoine Dubord dit Latourelle’s problem with sex commerce intruded into his own home when he sought justice against widows Chartrand and Shiller. A self-described bourgeois who had recently married widow Angélique Dubuc, Dubord dit Latourelle rented part of the house he inhabited to the two women. Not long after they moved in, Chartrand and Shiller began to disturb the peace and tranquillity of his home, insult him, and for some time “débauch[ent] son fils Charles et le retire même chez elles.”100 Michael Wood, the son of Anne Keenan and John Wood, brought a “girl of ill fame” home for the night and assaulted his mother the next morning when she had demanded that the young woman leave the house. Michael’s parents denounced him to a justice of the peace.101 Women whose husbands frequented brothels likely found it easier to prosecute brothel-keepers than to persuade their spouses to stop seeking out prostitutes for sex and companionship. They were, as Clare Lyons has suggested, “laying claim to their exclusive right to their husband’s sexuality, and their goal was to bring him home.”102 Thus Elizabeth Sharpe accused Mary Ann Burns of keeping a common bawdy house and enticing her husband, Abraham Meloon, to remain there for several days and nights at a time. When Sharpe went to Burns’ house to retrieve her husband, Burns allegedly assaulted her.103 Marguerite Leprohon also denounced Widow Hampton for “debauching” her husband at a brothel located on St-Constant Street.104 While some wives may have welcomed fewer sexual demands from their husbands as well as the resulting pregnancies, sex commerce diverted scarce financial resources from the household economy and

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exposed wives to venereal disease. In 1841, Angèle Garrant of StHyacinthe was exposed to the danger of infection at first hand. A minor and orphan when she had married twenty-seven-year-old widower and saddler Joseph Lusignan the year before, Lusignan not only “dépense tout son gagne dans la maison de la dite Marianne Charron” but also “a attrapé les maux vénériens et il les a donné à la déposante.”105 Unlike Sharpe, Leprohon, and Garrant, Marie Labelle prosecuted her husband, Joseph Gravelle, for being in the habit of haunting houses of prostitution. In doing so, she was probably attempting to rein in or limit his wandering libido or stop him from spending money on prostitutes. To ensure that the justice of the peace took her complaint seriously, Labelle also indicated that Gravelle had assaulted her four days earlier, was a drunkard, and was capable of working but refused to do so.106 Such complaints must have created significant tensions between the wives who laid the complaints and the husbands who sought sex beyond the marital bed. That ordinary people were less inclined to prosecute local brothelkeepers over the period under study indicates a shift away from a local moral economy and private prosecution, in which neighbours used the courts as an extension of their own surveillance of their communities, to public prosecution by the local state through its representatives on the police force. Such a transformation signifies the increasing involvement of the state in private matters. By the end of 1838, the reorganization of the police force permitted a more intensive regulation of public space and policemen were increasingly called upon to act as plaintiffs. Private prosecution was thus being redirected to the public realm. The vast majority of complainants who denounced keepers of disorderly houses were men. Many of them were police officers, who made up eighty-five per cent or 547 of the complainants. My findings differ from Donald Fyson’s study, in which he considered a range of offences against the person, property, and the state that came before the justices of the peace and found that women made up nearly a third of the total number of plaintiffs. Since most of their complaints involved some form of aggression, women frequently turned to the criminal justice system for protection against spousal abuse.107 As I have already argued, figure 4.1 demonstrates that the percent-

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age of constables prosecuting brothel-keepers rose dramatically from less than a tenth in the first period, to nearly a third and slightly less than half in the second and third respective periods (five per cent, fifteen per cent, and forty-one per cent). Montreal police registers indicate that after 1837, rather than seeking justice against brothel-keepers directly, growing numbers of residents began to complain about noisy neighbourhood brothels to constables, who were now posted to various police stations located around the city. Tavern-keeper John McCann, for example, reported Mrs Byers and her daughter to the police for keeping a disorderly house on St. Peter’s Street.108 The ethnicity of male plaintiffs was almost evenly divided between francophone and non-francophone populations.109 However, when you compare the differences over the three periods, there was a steady decline in the number of male Canadien complainants, from slightly more than two-thirds (or sixty-nine per cent) in the first period to almost half (or forty-nine per cent) in the third period. Women plaintiffs present a very different picture. Nearly three-quarters (seventy-four per cent) were francophone, and while the proportion of Canadiens decreased over the three periods, the decline (from eighty-four per cent in 1810 to 1829, seventy per cent in 1830 to 1836, to sixty-seven per cent in 1837 to 1842) was not as great. Thus, francophone women were more likely to prosecute their neighbours for operating noisy brothels, unlike their male counterparts, who make up only half of the complainants. These findings suggest that francophone women had much stronger ties to their neighbourhoods than non-francophone women, who were more likely to be immigrants. This enduring link to community invested canadien women with a greater imperative to uphold its moral reputation. If, as Laura Gowing has argued, it was women who were responsible for sexual honour,110 then women with close bonds to their community would have been more likely to discipline offenders. Where occupations are known, and excluding those who were policemen and acting for the state, a little over a half of the plaintiffs (197 or fifty-five per cent) were from craft families. The middling group represented seventeen per cent of the total, followed by elites at fifteen per cent. Unskilled labourers made up eleven per cent while those typically defined as marginal represented one per cent. When these

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figures are examined over the three periods, the craft and middling groups remain fairly stable. The only cohort to experience an increase was the elites, who denounced brothels more often across time (from nine per cent in the first period to sixteen per cent in the second period, increasing slightly to eighteen per cent by the third period). Keeping in mind that a significant proportion of the plaintiffs accusing brothel-keepers were neighbours, often from families of artisans, these divisions reflect the proximity of the deponents or prosecutors to the defendants and demonstrate their willingness to use the criminal justice system in order to solve problems with neighbours. As I have already argued, many neighbours had extensive knowledge of the people who inhabited the brothels, being adept at distinguishing them by their proper names and recognizing the various relationships between the different occupants. The small number of elites who complained about brothels reinforces Donald Fyson’s argument that the lower courts did not serve as a venue for Montreal notables to discipline the popular classes. Notwithstanding the increasing role played by the police in prosecuting prostitutes and the proportion of plaintiffs who came from the elites and middling group, artisans still made up the majority of those seeking justice at the Police Office. Scholars elsewhere have reached similar conclusions. For example, Andrew Harris suggests that the discretionary power plaintiffs exercised meant that it “was not a tool for enforcing ruling-class hegemony but the means by which larger sections of the community could enforce their own ideas of criminality in a flexible way, according to the specific nuances of each particular case.”111 Nearly a third of those who privately prosecuted keepers of disorderly houses came from the middling group and the elites, suggesting that the activities of brothel-keepers were being judged on the basis of a bourgeois ideology rooted in economic liberalism, which set individual responsibility, discipline, sobriety, and industry as the new benchmark, in contrast to popular-class inhabitants, who used the courts as a forum for conflict resolution. The significant presence of francophone female and male plaintiffs supports another of Donald Fyson’s arguments, namely that the canadien majority did not boycott the criminal justice system and seemed quite at home using it when necessary.112

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Preliminary Detention If the justice of the peace did not dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaints outright, the accusations being made had an impact on the people named in depositions. When a warrant was issued, the police proceeded to the brothel to arrest anyone they found inside the establishment to bring them before the justice of the peace for a preliminary hearing. Given the small number of men taken into custody, it is obvious that many of the clients avoided capture. Police allowed female defendants to remain at home under very specific circumstances, usually related to illness or to childcare. You will recall that police permitted Margaret Delany to stay at Ellen McConvey and Patrick Thomas’s bawdy house in order to look after her five children. In a very different situation involving a police raid on Marie-Anne Lanctôt’s brothel, the chief constable determined that Lanctôt was incapable of being moved without a stretcher. Dr Drolet, her attending physician, maintained that to remove her from the house would “seriously compromise the cure of her leg.”113 A third example has to do with police officers who returned Bridget McCanister, “discovered” in a house of ill fame, directly to her mother rather than arresting and escorting her to the station house along with the other brothel inmates,114 suggesting that the policemen may have rescued Bridget from the brothel at the behest of her mother. Tony Henderson has argued that in London in the same period, a small number of street prostitutes avoided incarceration because policemen returned them directly to family members and so-called “friends.”115 The accused were incarcerated in the Watch House, station house, Common Gaol, or House of Correction until they were brought before a justice of the peace to answer to the charge. Although the presiding magistrate had considerable autonomy in deciding what action to take against the alleged offenders – discharge for lack of evidence, a recognizance to keep the peace and to be on good behaviour, or incarceration until their court date116 – he usually offered the defendants bail, to which they were legally entitled, until the next sitting of the court of Quarter Sessions when an indictment would be considered by the grand jury. An analysis of prison registers, prison calendars, depositions, and recognizances reveals that brothel clients, prostitutes, and keepers experienced varying lengths of preliminary

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detention between the arrest and the time it took to arrange bail or to have the complaints dismissed by a justice of the peace. Without having been convicted of prostitution-related offences, the accused could be imprisoned from a few hours to several months. Figure 4.2 demonstrates that there were no great differences between men and women in the time it took to make the arrangements for bail, but on the whole men organized bail more quickly than women. Over eighty per cent of the keepers, brothel prostitutes, and the small number of clients who had not been able to avoid arrest arranged bail within the first week of incarceration and usually within the first three days of being taken into custody. Hypolite Lepage orchestrated bail on the same day that police apprehended him for keeping a disorderly house. If brothel prostitutes or keepers had difficulty coordinating men to provide bail, then at best their release was delayed until arrangements were finalized and at worst they were incarcerated until trial. Roughly half of these women (forty-nine per cent) were liberated from prison within two weeks of their arrest for keeping a disorderly house. In comparison, justices of the peace discharged nearly two-thirds of brothel clients (62.5 per cent) within two weeks of their incarceration. And all of the men who were given bail or discharged were dealt with within two months of being taken into custody. Nevertheless, figure 4.2 also shows that a small number of men were subjected to prolonged periods of imprisonment while awaiting trial because of their inability to arrange bail. For example, William O’Brian was released from a two-month sojourn in the local jail only

Figure 4.2 Time between arrest and bail, 1810–42

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after he was found not guilty of keeping a brothel.117 Thus he had remained incarcerated for an extended period of time before the case came to trial. For clients who were visitors to the city when police arrested them in brothel raids, the ability to organize bail varied with their individual circumstances. Indeed, there are instances when brothel-keepers and prostitutes were able to make arrangements with bondsmen, sometimes involving considerable amounts of money, much earlier than the clients of their disorderly houses. On 16 February 1832, police raided a brothel operated by the Mongeon family and apprehended Joseph Mongeon, his two daughters, Julie and Dorothée, and Joseph Cardinal. The Mongeons were released on bail the following day. Joseph Cardinal languished in prison for one and a half months under very arduous conditions before the magistrates discharged him, possibly because they thought he had been punished enough.118 Clients lost income while imprisoned, which would have had a serious impact on families dependent upon their earnings. Thus, for some brothel clients, their sexual excursions had unintended consequences. A third of brothel prostitutes and keepers were released from prison after several months of incarceration. Preliminary detention could sometimes be longer than the sentence imposed by the court, as the case of Marguerite Belhumeur demonstrates. Belhumeur spent nearly five months in prison following her arrest in a police raid on a bawdy house where she had been working as a prostitute.119 Had she been found guilty of the charge, she would have received a shorter sentence. An 1842 grand jury was cognizant of such problems, noting

Figure 4.3 Time between imprisonment and discharge, 1810–42

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in its January presentment that some prisoners who had been incarcerated for minor offences had remained imprisoned for a far longer period than the crime merited.120

Conclusion Making a complaint against a disorderly house or a disorderly woman, as demonstrated by John King and Mary Blay’s legal pursuit of O’Brian’s brothel, involved legal procedures based on common law and produced a flurry of legal documents detailing each consecutive step. As the private prosecution of women and men accused of prostitution-related offences wound its way through court, plaintiffs exhibited considerable discretionary power. As we have seen, neighbours, relatives, and landlords turned to the courts for a variety of reasons, including disciplining refractory brothel-keepers and street prostitutes. Legal documents reveal that the consequences of initiating these proceedings were especially onerous for disorderly women, who were sometimes arrested by police and incarcerated before the clerk had even written up a complaint. Streetwalkers were rarely if ever offered a recognizance to keep the peace and summary justice precluded any delay between the arrest and trial. The rules governing disorderly houses meant that, following a complaint, if a justice of the peace believed there was sufficient evidence to support the deposition, police apprehended brothel-keepers, prostitutes, and clients. Even though a remarkably small number of men were ever arrested during brothel raids, preliminary detention could be lengthy if clients were visiting the city or too poor to arrange bail.

CHAPTER 5

Policing Prostitution Peace Officers, Prostitutes, and Ambiguity

Introduction In the early morning of 27 October 1841, Chief Constable John Brennan discovered that Sub-constable Christopher Gilmore was missing from his beat on Lagauchetière Street. After searching the vicinity, with the assistance of policeman James McCormack, Brennan located Gilmore in Marie-Anne Joyalle’s “common bawdy house.” One of the brothel prostitutes, on oath, accused the sub-constable of being in the habit of “frequenting those haunts of ill fame.” Christopher Gilmore was discharged from the constabulary but avoided incarceration in the Common Gaol out of “respect for the police establishment” and because his brother William was also an officer in the Montreal police force.1 A charge against the brothel-keeper of harbouring a constable was eventually dismissed. This notation in the Police Order Book reveals that relationships between policemen and prostitutes were not straightforward, echoing the ambiguity inherent in the work they did. Policemen, on the one hand, were employees of the state and were expected to enforce laws concerning moral and public order infractions, albeit with respect to competing class interests. As John Weaver informs us, they had to “negotiate with people and be responsive to local interests.”2 The Montreal bourgeoisie, who viewed prostitutes as social outcasts and saw their work as both illegal and immoral, looked to the police to regulate these women. Policemen were also expected to mediate relationships between brothel-keepers and their popular-class neighbours in the communities where prostitutes lived and laboured. The situation was further complicated because the class and ethnic

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affiliations of constables and watchmen were similar to those of the people they policed. Peace officers acted as arbitrators between the demands of the bourgeoisie, those of the popular classes, and those of prostitutes. They carried out their tasks in a culture of male hegemony that conferred incontrovertible authority on their position visà-vis some of the least powerful members of the community. That magistrates rendered guilty verdicts in almost every case involving disorderly women reinforced police discretionary power and therefore their authority. Prostitutes, on the other hand, furnished sex commerce during an epoch at the beginning of the Victorian period, with its distinctive ideas of how women and sex should conform to social prescriptions. The “brutal passions” associated with prostitution meant that women’s sexuality was both condemned and disciplined. Their legal and social standing as sex workers, in addition to their marital status and ethnicity, meant that they were deemed to be non-respectable women, a reputation that severely restricted their ability to be judged fairly in an “impartial” system of criminal justice and to access community benevolence. Moreover, prostitutes worked in environments that left them vulnerable not only to violence from potentially aggressive men, such as clients and neighbours, but also to police intimidation and fraud. But, as Christopher Gilmore’s encounter with a prostitute at Marie-Anne Joyalle’s brothel makes evident, they also entered into other relationships with police, even in circumstances where the denunciation of a policeman’s predilection for brothels could have serious consequences for him, to say nothing of its effects on his wife and children, who faced the prospects associated with living with an unemployed wage earner. In this chapter, I explore how Montreal’s policing agencies – the constabulary and the night watch – regulated prostitution. I consider changes to the policing of sex commerce over the period, the implications of an expanding role of the local state in what were considered at the time to be private matters, and the responses of prostitutes to the ways in which peace officers exercised their authority in the neighbourhoods where they lived and worked. Elite discourses about the competence of the police to regulate prostitution as well as the consequences these judgments had on police surveillance provide a context in which to explore relationships between police and prostitutes. By

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focusing on their encounters as well as the expectations they had of each other, the complexities of these interactions are further elucidated. I argue that such liaisons were usually ambiguous, sometimes conciliatory, and often illegal. While prostitutes were highly susceptible to exploitation by policemen, who were after all the representatives of the local state at the street level, some of the women denounced acts of aggression as well as efforts to coerce money or favours from them. These cases are probably under-represented in the archives and do not tell us anything about informal encounters and negotiations between policemen and prostitutes. They do, however, provide a window into the variations of and motivations behind police-prostitute relations. They also expose another aspect of prostitutes’ vulnerabilities, as well as the strategies they enacted to resist exploitation. A study of the policing of prostitution offers insights into a peace officer’s diverse responsibilities in an early nineteenth-century urban centre and the consequences of policing for women who marketed sex. Given the wide discretionary power that the police exercised, debates in the literature have often centred on affirming a policeman’s role in either social regulation or in deploying a form of public assistance or social welfare by incarcerating those who were homeless. In this chapter I challenge such an approach, arguing that this binary division is not useful. In Montreal as elsewhere, watchmen and constables performed both roles as part of law enforcement.3 Public assistance played an integral role in social regulation because imprisonment removed prostitutes from city streets and green spaces, prevented a repetition of the offence – at least for the period of confinement – and punished those arrested through the appalling physical conditions that prevailed in the city’s Common Gaol and House of Correction. Such “assistance,” however, was not offered to everyone who needed it, nor was law enforcement uniformly applied. The incarceration of prostitutes served many purposes while also demonstrating to critics that the city’s police agencies were doing their job. Policing had an effect on the labouring population as a whole and the responsibilities of the police force were multifaceted and involved diverse licit and illicit activities. Historians of police have not always taken into account the activities of constables, such as Christopher Gilmore, that confirm that some city constables were explicitly involved in sex commerce. Of

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those studies that have examined the relationship between policemen and prostitutes, a surprising number tend to be uni-dimensional, focusing on the policing of prostitution from the perspective of laws, statistics, and arrest rates while overlooking the dynamic yet complicated interconnections between the two parties.4 The exceptions are a genre of prostitution literature that explores the complex relationships between lawmen and prostitutes in the United States’ West.5 As well, historian Judith Walkowitz has described how the police accommodated streetwalkers in nineteenth-century London in order to promote propriety in the streets, restrict them to particular areas of the city, and disrupt liaisons they may have established with criminals in general and thieves in particular.6 A more recent study by Tony Henderson shows that Londoners frequently denounced watchmen for giving streetwalkers a wide berth to allow them to market their trade. And both Judith Fingard and Jane Price have suggested for Halifax that while constables apprehended streetwalkers, who were more visible and hence vulnerable to harassment and arrest, these same women used the criminal justice system to demand shelter, to prosecute others who had wronged them, and to challenge magistrates if they believed their rights were being abused.7 This chapter begins with an exploration of elite discourses critical of the manner in which policing agencies regulated sex commerce. Next, an examination of the different policing authorities that coexisted in the period under study highlights some of the important changes that took place before the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 and their effect on prostitution. In the aftermath of the rebellions, the Special Council reorganized the police force, incorporating many of the recommendations that elites had been advocating before 1837, and this restructuring had profound consequences for sex workers. Finally, the ambiguities of the relationships between policemen, watchmen, and prostitutes are analyzed.

Elite Discourses: Police, Prostitutes, and Public Space As aspects of the dominant mode of regulation that had developed in relation to a moral economy began to decline in the city, local notables, who included French- and English-speaking physicians, lawyers,

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philanthropists, businessmen, and landowners among others, demanded the reform of institutions they deemed inefficient.8 Elites were especially critical of Montreal’s policing agencies. The influx of migrants and immigrants to the city over the period contributed to their anxieties because they tended to view certain newcomers as the source of vice and crime. Irish immigrants were common targets of elite bigotry and an 1828 grand jury presentment referred to unlicensed hucksters and pedlars as “low Irish scum [my emphasis] who compete unfairly with retail merchants who must pay shop rents.”9 Elites also attacked the use of public space by prostitutes, vagrants, beggars, and even the popular classes as being an impediment to its gentrification. Such rhetoric provided a convenient rationale to demand improved policing services. Powerful and influential city residents owned newspapers, wrote letters to the editors, sent petitions to the colonial government, formed the executive of charitable organizations, committees, and societies, served as representatives of colonial authorities on the Special Council, comprised the grand juries, and worked as magistrates. Given that for most of the period the justices of the peace administered the municipal government, the impact of grand jury presentments on the local level was significant and grand jurors were influential on magistrates.10 Their recommendations reflected the anxieties of the city’s bourgeoisie in such areas as public order and moral offences, the granting of tavern licenses, provisioning of charity, and immigration.11 Notables’ authoritative position affected court officials who drafted police regulations, modified the direction of the city police, and, in the case of the Special Council, re-organized the police force. Elites not only disapproved of the most visible aspects of homelessness and sex commerce but assailed popular-class morality and public behaviour as well. Prominent city residents endeavoured to impose order on what they saw as an intractable labouring class population that contested elite views of respectability and positions of power while asserting and defending their own traditional use of public space and authority. Clare Lyons’ description of late eighteenth-century popular-class street culture in Philadelphia echoes that of Montreal: “They embraced a boisterous culture of self-display and rowdy demeanour along the city’s streets, asserting their own cultural space while simultaneously assaulting the more staid sense of propriety of

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the elite and middle classes.”12 Montreal notables penned negative appraisals of the urban landscape and its teeming masses in newspaper articles and grand jury presentments, even though men, women, and children of all social classes conducted business, laboured, socialized, and loitered in the public. Such criticisms resulted in tensions between the popular classes, who lived large parts of their lives in city streets and green spaces, and those whose interests lay in the embourgeoisement of the public. As a response to what they perceived as disorder, city notables sought to reconfigure the urban landscape into public spaces that were regulated, illuminated, and respectable in order to make them safe, both morally and physically, for the bourgeoisie to navigate. US historian Elizabeth Blackmar has argued that middle-class New York City reformers organized new charities to reform and relieve the poor in part as an attack on the ways in which the property-less used public space, which they saw as antithetical to the ordered streets they sought both for their personal security and convenience and to enhance the value of their property.13 In Montreal, similar discourses brought specific public behaviour under the scrutiny and censorship of the state, signalling a move away from the communal and customary to the legal.14 Traditional community surveillance was increasingly appropriated by the state at the urging of elites and justices of the peace began, for example, to fix their regulatory gaze upon the Sunday comportment of idle young boys – more interested in a game of marbles than attending church services – or of nude men bathing in the St Lawrence River or the Lachine Canal. Donald Fyson suggests that elite rhetoric also served to regulate spontaneous public behaviour that did not accord with the bourgeois emphasis on a well-ordered society.15 Thus inhabitants were forbidden from throwing snowballs in public space during the winter, playing games in the streets regardless of the season, and holding balls or dances in their homes on the Sabbath. As new definitions of what constituted respectability emerged, placing greater emphasis on the industry, sobriety, and discipline of the individual, elites more urgently expressed their unease about the “evil” effects of streetwalkers, vagrants, beggars, and drunkards as well as other dissolute people who loitered about the city’s public spaces. Irish historian Maria Luddy has argued that this preoccupation with the poor, especially street prostitutes, reflected elites’ disquiet

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about how public space was used as well as its potential for moral contamination.16 In the United States during the same period, police in many cities cracked down on street prostitution in response to fears that an anonymous, transient population made urban centres unsafe and to reformers’ demands for the order and decorum that were to be achieved by ridding the streets of immorality, idleness, and intemperance.17 Notwithstanding a middle-class fondness for imbibing in respectable drinking and eating establishments, the popular-classes’ so-called proclivity for consuming alcohol in taverns, tippling houses, and brothels was an important and related theme in a rhetoric that increasingly regarded intemperance as the source of all crime. Judge James Reid articulated this position in his charge to an 1819 grand jury wherein he claimed that “evil habits are acquired and necessities created, which break through every restraint, and set every law at defiance; the peace of families, and the welfare of society require, that the hand of the Magistrate and the Grand Jury, should be raised, to suppress, as far as can be done, all haunts of vice like these.”18 By the late 1820s, city elites were already creating temperance organizations, which grew in popularity through the 1830s and 1840s. The Montreal Temperance Society, whose executive was made up of some of the city’s leading merchants, was based on the ideas of the US temperance movement, particularly as propagated by Dr Benjamin Rush, that abstinence would eliminate many of society’s ills. The city’s jailor and police chief, according to historian Jan Noel, supplied the organization with statistics to support its claim that most crimes were linked to drinking.19 British traveller James Buckingham’s description of the new Montreal jail, published in 1843, provides a fitting metaphor for the perceived correlation between popular-class alcohol consumption and vice: “It seems appropriately placed between two large distilleries, the manufacturies of that liquid poison, which makes the greatest number of debtors and criminals and is overlooked by the barracks of the soldiers, whose services are often rendered more necessary to suppress riots and insurrections from the drinking that demoralizes men, and makes them dishonest, disorderly, and disloyal, in turns.”20 With an unmistakably religious timbre in their discourse, temperance campaigners associated drink with poverty and disease, and

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those in sex commerce served as prominent examples of this belief. That prostitution had a public face, whether it was sex workers who loitered outside the brothels calling out to male passersby, the disorder that reigned inside houses of prostitution but manifested itself outdoors, or streetwalkers soliciting loudly in pairs or groups, made it an easy target of elite denunciations: Une autre cause puissante de la démoralisation publique et des actes contre les lois qui sont venus devant le Grand Jury, est le nombre de ces maisons publiques de débauche qui n’est pas au pouvoir de la police d’abolir entièrement mais qu’elle soit surveiller de manière à ce que les citoyens vertueux n’aient pas a en souffrir; telles qu’elles sont aujourd’hui on y joue et on y boit, et il s’ensuit des querelles, et souvent la ruine de ceux qui fréquentent ces maisons. Il arrive aussi souvent que ces maisons recèlent les objets volés, et mettent ainsi les voleurs à l’arbre de toute poursuite. La police n’est certainement pas assez sévère sur cet objet, ainsi que sur une foule et d’autres qui tendent tous à la démoralisation publique.21 By linking both regulation and virtue to gender, city notables also associated prostitution with the immorality of the young, the encouragement of idleness, and specific offences such as disturbing the public peace, larceny, and, in the case of brothels, receiving stolen goods and harbouring felons. Elites alleged that sex commerce in general, and bawdy houses in particular, set a bad example for youth and trained them in idleness, dissipation, and vice. They worried that boys would be unduly influenced by the illicit sex and alcohol consumption that characterized the immorality served up in disorderly houses: “it is truly deplorable that young men of industrious habits have been induced to visit them from which they have contracted vices that have led to their final ruin.”22 Equally, prostitutes on the stroll appeared to them as open advertisements for immorality, violence, disorder, and crime and it was argued that removing these women from public space would diminish their influence.23 US officials in St Louis were preoccupied with similar anxieties, convinced that prostitutes were dangerous because they transformed the city’s youth into drunken criminals.24 The presence of disorderly

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women in public also reminded elites that the constabulary and watch were not doing their jobs and were failing to regulate moral and public order offenses effectively. Despite concern about streetwalkers and visible prostitutes, Montreal brothels became the lightening rod for zealous discussions in local newspapers, in judges and magistrates’ charges or directions to the grand jury, and in grand jury presentments. Recommendations as to how to solve the problem of prostitution varied. A city judge, for instance, demanded of the grand jury that, “places of evil resort should be presented as public nuisances and be suppressed.”25 Responding to a particular judge’s charge to the jury, the Montreal Gazette recommended that “every scite [sic] of crime and wretchedness” be cast out from the city and that those living off the travails of crime should disappear “from our disgusted sight” if they could not reform.26 At the July 1823 sitting of the Quarter Sessions of the Peace, grand jurors drew attention to the significant growth in the number of houses of prostitution and to the consequences: “These arenas of vice are the receptacles of all that is criminal and it becomes the imperious duty of those, in whom the power is vested, to leave no means, how vigorous soever, unexercised, which might tend to their abolition, and thereby prevent the morals of the rising generation from being utterly subverted.”27 By the 1830s, city notables had begun to reconsider the likelihood that brothels could be suppressed completely and were beginning to press for better regulation of residential prostitution rather than its eradication. It was both a frank admission that abolition of prostitution was impossible and an implicit acknowledgement of the limits of local state power. Such conclusions were further nuanced by the view that prostitution was a necessary evil. In 1836, the grand jury of the July sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace recommended that a form of regulation similar to that found in European cities such as Paris, arguably the most advanced city on the continent,28 be instituted, which would allow the state to intervene directly in the internal affairs of city brothels: The Grand Jury after maturely deliberating does not fear to enter on the important subject persuaded that it is deserving of the most serious attention on the part of the public authorities.

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In all countries prostitution is tolerated, in order to prevent honest & reputable persons from being insulted in the streets and in their houses. However in mostly all the towns of Europe such houses of illfame are put under the immediate inspection of the police and subjected to sanitary regulations executed with the greatest severity. In no place are such regulations more called for than in disorderly houses, frequented as they are mostly by persons who know of no bounds to their brutal passions. In the countries above mentioned severe and rigorous laws are made, medical men are appointed by the public authority, certificates of health are delivered by physicians weekly and such as are not provided with them are forth with confined.29 Grand jurors may also have been responding to the unease of local garrison authorities about infection rates for venereal disease among their soldiers: as representatives of the British Empire, soldiers were expected to show self-discipline in matters of sexual transgression but obviously did not. A study by historian Phillipa Levine establishes that venereal disease was a common cause of British soldiers in the colonies being deemed unfit for duty.30 The same year that the grand jury advocated state-regulated brothels, Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet’s groundbreaking study of prostitution in Paris was published posthumously.31 He had supported Paris’s “maisons de tolérances,” which were scrutinized and regulated by police as well as requiring the registration and compulsory medical inspections of prostitutes. Parent-Duchâtelet was also the co-founder of Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale, a journal that in 1829 inaugurated an important debate about the regulation of health. While it is unknown whether this journal circulated in Lower Canada or even if local physicians kept abreast of these debates during the period under study, Joseph Gauvreau has argued that Daniel Arnoldi, Montreal’s prison doctor and justice of the peace, “had followed with a vigilant and attentive eye all the current ideas in medicine and all the changes it had undergone.”32 In the 1836 presentment Montreal grand jurors campaigned for a type of “sanitary police force,” a special police force to take over regulating city brothels, and for physicians to issue certificates to prostitutes who were free

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of venereal disease. In subsequent grand jury reports or presentments, jurors demanded that every house of a suspicious nature be kept under strict surveillance. An editorial in the Montreal Gazette proposed that a specific policing agency (presumably a version of the sanitation police active in Paris) be established to regulate brothels. In the editors’ opinion, the police and watch were incapable of protecting neighbours who were being harassed by “bullies and ruffians” who frequented local houses of prostitution.33 The existence of disorderly houses and disorderly women was not a question of defective laws, elites argued, but a matter of deficient law enforcement. Many claimed that there were an insufficient number of constables and watchmen for the size of the city and that their method of patrolling beats in groups rendered the police force ineffective in regulating society since they could cover only a small area. Grand jurors complained about the unsavoury character of the watchmen and about the fact that they were increasingly called upon to serve other functions, which interfered with their primary nighttime responsibilities to protect people and property and watch for fires.34 By 1834, grand juries recommended that a police force similar to London’s Peel Police be established in Montreal.35 During the rebellions and their immediate aftermath, brothels, like taverns, encouraged men to congregate and undoubtedly represented a threat to local authorities who were attempting to bring control to a region in the throes of political insurrection. Moreover, soldiers quartered in the Quebec Gate Barracks to quell rebellion openly fraternized with streetwalkers and frequented brothels, creating additional headaches for the police. The constabulary and watch had to reconcile these competing demands, answer to criticisms levelled against them, and address shifts in public opinion. In response, policemen increasingly acted as plaintiffs in charges related to disorderly houses, scrutinized suspicious houses, and made periodic sweeps of city brothels. In particular, they paid close attention to the public spaces in and around the city in an attempt to rid the streets, green spaces, fields, and farms of streetwalkers, drunks, disorderly persons, and the homeless. The enlargement and re-organization of the police during the late 1830s facilitated this greater surveillance. The establishment of suburban police stations in the early 1840s made it easier for constables to apprehend greater numbers of the prostitutes

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and vagrant women who loitered in the streets outside the town centre, at farms, and in roadways leading to the countryside. In their attempt to better regulate public space, police constables and watchmen focused more attention on streetwalkers than on brothel-keepers and their prostitutes, as they were easier to apprehend owing to their visibility, the broad application of vagrancy laws, and their historic legal capacity of the police to act as plaintiffs.36 Moreover, constables and watchmen likely viewed unmarried streetwalkers as outside the control of fathers and assumed a particular paternalistic role aimed at regulating such wayward “daughters.” Targeting street prostitutes may also have been the consequence of budgetary concerns since it was less costly and more efficient to prosecute streetwalkers than brothel-keepers. Police historian Robert Shoemaker has argued that in London in the eighteenth century, the constabulary shifted their surveillance of brothels, which were prosecuted by indictment, a more costly form of justice, to street prostitution, prosecuted by summary conviction, a cheaper form of justice.37 A regulated public space undoubtedly served both the police and elites well. Peace officers appeared to be doing their job, thus allaying fear and criticism, while for the elites, a regulated public meant a well-ordered society, reflecting the values that they increasingly held to be important.

Policing the City Policing was at the heart of Montreal’s criminal justice system and integral to regulating prostitution. It was the responsibility of constables and watchmen to patrol the streets, maintain public order, act upon formal complaints, swear out depositions against disorderly women, serve arrest warrants and summonses associated with raids on brothels, and appear at court to testify. Until recently, we knew little about the city’s system of policing in the early decades of the nineteenth century and lacunae remain.38 Paralleling international debates in the 1980s on policing, which depicted eighteenth-century England as non-policed,39 historian Allan Greer has argued that Montreal’s policing agencies before the rebellions were at worst non-existent and at best inefficient owing to inept justices of the peace and policemen. Greer claims that until the establishment of a new police force

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in the late 1830s, city and colonial governments were unable to directly and consistently exercise control over civil society. While constables and watchmen might arrest the occasional thief and hound vagrants and unlicensed tavern-keepers, they could not control the city streets. Greer accounts for the low crime rate as the outcome of a community’s self-regulation rather than of policing.40 The streetwalkers, brothel-keepers, and their prostitutes whom the police apprehended, escorted through the public streets of the city, and incarcerated in the House of Correction or Common Gaol would have had quite a different picture of their encounters with the police than the one Greer has painted. Donald Fyson’s analysis of Montreal’s criminal justice system before 1837 and the reorganization of the police demonstrates that an institutionalized system of long-term and salaried substitute constables provided Montreal with a group of semi-professional and professional constables, a far cry from the incompetent magistrates and policemen depicted by Greer. The city’s police force may not have been well designed, centrally controlled, and free of corruption, but it had a high rate of success in bringing defendants to justice. Indeed, the constabulary and watchmen’s official activities touched not only the lives of city prostitutes and brothel-keepers but those of many other residents as well and in a variety of different ways.

Figure 5.1 Number of street prostitutes arrested each year, 1810–42

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The amount of financial resources allocated to policing services had a direct effect on the size of the force, the ability of law enforcement personnel to carry out their mandate, and the arrest rates of prostitutes.41 So, too, did the political orientation of judicial and police authorities. In the early 1830s, a new group of reform-minded canadien justices of the peace, who included lawyer and politician Denis-Benjamin Viger, were installed in the lower courts. They replaced the previous more conservative magistrates, such as the US-born, rabidly anti-French and anti-Catholic Samuel Gale, and effectively altered the orientation of the lower judiciary. The death of High Constable Adelphe Delisle in 1831 and his replacement by his nephew Benjamin Delisle also signalled a shift in the direction of Montreal’s police force. These changes resulted in higher arrest levels of women for street prostitution and of men for brothel-related offences. Presumably the new magistrates had demanded that the police make a concerted effort to apprehend disorderly women and all persons inhabiting disorderly houses and the newly installed high constable collaborated.42 Figure 5.1 shows that there were two periods when complaints against streetwalkers were noticeably high. The first occurred between 1831 and 1836, a period during which there was economic unease, social disruption in the countryside, growing trans-Atlantic immigration, and epidemics. The 1832 cholera epidemic, which claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 Montreal inhabitants, may have encouraged higher arrest levels of disorderly persons as a means to contain and prevent the spread of the disease. It is no coincidence that historian Jean-Marie Fecteau’s analysis of the Quebec City prison admission rates shows a quadrupling in public order offences in the same period.43 Much more dramatic was the rise in complaints and arrests, which began in 1837, peaked in 1841, and then fell slightly in 1842. These levels correspond to the re-organization of city policing. As Robert Storch reminds us in his study of street prostitution in London, England, arrest rates of streetwalkers rose when the public pressured magistrates to clean up the streets and fell when these same magistrates felt overloaded with cases or when they questioned the ethical legalities of convicting prostitutes on the basis of police testimony only.44 They also rose and fell, I suggest, in relation to the number of policemen at work.

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Figure 5.2 Percentage of street prostitutes arrested each month in Montreal, 1810–42

Given that the police apprehended streetwalkers when they were most visible in public space, arrest levels escalated in the spring and plummeted in the winter months. Legal historian Jim Phillips has described a similar increase in incarceration rates for vagrant women in Halifax during the summer months and a decrease during the winter and early spring months. Age, marital status, and ethnicity also played an important role in these arrest levels.45 Since many streetwalkers in Montreal were young, unmarried, and Irish-born, both their racialization and perceived standing as outside the influence of their fathers left them vulnerable to arrest. So, too, did the seasonal nature of their work. Those whom police arrested in late autumn routinely received prison sentences that they served over the winter, thereby allowing homeless streetwalkers to use the local prison as a winter refuge.46 Figure 5.2 demonstrates that between 1830 and 1836 Montreal police apprehended a large percentage of street prostitutes at the end of the January session of the court when female prisoners had been released from both the Common Gaol and House of Correction. Nearly three-quarters (seventy-one per cent) of the women were rearrested shortly after being freed, largely, I suggest, because homeless prostitutes sought re-incarceration over winter. A similar pattern of

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re-imprisonment took place at the completion of the July sitting of Quarter Sessions although the percentage of women affected was much smaller (forty-one per cent). This decrease reflected homeless women’s access to a wider range of options; they could rely on local orchards and farm produce for food during the summer and sleeping rough no longer required some form of shelter from the cold. Complaints against brothel-keepers and subsequent police raids present a different picture from that of street prostitution. Figure 5.3 reveals that the highest level of denunciations of keepers of disorderly houses occurred between 1830 and 1834 and between 1837 and 1840, falling rapidly between 1840 and 1842. Such police activity had a considerable gender component. Between 1831 and 1834, police arrested a large number of men in brothels (in 1832 and 1833 more men were apprehended than women) owing to the crackdown on sex commerce initiated by the new reform-minded judiciary and high constable discussed earlier. There was no seasonal pattern in the timing of the raids: they could occur in any month of the year and in all seasons, unlike arrests of streetwalkers.47 However, overall figures show that if any season was over-represented, it was springtime. Perhaps when neighbours began to open their windows as the warmer weather approached, they were disturbed by the noisy activities of local brothels and thus more likely to complain to the authorities. Historian John Weaver has made a similar argument for Hamilton in the same period.48

Managing Montreal’s Police The Constabulary Justices of the peace were responsible for organizing and managing the police for most of the period under study, with the exception of the years 1833 to 1836 when Montreal’s municipal government oversaw policing under the auspices of a Police Committee. Magistrates resumed this duty in 1836 when the Legislative Council refused to renew the city’s charter owing to political unrest in Lower Canada. In theory, the position of constable rotated among those who were heads of households owning or renting property above a certain value and were not professionals or government officers. In practice, it was

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Figure 5.3 Number of women and men arrested in disorderly houses, 1810–42

difficult to enforce mandatory service and a system of substitute constables was adopted and greatly used. This reliance on the same constables had important consequences for sex commerce in the city in terms of effective regulation, tracking, identifying, and passing on information to fellow officers about disorderly women and disorderly houses, and in promoting diverse licit and illicit relationships with prostitutes. In a chapter on Montreal’s police in his monograph Magistrates, Police, and People, Donald Fyson shows that half the appointments between 1788 and 1820 involved a small group of long-term substitute constables, most of whom were popular-class Canadiens.49 Although they wore no uniforms, residents identified policemen by their staffs, which were painted dark blue and sported the king’s royal arms.50 Consequently, city inhabitants were aware that prostitutes had been arrested when constables conducted them through the streets to the prison and to the Court House. This core of active substitute professional constables received a base salary, dervived from a municipal police fund, “to which they added,” according to Fyson “whatever fees they could collect either from private individuals or from the central administration.”51 At the behest of the magistrates, substitute constables received intermittent payments to round out their incomes.52 The high constable, for example, received an annual salary in addition to stipends and fees for making arrests, serving summonses and subpoenas, and dispensing other administrative services.

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From its inception, professional policemen were very active in Montreal; in 1817 Richard Hart, Jacob Marston, and others executed 79 arrest and search warrants. These warrant numbers rose annually: by September 1820 constables had served 275 arrest or search warrants.53 Since dealing with public order and morality offences comprised a significant proportion of a constable’s workday, arrest warrants associated with raids on disorderly houses surely provided an important source of income. As previously noted, policemen were especially diligent in regulating sex commerce in the early 1830s before the rebellions. The growing number of arrests of city prostitutes and brothel-keepers in this period indicates the police’s commitment, for diverse reasons, to maintaining public order. The system of substitute professional constables ended in 1821, but the same professional constables and watchmen continued to be attached to the Police Office.54

The Watch The daytime constabulary was assisted by a paid night watch system. Modelled after the English parish watches, Montreal’s night watch was established in 1818 to take responsibility for lighting street lamps and “to secure the repose and preserve the property of the citizens during those hours where these hordes of depredations [sic] let themselves loose to prey on the public.”55 Watchmen were expected to keep Montreal inhabitants safe from the worst consequences of unchecked nocturnal activities such as burglary, theft, fire, and moral and public order offences. They targeted vagrants, suspicious persons, disturbers of the public peace, and prostitutes, who often worked at night.56 The creation of the watch system in Montreal had a considerable impact on street prostitution because peace officers could now regulate sex workers around the clock. Consequently, these women had to institute new strategies to evade the watch and being taken into custody, which left them more vulnerable to client violence and watchmen’s abuse of authority. To complicate matters further, the social distance between streetwalkers and inadequately emunerated watchmen was small.57 Prostitutes and watchmen had to negotiate their relationships to both public space and each other, which resulted in practices that ranged from friendship and access to the prison for public assistance to coerced sex, assault, and fraud.

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Streetwalkers would have had little difficulty identifying watchmen, whose work started at ten o’clock in the evening and ended at daylight.58 Unlike constables, who could be identified only by a staff they carried, each watchman was furnished with a watch-coat, staff, rattle, and lantern. Like constables, watchmen could detain vagrants and streetwalkers and conduct them along city streets to the Watch House or Common Gaol, where they were incarcerated. The following morning, the head watchman conveyed the accused on foot to the Court House to face the magistrate in Petty Sessions. This “summary imprisonment,” Donald Fyson suggests, reshaped urban policing through the nineteenth century.59 Although Tony Henderson has argued that magistrates in London undermined the authority of the watch when they gave unconditional dismissals to more than half of the disorderly women who came before them, in Montreal’s case the certainty of imprisonment served to reinforce watchmen’s power.60 While we know little about the method or timing of watch patrols, it is apparent from the location of streetwalkers’ arrests that for most of the period under study they operated almost exclusively in the town centre. Prostitutes were drawn to the area in search of what must have seemed to them a limitless supply of clients, and they solicited soldiers, sailors, port workers, and theatregoers, among others. Although there were no fixed patrols in the city before 1823, except for the market constables, it was the responsibility of the night watchmen to oversee the lighting of streetlights. The watch thus began a system of walking the beat as it lit and extinguished the 100 street lanterns installed in the town centre.61 An increase in the arrest rate of streetwalkers after 1818 (see figure 5.1) confirms that watchmen were enforcing regulation of public spaces in the town. Despite the watch’s effectiveness, as demonstrated by incarceration levels, an on-going debate about nighttime patrols articulated a growing anxiety amongst the city’s elites about the competency of the watch and its ability to regulate the public in general and sexual transgression in particular. In 1819, the grand jury recommended that watchmen be posted at various stations around the city, “instead of allowing them to parade in bodies as they now do, and by adopting the plan now submitted, the inhabitants could at any time see when a neglect of duty on the part of any watchman occurred.”62

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For watchmen, group patrols provided some degree of security from inhabitants who became belligerent when resisting arrest, the regulation of public space, or discipline of their public comportement, as well as from soldiers who sometimes rescued disorderly women who were being escorted to prison. Four years later, members of an 1823 grand jury proposed to improve crime prevention and crime detection by assigning the twenty watchmen to beats that would be patrolled individually: “that a specific walk be assigned to every watchman with the means of giving the alarm to his colleagues in case of need and that they may not be permitted to patrol the town, in parties as is at present the practice.”63 Individual patrols meant that watchmen could cover a larger area of the city and such widespread regulation of the public space made it harder for prostitutes to circumvent the watchman’s gaze. It is unclear how long these patrols were in effect. An 1823 list of rules and regulations pertaining to the watch describes twice nightly patrols between June and August and thrice nightly surveillance between September and May but these regulations were cancelled in December of the same year.64 In 1825, watchmen patrolled only the town centre, which had been divided into sub-divisions. During the summer months, the head watchman sent watchmen to their posts at nine o’clock in the evening and they remained until relieved at half past twelve in the morning by a second watch, which stayed until daybreak.65 Changes in patrols proved effective, at least in the short run: the watch and police, now spread across the town centre, arrested higher numbers of disorderly women in 1824 and 1825. Surviving watch registers offer an impression of watch practices. By 1836 two watchmen were posted together at the following eleven sites, all of which were located in the town centre and in locations popular with streetwalkers: Haye’s Corner, Gray’s Corner, Bingham’s Corner, the corner of Walker’s Lane, Lafontaine’s Corner, Dalhousie Square, O’Sullivan’s Corner, St-Louis Street behind the farms, Trudeau’s Corner, the bottom of the New Market, and the corner of St-Paul Street at the L’Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu.66 They began their watch at eight o’clock in the evening and ended it at five o’clock in the morning. Watchmen were required to communicate all arrests to the quartermaster, detailing the hour, reason for the arrest, the name and residence

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of the person arrested, and the names of witnesses, including “every other information regarding the execution of his office and the peace and security of the city, which he may think it proper to make, or which he may be instructed to make by the foreman or deputy.”67 Similarly, watchmen shared information through the watch registers about any suspicious houses on their beats. For instance, a watchman, identified only by his number, 25, reported at 12:30 in the morning his impression that a house opposite Mr Bingham’s was a brothel.68 By November of the same year, the Montreal Gazette was heaping praise on the evening patrols in the city, which had succeeded in making the city streets freer of prowlers and disturbances of the public peace. The newspaper’s only complaint was that the patrols themselves were unruly.69 Despite the efforts of police and watch authorities to instil discipline, encourage uniformity in law enforcement, and limit the exercise of discretionary power, watchmen resisted. Until the mid-1820s, the head watchman chose the eighteen watchmen he supervised. After that date, and with the goal of encouraging better policing, justices of the peace selected watchmen from a list of applicants whose character had been verified through letters bearing testimony to their respectability. As in London, England, authorities in Montreal were urged to be more careful in their appointments and to insist that watchmen carry out their duties scrupulously. Magistrates were aware of the small social distance between members of the watch and the prostitutes they were suppose to regulate. Although respectability was supposed to widen the social difference, the city’s watch was rife with discipline problems, such as sleeping on the job, leaving their posts without permission, drunkenness, and consorting with prostitutes, as well as passing nights in neighbourhood brothels instead of patrolling the streets. To maintain some semblance of authority, the head watchman and his assistant supervised the watchmen closely, recording the hour when they made rounds and the names of the watchmen present at their respective stands or walks and disciplining watchmen for various infractions. The head watchman could levy a fine of £5 for each violation70 and those he discovered intoxicated while on duty or in the company of prostitutes were usually dismissed. Ironically, French noble Captain Emmanuel D’Aubreville and his two

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principal officers, entrusted to oversee watchmen’s comportment, were themselves dismissed from the watch in 1827 for drunkenness and negligence.

A Reorganized Police Force The political turmoil of 1830s Montreal taxed police resources and justices of the peace resorted to the British army to bring order to the city by evoking the riot act. The situation began with the military’s deliberate firing on unarmed voters in May 1832, which left three Canadiens dead in the streets, followed by the state’s refusal to renew the municipal government’s charter, and ending in the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 and the imposition of martial law. In the wake of these events and the subsequent suspension of democratic government following the armed insurrection, the Special Council reorganized the police forces of Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Quebec, consolidating most of the recommendations made by past grand juries.71 In the months leading up to its restructuring, both the military and a succession of grand juries pressured civil authorities to introduce substantial changes to the police: “Les Grands Jurés se font un devoir d’exprimer leur gratitude la plus entière envers la nouvelle administration pour le soin qu’elle a eue de s’occuper promptement d’une police efficace dans les villes de Quebec et de Montreal. Le Grand Jury espère les résultats les plus heureux de cette nouvelle institution et ne doute nullement que la Surveillance et l’activité de la police s’étendra dans toutes les parties du District et dans tous les comtes qui en font partie. Et ils prient le Gouvernement de vouloir bien s’occuper de cet objet important aussitôt qu’il pourra le faire convenablement.”72 The ordinance of October 1838 created a new police force, sometimes referred to as Durham’s Police, that consisted of 104 uniformed police officers in Montreal divided between two police stations and assigned to beats they patrolled around the clock. The constabulary worked two shifts of six hours in the summer and three hours during the winter. The day shift began at seven in the morning and finished at six in the evening and night work began at six o’clock in the evening and ended twelve hours later.73 The physical presence of so many constables in city streets, squares, and green spaces provided an unremitting surveillance of the population and served to discourage crime and impose a new moral order, resulting

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in ever-increasing arrest rates of prostitutes.74 The Special Council drew upon ex-military officers to oversee the police and upon the military to outfit and train constables.75 Their involvement gave the police force some semblance of military discipline in the form of rules and punishments governing procedures and conduct.76 In addition to an enlarged complement of police and new methods of patrolling, the Special Council restructured the police hierarchy – now replete with a superintendent of police, inspector of police, chief constables, constables, sub-constables, and supernumeraries77 – and placed it under the authority of the civil secretary of the governor of Lower Canada. Thus, the city’s police force was temporarily consigned to the jurisdiction of the government of Lower Canada. The civil secretary was responsible for directing both Montreal and Quebec City’s police forces and ensuring the appointment of police officers; the governor had the authority to replace members of the police hierarchy.78 Constables were expected to live with their families in barracks (the police stations) as part of a system aimed at creating an artificial barrier between policemen and the residents they regulated, reinforcing discipline among the ranks, and encouraging both work and social solidarity. Police officers were assigned to either the central Station A, under the charge of Alexander Comeau and located at 76 St-Paul Street at the foot of the New Market in the town centre, or the west Station B, commanded by William Brown and William Suter and situated at the entrance of the faubourg of StJoseph near McGill Street. In 1842, a third station was installed in the faubourg of Québec at the corner of Salaberry and St Mary Streets.79 The presence of these police stations meant greater surveillance of the public and of prostitution. In 1840, Montreal again received its municipal charter and a police commissioner assumed the powers to direct the restructured police force that had been accorded to the civil secretary. As the annual budget shrank between 1838 and 1841, so too did the complement of policemen: by the end of 1839, 82 constables policed city streets; the following year the number fell to 60, and by April 1841 the original police force of 104 had been reduced by half, leaving 53 police officers to patrol a city of 40,400 inhabitants around the clock.80 The falling arrest numbers of prostitutes corresponds to the diminution in the police budget. We know little about the ethnic composition of

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this re-organized police force. Daniel Dicaire’s study of the Montreal police force notes that in 1840, forty-seven were Irish and thirtyseven were Canadiens.81 Irish prostitutes and policemen likely initiated diverse relationships based on ethnic solidarity, the experience of migration, religious affiliation, and ties to Ireland. Michael McCullough’s analysis of the Quebec City police force in the same period reveals that most policemen were anglophone, recruited from unskilled labour, and “resembled the ‘dangerous classes’ they were suppose to regulate.”82 Montreal policemen earned two shillings six pence per day, the same amount paid to canal workers, so the position would have held little attraction for anyone but the unskilled.83 Despite living in barracks, there would also have been very little social distance between policemen and the majority of people in Montreal, including disorderly women. Whatever military discipline the Special Council had hoped a reorganized police force would embody apparently did not happen. By 1849, Commissioner Gugy reported that in “the course of the last month, complaints of the misconduct of members of the police force have been rather more numerous than during any previous similar period.”84 To keep their men in check, chief constables supervised police officers, who were likewise expected to oversee each other and report all infractions related to work. In 1842, for example, the inspector of police praised Supernumerary Hogue and Chief Constable Alger who had twice reported fellow constables for being asleep on duty: “The manly manner in which Hogue brought the offence before the Inspector has brought him immediately under his favourable notice.”85 Moreover, punishment was swift and constables could expect to be fined, given extra work, suspended, or dismissed for negligence in their duties.86 Those subject to dismissal or resignation also had to forfeit one week’s pay as additional retribution.87 As in the period before 1838, policemen continued to mediate between the obligations of their superiors to enforce the laws and those of their communities in an attempt to ensure harmonious relations. As Peter King has argued, it was a balancing act: “Caught between the demands of the central authorities and the need to avoid disrupting social relationships within their own communities, constables sometimes retreated into a kind of studied negligence, but they were usually conscientious in fulfilling the specific duties required of them.”88

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Montreal’s policemen encountered resistance from the public against renewed and vigorous policing. Nonetheless, in city streets and green spaces, peace officers continued to exercise considerable discretionary power, especially when it came to prostitutes: ignoring the behaviours of some, targeting others, or justifying their interventions with a miscellany of pretences. In Hamilton, according to historian John Weaver, “the constables themselves exercised discretion with respect to the enforcement of many laws. For doing so, they risked official punishment; for not doing so, they risked public abuse.”89 Policemen, who had difficulty viewing certain activities or behaviour as illegal, compounded tensions. The same was true of the popular classes, who spurned police attempts to govern their public activities and individual comportment. As noted for an earlier period, they threatened or attacked constables, watchmen, bailiffs and other representatives of the state who were carrying out their assigned duties. When the trustees of Ste-Anne’s Market decided to remove prostitute Bridget Murphy from her lodgings in cellar eight because of “bad behaviour,” they called upon market constable Patrick McGarry to enforce the order. Murphy responded to the ejection order by breaking the cellar door, using abusive language, issuing threats, and telling McGarry “to take care of himself together with defaming his character with the worst of language through which the deponent is afraid of receiving some bodily injury.”90 This incident illustrates the defiant public behaviour of popular-class women, prompted by the difficult circumstances of their lives. Clare Lyons describes such women in Philadelphia as “vocal, assertive women indifferent to the conventions of polite society, exhibiting forcefulness and self-confidence, qualities cultivated to survive the city.”91 The contest between Murphy and McGarry is also representative of popular-class verbal and physical resistance to and exchanges with police officers attempting to curtail their public activities. Homeless prostitutes also resisted police infringement on what they considered their living space. Similarly, in nineteenth-century Birmingham the popular classes challenged the police when it intervened in activities associated with informal assemblies, noisy disputes of a private nature, and drunkenness. From their perspective these behaviours were not criminal and were therefore considered outside the jurisdiction of police surveillance, so much so that Birmingham’s

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citizens regularly defied the police by rescuing prisoners or attacking constables.92 The regulation of moral and public order continued to dominate police activities in the post-rebellion period. Policemen were expected to “act as Constables for preserving the peace and preventing robberies and other felonies, and apprehending offenders against the Peace.”93 An upsurge in public order offences in the late 1830s reflected the presence of more policemen and growing anxiety about new attitudes toward criminality in this tense epoch. An examination of the registers of the newly created Police Court in Montreal for the years 1838 to 1842 demonstrates that nearly three-quarters of the charges involved public order offences, reflecting the state’s preoccupation with regulating public space (figure 5.4). The remaining charges were mainly assault and battery, larceny, and desertion or service violations.94 Misdemeanours such as selling liquor without a licence, refusing to shovel snow, and speeding violations were tried in weekly sessions or special sessions. Women were more likely to be charged with specific public order infractions and men with other infractions. Prostitutes were usually accused of being loose, idle, and disorderly, vagrants, keepers of disorderly houses, loiterers, and streetwalkers. Most vagrant women were soliciting at the time of their arrest and others were loitering, uttering obscenities, inebriated, damaging property, and making threats when they were taken into custody. US historian Jeffrey Adler has suggested that while police raids on brothels served to establish a certain standard of behaviour, streetwalkers seemed uncontrollable. Madams oversaw women who worked for them, husbands and fathers restrained family members, but nobody, it seems, could control the woman alone.95 A smaller number of vagrancy charges stemmed from indictable offenses such as larceny, assault, and extortion. Men were more likely to be apprehended for drunkenness, disturbing the peace, fighting in the streets, gambling, throwing snowballs, and bathing naked in the river. They were also charged with interfering in police business and rioting. The registers of the police court underscore an important change in how the public viewed intemperance and its concomitant effect on city policing: after 1838, constables arrested ever-increasing numbers of men for drunkenness. These gender divisions were not so firmly demarcated in certain years: in 1840, for example, more

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Figure 5.4 Public order offences, Montreal Police Court, 1838–42

men were arrested for being loose, idle, and disorderly, perhaps as a consequence of the rebellions, although overall numbers confirm that this charge was predominately a female offence. It is also clear from the Montreal Police Court registers that social regulation and public assistance co-existed: many of the women who were charged with vagrancy were homeless, single, and seeking overnight lodging.

Ambiguous Relations Policing and prostitution converged in multiple ways. In the course of their daily work, watchmen, constables, and disorderly women encountered each other in the public spaces they shared: prostitutes to solicit and policemen to maintain public order. And, as argued previously, they often came from the same social class and until 1838 lived in the same neighbourhoods. Since policemen exercised significant discretionary power for the purposes of law enforcement, to provide public assistance, or for personal gain, these meetings took different forms with varying consequences. On the one hand, a policeman might respond to a prostitute with hostility, arrest her for solicitation or for subjective reasons based solely on reputation, act in a coercive manner, or dispense rough justice. Policemen could and

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did take advantage of prostitutes’ vulnerable legal status to extort money, drinks, food, and sex and might be directly involved in the sex trade as keepers of disorderly houses or indirectly by leasing property to known madams. Illicit police conduct was born of an ethos of hegemony cultivated by male leisure and drinking customs and predicated on a rapacious model of masculinity. Gender historians suggest that this bachelor culture – made up of “jolly fellows” and “sporting men” – was misogynist (to greater or lesser degrees) and reinforced a sexual double standard.96 Philip Howell has argued that prostitution was integral to this masculine paradigm: “Accompanied by the increasing commercialization of sex, and its integration into commercial enterprise and entertainment, sex – or more precisely promiscuous heterosexuality – became a crucial marker of urban masculinity.”97 Such an image of manliness diverged from that of the ideal policeman, described by Francis Dodsworth as one who embodied a “manly independence” distinguished by a muscular, temperate, moral, and masculine demeanour.98 Prostitution-related laws left women who were engaged in sex commerce vulnerable to police demands to pay for “protection” against harassment from brothel raids or individual arrests. On the other hand, a policeman might ignore a prostitute’s solicitation, offer her overnight lodging in the police station if she was homeless, arrange imprisonment over the coldest winter months, mediate conflicts, or fraternize with her. Some of these relationships were based on friendship, even intimacy, fostered by the social and geographic characteristics that they had in common. Tony Henderson’s study of the London sex trade establishes that because policemen or watchmen and prostitutes shared the same public space, they got to know each other and formed bonds based on accommodation, compromise, collusion, and unscrupulousness.99 This camaraderie came at a cost, however. Policemen like Christopher Gilmore and watchmen risked dismissal from the force if they were caught in a brothel or socializing with streetwalkers, and prostitutes obviously risked harassment, arrest, and incarceration. Policemen and watchmen were expected to recognize and arrest local prostitutes in the neighbourhoods they patrolled, escort them to the station house or watch house, and place them in cells where they would remain until brought before a justice of the peace. The

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peace officer also had to cobble together a deposition with the assistance of a clerk and testify at court. An encounter on Hospital Street in late December 1829 between watchmen Antoine Cospel and Louis Lauzon, prostitute Emélie Masson, and Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau illustrates the procedures policemen and watchmen were expected to follow. Masson and Charbonneau, reputed “personnes de mauvaise vie,” who routinely walked the city streets at night, were intoxicated when Cospel and Lauzon apprehended them.100 They escorted the two vagrants back to the Watch House, incarcerated them, and then proceeded to have a clerk write up the deposition. Given the considerable discretion that policemen and watchmen exercised in their dealings with prostitutes, Cospel and Lauzon could have either ignored Masson and Charbonneau and continued walking their beat, warned them to disperse, or stopped them for questioning. They chose instead to arrest them, possibly because Emélie Masson was a recognizable street prostitute who may have been soliciting Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau. Although peace officers rarely arrested clients under these circumstances, Charbonneau’s own disreputable standing might account for his detention. Or perhaps, given that Masson had been crying and resisting Charbonneau, who was harassing her by pulling her by the arms, Cospel and Lauzon may have intervened to protect her. As well, it was only a few days before Christmas and, although the weather had been unseasonably warm, a recent snowfall had dumped enough snow on the city to permit city residents the use of sleighs for the first time.101 Possibly the two watchmen resorted to incarceration to prevent Masson and Charbonneau’s possible exposure to hypothermia. Police constables targeted a small group of women who were well known to them and to the community. A third of all the women policemen and watchmen apprehended for prostitution-related offences account for two-thirds of the total number of arrests in the period under study. As I argued in chapter 3, most of these women were single and non-francophone. Bridget Hill’s studies inform us that unmarried women were more vulnerable to arrest than married women.102 While most of the recidivists were street prostitutes or vagrants involved in casual prostitution, they were apprehended for a range of refractory behaviour and life situations that included drunkenness, disorderliness, disturbing the peace, obstructing the

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sidewalks, homelessness, and reputation. Police harassment is exemplified in the arrest history of streetwalker Mary Ann Green, whom we met previously. Between 1834 and 1842, the constabulary apprehended her at least thirty-five times. Green’s permanent identity as a vagrant guaranteed constant regulation by police. Paternalism meant that vagrancy became an identity rather than an action and as long as the police recognized women like Mary Ann Green, it was not a transitory identity. By 1840, Montreal’s considerable population growth since the census in 1831 was etched on the city’s geography in the rapidly developing suburbs, which extended beyond the demolished fortifications of the town centre in all directions. It was becoming increasingly difficult for constables to police the city or even to recognize vagrants. An incident that took place in September 1840 underscores the consequences that an enlarged population had on the policing of disorderly women. When Constable Denis Dowde failed to identify a vagrant with a history of repeated incarcerations, the inspector of police, Alexander Comeau, ordered the chief constables to parade all vagrants in front of the men each morning before they were dismissed from duty. He also threatened to discharge any policeman from the force if he neglected to identify vagrants thereafter: “in future pleading ignorance of such characters & that it will be proved by reference to the books that the offender has been exhibited to him could not identify.”103 Dowde did not avoid punishment for his misdeed – Inspector Comeau ordered him to chop a cord of wood. As we have already seen, the reasons for which the police apprehended streetwalkers varied from illegal acts punishable by arrest and imprisonment, to protecting sex workers from the exigencies of winter, to shielding city residents and visitors from prostitutes. The constabulary was motivated to rescue so-called “gullible” men from the clutches of “scheming prostitutes or temptresses,” whose public solicitation was understood to excite ungoverned male sexuality. This focus is especially apparent in an incident involving a “deranged” tourist, a trio of prostitutes, and a circus. Ostensibly, the traveller had been in Montreal only a few days but had spent most of the time driving about the city in a hired coach with prostitute Mary Ann Legris and two of her associates. Chief constable James Smith considered the man at risk of being robbed or swindled by the

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three “whores and common prostitutes.” When the man accompanied the women to the circus, Smith requested a warrant for the women’s arrest.104 Homeless sex workers also required police intervention to protect them from possible injury and death owing to hypothermia, malnutrition, and disease. The police colluded with such vulnerable women as a form of social service, which doubled as a means to regulate disorderly women, and thus public space, by getting them off the street and into jail. Between 1810 and 1836, police explicitly sheltered at least seventy-one homeless streetwalkers at the Watch House, Common Gaol, and House of Correction as a protective measure against death owing to starvation and hypothermia, features of the dangers associated with living rough on city streets. Seventy-one incarcerations for “at risk” women may at first glance seem insignificant, but given that depositions typically contain little information regarding the circumstances in the arrests of streetwalkers and that prison was used to house the homeless and the insane, this number probably represents only the tip of the iceberg. Although, in 1837, the court introduced printed depositions for women apprehended for vagrancy or being loose, idle, and disorderly, meaning that the clerk of the court no longer recorded details regarding individual arrests but merely filled in the blanks with the names of the accused, other sources, such as police and prison registers, confirm that the practice of providing refuge to homeless streetwalkers continued. Magdeleine McDonald, for example, whom four watchmen escorted to the Watch House in late December 1836 during a snow storm, was described by one of the watchmen as “dans un état pitoyable et alarmant,” besotted with drink at an inn near the Ste-Anne’s Market.105 Since shelter during the coldest season of the year was a question of life or death, overnight lodging at the station house would not suffice. The arresting watchman believed that McDonald required a period of imprisonment that would get her through the winter. Three months later McDonald was once again conducted to the Watch House. This time a watchman recommended, “it would be well to have her committed to jail as a vagrant.”106 Street and brothel prostitutes sought out the police for assistance in redressing wrongs, for public assistance, and for protection from abusive men such as neighbours, coworkers, and clients. A male client

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visiting Marie Lamarche’s brothel accused “some of the inmates of the house of robbing him of ten dollars” and caused such a disturbance that Lamarche sent for the police.107 By the time the authorities arrived the disgruntled client was gone. Prostitutes also sought police protection in cases involving intimidation. When Mary Ann Turner allegedly threatened to stab Louise Vizé with a knife, Vizé informed the police.108 Given that just two years before Julia Campbell had fatally wounded Antoine Demarais with a knife near Ste-Anne’s market,109 Vizé would have been aware that some women carried weapons for security or, as French historian Jill Harsin has noted amongst Parisian prostitutes, “for the purpose of clipping the ribbons or cords that tied watches and other valuables.”110 Women also turned to the police for protection against those who threatened retribution. When a Miss Tracey feared that the two men she had prosecuted for drunkenness and disturbing the peace would harm her, the police reassured her that the watchmen in her neighbourhood would keep an eye on her.111 Clearly, prostitutes believed that they were entitled to the same help that the police and watch provided others. Police collusion with prostitutes took many forms, including turning a blind eye while women actively solicited clients. The constables Marie Lamarche called on to protect her property and inmates from an angry client did not arrest Lamarche or the inmates once calm had been restored in her house of prostitution. Some watchmen and policemen had rather sketchy histories of apprehending sex workers. Sub-constable Gleeson not only fraternized with street prostitutes but also rarely, if ever, took them into custody. Similarly, Henry Garside, also a “friend” to women of ill fame, arrested streetwalkers only during the winter months. Seemingly motivated by humanitarian reasons, he arrested Mary Ann Green, Mary Love, and Jane Rogers, all of whom had long histories of homelessness.112 As Tony Henderson has argued, watchmen in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London tolerated working streetwalkers: “In practice, the watch conceded a privileged use of the streets to the women, allowing them to gather and solicit for custom, provoking outraged complaints at the watchmen’s apparent reluctance – or inability – to enforce the law.”113 As I have already pointed out, refusal to pursue women who marketed sex could result in vigilante justice when neighbours took matters into their own hands after police failed to regulate or close

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a local brothel. There are numerous incidents of angry neighbours dispensing rough justice to inhabitants of local houses of ill fame. Carter Francis Lapierre, for instance, shared a house with brothelkeeper Louise Horn. He entered her quarters about half past nine on a March evening in 1842 accompanied by nine or ten other carters. While the intruders did not damage her property, they offended Horn by calling her “une putien, une garce, qu’elle tenait une bordelle.”114 Obviously, they wanted to warn Horn to modify her brothel practices or they would return. Ellen Ross was not as fortunate – six men forced their way into her brothel about nine o’clock one evening, broke windows, destroyed furniture, stole household goods, and overturned the stove, causing a fire.115 Policemen fraternized with sex workers in the public streets, in brothels, and in other public venues, as exemplified by Constable Louis Malo, who in 1841 served as a witness, even signing his name in the parish register, at the marriage in Notre-Dame Cathedral between the well-known madam Lucie Rolland and wigmaker Abraham Richard. Constable Patrick Corcoran loitered on his beat and talked to “girls of bad fame,”116 and Sub-constable Thomas Gleeson had a reputation for loitering and dancing with prostitutes while on the beat.117 Sometimes “fraternization” involved sexual intercourse – coerced or mutually engaged in – which was representative of the bonds policemen and prostitutes fashioned with each other. Subconstable Henry Garside, aware that his relationship with a prostitute needed to be kept secret from his superiors, tried to avoid detection, by “privately communicat[ing]” with her in a neighbour’s back yard.118 Martin Lawler probably believed that consorting with prostitutes at the Priests’ Farm was sufficiently far from the high constable’s gaze to keep his job safe. He was mistaken and police arrested him at the farm in the company of “unproper [sic] females.”119 By contrast, some peace officers felt entitled to coerce sex from prostitutes. Brothelkeeper Mrs Burland reported Sub-constable Giltman to authorities after he entered her yard while on duty and “lay hold of her and kissed her.”120 Brothel-keepers were also proactive, mollifying police and watchmen with free food, drink, and sex. Presumably these services acted as bribes, either coerced as hush money or offered as a way to purchase police protection. Some of the police and watchmen certainly

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felt entitled to the benefits that bawdy houses offered. In January 1823, the grand jury of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace informed the justices of the peace that officers of the watch routinely brought women of ill fame into their rooms for drinks and that night watchmen on duty frequented brothels, where they passed the night drinking and dining instead of patrolling the streets.121 The law was very clear as to the circumstances under which peace officers could legally enter a known house of prostitution: “A constable, if authorized by the warrant of a magistrate, may enter any house of ill-fame, tavern, or boarding house, and there apprehend and bring before such Magistrate, all or any of the persons described as being disorderly persons.”122 Some policemen waited until they were off duty before frequenting brothels, as was the case when Constable O’Neill reported Sub-constable François Duval for being in a StConstant Street disorderly house.123 Months later, police officer Hypolite Jérémie, who had himself been arrested in a brothel in 1837, had no difficulty informing authorities that he had discovered now former policeman François Duval in bed with a prostitute during a raid on Ellen Ross’ disorderly house.124 Given prostitutes’ power and gender disadvantages as well as their nonrespectable status, the word of a prostitute alone was insufficient to lead to prosecution of policemen’s unlawful indiscretions. The practice also prevented malicious prosecution by vengeful prostitutes – constables were disciplined only if their illicit connection to sex commerce was witnessed by a senior officer. Peace officers who made a habit of visiting houses of prostitution for unlawful purposes sometimes exceeded their welcome and provoked brothel-keepers to resist their demands by laying complaints before the magistrate. Widow Mary Burt denounced police inspector Richard Webb to a justice of the peace in January 1838 after Webb forced his way into her brothel, demanded a drink, and then refused to leave despite being ordered to do so.125 Modeste Guertin, wife of Jean-Baptiste Lefevre, accused policeman William Moore of routinely dropping by her establishment for a drink and threatening to arrest and incarcerate everyone who lived with her if she refused. One weekend, while in the company of Ellen Turner, whom Guertin described as a “fille d’un mauvais caractère,” Moore

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demanded that Guertin serve them food and drink and again threatened to return to the house and take them all to prison after he had finished his patrol of the rampart. Feeling this was a visit and a threat too many, Guertin decided to leave the house, taking her children, and lay a complaint against Moore before a justice of the peace.126 Guertin’s experience demonstrates the power that policemen could exercise over women by taking advantage of prostitution’s illegality. This form of extortion was similar to that of parish constables in eighteenth-century England who allegedly visited brothel-keepers quarterly to demand both “hush money” and better behaviour.127 Guertin’s placing a complaint against Moore illustrates the ambiguous but implicit understandings between the two parties: Moore had transgressed the unspoken rules between the two parties that governed what were reasonable demands. Depositions can also provide a window onto explicit arrangements negotiated between policemen and prostitutes. In August 1825, when High Constable Adelphe Delisle discovered his son William in Marguerite Jolicoeur’s brothel, Jolicoeur purportedly agreed to sell Delisle her stove at a price far below its market value and to pay his rent, which was in arrears. Although Jolicoeur claimed that Delisle was to have had the charges dropped as a consequence of their accord, in actual fact the grand jury returned a true bill and Delisle testified against her as a witness for the Crown, but the jury acquitted her.128 Jolicoeur responded to his backtracking on the agreed-on arrangements by privately prosecuting Delisle for extortion. The charge had no consequences. Jolicouer did not pursue the matter further and Delisle remained the city’s high constable until his death in 1831. Prostitutes also served the police as informers. Ellen Turner, for example, notified one of the city’s constables after Mr Black gave her a gift of coloured calico fabric that had been stolen from a store near St-François-Xavier Street.129 Similarly, Mary Ann Shadbolt denounced shoemaker John Tubberty for knowingly purchasing stolen commodities. Shadbolt claimed that on numerous occasions she had disposed of such goods at his house.130 Prostitutes also informed on each other. When Mary Ann Green allegedly pinched Private Jesse Keitley’s silver watch after they had spent the afternoon together in

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a house located near the Common Gaol, it was her friend Eliza Martin who informed Inspector Comeau that Green had confessed to her that she had stolen the watch.131 Whether prostitutes were coerced into providing intelligence or did so for other reasons is difficult to determine. The police may have used Eliza Martin’s history of prostitution, theft, and highway robbery as leverage to get information from her regarding Keitley’s missing watch. Given sex workers’ links to the criminal underworld, relationships between prostitutes and policemen were critical to an effective intelligence network. Police hegemony and patriarchy would have made it difficult for the women to refuse to participate in such a system. Policemen and watchmen wielded their power in a variety of ways, including meting out what appears to be their own forms of rough justice or simply physical abuse. The court records do not provide the reasons for these violent acts. Three examples are relevant. In the first, widow Margaret Mitchell accused constables Thomas Grant, James Dunwoody, and William Bruce of breaking into Francis Mullins’ brothel where she lived. Francis Mullins was presumably married to or living with her sister, Maria Mitchell. Margaret Mitchell denounced the police officers for disturbing the peace, frightening the inmates by their riotous behaviour, and threatening her life.132 In the second example, Adélaide Dufresne accused Constable Thomas Webb of violently assaulting her and of passing the night at Josephine Raymond’s brothel where she worked as a prostitute.133 Dufresne’s previous silence about Webb’s penchant for brothel life may have been the result of an implicit understanding or agreement which she kept until he attacked her. While it is impossible to know what Webb thought about Dufresne’s accusation, two days later they were travelling from Pointe-aux-Trembles to Montreal in a calèche with Josephine Raymond and Abraham Burwell when, according to Dufresne, Raymond sustained head injuries after Burwell suddenly grabbed her and threw her out of the calèche. When she tried to re-enter, he prevented her.134 The driver intervened when Constable Webb did nothing. In the third illustration, Widow McGreary complained to the police commission after Constable Malo entered her house without permission or a search warrant and pulled the covers off of her bed in order to find out who else was sharing the widow’s bed. Much to his disappointment I

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would imagine, he discovered McGreary’s child under the blankets rather than a man. In his defence, Malo claimed to have heard a rumour that this poor shantytown, near the tollgate on the highway to Côte-des-Neiges where McGreary lived, was a haven for prostitutes. The commission found in favour of Malo, claiming “[McGreary] had not been unnecessarily harsh.”135 These incidents of extortion, physical abuse, and lawlessness denote the culture of violence underpinning the relationships between policemen and prostitutes as well as the power that policemen wielded over the most vulnerable, whether women, children, the homeless, or drunks. There were also limits as to how far individual police could go in protecting prostitutes. For instance, Constable Thomas Webb would have been unable to stop other constables from arresting Adélaide Dufresne and Josephine Raymond following Dufresne’s denunciations. Both women were taken into custody, incarcerated, found guilty of keeping a house of prostitution, and fined £5.136 Adélaide Dufresne’s only other arrest had been in 1830;137 she was again detained for marketing sex at the end of 1841 following a raid on a brothel operated by François Campagna and his wife Félicité Lamontagne.138 The relationship between Webb, Dufresne, and Raymond shows the freedom city constables had to indulge in complicity with sex commerce. Despite serious allegations of consorting with prostitutes, Constable Webb continued to be employed as a police officer. He never made it a practice to arrest prostitutes and, following the two incidents mentioned, detained only one other known streetwalker, Mary Ann Bothwell, and no brothel-keepers.139 At least two policemen were accused of keeping disorderly houses. In 1815, Michael Souther, who was a city constable at the time of his arrest and had been off and on since 1804, was apprehended along with Marie Metotte for operating a brothel. After a number of trial postponements, no verdict was ever reached.140 However, this arrest ended his career as a policeman: Souther was not reappointed as a substitute constable the following October.141 In December 1839, widow Adélaide Déganne and Jean Vincent accused policeman William Wilks of keeping a brothel on the first floor of a house that they occupied.142 The deposition was never acted upon. Some used brothels for other illicit activities, as was the case for Watchman Grenier. In

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November 1834, Mary Ann Dunn, daughter of brothel-keepers Jane Rogers and William Dunn, accused him of concealing stolen articles at her mother’s house.143 The tumultuous world inhabited by policemen and prostitutes was undoubtedly dangerous for both prostitutes and peace officers. During a police raid on a barn inhabited by soldiers and “women of loose character” a soldier stabbed chief constable Hypolite Jérémie in the leg with a bayonet.144 Soldiers also interfered with the police in their dealings with prostitutes. For instance, a soldier freed prostitute Eliza Robertson after she had been taken into custody on suspicion of having committed a robbery.145 Similarly, Constable John Bowles reported to the chief constable that two soldiers had rescued a “girl of ill fame” whom Justice of the Peace Rodier had ordered detained.146 Police elsewhere encountered similar opposition when carrying out their duties. In New South Wales, for example, Paula Byrne has argued that “it was common for a constable to attempt arrest, meet resistance, and then be attacked either by an individual or a mob.”147 While patrolling his beat, near Francis Timmen’s brothel in Griffintown, Constable Abner Lambert observed Timmens beating his wife. When he intervened, Timmens assaulted Lambert and threatened to stab him with a knife “if he should go to the upper rooms of the house.”148 This incident was compounded by the fact that the men knew each other: five years earlier they had been arrested together in a brothel raid. In another example, Constable Louis Lacroix complained to Judge John Samuel McCord that the policemen who raided a brothel operated by George and Hannah Hopkins, Jane Dunn, and Johannah Quick were “in danger of their lives from the attacks of the inmates of the house.”149 Policemen were afforded some encouragement to act outside the law. While it is impossible to determine how many peace officers were actually suspended for involvement in prostitution or with prostitutes, it was likely a small percentage. Police registers reveal that in 1842 Sub-constable Patrick Gilliven was discharged for associating with prostitutes. In his disciplinary action – carried out in front of fellow constables to remind them of the stakes involved in initiating relationships with disorderly women – Gilliven had the number on his coat and cap ceremoniously removed and had to return his boots and mittens.150 And, as we have already seen, Christopher Gilmore,

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whom we met in the introduction, was discharged from the constabulary for consorting with prostitutes and Michael Souther was not rehired after being charged with keeping a disorderly house. Others in the criminal justice system acted with impunity and involvement in prostitution reached into the upper echelons of the police and touched the court itself. The October 1838 grand jury accused both the crier of the court and the high constable of complicity in sex commerce. According to evidence presented to the grand jurors, Angélique Leclaire operated a brothel in a part of a house owned and inhabited by the crier of the court. It was reported that he “is at all times ready to protect the inmates.” Although it was argued that High Constable Benjamin Delisle had made concerted efforts to close houses of ill fame, he admitted to knowing about Leclaire’s brothel but chose to ignore it.151 Both Sheriff Frederick William Ermatinger and High Constable Jacob Marston, as you will recall from chapter 2, leased properties to known brothel-keepers and common prostitutes. Neither Ermatinger nor Marston lost their positions after the incidents became public knowledge.

Conclusion That police and prostitutes shared a common workspace intensified an already complicated relationship. Prostitutes and policemen encountered each other in a number of disparate places and under a variety of circumstances. Because their intersecting worlds both accommodated and collided, peace officers, such as Christopher Gilmore, formed complex, albeit unequal relationships with city prostitutes. They had diverse motives for forging these alliances. As participants in a male sporting culture, policemen and watchmen frequented brothels where they could procure food, drink, and sex at no cost or sought out prostitutes they met while walking their beats. They took advantage of the illicit nature of prostitutes’ work to wrest money, goods, and sex from them. Policemen harassed prostitutes, extorted goods and services, including sexual coercion, apprehended them for a range of illegal activities other than prostitution, or befriended them. Policemen who personally knew prostitutes may have been reluctant to arrest them, choosing instead to ignore their misdemeanours.

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Others saved women in danger of perishing from hypothermia or malnutrition by apprehending and incarcerating them during the harshest months of winter. Prostitutes used their relationships with policemen and watchmen to avoid arrest, demand protection, seek shelter at the watch or station house, and prosecute those who committed offences against them. Some of them acted as police informants. Prostitutes who informed on policemen, as the case involving Christopher Gilmore reveals, complicated these relationships further. Denouncing policemen was undoubtedly an attempt by sex workers to exert some control over aspects of their lives, even if it had little effect. Indeed, without a superior officer to corroborate the accusation, a policeman was never dismissed from the force solely on the word of a prostitute. While the number of formal legal complaints against the police was small, these cases provide a window onto aspects of policing that were paternalistic, patriarchal, and illegal. Police participation in prostitution was part of a larger picture in which watchmen and policemen were involved in other forms of corruption and displayed a lack of concern about their deportment. Many of them were disciplined for being drunk and asleep at or deserting their posts. These incidents also reveal how close their work lives were to those of the prostitutes.

CHAPTER 6

Judging Prostitutes Encounters, Strategies, and Outcomes at Court

Introduction In the months of May and June 1823, Captain Emmanuel D’Aubreville arrested street prostitutes Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote and conveyed them to the Watch House, which was located at the old Hay Market on Place d’Armes. The women remained in lockup overnight before making an appearance at the Court of Petty Sessions to answer to the charge of being “common prostitutes” and vagrant women.1 As head of the city watch, D’Aubreville presumably escorted them by foot from the Watch House to the nearby Court House. Since he was the plaintiff in all three depositions, D’Aubreville gave evidence at their court appearances. The attending magistrates found all three women guilty of vagrancy and sentenced them to incarceration in the Common Gaol until the end of the July sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace. Two months later, Bélanger, Kinville, and Regiote, along with fellow streetwalkers Marie Louise, Sarah Caldwell, Eliza Robinson, Marie Larivière, Charlotte Desjardins, and Marie Trémoulie, were once again conducted to the Court House. The justices of the peace decided that all nine women’s status should be changed from the Common Gaol to the House of Correction and they should remain imprisoned until the last day of the October session. Those who could post security for good behaviour would be released before the end of their re-committal.2 Conceivably, given the almost impossible task of finding two people willing to provide security for their good behaviour, the women were imprisoned for nearly six months.

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A month earlier, in April 1823, Phillip Dufresne and Louis Dubeau had accused Toussaint Ouimet and his wife, Charlotte Séné, of keeping a “maison de débauche” on Campeau Street.3 Acting on the arrest warrant issuing from their deposition, police raided the brothel and took the two accused into custody. At the April sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, the Grand Jury determined that the evidence supported an indictment, Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné entered a plea of not guilty, and the trial was set for the next sitting of the court in July. Although the justices of the peace had offered them bail, neither Ouimet nor Séné was able to arrange it and consequently both remained incarcerated. If they had succeeded in locating two men willing to act as guarantors for half the amount of the bail bond, Ouimet and Séné would have been discharged from prison on a recognizance to return to court in July. Acting on a motion put forward by their lawyer in July, the court ordered that the indictment be deemed noli prosequi or not to be prosecuted and consequently the case was dropped. No reason for the change was provided in the document. Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné were released from confinement after three months in the Common Gaol.4 These cases show the different experiences that street prostitutes and brothel-keepers had at court. Justices of the peace decided the fate of streetwalkers summarily – almost always finding them guilty of vagrancy or being loose, idle, and disorderly – and usually sentenced them to various periods of incarceration, often lengthy. Little time elapsed between the accusation and the verdict. Summary justice, as David Murray has argued, facilitated the efficient disposition of minor cases by giving more discretion and authority to the justices of the peace.5 In some cases, such as that of prostitutes Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote, the punishment for a victimless crime was harsh by even contemporary standards. In contast to the summary justice disorderly women received, the majority of madams and their prostitutes were not convicted in Quarter Sessions. There were many reasons for this. Class differences between the labouring men who were more likely to seek out streetwalkers and elites who were more inclined to frequent brothels influenced conviction rates and made street prostitutes easier and safer targets. The private prosecution of brothel-keepers could be, as we saw in chapter 4, an expensive endeavour if plaintiffs paid fees

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for each step of the procedure that required the clerk of the court to write up a legal document. It was also costly because they had to take time off from their work to appear at court, the outcome was uncertain because it was difficult to prove that a particular house was disorderly, and the improbability that the trial jury would render a guilty verdict was discouraging to say the least. Therefore the expense of pursuing the complaint through the judicial system, the length of time it took, and the low probability of a guilty verdict proved too expensive for most. While we know little about what plaintiffs in Montreal thought about the burden of private prosecution, Andrew Harris contends that in London, England, in the same period Londoners felt frustrated about the possibility of pursuing brothel-keepers at law given the legal costs they had to undertake and the likelihood that, even if there was a conviction, the house of prostitution would just reopen in the same building but under different management.6 Moreover, the time between the initial accusation and the verdict could be quite long, often months and occasionally a year, because so many plaintiffs failed to appear at court to prosecute their complaints, meaning that the case would be put off to a later time. Defendants also instituted a range of strategies to delay or evade prosecution by not appearing before the justices of the peace on court-appointed days and by challenging the legality of the court proceedings. Such encounters, strategies, and outcomes underscore the discretionary power that both plaintiffs and defendants exercised. Members of an 1828 grand jury of the Court of King’s Bench were cognizant of these manoeuvres: The prosecutor being bound to prosecute at the next session of that court is compelled to pay, without the prospect of being reimbursed, heavy fees to the officers of the court; he must pay the witnesses attending the grand jury when they are deliberating the bill of indictment, and he must again pay them when they attend at trial; in many instances the trial is postponed in consequence of the illness of a material witness, when he and his witnesses are again obliged to attend. A prisoner who pleads [sic] to an indictment and endeavours to put off his trial, is seldom tried before the second or third session from that in which the bill of indictment is laid before the grand jury; consequently

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the prosecutor and his witnesses are obliged to attend the Court of Quarter Sessions during three and sometimes four terms.7 All of this supports my contention that plaintiffs were less interested in obtaining a guilty verdict than in serving notice on those who disregarded local neighbourhood practices. In this chapter I explore the tactics that both plaintiffs and defendants used in court, the responses, and the outcomes with respect to verdicts rendered. The convoluted relationships between neighbours and prostitutes in cases involving disorderly houses as well as between policemen and disorderly women are especially visible in these legal proceedings. I argue that plaintiffs used the laws governing prostitution to discipline keepers of disorderly houses and the prostitutes who worked there, not necessarily to send them to jail but to convey the message, using legal force when necessary, that they should meet accepted standards of behaviour or leave the neighbourhood. For many plaintiffs, employing the law to pursue prostitutes was a negotiation tactic to pressure defendants to reach a satisfactory conclusion outside the criminal justice system. The Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace served as one strategy in a community or a family’s armamentarium that could be used to resolve conflicts with prostitutes and brothel-keepers who had resisted earlier interventions and made it possible to criminalize their sexuality as well as to prosecute them privately for other offences, such as slander, threats, assault and battery, larceny, and even highway robbery. The decision to pursue alleged prostitutes through the law reflected, as J.M. Beattie has noted, attitudes about how the law should be applied and about which crimes mattered.8 Similarly, policemen usually acted as plaintiffs against streetwalkers and used Petty Sessions to regulate and discipline these women and their sexuality. The police also sought out the court as a means to provide public assistance to homeless prostitutes. That the lower courts also provided keepers of disorderly houses and disorderly women with a way to legally pursue and resolve conflicts with those who crossed them – including other prostitutes – adds another layer of complexity to criminal justice. To seek restitution against wrongdoers, sex workers turned to the same courts and encountered the same magistrates who had judged and punished them for prostitution-related offences.

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The chapter begins with the Court House itself, where justice was formally exercised, and explores its architectural form as well as the practices associated with the administration of justice. Next, it considers who went to court and why. Last, the outcomes of the complaints involving charges of keeping a disorderly house or being disorderly women are analyzed.

The Montreal Court House Image 6.1 shows the two-storey palladium-styled, purpose-built Court House designed by architect François Baillairgé and constructed during the years 1799 to 1803 by François-Xavier Daveluy on Jesuit land situated in the heart of Montreal’s civic, military, and colonial administration. It was built at the same time and in the same manner as Quebec City’s Court House although, according to architectural historian Harold Kalman, Montreal’s Court House was more ornate.9 In 1815, surveyor Joseph Bouchette described it as “a plain handsome building, lately erected, 144 feet in front, where the courts of civil and criminal judicature are held … The handsome appearance of this building is heightened by its standing some distance from the street, with a grass-plot in front, enclosed by iron railings; its proximity to the Champs de Mars renders it extremely airy and agreeable.”10 Traveller James Buckingham regarded the imposing Court House favourably: “one of the best ornaments of the town.”11 Not only was it the first public building in the city designed in the neoclassical style popular in Europe at the time but it signalled the dawn of British influence on the city’s public architecture.12 To many in the English-speaking community, neo-classicism was a familiar form of architecture and represented both elite social status and British colonial authority.13 Located on Notre-Dame Street, on the south side it was next to the Nelson monument (installed in 1809) and the New Market (built in 1808), where convicted wrongdoers were exposed in the pillory. Its north side was above the Champs-de-Mars, the site of the military parades and public executions that served as important symbols of British imperial dominance. The Common Gaol was constructed in 1811, built in the same neoclassical design as the Court House. A guardhouse was added a year

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later. This judicial complex loomed large from many vistas in the city and was, as Robert Sweeny has argued, emblematic of law and order.14 Embodying both British efficiency and bureaucratization,15 the Court House brought court rooms, clerks’ offices, judges’ chambers, a magistrates’ room, individual spaces for the grand jury and the petty jury, the police office, and a law library under one roof.16 An imported royal coat of arms graced the front of the building and replicas hung in each courtroom, reminding plaintiffs, defendants, and the public alike that British justice prevailed. Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné may not have been familiar with the busy Quarter Sessions of the Peace court room, the grand jury and petit or petty jury rooms, and the clerk of the peace’s office on the ground floor as this was their first appearance at court on a charge of keeping a disorderly house. Their daughter, Françoise Ouimet, would come to know the Court House well, as she was accused of keeping a brothel at least six times – three of them resulting in true bills – between the years 1822 and 1829. Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote were making their first acquaintance with the Police Office, which served as Petty Sessions and was situated next to the Court of King’s Bench, where both civil claims and criminal cases of a more serious nature were tried. On subsequent occasions the three women would trudge up the stairs to the second floor of the building to face the justice of the peace. When the Court of Quarter Sessions was sitting, the corridor outside the courtroom – referred to as the Quarter Sessions Hall – was filled with plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses waiting to be called into court to testify, as well as the curious public. Since court trials were public events, anyone could attend the proceedings. At times the court sessions drew large crowds that spilled out past the front doors onto the sidewalk and street in front of the Court House in hope of hearing the salacious details of particular trials. The interior of the Court House was designed to differentiate the space occupied by the judiciary staff from that of the public and therefore, as part of the transition in distancing professionalization from the public that Donald Fyson discusses, judges, magistrates, and members of both the grand jury and petit jury were allocated separate rooms and lavatories.17

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Image 6.1 The Montreal Court House, 1801–1844

Since there were no actual holding cells in the Court House for defendants awaiting trial, constables assigned to the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace guarded prisoners not permitted bail or unable to arrange it, as was the case for Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné. Where exactly they kept the prisoners is unknown. Defendants who had been charged with keeping a disorderly house but were out on bail waited in the Quarter Sessions Hall to be called into court. Disorderly women such as Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote probably remained standing in the cramped Police Office where the magistrate presided at Petty Sessions. The basement contained the lodgings of the keeper of the Court House and the court criers as well as their families18 in addition to six fireproof vaults used to store judicial and notarial documents.19 Consequently, the Court House also served as domestic space. Even though justice was dispensed in a public forum and involved time-honoured legal procedures, trials were almost always conducted speedily and magistrates made use of constables and criers to reinforce proper behaviour in the courtroom. It is difficult to reconstruct the experiences of accused prostitutes and brothel-keepers at court,

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in large part because the testimonies of witnesses were not formally recorded and the exercise of justice in the lower courts has been of little interest to historians in Quebec. The exception is Donald Fyson’s award-winning study of ordinary justice adjudicated by justices of the peace in all of the parishes of Montreal and Quebec City. By contrast, criminal justice in Upper Canada and Nova Scotia has received more scholarly attention.20 In Montreal, a prostitute’s brush with the criminal courts was almost always brief but, depending on the charge, often onerous. And while the laws declared that the accused would be judged by his or her peers, in practice jury members for women accused of prostitution-related offences did not represent the same social class or gender.21

Attending Court The Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace At the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, a court of record that met for ten days each January, April, July, and October, Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné would have faced a quorum of three or more magistrates. The courtroom consisted of a prisoner’s box and rows of seats allocated to justice officials and to visitors. The first two rows were assigned to lawyers while the popular classes were increasingly apportioned space at the back of the courtroom.22 As in other judicial jurisdictions, going to court in early nineteenth-century Montreal was a noisy experience owing to the number of both officials and participants who attended along with family, friends, and the public, as well as to the activities associated with dispensing ordinary justice. Before cases were processed, pomp and ceremony served to reinforce British power through ritual and symbolism as well as attesting to the justices of the peace’s legitimacy and thus their authority.23 A clerk summoned the court to order and swore in the grand and petit (or trial) juries, after which the senior justice of the peace delivered the charge to the grand jury. Often, the charge was a “call to arms” that served to emphasize the battle jurors faced in attempting to maintain morality in a context where houses of prostitution, vagrants, streetwalkers, and drunkenness were the identified enemies. The “theatricality of criminal courts,” as J.M. Beattie re-

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minds us, added to the commotion at the same time that it provided a structure to the proceedings and bolstered time-honoured British common-law traditions.24 In Susan Lewthwaite’s description of a typical Upper Canadian Quarter Sessions courtroom in the same period: “The courtroom was crowded at the outset of each session. In addition to the assembled magistrates and district officials shuffling papers and talking among themselves, those called to the grand jury and trial jury were present, as well as a number of people there to participate in trials as plaintiffs, witnesses and defendants.”25 Once the bills of indictment or draft indictments were prepared, the plaintiffs and their witnesses gave evidence in secret before the grand jury, made up of twenty-four men, which was assembled in its own room, where it assessed the evidence. The men who comprised the grand and petit juries were city residents with a standing in the community: respectable property owners and a mix of anglophones and francophones. At this stage of justice, frequent movement between the grand jury room and the courtroom punctuated the legal procedures. Grand jurors had to determine whether or not the prosecution’s evidence supported the charge. Since brothel-keepers were privately prosecuted, it was up to the plaintiffs to provide the proof. In the event that the grand jury decided the evidence was insufficient, jury members declared the bill of indictment no bill or ignoramus and the defendant was discharged. If they concluded that the case could proceed to trial, the indictment was considered a true bill and signed by the jury foreman. Such was the case in Phillip Dufresne and Louis Dubeau’s private prosecution of Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné. The jurors agreed that the evidence Dufresne and Dubeau presented was compelling and deemed the bill of indictment a true bill. After the grand jury made its pronouncement, the clerk of the peace recorded the finding on the bill of the indictment and read the indictment aloud in the courtroom. The defendant then had to respond with a plea. If she or he entered a guilty plea, the confession was recorded and judgment was either pronounced immediately or on the last day of the sessions. If the defendant declared her/himself not guilty, the case sometimes proceeded immediately if the accused was prepared, but it was more likely that the defendant(s) and plaintiffs would be asked to return to court on a specific day in either the same session or at the next sitting of the court. Ouimet and Séné

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entered not guilty pleas in the April session of the court and the magistrates scheduled their case for July. It was at the discretion of the justices of the peace to bind Ouimet and Séné by recognizance to appear at the next Quarter Sessions.26 If bound, defendants needed two people to pledge security to the crown to guarantee their appearance at court. If they did not appear, the security was forfeited and both of the guarantors became indebted to the king.27 The magistrates then issued a bench warrant to bring the defendants before the court. Plaintiffs Dufresne and Dubeau would have had to testify as witnesses of the crown; in such cases plaintiffs sometimes asked several others to appear to provide further credence to the accusation. Since the case was deemed noli prosequi, with no indication as to why it was dropped, we can only speculate. Given that Dufresne and Dubeau were responsible for bearing the costs of the trial, perhaps they decided not to prosecute Ouimet and Séné in July. The plaintiffs may have also have felt that the defendants had been punished enough. If the case had gone to court, Ouimet and Séné would have stood in the prisoner’s box and could have presented witnesses to a petit jury made up of twelve men. The procedure followed a series of steps that began with the plaintiff, commonly the victim, being asked to respond to the charge. After the petit jury was sworn and charged, the witnesses for the prosecution testified. Evidence considered hearsay and confessions that were clearly not voluntary or without corroboration were deemed suspect.28 Next, it was the defence’s turn. In cases involving prostitution, the defendant(s) had access to counsel29 and it was Ouimet and Séné’s lawyer who negotiated the noli prosequi result. Witnesses for the defence routinely spoke to the good character of the accused and the testimony of character witnesses could and did influence the trial outcome. Recall that in the introduction to this book, James Niles and Daniel Daly are described as turning to prominent Montreal merchants and newspaper editors as character witnesses to successfully counter the charge of maiming brought against them by brothel-keeper Sarah Noxon after she was shot in the arm. Magistrates may have been active in the courtroom, like judges, who according to J.M. Beattie, went over the testimony, “acting as both examiner and cross-examiner, until … satisfied that the fullest possible case had been presented.”30

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Once the court summarized the evidence to the jury, jury members were expected to render a verdict. The process did not take long: “Many could only have lasted a few minutes, for the point at issue was usually reached quickly, not a great deal of evidence was produced, and there was little dispute about it.”31 For the women and men who were charged with keeping a disorderly house, the jury sometimes reached a verdict without even leaving the courtroom. If jury members could not agree on a decision at the bar, they retired to deliberate. As soon as the jury returned to the courtroom, the prisoner reappeared at the bar and the verdict was announced.32 Magistrates usually passed sentence on the last day of the session. Even though trials were conducted swiftly, the volume of cases was large and grand juries, acting in their other role of assisting justices of the peace in local governance,33 typically complained that too many cases, particularly those concerning disorderly houses, were being heard at Quarter Sessions. Moving these cases to a lower court, they argued, would reduce both the costs of administering justice and the time needed to reach a verdict, since defendants would not have the option of trial by jury. In 1816, for example, Quebec City police magistrate John Fletcher drew up a plan to improve policing in the municipality, proposing that brothels, taverns, and places of public amusements should be subjected to the summary control of the magistrates: My own experience has convinced me of the absolute necessity of subjecting all places of resort for the dissolute and idle part of the community to a more summary control of the magistrates than that which they ought to be permitted to exercise over the general mass of their fellow citizens with right of appeal to sessions; includes immediate right of search, since taverns are usual places of hiding for plunder of thieves. By the exercise also of this right of search and inspection and absolute control over the keepers of brothels etc. a kind of register or black book of the names and character of all the inmates and frequenters of places appropriated to such purposes might probably be obtained, the utility of which would as I apprehend be very considerable.34

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While Fletcher’s recommendations were directed at judicial procedure in Quebec City, his views certainly resonated with Montreal’s elites and over the course of the 1830s and 1840s, grand jury presentments suggested the same solutions to these problems. In January 1834, grand jurors advised the magistrates of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace that a Police Court needed to be established to expedite justice, especially in cases involving brothels, and to relieve jury members from being away from their businesses for long periods while they served in the Quarter Sessions. The grand jury complained that too much time elapsed between the day the offence occurred and the date that the bill of indictment was laid before the court. Consequently, witnesses did not appear when called and the criminal escaped punishment.35 Such recommendations failed, however, to take into account both the costs involved in pursuing a brothel-keeper and the goals of the plaintiffs who initiated the complaint. Time and again, grand jurors lamented that offenders were permitted to go free with impunity. In 1840, for example, a November grand jury of the Court of Queen’s Bench proposed that charges for keeping disorderly houses be transferred from the Court of Quarter Sessions to the Police Court.36 And again, in January 1841 the grand jury denounced the strategy of plaintiffs not appearing in court as crown witnesses: They would here testify their gratification at the apparent diminution of crime, from the very few bills laid before them the greater number of which have been for minor offences; some of the cases, they regret to state, indicate a malicious disposition on the part of the prosecutors and that, in many bills laid before this jury, no proof of the guilt of the prisoner could be established from the absence of all testimony except of the policeman who made the arrest. They would suggest that it would be commendable, were the Magistrates, in the Country Parishes, in the Examination of the petty misdemeanors, to discharge summarily the accused, where no proof exist against them, thereby reducing the number of inmates in the Gaol, relieving the Court from much labor and duty and the District from much burden and expence [sic].37

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Despite the grand jurors’ persistent recommendation to have cases involving disorderly houses heard in a lower court, defendants charged with keeping brothels continued to be judged in the Court of Quarter Sessions.

Petty Sessions Cases involving street prostitution were heard in Petty Sessions and thus before one or more justices of the peace. The court met at a time and place determined by the justices and dealt with minor misdemeanours punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.38 Following the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 and the increasing belief that crime was on the rise, in 1838 the Special Council established a Police Court, also to deal with minor misdemeanours, presided over by a police magistrate with the same criminal jurisdiction as a justice of the peace in Petty Sessions.39 In 1823, when head watchman Emmanuel D’Aubreville shepherded Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote (to whom we were introduced at the beginning of the chapter) to Petty Sessions, they confronted a process that was informal and rapid, yet followed procedures similar to those in the Quarter Sessions but without jury participation or the testimony of multiple witnesses. In other words, the different procedural phases of justice were fasttracked or conflated. Justices of the peace were, according to historian Ruth Paley, “bound to observe the rules of natural justice” including giving an accused “the opportunity of being heard, before [s]he is condemned.”40 Bélanger, Kinville, and Regiote would have stood before the presiding justice of the peace while he asked them to enter a plea before he called the plaintiff – D’Aubreville – to give testimony. With fewer witnesses to question, magistrates had less information on which to base a verdict and thus their own impressions were important in rendering a judgement. Once the justice of the peace was satisfied that he was fully aware of the elements of the case, he delivered his verdict – in this case that all three women were guilty of being vagrants – and then pronouned their punishment. Bélanger, Kinville, and Regiote’s experiences at court were not exceptional but in line with those of the vast majority of women who were accused of streetwalking.

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Notwithstanding the procedural practices just outlined, street prostitutes were almost never acquitted and they routinely received prison sentences, although a few were permitted a recognizance to keep the peace or on rare occasions were banished from the city. In his study of prostitution in London, Tony Henderson has argued that the women who came before city magistrates were understood to be guilty: “Her guilt – that is, that she had in truth been soliciting for custom as a prostitute was by and large taken for granted once the arresting officer had sworn an oath to that effect.”41 Similarly, Barbara Hobson found that the facts presented in US police courts were rarely disputed and guilty verdicts were almost certain.42

The Judicial Process Plaintiffs exercised a great deal of discretion in their legal pursuit of prostitutes. Since the judicial process was divided into six distinct parts, the complainant had as many opportunities to continue or to halt his or her formal quest for justice against an alleged brothelkeeper. As already explored in chapter 4, the first part of the process consisted of a plaintiff laying a complaint before a justice of the peace; if he or she took no additional action, the legal procedure could end. In the second part, once someone had been named in a deposition and apprehended, the plaintiff had the opportunity to decide whether or not to pursue the supposed wrongdoer further. Often clients whom police had arrested in a raid had their cases terminated at this stage, as was the situation for Pierre Mathieu, apprehended by constables in Françoise Ouimet’s bawdy house. The daughter of Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné, Françoise Ouimet operated her own brothel within walking distance of her parents’ establishment. Mathieu was incarcerated for thirty-three days before a justice of the peace eventually discharged him without his ever having to go to trial.43 The third part of the legal process involved the grand jury’s assessment of the evidence to determine if it was sufficient to support an indictment. If it was not, then the case was deemed ignoramus or no bill. It was up to the plaintiff to present the evidence and if he or she decided not to do so, the complaint ended. In the fourth phase, even though it was decided that the indictment was a true bill, the plain-

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tiff could decide not to pursue the defendant(s) further by simply not appearing at court. Thus, when police raided the brothel of Agathe Florentin and her husband, Guillaume Laverdure, on College Street and arrested them along with Josephte Belan, Marie Perrault, Isaac Smith, and Jean-Baptiste Marcotte, only Florentin and Laverdure were arraigned. Despite the grand jury determination that the indictment was a true bill, no verdict was ever rendered because the plaintiffs, Benomi Leclaire and Joseph Donegany, never appeared at the trial to pursue Florentin and Laverdure.44 In the fifth part the magistrate decided the defendant should be acquitted. There were numerous instances when the magistrates counselled the petit jury to render a not guilty verdict owing to the absence of the plaintiff or because the police had not followed the rules regarding arrest and incarceration correctly. For instance, in October 1839, the justices of the peace instructed the petit jury to acquit defendants George Bailey, his wife, Maria Bailey, and James Gibb when plaintiffs William Honey and Frederick Trick did not appear at court as witnesses.45 In the final part of the judicial process, the petit jury found the defendant(s) guilty of keeping a disorderly house, as was the case for Ellen Kennedy and her husband James Maighan who were sentenced to one month each in the Common Gaol.46

Resisting Authority in the Courtroom The documents show that Montreal prostitutes turned to the criminal justice system to meet their subsistence needs, to prosecute those who had wronged them, and to contest abuses that they encountered at court. While there is little extant evidence – such information was not recorded – of alleged Montreal brothel-keepers and street prostitutes exercising their legal agency by resisting arrest and incarceration or by affirming their right to a fair trial, historians in other geographical jurisdictions have suggested that this was not uncommon.47 Jane Price has argued that female petty criminals in Halifax had some control over their interactions with the authorities: prostitutes were acquainted with members of the small police force and with the magistrates whom they encountered in court.48 Judith Fingard has asserted similarly that Halifax prostitutes expected fair trials and were not

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automatically convicted just because they were reputed to market sex. Women, she claims, protested prosecutions that were based on a history of previous convictions or reputation rather than on the basis of real evidence.49 In Montreal, brothel-keepers and prostitutes offered some defence by calling their own witnesses, delaying court cases, or challenging decisions rendered by the magistrates. Without court testimony to consult, it is impossible to determine what arguments prostitutes marshalled against the complainants’ evidence or how often they protested the charges against them at court. However, even the act of entering a plea of not guilty in summary trials suggests resistance, especially in those cases pertaining to street prostitution. In July 1838, despite her notoriety as a streetwalker, serial offender Mary Ann Green told the presiding justice of the peace, P.E. Leclère, that she was not guilty of being a loose, idle, and disorderly woman as had been claimed by High Constable Benjamin Delisle. Since it was the summer, a season when the search for subsistence was much easier, Green probably did not want to be incarcerated. She may also have been resisting a criminal justice system that had doggedly pursued and incarcerated her for vagrancy. Nonetheless, she was convicted on Delisle’s evidence and committed to prison for two months.50 Catherine McDonald had made the same plea three days earlier but to no avail; she too was confined in the Common Gaol for a month on the testimony of William Brown.51 Prostitutes also disputed the sentences that justices of the peace rendered, sometimes with appalling consequences. Thus, when magistrates François Desriviers, J.M. Mondelet, and Louis Chaboillez committed Maria Nelson and Margaret Morgan to six months in the House of Correction at hard labour, Nelson vented her displeasure by giving them “a piece of her mind.” The justices of the peace responded to this outburst by ordering that Maria Nelson receive “25 stripes on her naked back, for a contempt of the said Court.”52 Attempts to fight back could be dangerous. Women who had been charged with operating disorderly houses sometimes offered more complex arguments to either delay their court appearances or challenge the verdict. Rosalie Laprise, for example, in a motion dated 23 October 1834, claimed that she was not ready to proceed with her trial, set for the following day, because two witnesses who were crucial to her defence had left for Upper Canada

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and would not return to Montreal for at least two weeks or more. Although she suggested that they would exonerate her of the charge of keeping a disorderly house, the case went ahead.53 Some women based their objections to going to court on legal technicalities. Angel Galarneau told the court that her name was not Angélique Galarneau as laid out in an indictment dated 16 July 1831; nonetheless, the petit jury found her guilty of keeping a disorderly house and the justices of the peace sentenced her to three months in the Common Gaol.54 Others challenged the legality of decisions handed down by the court. The petit jury found Joseph Perrault and Marie-Anne Tellier, who had been charged with keeping a disorderly house, guilty of a breach of the peace, keeping a disorderly house, and being a nuisance to the neighbourhood, but not guilty of operating a brothel. Before the justices delivered their sentence, Perrault and Tellier’s lawyer argued that the indictment should be withdrawn for the following reasons. First, the bill of indictment was “insufficient, defective, and uncertain”; second, the verdict was “irregular, insufficient, contradictory, repugnant, and contrary to the charge or accusation against them.” And third, the verdict rendered was “contrary to the indictment and contrary to the law and moreover, rendered in an illegal manner and not before the court or a competent tribunal.” Despite their objections, Perrault and Tellier were each fined £5 and committed to the Common Gaol until the penalties were paid.55 The court was especially careful that justice was rendered in cases involving disorderly houses. Despite defendants’ serial convictions for operating brothels and reputations as disorderly women and men, juries did not automatically assume guilt. A justice of the peace, for example, discharged recidivist Mary Ann Green only nine days after she was apprehended for keeping a disorderly house.56 Her release from prison suggests that, despite her reputation, there was likely not enough evidence to support the charge or that the plaintiffs had withdrawn their complaint. Thus, the justices were carefully following the laws governing brothels. This was not the case for street prostitution. Since streetwalkers were convicted on the word of a policeman or the opinion of the presiding magistrate, reputation played a decisive role in sentencing. Women and men who were found guilty, sentenced, and imprisoned for prostitution-related offences had one other legal avenue

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available to them to avoid certain forms of public punishment or lengthy sentences: they could petition the governor to request clemency. As the representative of the British monarch, the governor could grant a reduction in a conviction, physical punishment, prison sentence, or fine. Only a few prostitutes and brothel-keepers in the jurisdictions of Montreal, Quebec City, and Trois-Rivières used this legal instrument to ask him to exercise his royal prerogative of mercy. A favourable outcome depended upon whether the petitioner’s was believed to be respectable.57 Therefore, most of these applications were unsuccessful, as Angelica St-Claire alias Angélique Leclaire discovered after arguing that she was innocent of keeping a disorderly house, that the accusation was “totally false,” and that, moreover, she could prove that she “had no inmates in my House For [sic] the last seven Months as I am A poor Widow without Friends or Property.”58 Similarly, William Kennedy claimed in his petition for clemency that he had been maliciously prosecuted for keeping a disorderly house. The petit jury found him guilty despite “having on his trial twelve respectable witnesses who proved the contrary & his Innocence against Six witnesses on behalf of the private prosecutors.” Kennedy underscored that he was in poor health and given to “fits,” a father, and a husband of an ailing spouse. The justices of the peace responded to his petition and countered Kennedy’s description of family life: “Since the trial, conviction and imprisonment of this Man, his Wife has been apprehended for the same offence.”59 Some clemency applicants alleged that there were extenuating circumstances that had not been taken into consideration during the trial, resulting in their wrongful conviction. Marie Pilotte was arrested 23 October 1830 in a police raid on Angélique Bouchard’s brothel in Quebec City, found guilty of keeping a disorderly house, and sentenced to six months at hard labour in the House of Correction. Pilotte maintained that she was an innocent bystander in the whole affair and that, being an unemployed servant, she “had remained in a house kept and owned by Angel Bouchard.” She also declared that her “character had never been empeached [sic]” and that she had always supported herself industriously. Gaoler John Jeffery shored up her application for clemency by writing a letter recounting to the authorities that her behaviour was beyond reproach, “conducting herself in the most correct manner since her imprisonment” and informing them that she had arranged

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a position in service with a previous employer.60 The magistrates who had conducted the trial recommended that Pilotte be discharged because “the Petitioner has undergone a sufficient punishment for her offence.”61 Her request for clemency succeeded. Marie Pilotte was discharged from the House of Correction on 26 February after the governor trimmed two months off her six-month sentence.62 As established in chapter 2, widows with very young children often requested clemency in order to look after them. Another strategy in clemency narratives was to admit to the misdemeanour and then vow to quit sex commerce and return to a path of “virtue.” Quebec City prostitute Margaret Rainbow described herself as “a poor misguided female” who had been apprehended as a boarder in a disorderly house and sentenced to six months. Despite Margaret’s confession of having gone astray “through the arts of seduction” and her plan to redeem her reputation by living with her father, a respectable mechanic in the city, the governor rejected the petition.63

Conviction Rates Keeping a Disorderly House Clerks of the court routinely recorded trial outcomes in the registers of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace or on bills of indictments for those charged with keeping a disorderly house. All of the extant court cases involving disorderly houses that reached formal verdicts have been identified. Figure 6.1 demonstrates that more than half of the accusations (fifty-five per cent) never resulted in indictments, either because the grand jury decided that the evidence did not meet the requirements of the law – almost a third (359 or thirtytwo per cent) were deemed ignoramus or no bill – or the plaintiffs failed to pursue their complaints by not appearing as witnesses for the crown. When the plaintiffs who denounced Thomas Ponivre and Marguerite Davignon for keeping a disorderly house did not present themselves at court, the defendants were discharged in the 1811 April sessions.64 A smaller number of alleged brothel-keepers were set free on legal technicalities, although the grounds for the acquittal were usually not recorded. J.M. Beattie has suggested that a defendant could be discharged if the manner in which the offence had been

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charged or the indictment was written up incorrectly.65 At least twentythree accused – including Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné – had their cases discontinued without any reason given. As I have already pointed out, the cost of carrying on the complaint once the case reached the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace was perhaps significant and thus an important factor in why the alleged wrongdoers were not pursued at court. The burden of these fees may also explain why increasing numbers of Montreal residents looked to the police to launch complaints about keepers of disorderly houses, since in those cases the expense incurred would have been absorbed by the crown. Neighbours who privately prosecuted alleged brothel-keepers may have stopped the process because their grievances had been redressed, perhaps, like their Halifax counterparts, satisfied “with the arrest and did not require conviction to settle their scores.”66 In chapter 1, I argued that neighbours turned to the criminal justice system to discipline prostitutes they felt were refractory in responding to community pressures. In light of the fact that representatives of some of Montreal’s well-known craft families, constables, and even court officials were involved in prostitution, others may have responded to pressure from such individuals not to pursue their complaints. Although there is no direct evidence that women accused of prostitution-related offenses coerced witnesses not to appear in court, George Gibson’s private prosecution of sisters Rosey and Sally Clifford for abusive language and a breach of the peace suggests that it happened. According to Gibson, after he gave evidence in a court case at the Weekly Sessions against the Clifford sisters, the two women, who had a history of prostitution, harassed him by going to his house in Vitré Street on numerous occasions to denounce him as “an informer and that he kept a brothel.”67 Defendants often used various strategies to postpone their court cases in order to improve their chances of acquittal: experience had taught them that most plaintiffs eventually gave up their quest to prosecute their complaints at court. For instance, defendants defaulted by not showing up on court-appointed days, thereby forcing magistrates to postpone original court dates and move their cases from session to session. This strategy is well illustrated in the case of Cécile Boissette, Adélaide Gariepie, Adélaide Dauphiné, Mary Ann Perkins, Louise Ouellette, and Marie Lepine, who were indicted by

I = deposition but no further action; II = appears before a JP but no further action; III = reaches grand jury but no bill; IV = true bill but no further action; V = tried and found not guilty; VI = tried and found guilty ( Taken from Quarter Sessions of the Peace Cases and Complaints, 1810–1842).

Figure 6.1 Outcome of disorderly house complaints, 1810–42

the grand jury at the 1839 October sitting of the Quarter Sessions for keeping a disorderly house.68 A year later, the case finally made it to court after having been postponed three times: consecutive dates were set and then moved because the defendants either did not show up or the different parties agreed to reschedule the court date. Eventually, the case ended in October 1840 when the defendants were acquitted of the charge because the plaintiffs failed to appear at court.69 In another legal action involving a disorderly house, the justice of the peace determined that Adin Ayers and John Dodge’s complaint against Angélique Archambault, Sophie Proulx, and Marie Menie had merit and issued a warrant of arrest. Nonetheless, their private prosecution of the alleged offenders was eventually dropped after a series of postponements. Archambault, Proulx, and Menie never appeared at court on the dates they were scheduled and the indictment eventually disappeared from the register without any official resolution recorded. Because of such strategies, in most of the accusations involving those keeping brothels, no verdict was rendered. These tactics were the subject of much criticism and grand juries, for example, deplored the fact that plaintiffs and defendants charged with keeping disorderly

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houses were absent on court-appointed days, resulting in postponement of cases to the next sitting of Quarter Sessions. “We have been informed that there exists in the city and suburbs a great number of disorderly houses, the keepers of which, most active in seeking the ruin of the young of both sexes, are yet permitted to escape with comparative impunity, being allowed to put in bail from session to session of a mere nominal kind; instances have been mentioned of persons of this description being bailed over for four sessions. We conceive it our duty to press this matter on the examination of the proper authorities.”70 Figure 6.1 also shows that for the 1,116 women and men who actually faced a petit jury, verdicts were rendered in less than half of the cases (447 or forty per cent) and, of those where a verdict was delivered, defendants had a slightly better than even chance of being acquitted (fifty-three per cent). Thus, a quarter of those charged with keeping a disorderly house were deemed guilty. Only a tenth of the women and men charged with operating brothels entered guilty pleas, but most of them received shorter sentences than those who had declared a plea of not guilty but were eventually found guilty. In other words, the accused appear to have given up their right to a jury trial for a reduced period of imprisonment.71 However, since petit juries delivered guilty verdicts in only a quarter of the cases, it was still advantageous for the accused to enter a plea of not guilty and take his or her chances. These outcomes are similar to those found by Donald Fyson, who shows that after 1800 the proportion of cases that reached a guilty verdict declined steadily: “by the end of the 1820s and beginning of the 1830s, less than a quarter of the defendants in the registers had outcomes that went against them.” Of the 3,000 defendants named in complaints heard in the Court of Quarter Sessions that he sampled, a quarter of them received a verdict and in half of those defendants were found guilty.72 Robert Shoemaker’s analysis of petty crime in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London and rural Middlesex demonstrates that nearly a third of the indictments never reached a verdict. He has attributed this outcome to defendants who did not appear in court, settlements being reached between sessions, and the cost of time and money that bringing an accusation to court entailed for both the accuser and the accused.73

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If we go back to figure 6.1, it is evident that the number of complaints reaching an indictment without verdicts being rendered remained much the same for some time but those cases where petit juries delivered a formal outcome altered significantly in the last period. By the 1840s, complaints against keepers of disorderly houses were more likely to proceed to a formal outcome than in the two previous periods. Since police constables were pursuing brothel-keepers at law in greater numbers over the period under study, the improvement in outcome was likely a consequence of the formalization of the process and the certainty that constables, in contrast to civilian plaintiffs, would appear as witnesses at court. Thus, the criminal justice system, and by extension the police, were much more effective in regulating sex commerce than was acknowledged by city elites in their grand jury presentments and newspaper accounts. In the face of these statistics, the call for better regulation of brothels reflects the moral and emotional dilemma brothels posed for such individuals. The overall low outcome rates did not mean that the criminal justice system had no impact on those whose cases never reached a formal conclusion. Donald Fyson estimates that a plaintiff who came before a justice could expect that about two-thirds of the time there would be some impact on the person or persons against whom he or she complained, whether in appearing before a justice to answer to the charge or entering into a recognizance to keep the peace. Thus, a high attrition rate in the cases that appeared before the Court of Quarter Sessions “suggests how the system at the level of the justices could be used by prosecutors for their own ends, without the system itself taking control of the process.”74 Fyson’s findings are especially relevant to cases involving disorderly houses. When plaintiffs did not appear at court to prosecute their complaints, it is difficult to determine on what basis acquittals were decided, given that transcripts of testimony are rare. Nonetheless, some of the court documents allude to the problem of plaintiffs not appearing to testify as a reason for nearly a quarter (65 or twenty per cent) of the cases involving keeping a disorderly houses ending in acquittal. By 1842, whenever witnesses did not appear when called, the court charged the jury to acquit the defendant(s). These findings suggest a growing gap between cases involving brothels and those involving streetwalkers.

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Disorderly Women The outcome of summary trials for women charged with streetwalking was more difficult to determine. Although judgments were inscribed in registers or other associated documents, there are no extant Petty Sessions’ registers. The Police Court was only established in 1838. Therefore, without access to these sentences, I have had to depend on those depositions where court clerks sometimes recorded the verdicts issuing from Petty Sessions. Nonetheless, by consulting local newspapers in addition to court documents where verdicts were recorded, it is possible to determine what sort of outcome took place in at least ninety-three per cent of the cases involving street prostitution. Even if the length of the sentence was not recorded, often the fact that a woman was imprisoned is acknowledged on the deposition. Consequently, a few generalizations are possible regarding the length of their incarceration. Of those cases with some identified outcome, 73.74 per cent (or 681) of the women judged guilty of being disorderly were sentenced to from two weeks to more than two months of incarceration. It is obvious that a streetwalker’s experience in court was very different from that of her brothel counterpart. However benevolent the authorities might have been on some occasions, almost all disorderly women were found guilty of being loose, idle, and disorderly or vagrants and sentenced to varying periods of imprisonment, often lengthy. Magistrates also acted with compassion by rendering guilty verdicts and lengthy prison sentences to homeless prostitutes who needed refuge during the winter months and these decisions influence outcome rates. Streetwalkers might occasionally be permitted to enter into recognizances, as was the case for Marie-Anne Tessier who was apprehended in November 1814.75 And the nine women – Sophie Bélanger, Marie Kinville, Matilda Regiote, Marie Louise, Sarah Caldwell, Eliza Robinson, Marie Larivière, Charlotte Desjardins, and Marie Trémoulie – we met at the beginning of the chapter had been committed for six months to the House of Correction as incorrigible vagabonds but were each offered a recognizance for good behaviour if they could find bondsmen.76 There are also rare cases of women being banished from the city. A magistrate discharged Génévieve Ducharme from the House of Correction after she promised to leave Montreal.77 Police court registers show that the best a streetwalker

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could hope for was an admonishment after spending the night at the station house or a recognizance to keep the peace for a specific length of time.

Employing Justice for Their Own Purposes Prostitutes turned to the same lower courts that punished them to protect themselves, their property, and their businesses. We have seen that they inhabited an illicit and dangerous world, which resulted in tensions and conflicts not so different from those of the popular-class women and men with whom they shared neighbourhoods and public space. Women who marketed sex exercised the same legal rights as other city residents when they sought recourse at law for wrongs committed against them. Sex workers privately prosecuted men and women for a range of complaints that included assault and battery, larceny, disturbing the peace, operating disorderly houses, rioting, sexual assault, and threats and insults. Nonetheless, most of the cases initiated by prostitutes involving crimes against the person and property never reached a verdict, suggesting that court authorities viewed the veracity of their statements with scepticism or believed that disorderly women had put themselves in harm’s way by the company they kept. Such results also imply that prostitutes, like other city residents who turned to the courts to solve problems, sought to warn offenders rather than punish them. Nonetheless, relationships between sex workers, the court, and the community were especially ambiguous. That prostitutes turned to the same courts to prosecute others even though they were rarely successful also reinforces Susan Lewthwaite’s findings that poor women’s use of the court “indicates a degree of popular legitimacy of the law and its institutions.”78 Historians elsewhere have noted a similar use of the criminal justice system by prostitutes. In New York City, for example, they also resorted to the courts: “Shrewdly bringing legal proceedings against their aggressors, prostitutes utilized the machinery of the state to defend their interests and property rights, firmly entrenching their profession in the social fabric of the metropolis.”79 Both Timothy Gilfoyle and Marilynn Wood Hill point out that, since New York City prostitutes did not view themselves as “fallen women,”

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they defended their interests at court. In this way, women who marketed sex demonstrated that they were not afraid of being highly visible because they saw themselves as residents, indeed citizens, of the city with the same rights as others. They acted as witnesses at court or at inquests and privately prosecuted fellow New Yorkers in cases involving petty larceny, disturbing the peace, rioting, and assault.80 Notwithstanding the supposed impartiality of the courts, symbolised by the blindfolded Goddess of Justice or Lady Justice holding the scales of justice, Montreal brothel-keepers and prostitutes who went to court to pursue aggressors and thieves faced a hostile criminal justice system. The experiences of Ursule Brouillet dite Bernard are likely representative of those of many women in a similar situation. Having accused Caroline Belford of stealing a plaid manteau and a skirt from her house, Brouillet dite Bernard discovered that being deemed a non-respectable woman did not sit well with judicial authorities. When police interrogated the defendant, Caroline Belford, she responded that she was not guilty and that the plaintiff was an unsavoury character with a history of theft herself, being “a bad and loose character in whose veracity no trust can be attached who is a person known to be in the habit of pilfering and has this morning been committed to gaol for being a vagrant.”81 Belford’s denunciation of Brouillet dite Bernard as a vagrant and thus a disreputable person resulted in the case proceeding no further. Prostitutes and brothel-keepers were quite knowledgeable about the workings of the criminal justice system. In defending their business interests, madams accused others of operating brothels. In August 1835, Marie-Christine Brunet dite Belhumeur, wife of merchant Jude Richard, laid a complaint against André Potvin, Joseph Wells, and Henry Beauchamps for keeping a disorderly house on Commissioners Street, where she also lived and worked.82 Since business rivalries could also result in property damage, a number of brothel-keepers initiated private prosecutions against rioting keepers and brothel prostitutes. Maria Cunningham complained to a justice of the peace that Josephine Raymond, Marguerite Gauthier, Adélaide Dufresne, and Christine St-Aubain had destroyed the door, windows, and furniture in her house of prostitution.83 We know from chapters 2 and 3 that prostitutes’ living and working conditions could be very difficult. Brothel prostitutes often inhabited

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cramped quarters in a potentially violent environment made worse by the illicit nature of their work and excessive alcohol consumption; homeless streetwalkers lived rough, constantly searching for food, shelter, alcohol, clients, and emotional support. Prostitutes who perpetrated violent acts on others or were themselves victims of aggression reflected the conditions of their everyday lives. On the one hand, they depended on each other for mutual aid and support while, on the other, the competition for basic necessities resulted in strained relations and provoked tensions and conflicts. British historian Shani D’Cruze’s study of working-class aggression provides an important frame in which to understand the quarrels, threats, insults, and assaults between prostitutes and others.84 Such belligerent acts, D’Cruze has argued, serve as a barometer to measure the difficulties that circumscribed neighbourly relations among working-class women85 and surely applies to sex workers as well. Sometimes words sufficed. During an altercation between city residents Mary Burnet and Catherine Morrison, Peter Rossiter overheard the two women calling each other “fat-arsed whores, bitches, and blackguards.”86 Others resorted to physical violence: while intoxicated, Margaret McGinnis and Margaret Carr got into a fight behind the Champs-de-Mars87 and Dometilde Filiatreault and Marie Côté punched each other in the Seminary courtyard, causing a crowd to gather.88 You will recall that sex workers also turned to the court to deal with abusive husbands. After a month of assaults and ill treatment at the hands of her spouse, brothel-keeper Angélique Clairemont laid a complaint against him at the Peace Office.89 Like their popular-class neighbours, prostitutes exercised their own militant vision of justice. The search for food and shelter, especially for homeless streetwalkers who were hungry, cold, ill and lacked hope, encouraged antagonisms, as did the conditions associated with brothel life, such as alcohol abuse, the ever-present danger, and opportunities to steal from one another.

Conclusion Since streetwalkers were judged summarily, the word of the prosecutor or policeman and the opinion of the magistrate was enough to send a street prostitute to jail. Such was the situation for Sophie

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Bélanger, Marie Kinville, and Matilda Regiote. They, like most of their fellow sex workers, were usually found guilty of being common prostitutes, vagrants, or loose, idle, and disorderly. Although magistrates utilized a variety of punishments, such as a recognizance to keep the peace or a promise to leave town, the vast majority of streetwalkers were incarcerated in harsh conditions, sometimes for long periods. By contrast, women and men accused of keeping a disorderly house had a much greater chance of avoiding a guilty verdict and thus punishment. Since their cases were heard in a court of record and judged by a petit jury, it was more difficult to prove guilt, because both plaintiffs and defendants initiated strategies to postpone court appearances. As well, pursuing prostitutes at law was an expensive endeavour. The purpose of the complaint may have been to reinforce the authority of neighbourhood surveillance and compliance rather than to achieve a guilty plea and punishment. While we do not know why the court deemed Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné’s case noli prosequi, it may have been that the plaintiffs had changed their minds about continuing the case. Most alleged brothel-keepers were either acquitted of the charge or their cases never reached a formal outcome. Less than a quarter of those who went to trial were found guilty, a low outcome rate that may have discouraged plaintiffs from pursuing defendants in court. When city police rather than citizens began to lay more complaints, this outcome rate changed. Prostitutes also turned to the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace to privately prosecute others for having committed crimes such as larceny, assault and battery, threats, insults, and sexual assault. The dangerous world they inhabited meant that the strains of everyday life often erupted into conflicts between themselves and others and the courts served prostitutes as an arena for conflict resolution just as they did for city residents who used the law to pursue women who marketed sex.

CHAPTER 7

Correcting Prostitutes Harsh Punishment for Brutal Passions

Introduction Magdeleine Couture was well known to the city’s constabulary and magistrates, having been apprehended at least twenty-seven times between 1838 and 1842 for being loose, idle, and disorderly. Justices of the peace sentenced her to prison terms of fifteen days to two months either in the Common Gaol or House of Correction. Couture’s contact with the criminal justice system was not limited to prostitution, however, as she had also been charged with assault and battery and with larceny. In 1842, Couture – unmarried and twenty-three years of age – had the dubious distinction of being the only woman from Montreal that year sentenced to seven years in the provincial penitentiary of Canada, located in Kingston, Upper Canada. She received the sentence for the theft of two gold rings, two gold earrings, a double-row red necklace, and 5 pounds, 7 shillings, and 6 pence in notes and silver.1 Except for her incarceration in the penitentiary, Couture’s experience with the law largely mirrored that of other female serial offenders. Her mother, Magdeleine McDonald, had a similar record of recidivism; her first encounter with the law for prostitution had occurred in 1836. Magdeleine McDonald was arrested and incarcerated a minimum of twelve times in the period under study for being a disorderly woman. Mother and daughter were apprehended together on at least four separate occasions when police raided the brothels where they lived and worked. The detention of the two Magdeleines for being disorderly women probably continued after 1842.

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Their family history begins in the Quebec City region. Magdeleine McDonald (baptised Marie-Madeleine) was born in Quebec City in 1795 to labourer Augustin Poliquin and Marie-Ursule Adam, who had married in 1788 at St-Michel-de-Bellechasse, located thirty kilometres downriver from the town, and later moved to Quebec. She had informally taken the name of her stepfather, Jean McDonald, whom her mother married following the death of Augustin Poliquin, possibly in 1798. In November 1818, a pregnant Magdeleine wed Germain Couture, a self-described navigator and labourer. Magdeleine Couture was born in May 1819; six children followed her, three of whom died in infancy. After several brushes with the law in Quebec City, she gave birth to a stillborn baby in Montreal in 1831. Seven years later, Germain Couture was dead and the two Magdeleines were working in sex commerce. In all likelihood it was Magdeleine McDonald who initiated her daughter into prostitution. Montreal’s elites, uneasy about disorderly women such as Magdeleine McDonald and Magdeleine Couture, publically debated the purpose of incarceration and punishment. Newspaper publishers and grand jury members considered whether reform of the offender or deterrence would be most effective in reducing public and moral order infractions in general and prostitutes’ recidivism rates in particular. Their search for an effective response to what they perceived as rising crime rates is reflected in their discourse about punishment. Some argued that retribution had to be harsh in order to prevent crime; others insisted that the goal of incarceration was to rehabilitate offenders by inculcating them with emerging bourgeois values that emphasized, among others, sobriety, industry, self-discipline, and Christianity as well as the belief that sexuality should be confined within marriage. Their reflections provide a barometer that makes it possible to measure not only elite anxieties about female sexuality but also the ability of the city’s constabulary, courts, and even the local state to regulate prostitution. Similar debates had been taking place elsewhere. In England, public deliberations about the purpose of imprisonment resulted in tensions within penal reform movement owing to competing demands from supporters of reform or deterrence.2 In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Quaker reformers such as John Howard and Elizabeth Fry envisioned a modern penal system that segregated prisoners in

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individual cells, provided them with religious and moral education, and introduced useful forms of labour so that prisoners could learn skills that would enable them to earn a livelihood upon release from incarceration. Such a prison regime, they argued, would transform inmates’ behaviour and character. More conservative reformers supported deterrence, believing that the fear of suffering – not practical industry and wages – was more effective in both punishing prisoners and and dissuading them from a life of crime.3 By the end of the eighteenth century, US prison reformers were arguing that corporal punishment was not only brutal but unacceptable in an enlightened society. They juxtaposed the South’s physical punishment of African-American prisoners with practices in the North, where reformers sought to correct inmates by establishing institutions that transformed them through labour: “By a meticulous control of the prison environment, the creation of new habits of labour, and the re-awakening of conscience through solitude and religious instruction, prisons would reform inmates, leading them to a ‘patient submission’ to justice and a new discipline in their everyday lives.”4 Such an approach, predicated on the Quaker values of “solitude, reflection, [and] correction” as well as on aspects of the Auburn system of prison discipline, was believed to spiritually rehabilitate the damaged soul.5 However the reality of the prison system meant that this remedy had economic effects as it sought to transform prisoners into productive workers.6 Michel Foucault has argued that with the disappearance of the spectacle of public rituals associated with punishment at the turn of the nineteenth century, imprisonment in France came to be seen as a means to “correct, reclaim, [and] ‘cure,’” individual behaviour.7 It also signalled the development of more humane treatment of prisoners. Nonetheless, public discussions over the purpose of the prison flourished with regard to the degree to which incarceration ought to be punitive and the best methods to ensure that it converted prisoners through labour into compliant workers.8 According to Eleanor Conlin Casella, the new prison architecture, characterized by individual cells, long corridors, and direct surveillance of the population, reflected the turn toward “disciplinary reform of the mind over corporeal punishment of the flesh.”9 Foucault highlights the contradictions embodied in prisons: “The carceral system combines in a single figure

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discourses and architectures, coercive regulations and scientific propositions, real social effects and invincible utopias, programmes for correcting delinquents and mechanisms that reinforce delinquency.”10 However he pays little attention to the gendered experiences of incarceration. Sociologist Mary Bosworth takes issue with Foucault’s association of modernity with the birth of the prison and the changing purpose of punishment, arguing that gender is a critical factor in understanding the complicated transformations taking place in punishment. In her study of female confinement in Paris’s Salpêtrière, Bosworth found that modern forms of punishment emerged much earlier than suggested by Foucault and were used in conjunction with public displays of chastisement. She argues that restricting women’s sexuality and notions of femininity were at the heart of the prison regime.11 This chapter explores the changing rhetoric, practices, and consequences of punishment for women who were pronounced guilty of prostitution-related offences by the petit juries of Quarter Sessions and the magistrates of Petty Sessions and the Police Court. At the beginning of the period under study, punishment included public humiliation or shaming rituals, prison sentences, and banishment. Women and men found guilty of keeping disorderly houses were sometimes subjected to the pillory or to carting. By the mid-1830s, these public forms of punishment for prostitution had ended in Montreal, as in other geographic jurisdictions, replaced by incarceration, usually at hard labour, and sometimes accompanied by fines of £5 that had to be paid before the prisoner was released. In addition to considering the significance of the changes in sentencing patterns, I also compare the judgments handed down by magistrates to women found guilty of keeping disorderly houses with those for being disorderly. Justices of the peace typically condemned disorderly women to periods of incarceration in order to rein in prostitution, which was understood to be a threat to public and moral order. The idea of a prostitute’s moral contamination is central to the discourse around punishment, which focused, as we have seen, on public space and institutions in order to separate, categorize, and prevent encounters between respectable and non-respectable women in public or between girls and prostitutes in prison. I argue that whatever goals local authorities might have considered regarding the

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purpose of imprisonment with respect to women who marketed sex, deterrence and not rehabilitation proved to be the order of the day. While the purpose of incarceration of prostitutes in the House of Correction at hard labour was complicated, because manual work was believed to both lead to reform and function as a means of dissuasion, I contend that it served to discipline but not necessarily to correct women’s sexual transgressions. By October 1841, grand jurors seem to have given up on the idea that prison could rehabilitate criminals when they recommended that a separate facility be built to inculcate ex-prisoners with industrial habits and to reform morals: “Such an asylum should be established upon the manual labour principle and upon some tract of land contiguous to this City, that would admit of practice in the principle branches of mechanick [sic] and that some appropriate system of moral and religious instruction be connected therewith.”12 Several aspects of the penal system in early nineteenth-century Montreal undermined its ability to achieve contemporary goals of rehabilitation or deterrence. For instance, despite repeated rhetoric about categorizing prisoners in order to promote prison discipline, such a system was not instituted during the period under study. Moreover, as I have already argued in chapter 5, the local prison often functioned as a refuge for the homeless who were in search of shelter, food, and medical as well as palliative care, which limited both its punitive and reform purposes. Recidivist prostitutes moved between the community and the prison, not only blurring the boundaries between “life inside and their own communities outside,” as British scholar Lucia Zedner has argued, but also manipulating the prison environment to serve their needs.13 A discussion about the jail’s multiple uses draws attention to the convoluted relationships between prostitutes, police, judiciary, prison authorities, and the community at large. This chapter begins with an examination of Montreal’s prison facilities – the Common Gaol and the House of Correction – where prostitutes were incarcerated. Next, I explore the debates about the purposes of punishment before considering how sentencing patterns for both disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses changed over the period under study.

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The Montreal Prison The Common Gaol, 1808–1836 Image 7.1 shows the Common Gaol built by Joseph Courcelles dit Chevalier, which opened in 1811 on Notre-Dame Street (presently Place Vauquelin) on the exact spot of the original prison, which had been destroyed by a massive fire that had begun in the Faubourg StLaurent three years earlier. This purpose-built structure, designed in a neo-Palladian style, was an imposing building. Joseph Bouchette described the exterior as “substantial and spacious” and its interior as “disposed with every attention to the health, cleanliness, and comfort [as far as the latter is compatible with the nature of such a place] of its unfortunate inmates, both debtors and criminals.”14 His depiction suggests, as Peter Oliver has argued with respect to Upper Canadian prisons in the same period, that the city’s Common Gaol had been designed without any sense of what imprisonment was meant to accomplish, “without any attention to any particular rehabilitative or even penal purpose.”15 The building consisted of large apartments, each of which contained a centrally placed stove, and a number of small cells twelve feet square where prisoners were confined at night.16 The multi-purpose prison held those awaiting trial (either because the accused could not raise bail – recall alleged brothelkeepers Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné – or because it had been denied owing to the seriousness of the charge), convicted prisoners pending sentencing, or, as in the case of the two Magdeleines, those serving time or awaiting execution as well as debtors, the insane, and the homeless, including mothers, children, and the elderly. While there is some evidence that the gaoler confined inmates who had been charged with felonies to small cells, the only explicit classification of prisoners occurred with debtors, who were housed separately from the prison population. The gaol-keeper and his family also resided in the Common Gaol. Thus, like the Court House, it contained both institutional and domestic space. The House of Correction The House of Correction was first established in 1802 to incarcerate street prostitutes, vagrants, and the incorrigible as a means to try to remedy their behaviour. It was created by an act of the colonial

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Image 7.1 The Common Gaol, 1808–1836

legislature in response to a growing unease about the number of disorderly persons in the city: “having increased of late so much in the City of Montreal as to become a great nuisance, as well to be destructive of industry and good morals, especially to many of the rising generation; the Justices have therefore come to the Resolution of carrying into execution the laws in regard to vagrants under Idle and Disorderly persons, as soon as they shall there unto be enabled by the operation of the said Act in regard to Houses of Correction.”17 Given that vagrants embodied both indigence and licentiousness, as Simon P. Newman has argued, they were held responsible for their particular circumstances yet believed to be neither in control of their bodies nor constrained by others.18 In other words, despite the apparent contraditions, they were viewed as vagrants by choice. The House of Correction, often referred to as “a Bridewell” after the first London institution of its kind, was founded specifically to regulate vagrancy and to correct the offenders through work. Hard labour was strategic to retribution and the creation of the House of Correction was predicated on the notion that once a petty criminal, in this case a streetwalker, got a taste of arduous, mindless labour, such as that required in the facility, she would either get as far away from

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Montreal as possible or give up her life of idleness for one of industry and virtue to avoid further punishment.19 Paradoxically, work was also understood to inculcate disorderly women with the attributes of self-discipline, industrious habits, and temperance. Shame was a focal point of the inmates’ experience. According to its 1811 regulations, the House of Correction was to supply inmates with a uniform made of a coarse material and distinguished as prison wear “to humiliate the prisoners, but also to [further] their discovery in case of an escape.” While inmates might have their heads shaved on commitment to the House of Correction – it was up to the discretion of the keeper, who may also have used the practice as punishment for refractory behaviour – they were required to wear a cap as part of prison-issued apparel. An inmate’s day was supposed to be punctuated by regular hand and face washing as well as the domestic chores necessary to keep the apartments clean and orderly; weekly baths and a change of clothing were considered an explicit part of the regime.20 However, as we will soon see, the reality of imprisonment was definitely at odds with these regulations. Despite the indispensable role the House of Correction was presumed to have in the struggle to reduce public and moral misdemeanours, especially those related to prostitution, it did not operate continuously over the period under study: it functioned between 1802–10, 1811–16, 1817–27, 1829–35, and 1839 onwards. Its closure from May 1835 to April 1839 was likely the consequence of the growing political paralysis that had developed between the elected House of Assembly and appointed Legislative Council and that culminated in the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838. The House of Correction re-opened in 1839 at the insistence of local elites. The year before, a grand jury had argued that a lack of industry in prison was anathema to punishment in that “a state of idleness is peculiarly fitted to cherish every habit already implanted.”21 Industry would, by contrast, counter vice and idleness, instil steady work habits, and pay for the expenses related to prisoners’ keep:22 “In the House of Correction experiments have been made to introduce mechanical labour, which though the results have been quite satisfactory, and would prove profitable to the institution as well as very advantageous to the convicts themselves, by habituating them to industry, and fitting them to earn an honest livelihood after the expiration of their sentence, still the at-

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tempts are confined to little more than the experiments, for want of working rooms, or places suited to the different kinds of labour, there being no workshops of any kind connected with the gaol although within the yard there is ample space for the erection of buildings for these purposes.”23

Prison Conditions Prison directives, regular inspections, and public debates over the purpose of incarceration notwithstanding, both the Common Gaol and House of Correction suffered from inadequate resources, appalling neglect, and chronic overcapacity. The prison’s insalubrious and overcrowded environment reflected the same wretched conditions that many prisoners endured outside the prison.24 Since the prison provided only bread and water to inmates during their confinement, prisoners depended on handouts from kin or instituted ingenious methods to purchase food, which included literally selling the clothing off their backs. Consequently, many of them were so inadequately dressed that they risked hypothermia. Indeed, some imprisoned streetwalkers could not attend court owing to a lack of adequate clothing that bordered on nudity. For the homeless, however, it was presumably an improvement over sleeping rough during inclement weather. Grand jury presentments bring into sharp relief the prison’s deterioration over time. Its members visited the Common Gaol and House of Correction six times per year to inspect the facility, speak to inmates, report their findings, and recommend improvements.25 As Peter Oliver informs us, “jurors emerged as the most vociferous advocates of prisoners’ rights in the nineteenth century.”26 They played a critical role in bringing the plight of prisoners to the attention of the court, politicians, and the reading public, since grand jury presentments were published in city newspapers. Extracts from these reports also made their way into the journal of the House of Assembly once they had been tabled. Prostitutes were confined to unsalubrious, fetid, and crammed cells. In 1815, grand jurors depicted a section of the city’s Common Gaol as “very filthy and nauseous the cells not swept or washed, the whole cell unclean.”27 It was too hot during the summer and too cold in the winter, as a result of inefficient stoves. At the beginning of

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1826, the grand jury noted that severe overcrowding in the House of Correction resulted in a mishmash of inmates, including those suspected of committing a crime, the insane, and “incorrigible women of ill repute.”28 The prison was, according to the Montreal Gazette, overused as a “House of Correction, Penitentiary, Lunatic Asylum, Magdalene Asylum, Poor House and Lying in Hospital.”29 By February 1827, jury members described the prison as an “unfit receptacle of vice and misery.”30 Eight years later, while awaiting the completion of new prison facilities, circumstances had declined to the point that the very survival of the prisoners was at stake. At the end of November 1835, Sheriff Louis Gugy wrote to Stephen Walcott, the civil secretary, requesting $200 to purchase blankets, beds, bedding, and wood, among other articles, for the prison in light of the approaching winter, the deleterious conditions of the building, and the state of the prisoners: “The report and remonstrances of the attending Physician, Doctor Arnoldi, stating the state of utter destitution in which the inmates of the Gaol at present are, in addition to the verbal promise of his Excellency Lord Gosford, that the matter should be taken into consideration at an early period, induces me to repeat the same application with an increased degree of earnestness, as the sufferings of these poor wretches become greater every day.”31 John Collins’ death from hypothermia and undisclosed health problems two weeks after having been incarcerated in the Common Gaol for vagrancy lent credence to the dire situation described by the sheriff. Collins’ demise serves as a poignant reminder of the conditions that he and imprisoned prostitutes endured. A report by a special committee convened to investigate the circumstances surrounding Collins’ death reveals that its authors deemed many of the practices governing the management of the prisoners to be “vicious, abusive, negligent, and even felonious.” Committee members learned that during the day inmates of all stripes mingled together in inadequately heated apartments (the amount of wood allocated to heat each room had been intentionally reduced to prevent prisoners from selling it for food); at night, they were held for twelve hours in the small unheated cells attached to the apartments without sufficient clothing, beds, and bedding. The stoves were extinguished at eight o’clock in the evening and not re-lit until eight o’clock the next morning.32 The committee referred to the gaoler, Edward Holland, as “a man of a hasty and violent

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temper, addicted to profane swearing, and apt to get into a passion, for the most trivial cause, with those who visit the gaol.” Two of Holland’s sons, employed as turnkeys, were described as “worthless characters, and given to drunkenness and debauchery.” They reportedly visited the women of “bad character” to “play with them.”33 The members of the committee saved their harshest criticism for prison physician Daniel Arnoldi and Sheriff Louis Gugy. Despite John Collins’ failing health from the beginning of his fifteen-day incarceration, Dr Arnoldi had not visited him until the day before he died nor offered him any care, leaving him to perish in a small unheated cell. As for Sheriff Gugy, the committee accused him of negligence: “His ignorance, or want of any accurate knowledge respecting matters intimately connected with the welfare of the unfortunate beings confined in gaol is palpable.”34 Heads were to roll for John Collins’ death. Notwithstanding Gugy’s efforts to point out problems at the prison in his letter to Civil Secretary Stephen Walcott in November 1835, he was dismissed from the post of sheriff; Edward Holland resigned before being discharged. Dr Arnoldi kept his position as prison physician.

The New Common Gaol, 1836–1912 The larger Common Gaol at Longue-Pointe (also referred to as the Pied-du-Courant prison) which replaced the Notre-Dame Street building, opened in 1836. In 1839 it was the site of the execution of twelve patriotes who had participated in the 1838 Rebellion. Image 7.2 shows the new purpose-built facility, which was designed and constructed by anglophones: architect John Wells, masons Lauder, Spier, and Company, and, carpenter Robert Morton. Its architectural plan was completely different from that of the old prison and consisted mainly of individual cells, some double cells, and a few day rooms (shown in Image 7.3). The designers apparently had rehabilitation in mind – in keeping with the Auburn model35 – when they drew up the building’s plans, which allowed classification of prisoners on the basis of the type of crime committed as well as separation of men and women and neophytes and recidivists. According to Newton Bosworth, the four-storey institution housed prisoners in solitary confinement in the basement’s 32 cells; male and female prisoners were incarcerated in the 114 cells located on the first and second floors. Women were held in separate compartments located in the “back

Image 7.2 New Gaol, 1836–1912

Image 7.3 Interior of the New Gaol

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wings of each story.” Debtors were imprisoned together on the third floor. The Common Gaol also had a magistrate or grand jury room, kitchens and pantries, washing facilities, separate apartments for the gaoler and the matron, prisoners’ dayrooms, and a chapel on the fourth floor. A high wall surrounded the building.36 Flaws in the design and construction of the prison had been identified during an inspection of the institution even before it opened. Teavill Appleton, the same neighbour who had initiated a private prosecution against brothel-keeper Elisabeth Deganne in 1822 (to whom we were introduced in chapter 2), visited the facility in July 1835. Described as a “respectable builder,” Appleton, together with architect and surveyor Joseph Clarke, examined the new gaol and concluded that, “it is not in its present state at all fit for the reception of prisoners.” From their point of view, the Longue-Pointe prison was not secure, making escapes inevitable, its heating system was insufficient, the water closets were non-functional, and there were neither kitchen, washing, and fumigation facilities on the premises nor an infirmary.37 These services were added later. Within months of its opening, a succession of grand juries began systematically documenting problems in the new facility: winter conditions resulted in a range of problems, including the toilets, which had stopped working owing to frozen pipes: Le plan qu’on a adopté pour la construction de cette prison n’est pas compatible avec nos climats. Durand les froids rigoureux de nos longues hivers il sera impossible de chauffer les cellules ou sont les prisonniers par le moyen d’un simple Tuyau de poêle, tel que déjà disposé, dans les corridors, il faudra des altérations considérables et ces changements paraissent très difficiles à exécuter ils seront bien dispendieux. Il a été pratiqué dans la Cour de la prison une pompe qui tire l’eau de la Rivière par le moyen d’un Canal, cette pompe est mise en activité par douze hommes elle conduit l’eau dans les Citernes ou réservoirs qui sont dans le grenier de la prison, l’eau si répand dans tout l’édifice par le moyen de Tuyaux en plomb, cet ouvrage qu’est certainement bien imaginé deviendra absolument inutile durant toute la Saison du froid à moins de chauffer

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convenablement tout l’édifice ce qui causerait les dépenses incalculables, un seul Tuyaux qui arrêterait empêcherait l’eau de circuler dans les autres.38 By 1839, disorderly women faced prison conditions that had declined to the point that they mimicked those typically associated with the old jail. In a visit by the grand jury in January of that year, members described the building as overcrowded, vermin-ridden, and foul-smelling: “une odeur infect et suffocante propre à causer des maladies contagieuses et très dangereuses, laquelle dans leur opinion est due à la mauvaise construction de la bâtisse dans l’intérieur de laquelle se trouvent les lieux Communs ou lieu d’aisance, qui, fréquentés par un si grand nombre de personnes ne peuvent manquer de répandre une odeur fétide qui se répand dans toutes les parties de la bâtisse.”39 The building was excessively warm in the summer because of poor ventilation. In winter, it was too cold. Stoves supplied insufficient heat because they were poorly positioned, badly maintained, and dangerous. The chilly winter temperatures meant that prisoners were forced to burn flooring and “filthy sweepings of the floor” as fuel. Inadequately dressed prisoners suffered from the frigid air and snow, which penetrated prison wards through broken windowpanes that provided the only source of light in the cells. Some of the women slept on the floor without any bedding while others had access to paillasses of straw and only a thin blanket as a cover. Grand jurors frequently requested that prisoners be allocated more than a single blanket to counter freezing temperatures. To stay warm under these very challenging circumstances, Magdeleine Couture and her mother Magdeleine Mcdonald, who were incarcerated recurrently in this facility, would have been confined in holding cells designed to accommodate twenty-five prisoners with as many as fifty women, who huddled together for the night.40 For nourishment, prisoners without access to other sources of food subsisted on bread and water (and, by 1840, potatoes) during the week; meat was added to a watery broth on Sundays and holidays.41 These gruelling conditions provide a conspicuous contrast to Judith Fingard’s description of the Halifax prison at mid-century, as it was replete with heated wards, clean bedding, and nourishing food.42

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Discourses of Punishment City elites may well have had Magdeleine Couture in mind when they debated the purpose of punishment. Those supporting deterrence would have claimed that only harsh retribution would prevent her recidivism; while those favouring rehabilitation would have argued that Couture needed to be encouraged in temperance and taught new work habits and the skills needed to earn a respectable living as a domestic servant. They might also have asserted that, had she been separated from hardened criminals – including her own mother – in 1838, she would have been spared the negative influences that continued to affect her life in 1842. While elites were of different minds when it came to the purposes of punishment, given the prison’s ghastly conditions and the reluctance to pay the costs of improving it, deterrence seemed to be the sole objective of incarceration. That it was impossible to see how the rehabilitation of prostitutes could be effected under these circumstances, suggests that elites were ambivalent about remedying the situation of these so-called “women criminals.”

The Prison as a Means of Deterrence Proponents of a more conservative vision affirmed the old maxim “that the certainty of punishment was the best surety against the increase of crime.” They believed that the courts were prevented from “rendering the punishment of the law upon criminals as certain as their conviction” and suggested that the judiciary look to the British model to improve the current system.43 Retribution, by necessity, had to be unpleasant. Cesare Beccaria, the influential Italian philosopher and jurist, argued that in order for punishment to deter crime, it had to be moderate (if too severe, it would be malicious) but inflict greater pain than the pleasure derived from the illicit act.44 In the 1820s, grand juries in Montreal sang the praises of prison labour as the way to both punish and “cure” inmates. But as local authorities’ efforts to reduce public order offences such as prostitution through deterrence failed, they first sought low-cost methods of punishment as an alternative. In 1823, for example, members of Lower Canada’s House

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of Assembly provided £500 for the installation of a stepping wheel or treading mill to be used by prisoners to grind grain, which was thought to “diminish offences of a petty nature, and to free the province from the expenses of trial and support of many who find the Gaol a comfortable residence.”45 Its construction was put on hold the following year; and there is no extant evidence that the stepping wheel was ever in use in Montreal.46 By 1837, advocates of deterrence were arguing that punishment ought not to be a financial burden on the state. Those, such as recidivist prostitutes, who could not be deterred from committing crimes were forced to work, often picking oakum or breaking stones, which authorities hoped would yield sufficient profits to offset the costs of incarceration. Grand jurors had even recommended that prisoners be employed in public works projects such as building roads or canals.47 City notables found homeless prostitutes’ use of prison as a subsistence strategy disconcerting and at odds with the belief in deterrence. The Montreal Gazette was highly critical of the House of Correction, complaining that it no longer served to discourage crime because “it becomes an incentive to vice.”48 In 1836, rival newspaper the Montreal Transcript referred to the Common Gaol as “Captain Holland’s Hotel,” where disorderly women were supported by the community without any amelioration of their criminal activities.49 In 1839, a grand jury repeated the refrain, questioning the effectiveness of prison sentences given that many prisoners did not see confinement as a punishment: “It was stated that the present inmates of the prison, particularly in the female wards, were with few exceptions old offenders, some of whom had been repeatedly committed and that it was not uncommon to have the same persons again in custody a few days and even hours after their discharge acknowledging that they had committed the offense for whom they had been taken up on purpose to return to their present quarters.”50 In his history of the Montreal prison, Rev. J. Douglas Borthwick claimed that the facility was associated with “easy times and good food and lodging” that only encouraged criminal activity.51 Such judgments – commonplace in British North America, the United States, and Great Britain – were uninformed, narrow-minded, and ideologically driven conservative outbursts that contrasted sharply with the appalling environments systematically depicted by grand jurors in their visits to

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both the House of Correction and Common Gaol. Such disparaging attitudes reflected a facile correlation between prisoners’ rehabilitation and what they considered mollycoddling.

The Prison as Rehabilitation More liberal advocates of rehabilitation argued that classification of prisoners was fundamental to carceral discipline and moral improvement and sought to establish separation of men from women, the neophyte from the hardened criminal (usually the vagrant woman and prostitute), and especially children from adults: “The Grand Jury also observed in the prison of this District a want of classification of Prisoners; in the same apartment may be seen the unfortunate matron, the abandoned prostitute, and the raging maniac, and in other wards the hardened villain and the novice in crime are confined together, prisoners committed on suspicion and criminals convicted of offences are mingled together, and the young and apparently uncontaminated are thereby exposed to be sunk deeper into crime by which means imprisonment, instead of becoming the means of reformation, is the prolific parent of crime.”52 They recommended a separate facility for adolescent offenders to prevent moral contamination and reduce crime. Elites who took this position believed that girls and young women who were exposed to hardened criminals left prison “corrupted and demoralised beyond all hope of redemption.”53 In 1837, when the new district prison was opened at Longue-Pointe, it was optimistically claimed that there would finally be a proper system of classification and prisoners would be kept in solitary confinement at night.54 Rehabilitation promoters also reiterated the need to introduce a work program similar to that at the House of Correction. Work, they argued as early as in the 1820s, would serve as a suitable punishment and even aid in rehabilitation of offenders: The Grand Jury are convinced that now is the time for providing an extensive and well-regulated penitentiary, in which persons convicted of the less formidable and atrocious species of crimes, could be employed in such a manner as would be useful to themselves, and render their imprisonment less expensive to the public. By improving on the English system of forced labour, as in the instance of the treadmill, the criminal

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might be taught a mechanical employment, with the cheering prospect of a small portion of the fruits of his labour accumulating for his use at the end of his confinement; enabling him to proceed in the search of employment to some distant point, where his name and disgrace might be unknown. With respects to females, a still longer confinement might produce such steady habits of reform, as to justify their being recommended by the superintendents, as worthy to be admitted into places, as domestics, or to be restored, with confidence, to their families and friends.55 City notables also looked to science as a means to determine a person’s likelihood for criminal activity and rehabilitation. Phrenologists and their disciples believed that it could be demonstrated scientifically that a person’s character corresponded to the bony protuberance of his or her skull and US phrenologist Doctor Barbour visited Montreal in 1836 to deliver a series of lectures on phrenology and demonstrate its relevance at the local jail by examining the physical contours of prisoners’ skulls. For those who believed that incarceration ought to rehabilitate offenders, phrenology not only diagnosed but served as a roadmap for cure through moral treatment that included modeling appropriate behaviours, work, education through books, domestic training, prayer, and strict environmental routines.56 Doctor Barbour impressed even the sceptics according to the Montreal Gazette: in the majority of cases, he “distinguished between the bold and determined offender and the novice in crime – the ruffian, and the man of gentle disposition – the abandoned wretch, destitute of all religious principles, and he who maintains his belief in Christian revelation.”57 Rehabilitation proponents publicly supported any endeavour that resulted in an inmate’s moral improvement. In 1821, when the keeper of the Common Gaol established a small library stocked with bibles and other literature for the prisoners, as well as starting a garden at his own expense, the Montreal Herald heaped praise on him. The newspaper referred to the garden as “a useful and agreeable object” and to the library as an important facility to which the public could donate books.58

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Such endeavours were rare. In 1825, one grand jury described the Common Gaol as “a hot-bed of vice and immorality” rather than the place of solitary confinement it was supposed to be.59 It was also called a “nursery of crime” and a “school of vice,” expressing the unease elites felt about the lack of classification of inmates such as the homeless, the poor, women marketing sex, the elderly, the ill and insane and persons awaiting trial mingling with those serving time. In a similar fashion, grand jurors referred to the House of Correction as a “house of corruption.”60 While the segregation of the prison population might have had vociferous supporters in the press or at court, ten years after the grand jury first championed the sorting of prisoners, little had changed. In 1836, the Montreal Gazette reported the case of a twelve-year-old Montreal girl who had been apprehended for theft and incarcerated in the Common Gaol amongst “the very dregs of the female population of the city.” At trial, the petit jury found her guilty of the charge. The magistrates sentenced her to a mere twenty-four hours of confinement, believing it far better for her to be outside the prison walls away from such “abandoned characters” than to undergo a longer period of incarceration.61 Elites also expressed a common belief that having female prisoners supervised by men encouraged dissipation. In light of the commission’s findings following the death of John Collins – that the gaoler’s sons allegedly attended to the women of “bad character” and “play[ed] with them” – there was reason to be concerned.62 In 1835, grand jurors recommended that a reputable woman be hired to attend to inmates, as was the practice in the Quebec City prison where “the females are under the superintendence of a respectable woman who makes them work, gives them lessons and examples of virtue. The system followed in Quebec should be introduced here, and great benefit would result from it.”63 As US historian Larry Goldsmith reminds us, the twin pillars of reform were the idea that idleness caused crime and that hard labour would eradicate it. Prisoners left to their own devices and without proper supervision had time and opportunity to share their experiences.64

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The Prison as Refuge While elites were debating whether rehabilitation or deterrence was more effective in reducing public order infractions, disorderly women had their own ideas about how the Common Gaol and House of Correction could best serve them. The prison cannot be understood only in terms of the intentions of the policy makers but was shaped, as Lucia Zedner has suggested, by both inmates and jailors. Recidivist women, including women who turned to the prison for refuge, subverted its punitive purpose, resisted the discipline the authorities tried to establish, and brought the world outside the prison into the institution, modifying life inside and undermining prison discipline.65 An incident in 1821 reveals how difficult it was to prevent prostitutes and vagrant women in the House of Correction from communicating with the world beyond the prison walls. Grand jurors protested the “scènes les plus scandaleuses se commettent journellement dans les fenêtres des celules [sic] de ces malheureuses créatures” in apartments that overlooked Notre-Dame Street. To keep the two worlds at bay, they demanded that the women either be transferred to holding cells in the back of the building or, at the very least, that the prison windows be kept closed. In this way, the city’s youth and virtuous women would be protected from such offensive spectacles.66 Locating the new prison at Longue Pointe in 1836 meant that inmates were isolated from elite townspeople. As have already noted in chapters 3 and 5, Montreal prostitutes and vagrant women turned to the prison when they needed refuge, food, medical attention, and a place to die., As historian Simon P. Newman has argued, access to prison allowed indigent women to live independent lives.67 At the prison hospital, they received treatment for a variety of illnesses including venereal disease and tuberculosis as well as assistance during childbirth: nous avons trouvé dans la prison des femmes de mauvaise vie & même des femmes enceintes “de cette même espèce” qui sont dans l’habitude, quant elles ont besoin des soins d’un médecin de se faire condamner comme vagabonde par les officiers de police, au magistrates afin de se faire confiner en prison pour s’y faire soigner & même y faire leur couches: & une

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femme de cette dernière description, du nom de Price, nous en a même fait l’aveu prêter tant qu’aucuns des hôpitaux établis en cette cité pour ces dernières sortes de maladies n’avaient voulu la recevoir & qu’elle n’avait aucun asile; nous ne pouvons donc trop recommander pour le bien de la morale qu’il devrait y avoir une maison de refuge d’établie pour ce sortes de cas, afin de mettre fin a de semblables désordre.68 When Lydia Corneille became “quite dropsical” on her final admission to the prison, having “led a dissolute life in which she was repeatedly exposed to lay in the wet fields in a state of intoxication,” prison physician Dr Daniel Arnoldi, aware that her death was imminent, allowed her “wine, beer and diet as her feelings or caprice suggested.” A post-mortem examination found that her kidneys were enlarged and ulcerated and her intestines distended with blood, suggesting that she had been ill for some time.69 Dr Arnoldi was quite vocal about what he considered the uses and abuses of the prison hospital, which, among other things, led to a distortion in its death statistics, resulting in high mortality rates that reflected badly on him. For example, he responded angrily to the prison death of Catharine Brown, the recently separated wife of Private John Kennell of the 43rd Regiment of Foot, after she was committed for vagrancy. The coroner determined that she had succumbed to the effects of intoxicating liquors, and Dr Arnoldi noted that: “It is really melancholy to find that such deplorable objects should be sent to a Common Gaol, thereby frightfully increasing the number of Deaths on the Prison Books where under the convenient name of Vagrant they find an easy admission.”70 He failed, however, to suggest another place for the “Catharine Browns” of the city to go. To survive the coldest months of the year, homeless prostitutes sought overnight shelter at the local watch house or police station, as was the situation for Elizabeth Dunn, whom police had on numerous occasions accorded refuge in the “black hole” of the station house. In February 1837, Dunn brought a certificate from one of the local priests, Father Phelan, to ensure her admission to a jail cell.71 A number of women preferred prison to committal to the few charities that specifically offered sanctuary to prostitutes. Caroline Miller, alias Peggie Conelier or Caroline Dollar, a recently discharged penitent

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of the Magdalene Asylum, sought overnight lodging at the station house rather than returning to the institution and its strict regime of work and atonement.72 Homeless women regularly appealed to court officials to admit them to the prison. If their pleas fell on deaf ears, they threatened to commit misdemeanours to facilitate their incarceration in the Common Gaol or House of Correction. Such was the case for Eleonore Galarneau, Catherine Corkan, Mary Boyle, and Sarah Kennedy who, in January 1836, warned authorities that they would break the Court House windows after a justice of the peace denied them shelter in the prison.73 These windowpanes were common targets of disorderly women; that same month Mary Ann Mark advised Peter McPherson, a servant who worked at the Court House, that she would break the windows unless imprisoned.74 McPherson may have remembered that just one year earlier Mark had been arrested and jailed after she had carried out a similar threat.75 Others admitted to a range of offences to facilitate incarceration. For example, one female prisoner confessed to members of the July 1836 grand jury that to gain admittance to the local jail she had made a false plea of guilty to crimes she had never perpetrated.76 Two other women disclosed that they had carried out acts of petit larceny in order to be imprisoned and thus escape the worst of winter and receive food and shelter.77 Such strategies exemplify both vulnerability and desperation in addition to their agency. When necessary, prostitutes petitioned the court to extend their sentences over the winter months, as was the case for “several female culprits” who, fearing release from the House of Correction during the winter of 1825, requested that the magistrates delay their release. The keeper of the prison sometimes made such appeals when conditions warranted his intervention. Following Constable Ignace Hodossi’s arrest of prostitute Bridget Carthy, whom he claimed was “dans un état déplorable,”78 and her incarceration in the Common Gaol, the jailor recommended to the court that her sentence be prolonged in order to complete a course of medical treatment. To do otherwise, he argued, meant that “she would be exposed to instant death.”79 Even though it was already early April 1822 when Isabelle Norwood, Peggy Bageley, Margaret Campagneau, Marie Baby, and Marguerite Marteau were committed to the House of Correction, their utter destitution was inscribed on their bodies. Owing to their almost naked

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state, the five women could not be brought to court to face the magistrate.80 Yet somehow they managed to survive the winter. The accommodation of so many streetwalkers and vagrants in the city’s various carceral buildings – the Common Gaol, House of Correction, Watch House, and police station – contributed to perennial overcrowding and deteriorating conditions. Two letters that appeared in the Montreal Herald in 1812 and 1819 respectively underscore the critical need for shelter among the city’s homeless population. The writer of the first letter called on the colonial government to establish a Poor House to look after the indigent population living in the city streets: “The utility of such an asylum is acknowledged by every society of any extent in other countries, and from the rigor of our climate it would appear to every feeling mind, to be doubly requisite here.” The author further asserted that such an institution could inculcate in these real objects of charity and their children “virtuous and industrial habits,” arguing that laws, in themselves, could not rid society of begging.81 The writer of the second letter claimed that Montreal’s unique climate called for solutions to homelessness not needed in geographic regions with more temperate weather: “the poor who dwell in this frigid zone, have to suffer, not only all the grieving pains and privations incident in a state of poverty in an excessively cold and merciless region, but that they have to endure these for a much greater length of time than others who inhabit more temperate climes.”82 Unfortunately, the call for an asylum to house the respectable poor left those deemed non-respectable out in the cold. The same can be said of the grand jury’s preoccupation with respectability and homelessness. By the end of the period under study, members of an 1842 grand jury understood that for a woman without a roof over her head, a revolving door existed between the prison and the street: “She finds every door shut against her, she is compelled to remain in the streets surrounded by temptation without any means of support or a friend to care for her, she is closely watched by the police and is speedily thrust back again to the House of Correction for two months more, and thus her wretched days are spent alternately, between the streets and imprisonment.”83 To deal with those who used the prison system for shelter, food, and medical care, the grand jury argued that an institution was needed where “real and deserving objects of charity

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might be relieved, habits of industry formed, and those of dissipation and crime prevented.”84 Like the two authors of the letters, the grand jurors were evidently unwilling to deal with – or perhaps to even acknowledge – the flagrant contradiction in their recommendations: the very women who most depended upon the prison for shelter, food, and medical care were prostitutes and vagrant women who were not considered representative of the deserving poor. Marcela Aranguiz’s examination of Montreal male vagrancy confirms that the practice of seeking shelter at police stations and prisons continued well into the twentieth century and long after the establishment of a house of industry and numerous refuges for the dispossessed.85 Homelessness highlights some of the problems women faced associated with a lack of resources at their disposal, the winter environment, and the discretionary powers exercised by policemen who enforced vagrancy laws. Such police paternalism suggests some sort of tacit understanding of the economic and social realities faced by these women. Tony Henderson has argued that with respect to street prostitutes, “the process of policing itself constituted a relationship between police and policed, the nature of which was determined by the needs and activities of both sides.”86 In February 1820, High Constable Jacob Marsten arrested Mary Weeks for being a loose, idle, and disorderly woman without any visible means of procuring a livelihood and in danger of perishing in the city streets. When Weeks came before the presiding magistrate in Petty Sessions, he sentenced her to two months’ incarceration in the Common Gaol, since it was obvious to all concerned that overnight lodging at the station house would not suffice.87 Such was also the situation for Sophie St-Onge who, in April 1835, asked for admission to the local prison. The arresting officer, Antoine Bergeron claimed that “she has come this day to the Court House in a state of apparent suffering for want of sufficient apparel and that as she has requested to be confined in the Common Gaol, the deponent doth testify that committing her to the same would be much to her favour and for the public surety as Sophie St Onge’s habits are worthless and detrimental to society.”88 As members of the city’s elites, justices of the peace were aware of the complaints of their peers, who viewed women such as Mary

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Weeks, Sophie St-Onge, Bridget Carthy, and the two Magdeleines as participants in a subaltern world where prostitutes should at least be regulated if prostitution could not be eliminated. At the same time, they came face to face in their courts with vagrant women and streetwalkers who had no place to go to escape the ravages of hunger, homelessness, sickness, and intemperate weather. They had to reconcile the criticisms of their neighbours, families, and business acquaintances with the realities of poverty and homelessness in Montreal. In his study of eighteen-century London vagrancy, historian Nicholas Rogers has suggested that magistrates were cognizant of women’s vulnerabilities and took these into consideration when rendering judgements.89 David Murray has also noted the variation amongst justices of the peace in the Niagara District of Upper Canada when judging homeless streetwalkers. He describes an incident involving three magistrates with a more jaundiced view of those living rough; they discharged a prostitute previously incarcerated by one of their colleagues, who had been convinced that she required immediate shelter and medical care. From the perspective of the other three magistrates, discharging her from prison the next morning saved the district the cost of her incarceration.90 Similarly, in Halifax, some women experienced almost continuous imprisonment: they were caught, served time, returned to the streets, only to be rearrested.91 Not all homeless streetwalkers and vagrants were granted a semblance of public assistance and consequently a number of them succumbed to hypothermia. In late November 1832, Ellen McGuire, described in the Montreal Gazette as “a prostitute of the lowest grade,” was discovered unclothed and lifeless in an abandoned government building adjoining the Commissariat forage yard across from the Quebec Gate Barracks. Police located two other women, presumably workmates and friends, lying nearby in a cart wearing little clothing and without additional coverings but fortunate to be alive.92 For others, release from prison “public assistance” had tragic consequences. Two days after Mary Deers was discharged from the Common Gaol, Constable Adams found her in a canal boat, frozen to death.93 Having no home to return to, Deers had sought shelter where she could.

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Punishment Justices of the peace exercised a great deal of discretionary power when dealing with prostitutes and brothel-keepers found guilty of public order offences, yet usually followed established practice and typically condemned them to varying lengths of imprisonment, sometimes in conjunction with other forms of punishment. Disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses were confined at hard labour in the House of Correction (when it was open); otherwise they were incarcerated in the Common Gaol. Over the period under study, a number of factors influenced sentencing patterns, including changing attitudes on the part of criminal justice authorities toward the purpose of punishment, tensions arising from the rebellions and subsequent pressure on prison space due to imprisonment of patriotes who had been charged with treason, harsh winters, limited public assistance, and, contemporary views of homelessness, respectability, and women’s sexuality. Women, especially recidivists, brought before Petty Sessions for being loose, idle, and disorderly had no doubt that they would receive prison sentences and often long ones. The certainty of punishment was a consequence of summary prosecution and the practice of policemen acting as plaintiffs. Figure 7.1 demonstrates that between 1810 and 1829 justices of the peace committed more than three-quarters of the streetwalkers they encountered at court to prison sentences of two or more months. Some disorderly women – including Marguerite Beauchamp, Rosalie Desjardins, Thérèse Desjardins, and Betsey Stevens – were incarcerated for a year at hard labour in the House of Correction.94 Donald Fyson has argued that urban magistrates routinely judged these women harshly.95 They often rendered sentences against streetwalkers that were greater than those given to individuals found guilty of assault and battery, larceny, and even manslaughter. When the jury determined that prostitute Julia Campbell was guilty of manslaughter in the stabbing death of Antoine Demarais, the judge condemned her to twelve months in prison, the same sentence given to Beauchamp, the Desjardins sisters, and Stevens for what can only be considered a victimless crime. Justices of the peace did occasionally deliver less onerous decisions in cases involving disorderly women: Génévieve Ducharme was discharged from

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Figure 7.1 Prison sentences of women convicted of streetwalking, 1810–42

the House of Correction upon her promise to leave Montreal96 and the eight women we met in chapter 6 who had been committed for six months to the House of Correction as incorrigible vagabonds were offered recognizance for good behaviour, although it was unlikely they would be able to to find guarantors.97 By the 1830s, justices of the peace punished disorderly women with shorter periods of incarceration. Between 1830 and 1837, there was already pressure on the prison population owing to political unrest, efforts by the local state to restore order, and a crackdown on prostitution. Figure 7.1 shows that justices of the peace sent the majority of streetwalkers to prison for one to two months, although they did condemn some streetwalkers to the Common Gaol or the House of Correction for over three months. In 1835, for example, magistrates incarcerated Sophie Martin and Amable Breton for six months.98 In the last period, 1838 to 1842, justices of the peace were delivering even shorter prison sentences: the vast majority never exceeded two months in duration. Only one woman was incarcerated for three

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months. Magistrates were more likely to render two-month verdicts against recidivist disorderly women such as Magdeleine Couture, whom Constable O’Neill referred to as “a whore on the streets.”99 There were many reasons for this, foremost being the 1838 ordinance, which reorganized the system of policing in Montreal, Quebec, and Trois-Rivières and limited imprisonment in the Common Gaol or to the House of Correction at hard labour to two calendar months.100 As well, intensified policing of city streets had resulted in rising arrest levels of disorderly women, which would have placed enormous demands on prison facilities already struggling to cope with severe overcrowding owing to the capture of patriotes who had participated in the rebellions. Magistrates had to make very practical decisions about who they wanted to punish and for how long. The newly created Police Court helped to relieve some of the burden related to prison overcrowding as Police Court magistrates admonished many of the streetwalkers before releasing them. In July 1838, when Magdeleine Couture was once again arrested for being loose, idle, and disorderly, having been found in the street at night in an “indecent posture” with James Connors, police kept her overnight at the station house and the next morning the police magistrate cautioned her and then discharged her.101 Ironically, a woman with no history of prostitution could be imprisoned rather than reprimanded, as was the situation for Mary Cullins, who was committed for three days to the Common Gaol for being drunk, disturbing the peace by breaking windows, and causing a crowd to gather in front of a house.102 Such discrepancies in sentencing practices speak to the growing unease judicial authorities felt about drunkenness in the 1840s, especially in cases involving women who were not reputed to be prostitutes. Confining women in prison, even for three days, may have been seen as sending a clear message about what magistrates considered acceptable female behaviour. The sentencing practices for women and men convicted of keeping disorderly houses followed patterns similar to those for street prostitutes. Figure 7.2 makes evident that in the first period, 1810 to 1829, convicted brothel-keepers were more likely to receive sentences of three months or more. It was rare for magistrates to allow a brothelkeeper only a recognizance. In February 1818, Elisabeth Laramée, arrested for keeping a disorderly house with Angélique Clairemont,

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Figure 7.2 Prison sentences of women and men convicted of keeping disorderly houses, 1810–42

Hélène Fortier, and Josette Brousseau, was offered a recognizance to maintain a decent and regular house for the space of one year. Fortier and Brosseau had to keep the peace for one year; but Clairemont was ordered to appear in court.103 Between 1818 and 1822, magistrates sentenced some brothel-keepers to either the pillory or carting as public forms of humiliation. Such punishments served, according to J.M. Beattie, as “moral-degradation ceremonies” that reaffirmed proper boundaries of behaviour by exhibiting those deemed to be deviant.104 In other words, the public spectacle of punishment reminded the public of the consequences in store for inhabitants who chose vice over virtue. Katharine Kittredge has argued that, because disorderly women were understood to have disrupted the social order and perpetrated a form of social rebellion, punishment of prostitutes necessitated public humiliation.105 The mere act of looking at someone in the pillory was understood to express censure of socially untoward acts as well as providing an effective moral lesson about the importance of criminal justice and the consequences of criminality.

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It was easy to draw a crowd to participate in these shaming punishments.106 The Montreal pillory was, according to Reverend Douglas Borthwick’s description, “a frame of wood erected on posts, with moveable boards and holes, through which holes were put the head and hands of the criminal for punishment, the whole turning on a pivot and in a circle.”107 Traveller Joseph Sanson referred to it as a “whipping post” and an “eye-sore to American feelings.”108 The pillory was placed the New Market just below Nelson’s Monument when required and taken down when not in use. The hangman used a whip to ensure that the person undergoing this form of punishment faced the crowd and not Nelson’s monument as a means of avoiding the usual onslaught of rotten eggs and mud.109 Law student PhilippeAubert de Gaspé’s detailed description of an unidentified man who was exposed in the pillory in Quebec City in 1806 gives a sense of the level of aggression that the public could bestow on a convicted wrong-doer: “One Friday in 1806, a criminal was placed in the pillory for some odious crime. The offended populace began its attack on him, which turned frenzied when soldiers from the barracks joined in. The rampaging mob first ransacked the carts of the habitants in the market place, taking forcible possession of every article they found there – eggs, vegetables, calves’ heads, feet, flesh and offal – over the cries of the women who sought to protect their goods. After pelting the criminal, they went after the executioner, whom they pursued under the wagons where he sought refuge … The mob then turned its fury on the constables who were attempting to restore order.”110 Even the military in Montreal employed public forms of punishment to discipline refractory soldiers, especially those accused of desertion. Such was the case when military officers ordered soldier Cornelius Carrol drummed through the principal streets of the city for being a vagrant.111 This form of punishment demonstrated that an offender was “a person not fit to be trusted, but to be shunned and avoided by all creditable and honest men.”112 Thus, this form of castigation likely impaired future employment possibilities for a woman or man subjected to the public humiliation of the pillory. You wil recall that Catherine Lafrance, who had been convicted of keeping a brothel in Quebec City in 1817, expressed such fears and appealed to the governor for clemency by exercising his royal perogrative of mercy

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from exposure in the dreaded pillory.113 At least ten women and men in Montreal were sent to the pillory for keeping a disorderly house. At the 1810 October Quarter Sessions, Etienne Billet and his wife, Marie Mattée, were both found guilty of keeping a disorderly house and remanded to the Common Gaol until 23 November, then to be conveyed to the New Market place between eleven and twelve o’clock and placed in the pillory for half an hour before being release.114 As was the custom in Montreal and elsewhere, these sentences were carried out at mid-day, when the market was open, to ensure that as many people as possible would view the punishment and take vengeance upon the offenders with taunts and blows.115 After undergoing her turn in the pillory Mattée was immediately discharged but her husband was re-incarcerated because of “bad conduct, obscene words, and threatenings on the pillory.” Moreover, he was to remain in the Common Gaol until he could find security for good behaviour.116 Occasionally the sentence included a return to prison following the pillory. Pierre St-George was committed to the Common Gaol for two months and Marie Lussier to the House of Correction for the same length of time following their one-hour exposure in the pillory.117 Carting, the old English method of punishing prostitutes, was another form of ritual humiliation that was used against brothelkeepers on at least two occasions. After completing a period of imprisonment, both Marie Deguire and Angélique Godin were exposed to public shame in a cart driven by the local hangman through Notre-Dame and St-Paul Streets as well as the principal streets of the suburbs, 118 the neighbourhoods connected with their crime.119 When widow Angélique Godin, who had been convicted at the January Quarter Sessions of being a public prostitute, was penalized in this manner, the Gazette reported that a great number of spectators turned out to behold this “new method of exposing prostitution.”120 Since Godin was never again arrested for keeping a disorderly house it is possible that such a public rebuke successfully dissuaded her from continuing as a prostitute. Marie Deguire, on the other hand, was indicted for prostitution nine years after first being carted.121 That justices of the peace stopped inflicting this form of public punishment on prostitutes suggests that their flirtation with such an old form of punishment reflected the frustration of the criminal justice

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authorities over their inability to effectively reduce, let alone eradicate, prostitution. By the end of 1822, justices of the peace had abandoned shaming rituals associated with punishing prostitutes and were committing those found guilty of keeping disorderly houses to the House of Correction at hard labour or to the Common Gaol. This change in punishment followed similar trends elsewhere: in parts of Europe and the United States, by the turn of the nineteenth-century the public spectacle of punishment was gradually coming to an end. The pillory was outlawed in France in 1789, in England in 1837, in Upper Canada in 1841, and in Lower Canada as early as 1824 with respect to crimes such as keeping a disorderly house.122 Michel Foucault has argued that in time punitive practices changed from being a public event to becoming the most secretive part of the penal process. Punishment shifted to the suspension of civil rights by a “system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibitions,” which replaced punishment based on physical pain123 and, in the case of prostitutes, public penance and humiliation. Wilbur Miller suggests that in the United States, as cities grew larger and community consensus began to fail, the public spectacle of punishment as a moral lesson was less used.124 Nonetheless, police continued to parade city residents they had arrested through the streets of the city. The public nature of this procedure was not lost on one Montreal inhabitant, who in 1844 complained in The Montreal Tattler that such acts were not only degrading but also served as a public display of police authority: Are not there “ills that flesh are heir” enough for humane power to bear without assuming that vain pomp of power by parading your prisoners in open daylight in an uncovered conveyance; I was attracted like many more (on Saturday last) to follow a poor wretch that was taken in his cart to the station house, you were trotting in the rear, bellowing out occasionally the directions that the boy should take; your prisoner was a woman clothed in rags, (a fit subject for the police,) she had a child hanging at her breast, I did not enquire her crime; her tears excited my compassion, and your unfeeling manner excited by disgust; if the woman deserved to be taken into custody, could

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you not have got a cab as cheap, without exposing to public view your authority, and the woman’s degradation. Shame! Shame! If the blush of shame comes not on your cheek, it does on mine.125 The period 1830 to 1837 followed a similar pattern to the first with respect to length of sentences, continuing to vary from fifteen days to six months. The number of women and men condemned to more than two-months imprisonment, however, declined slightly. Figure 7.2 shows that nearly a third of those found guilty were given one-month sentences. Some of the women, however, actually spent much longer in prison if those who were incarcerated while waiting their day in court are taken into consideration. For instance, although brothel-keepers Ellen Willix and Ellen Doyle were sentenced to one month each in the Common Gaol, both were incarcerated for a total of four months, three of them before trial.126 Racism may well have played a key role in Benjamin Field’s lengthy sentences of four and two years respectively for keeping a disorderly house as he is the only person given this length of sentence. Unlike the first period, a growing number of keepers of disorderly houses were given a recognizance to keep the peace. Twenty-five of the twenty-nine individuals who were offered bail to keep the peace were men who had been arrested in brothel raids. That justices of the peace offered them the means to avoid a public trial and punishment suggests that they did not want to punish clients but only frighten them into avoiding brothels in the future. The double standard is clearly evident. Figure 7.2 also demonstrates that the majority of women who were deemed guilty of keeping a disorderly house were incarcerated for one to two months. Others received penalties of over three months.127 In the last period, from 1838 to 1842, the length of sentences diminished further. Magistrates utilized a variety of shorter sentences, which most often never exceeded two months (see figure 7.1). Only one woman, Mary Mulcahey, was given a longer sentence, in this instance a year.128 In 1840, justices of the peace began to add fines of £5 to their repertory of punishment, which, according to Peter Oliver, encouraged settling conflicts without using public humiliation or prison sentences.129 Fines may also have served as a form of service

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tax or as a licence to work, as Joel Best has argued, to regulate those keeping brothels.130 Fereol Dyon was committed to the House of Correction at hard labour for one month and further penalized with a £5 fine.131 Josephine Raymond, Caroline Lecompte, Adélaide Ledoux, Emélie Duval, Mary Ann Shaw, Mary Stevens, and Charlotte Goulet were each fined £5, but if they were unable to pay the fine, they would have to remain in the Common Gaol until they could.132 Over the three periods, the sentencing patterns for both groups, streetwalkers and brothel-keepers, shared certain characteristics. First, as police began arresting growing numbers of women who marketed sex, justices imposed shorter sentences. Second, while magistrates occasionally offered recognizance to streetwalkers and female brothelkeepers, clients were more likely to be the recipients of this particular legal intervention. By the second period (1830 to 1837), during an apparent crackdown on anyone who frequented brothels, men were allowed a recognizance to keep the peace or to guarantee their appearance at the next sitting of the Quarter Sessions. Those unable to arrange security for a recognizance remained incarcerated. Their only other recourse was to wait for a magistrate or the court to discharge them. By contrast, streetwalkers were rarely if ever acquitted and the certainty of imprisonment meant that they were treated more harshly than their brothel counterparts. As pressure mounted on prisons due to growing numbers of patriotes being sentenced to the Common Gaol, justices of the peace began to discharge prisoners detained on disorderly house charges. Mary Ann Crawford, a notorious prostitute by any standard, was released from prison within two days of her arrest.133 The sheriff and his deputy discharged Owen Willock from prison within two days of his arrest as well.134 However women who were apprehended for streetwalking, vagrancy, and being loose, idle, and disorderly during the same period were not released from the Common Gaol – the House of Correction was not in operation – before the expiration of their term; the rebellions had no effect on shortening their incarcerations. Such women were seen as part of a disreputable, unregulated public and a distraction to the soldiers who were expected to bring control to a city in the throes of potential armed insurgency.

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Imprisonment As we have already seen, grand jurors painted a squalid picture of both the prison interior and population. Donald Fyson reminds us that there was little majesty associated with British-style justice and retribution: the terror of punishment was owing to the insalubrious, overcrowded conditions in which it took place.135 Consecutive grand juries were especially critical of the inactivity that prevailed in the prison and among prisoners: “a State of idleness is peculiarly fitted to cherish every evil habit already implanted with regard to the Backwardness of many to assist in bringing offenders to Justice the Jury while they lament with the Court the existence of such a feeling are persuaded that it may be accounted for from the expence [sic] to which persons who are instrumented in the prosecution of criminals are liable.”136 Prison regulations, designed by the justices of the peace, allowed the keeper of the Common Gaol to employ prisoners at light work if it ensured the cleanliness and good government of the institution. Thus, he could assign someone from the prison population as wardsman or wardswoman to take responsibility for the prevention of damage to prison property and the cleanliness of the building. If these appointees scrubbed the privies themselves, they were eligible for a double allowance.137 By contrast, the superintendent of the House of Correction was mandated to use all possible means to employ prisoners at work, including the manufacture of products, which the sheriff was to sell.138 While female prisoners were expected to work, often the repetitive nature of the labour subverted any rehabilitative purposes that reformers might have intended. Despite claims that other forms of industry were to be introduced into the House of Correction, prostitutes and vagrants were usually employed only at picking oakum. While reformers believed that the women needed to learn the skills required for domestic service, which they could then pursue when released from jail, work seemed undirected and often did not take into account the conditions of those who were incarcerated. For instance, prisoners required to toil outdoors were often inadequately clothed or insufficntly fed, given the labour demanded of them. The institution did not furnish them with stockings and

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mittens in wintertime and the food they received was exactly the same as that for those who did not work.139 The gaoler did provide rooms for other prisoners to work at different crafts: “quelques uns des détenus se livraient a des occupations qui leur étaient familières.”140 Much of the discourse about prisons over the entire period of this study revolved around the need to inculcate female prisoners with better habits to “retrieve their character and find the way again open to the path of virtue.”141 Encouraging and preparing these women for such a traditional occupation as domestic service was problematic to say the least as such employment could not possibly ameliorate the overall problems associated with female employment. Not all of these women would have viewed domestic service as a suitable occupation and not all heads of households would have viewed penitent ex-prostitutes as suitable to work in their homes as servants. By and large, women who did not want to work while in prison found ways to avoid it. Even women who sought out the prison for refuge tried to avoid the task of picking oakum, as did Bridget Howe. Dr Arnoldi complained that although she often solicited incarceration, she was “seldom at the oakum more than a few days and generally contrived to be sick, for the remainder of her time.”142 Whatever rehabilitative goals the gaoler and others might have had were subverted; imprisonment was more than likely felt by those confined there as punitive, yet this did not serve as a deterrence for many of the women had no place else to go.

Conclusion While Montreal’s elites debated whether the purpose of punishment should be deterrence or rehabilitation, incarceration served a range of objectives for the city’s residents. The local prison provided public assistance to destitute inhabitants – often the elderly and mothers and their children – as well as streetwalkers who found themselves in the unenviable position of being without shelter. Given their homelessness, abject poverty, and non-respectable status, disorderly women like Magdeleine Couture and Magdeleine McDonald turned to the prison as a subsistence strategy to obtain food, refuge, medical treatment, and palliative care, blurring the boundaries between life inside

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and outside the institution. Such uses of the prison meant that many homeless streetwalkers spent the winter incarcerated in a prison that, while a safer environment than living rough during inclement weather, was characterized by overcrowding as well as insalubrious conditions, descriptions that featured regularly in grand jury presentments. Deliberations about the objectives of punishment notwithstanding, justices of the peace sentenced most disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses – at least the few who were actually prosecuted to a verdict – to long intervals of imprisonment. They occasionally resorted to other methods of retribution, including recognizances to keep the peace, banishment, and fines. Homeless streetwalkers who turned to the prison as a place of refuge skewered the lengths of sentences as magistrates often accommodated their need for shelter over the winter. Punishment changed over the period under study. Until 1822, retribution could take the form of public spectacles when some of those who were found guilty of keeping a disorderly house were subjected to the pillory or to carting. After 1822, such public forms of chastisement of brothel-keepers disappeared in favour of more private ones, such as imprisonment and fines. By the late 1830s, justices of the peace were imposing shorter prison sentences on prostitutes. Streetwalkers were typically subjected to some period of imprisonment while women who worked in brothels were more likely to be found not guilty or have plaintiffs abandon the charges against them. Street prostitutes were thus punished more severely when compared to their brothel counterparts.

Conclusion Discourse, Everyday Life, and Women’s Agency

Montreal women accused of prostitution-related offences made their own history. They negotiated choices and instituted strategies within a range of possibilities that varied according to social class, ethnicity, race, marital status, and individual resilience as well as individual shortcomings. Disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses also made their own history as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, friends, and neighbours in local communities where they shared housing, purchased goods at nearby markets and stores, frequented local taverns and urban amusements, attended church services, and worked as prostitutes in brothels or in public space. Streetwalkers demonstrated agency when they established groups made up of women, men, and children that crossed class, ethnic, racial, gender, and neighbourhood boundaries, providing protection and sharing subsistence to get through difficult times. Because brothels often encouraged camaraderie, prostitutes who worked in them derived support and security through their relationships with each other. Montreal prostitutes also confronted very real limitations that not only narrowed their range of choices but pitted them against the authority of brothelkeepers, the men who paid for sex commerce, neighbours, family members, elites, and diverse agents of the local state such as justices of the peace, policemen, and jailors. The historical experiences of women deemed to be prostitutes, their economic and social susceptibilities, and the strategies they employed to resist authority and to champion their own agency are both complex and vast. The women accused of prostitution-related offences were an integral part of the rich tapestry of urban dwellers who called Montreal

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home. They represented a diverse group made up of local inhabitants and newcomers who had migrated from the countryside, over land from the United States, or across the ocean from the British Isles and elsewhere. These women shared neighbourhoods with people of different social classes, ethnicities, and religious denominations, traversing the same streets and green spaces, inhabiting the same buildings, and meeting at the communal water taps. The public nature of everyday life and the mixed use of urban space meant that prostitution was ubiquitous on the urban landscape. But it was not uniform: “redlight” activities were more entrenched in those parts of Montreal where there was a greater demand. Prostitution was tolerated in the city’s neighbourhoods as long as customary rules of decorum were followed. When they were not, neighbours, kin, proprietors, and even brothel-keepers turned to the criminal justice system to discipline recalcitrant prostitutes, to sort out personal quarrels, and to check competition. To work in sex commerce, disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses negotiated with neighbours, families, clients, brothel-keepers, and the criminal justice system and mediated their encounters with the city’s inhabitants and representatives of the criminal justice system on the streets, at home, and in neighbourhoods. There was no single reason women chose prostitution. Instead, the decision was based on a range of options: many integrated sex commerce into their repertory of subsistence strategies, while others turned to it to be socially, economically, and sexually independent. Prostitution served as a temporary solution to a variety of economic needs, a long-term answer to problems associated with chronic alcoholism and homelessness, or a vocation. Women like Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland and Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire, from wellknown craft families, pursued careers in the sex trade. Most women, however, worked as prostitutes for short periods. Newcomers, including those who were Irish and unmarried, turned to sex commerce to solve the more immediate need of securing food and shelter. The everyday life of Montreal’s popular classes included a vibrant bachelor culture, informal divorce when such separation was forbidden in law, and household economies that included not only married couples and widows but single women who clustered together in domestic spaces as a subsistence strategy to promote their economic independence.

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The divide between the discourses of Montreal’s elites about popular-class female sexual transgression and prostitutes’ daily brushes with city residents and representatives of the criminal justice system was profound. Even though city inhabitants and justice officials exercised their authority at multiple levels, women who marketed sex resisted efforts to limit their pursuit of a livelihood. The different parties had to reconcile their conflicting interests on the streets, in green spaces and neighbourhoods, within families, and at court. Ignoring the ardour inherent in most sexual relationships, regardless of class, the rhetoric of “brutal passions” that the members of the grand jury in July 1836 associated with brothels reflected their prejudices about popular classes values as well as their belief that labouring women were far too interested in sex. Even within the criminal justice system, attitudes and practices varied with respect to prostitution, defying a monolithic view of the local state. On the one hand, Montreal’s police, magistrates, and prison wardens usually saw prostitutes and brothel-keepers as part of a subaltern community, their work illicit and thus requiring regulation and punishment, and their status the antithesis of that of respectable mothers and wives who had the task of being moral guides in their families. On the other hand, many of these same judicial authorities understood prostitution to be a necessary “evil” to protect respectable women from the worst excesses of men’s sexuality. Furthermore, they acknowledged street prostitutes’ lack of resources and allowed them to use the prison for food, shelter, and medical as well as palliative care. Representatives of the criminal justice system were fully aware of the intentions of street prostitutes when they requested imprisonment, threatened to perpetrate misdemeanors, engaged in illicit activities, or admitted to crimes they had never committed in order to be incarcerated over the winter months. Judicial authorities thus facilitated destitute prostitutes’ use of the courts and prisons to meet some of their subsistence needs, although such complicity did not occur with all women who required assistance, sometimes with lethal outcomes. Neighbours and relatives turned to the law as part of an armamentarium to rein in and discipline disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses. These multiple power relations shaped people’s lives and were employed daily by kin, neighbours, brothel-keepers, spouses, lovers, and representatives of the criminal justice system.

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Prostitutes resisted family, community, and state efforts to discipline them, just as they, like the popular classes from which they came, rejected attempts by elites to impose a new definition of respectability based on self-discipline, hard work, temperance, respect for authority, and Christianity. In the period under study, Montreal elite discourses – expressed in newspapers, grand jury presentments, charges to the grand jury, and the House of Assembly – redefined what constituted acceptable behavior and sexuality for women. A new construct of femininity was elaborated in the context of a transition to industrial capitalism that included urbanization and transformations in paternalistic work relations along with shifts in the definition of respectability, the embourgeoisement of public space, and escalating political tensions in the 1830s that culminated in the rebellions. For elites, Montreal’s expanding, more diverse urban population, the changes associated with a society in transition, and the imperative to impose new ideas about respectability on an obstreperous labouring class provoked a great deal of anxiety and found a scapegoat in women’s sexuality. Disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses’ knowledge of the criminal justice system permitted them to both maneuver within it and use it to their advantage. Some of their tactics were successful; others were not. They called on the police to intervene when violence erupted in brothels or when husbands became abusive. And, as already noted, they turned to the criminal justice system for shelter, food, and medical treatment. These women exercised their agency within a patriarchal structure made up of policemen, justices of the peace, court clerks, and prison wardens. The shift from a local moral economy to a more repressive local state apparatus had a profound impact on those who marketed sex. The events of the 1830s affected women’s ability to use well-worn strategies as they were increasingly condemned by the representatives of the local state – policemen – who not only acted as plaintiffs in cases involving disorderly houses but also took advantage of their power and discretion by demanding alcohol, food, goods, and sex from proprietors and prostitutes. These criminal acts of extortion were committed even by those in the upper levels of the court. Such an increasing intrusion of the state into everyday life in early nineteenth-century Montreal challenged and shaped the complex

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links between gender, sexuality, and power. Legally, use of the charge of vagrancy was expanded, resulting in greater surveillance and discipline of women’s sexuality. The practices governing the enforcement of prostitution-related laws served different, sometimes conflicting, purposes from those their framers had in mind, particularly with respect to class and gender. A chasm existed between the law and legal procedures and practice in terms of application, sites of enforcement, and impact. This divide meant that elites had to search for new methods to regulate prostitution once old ones faltered. When their quest to abolish prostitution failed, city notables began to demand better management of disorderly women and disorderly houses and in 1836 the July Grand Jury recommended that a form of regulation similar to that in European cities such as Paris be instituted to allow the state to intervene directly in the internal affairs of city brothels. From my appraisal of criminal court documents and police registers, it is apparent that the legal regulation of prostitution was comprehensive and resulted in complex relations between prostitutes and representatives of the criminal justice system that manifested themselves in three ways. First, city residents turned to the criminal justice system to discipline local brothel-keepers, although few of their complaints resulted in a verdict because most of the plaintiffs abandoned the process by failing to appear in court to prosecute the defendants. The experiences of street prostitutes were much different: since policemen usually acted as plaintiffs and did not abandon the prosecution, these women were committed to prison, often for lengthy periods. Second, policemen stepped into a paternalistic role to discipline women they considered to be living outside the authority of husbands and fathers. The act of pursuing women at law for prostitution thus served to regulate those understood to be beyond the influence and domination of male kin, deeming them criminal. At the same time, a fine balancing act was involved since prostitution was considered a necessary evil in light of men’s dangerous sexuality, providing a critical outlet to protect other women’s respectability. Police thus acted to offer some protection to those involved in it, particularly in using jail sentences to provide them with shelter and subsistence. Third, prostitutes sought ways to resist authority – mostly male – as exercised by the local community, the state, or in sex commerce; they resorted to the same courts and en-

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countered the same justices of the peace who had punished them for prostitution, invoking the law for their own ends to seek justice against perpetrators of criminal acts against them such as assault and battery, uttering threats, sexual assault, and larceny. Not only did men commit violent acts against women, but prostitutes were aggressive toward other women marketing sex, as were female neighbours toward sex workers. Work in sex commerce was undoubtedly dangerous and women who were involved in it needed the local state’s protection in order to work as safely as possible. Indeed, they even required protection from representatives of the local state, including members of Montreal’s police force. Although violence was visibly associated with prostitution, the criminal justice system offered sex workers little security. Sarah Noxon’s brutal encounter with James Niles and Daniel Daly is but one example. Time and again, elites blamed a lack of effective policing for the violence associated with sex commerce but rarely considered that the women who participated in sex commerce had a right to the protection of the state. Moreover, when prostitutes initiated legal procedures against aggressive city residents, they seldom succeeded in securing a guilty verdict. Prostitution in early nineteenth-century Montreal was usually understood in overtly moral terms: the purveyors of sex were transmitters of contamination, nonrespectable, and, therefore not entitled to security or the impartiality of the lower courts. Sarah Noxon, for instance, did not see justice served. Instead, a parade of the city’s elites served as character witnesses for the defence, ensuring that the middle-class jurors would find the defendents not guilty. To deal with the dangers of sex commerce, disorderly women and keepers of disorderly houses had to institute their own measures to make their workplaces as safe as possible. The problem of violence embedded in sex commerce never disappeared over the period under study, and the criminal justice system did not protect the women who were assaulted or threatened, deciding instead that it was their sexuality that needed to be disciplined. There are important lessons in the history of prostitution. Although Quebec historians have often ignored or marginalized women who marketed sex and elites of the past have declared them outcasts, listening to their “voices” de-marginalizes the study of prostitution and gives its practitioners their rightful place as active agents in Montreal’s

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history. Sex commerce was never straightforward in the period under study: it was dangerous, complicated, and messy. Prostitutes lived and worked in mixed neighbourhoods and women chose to market sex for different reasons. Those who used their bodies for economic transactions were condemned while also being characterized as women without choices, the victims of poverty, alcohol consumption, their own voracious sexual appetites, or men’s wandering libido. The binary of the “fallen woman” juxtaposed with the image of wife and mother was commonplace in elite discourse. But such a dichotomy is far too simplistic and inaccurate. As the city’s inhabitants grappled with what ought to be done about prostitution – debating the possibility of eliminating or regulating it through legislation and better policing and whether punishment ought to deter or rehabilitate women who marketed sex – they implicitly recognized that there were no easy strategies. At the heart of all of these debates was the regulation and criminalization of women’s sexuality and the belief that, left unchecked, they would be a sorry model for other women. Pursuing alleged prostitues at law regulated both women’s sexuality and sex commerce. While neighbours, family members, and others continued to accuse women of marketing sex and to prosecute them, the local state, as embodied in the police, increasingly intervened over the period under study. But it is not always evident if all of the women accused of sex commerce were actually prostitutes. Some of the accusations of sexual impropriety were probably not related to prostitution but served as a means to discipline women’s sexuality. Even women with a history of prostitution would have had sexual relations that were not related to their work. As wives, lovers, mothers, sisters, and daughters, they were involved in a range of sexual relationships. Examining the lives of prostitutes through diverse historical documents from their time gives us a glimpse into their complex lives and relationships. Their encounters and negotiations with kin, neighbours, strangers, and members of the city’s criminal justice system that sought to discipline women’s sexual transgression provide us with a window onto their everyday world and the choices they made to conduct their lives.

Notes

Introduction 1 Dite or dit was used to distinguish one person or family from another. In other words, a person who used this form sought to differentiate his family from that of his siblings, using an alias that referred to a particular thing, such as a family’s geographic origin, a characteristic of a family patriarch, or the first name of an ancestor. 2 Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec à Montreal (hereafter banq-m), tl19 s1 ss1, Deposition of Sarah Noxon, 21 January 1830. 3 Ibid. 4 banq-m, tl19 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Laliberté, 22 January 1830, and Deposition of Lucie Rolland, 22 January 1830. 5 banq-m, tl19 s1 ss11, 4 March 1830. 6 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 10 July 1836. 7 Montreal Gazette, 23 January 1836. 8 Scholars have made similar arguments about the boarding houses for men that married women with families operated. They were locations of sexual tensions, pleasure, and danger. See, for example, Zembrzycki, “There Were Always Men in Our House,” and Gamber, “Tarnished Labor.” 9 A growing literature on the history of sexuality shows that passion was part and parcel of sexual attraction in the nineteenth century and historians have consistently refuted enduring stereotypes about Victorians for over two decades. See for example, Kevin White, Sexual Liberation or Sexual License?; Patricia Anderson, When Passion Reigned; Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality; and Seidman, “The Power of Desire and the Danger of Pleasure.” Seidman has argued that Victorians believed “sex was a natural instinct whose significance for the individual and society was far-reaching and powerful.” Consequently, the sexual instinct represented a potent force that could be either benevolent or evil and sexual excess would lead to “moral degradation, unimaginable suffering and personal ruin” (Seidman, “The Power of Desire and the Danger of Pleasure,” 27–31).

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10 Barret-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria, 2–9. 11 Corbin, Time, Desire and Horror, 71–5. See also Cindy McCreery’s study of the representations of widows and middle-aged single women who were depicted in caricatures as having voracious sexual appetites in need of restraint, although also as more pathetic than dangerous (McCreery, “Lustful Widows and Old Maids in Late Eighteenth-Century English Caricatures,” 112–32). 12 Henderson, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London, 11. 13 See Philips, “A ‘Weak’ State?” and Eastwood, “Parliament and Locality” and Governing Rural England. 14 See his award-winning study of criminal justice in Lower Canada, Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People. 15 See for example, Hall, Civilizing Subjects; Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics and “Sexuality, Gender, and Empire”; and Fellows and Razack, “The Race to Innocence. 16 Levine, “Sexuality, Gender, and Empire.” 17 Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1:25, 115, 3–5. Foucault’s study of sexuality has garnered much reflection by diverse scholars. Consider for example, Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties,” 832; Black, “Taking the Sex out of Sexuality.” 18 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 121. 19 Hartsock, “Foucault on Power”; Mcnay, “The Foucauldian Body and the Exclusion of Experience”; and Deveaux, “Feminism and Empowerment.” See also MacKinnon, “Does Sexuality Have a History?” 20 Dubinsky, Improper Advances, and Constance Backhouse, Petticoats & Prejudice. 21 Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives, 7–12. 22 Cruickshank, London’s Sinful Secret, xi. 23 Stansell, City of Women; Ryan, Women in Public; Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society; Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches; and Davis, Fiction in the Archives. 24 Bradbury, Working Families; Ross, Love and Toil; and Hufton, “Women without Men. 25 Sue Morgan, “Introduction,” 16. For the debate between Joan Scott and Linda Gordon, see Scott, “Review,” and Gordon, “Review: Response to Scott.” 26 See for example, Poutanen, Olson, Fischler, and Schwartzman, “Tuberculosis in Town; King, “Social Inequality, Identity and the Labouring Poor in Eighteenth-century England”; and Gallant, “Agency, Structure, and Explanation in Social History.” 27 Bennett, “Feminism and History,” 67. By exploring the limits of power and of agency, I address Jean-Marie Fecteau’s harsh criticism of historians’ so-called “fetish” with agency: “The pleasure in recovering the independence and the rich inventiveness of the dominated, real as it is, has

Notes to Pages 12–18

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

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often led researchers to treat power relationships as a sort of necessary background, a bothersome spectator, or simply as a way to advance a history conceived exclusively “from the bottom up” (Fecteau, “From Agents to Institutions” in Fecteau and Harvey, eds, La régulation sociale entre l’acteur et l’institution, 21, note 17). Iacovetta and Mitchinson, “Introduction,” 6. McKenna, “Women’s Agency in Upper Canada,” 347. Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures, 5. Cited in Batchelor, “Industry in Distress,” 2. Levine, Prostitution, Race, and Politics. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 167. Block and Brown, “Clio in Search of Eros,” 8. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 320. See also Barret-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria, 2–9, 183. Parent-Duchâtelet, La prostitution à Paris au XIXe siècle, 88. Acton, Prostitution, 114–29. Sanger, The History of Prostitution, 32–3, 488–522. Block, Rape & Sexual Power in Early America, and, Lyons, Sex among the Rabble. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 12. Ibid., 152–85, 292–3 Bennett and Froide, “A Singular Past,” 10. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 401–3. Cecilia Morgan, “‘In Search of the Phantom Misnamed Honour,’” 539– 40. Hill, Women Alone, 101. Levine, “Women and Prostitution,” 484–7. Poutanen, “Regulating Public Space in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal,” 36. A complaint of assault by Mary Rogers against Helen Gilbert offers a view into the complexities of popular-class women’s relations as well as their growing use of the law to settle disagreements. According to Mary Rogers, as she passed in front of Helen Gilbert’s door while searching for her daughter in the neighbourhood, Gilbert assaulted her by calling her a “bitch and whore” and throwing a basin of water in her face (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Rogers, 9 September 1841). This episode suggests, among other things, that the older pattern of publicly settling accounts with neighbours could and did bring local inhabitants into direct contact with the law. Rogers probably turned to a justice of the peace when negotiations failed, suggesting that relations between neighbours could be difficult. See for example, Riegel, “Changing American Attitudes towards Prostitution (1800–1920)”; Holmes, “Reflections by Gaslight”; Johnson, “That Guilty Third Tier”; Evans, “Prostitution, State and Society in Imperial Ger-

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Notes to Pages 18–24 many”; Storch, “Police Control of Street Prostitution in Victorian London”; Jones, “Prostitution and the Ruling Class in Eighteenth-Century Montpellier”; Mary E. Perry, “Lost Women in Early Modern Seville”; Engel, “Immoral Intentions”; Connelly, The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era; Hobson, Uneasy Virtue; Karras, “The Regulation of Brothels in Later Medieval England”; and Ryan, Women in Public. Consider Rosen, ed., The Maimie Papers, and Upton, ed., Madaline. Helen Jewett’s life and death has been extensively examined in Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, and,Corbin, Les filles de noce. Consider the work of Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver; Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood; Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women”; Adler, “Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts, and Good-for-Nothing Huzzies; and Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers. Lévesque, “Le bordel”; “Eteindre le Red Light”; and La norme et les déviantes; Lacasse, La prostitution féminine à Montreal, 1945–1970; and Myers, “Criminal Women and Bad Girls. Fingard, The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax. Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice, 228–59. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 340. The livre de dépouillement reveals that census-takers identified at least eight brothel-keepers and sixteen prostitutes in the Faubourg Quebec, one madam and three prostitutes in the Faubourg St-Louis, and ten brothelkeepers and fifty-two prostitutes in the Faubourg St-Laurent. They also counted ten prostitutes in the Faubourg St-Antoine, sixteen prostitutes in the Faubourg St-Joseph, one madam and one prostitute in the Faubourg Ste-Anne, and two prostitutes in Pointe-à-Callière. (Archives du Seminaire de Quebec, Font Viger-Verreau, 015A, Livre de dépouillement de recensement fait de la cité en 1825) See for example, Iacovetta and Mitchinson, “Introduction, 13, and Robertson, “What’s Law Got to Do with It?”, 162. Newman, Embodied History, 1. Robertson, “What’s Law Got to Do with It?”, 163. McSheffrey, “Detective Fiction in the Archives.” Consider also Davis, Fiction in the Archives, and Iacovetta and Mitchinson, “Introduction,” 13. Robertson, “What’s Law Got to Do with It?”, 181. Karras, “Sex and the Singlewoman,” and Bennett and Froide, eds, “A Singular Past,” 139. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ann Griffith, 10 December 1822. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 27 April 1829 and Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 31 October 1831. Perrault, Viger, and Guy, Montreal en 1825 and Library and Archives Canada (hereafter lac), c-718, Census 1825 Lower Canada: 2024–2193.

Notes to Pages 25–36 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

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Lauzon and Stewart, “The Bourgeois Town, 126. Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, 201. MacLeod, “Salubrious Settings and Fortunate Families, 19. Jenkins, Montreal, 255. Ibid., 264. Gagnon, Questions d’égouts, 43–4. lac, c-729 and c-730, Lower Canada, Census 1842: 1301–480 and 1481–539. Courville, Quebec, 129, 140. MacLeod, “Salubrious Settings and Fortunate Families,” 16, 157. Leneman and Mitchison, Sin in the City, 5. Gossage, “Family Formation and Age at Marriage in Saint-Hyacinthe Quebec, 1854–1891,” 69. For more on bachelor societies in Canadian history see Podruchny, Making the Voyageur World; Perry, On the Edge of Empire; and Forestell, “The Miner’s Wife.” US publications include, among others, Looby, “Republican Bachelorhood”; Spiro, “Reading with a Tender Rapture”; Chudacoff, The Age of the Bachelor; Philip Howell, “Sex and the City of Bachelors”; and Bertolini, “Fireside chastity. Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 99.

Chapter One 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Parker and Samuel Wilson, 11 December 1841. 2 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Moses Judah Hayes, 11 December 1841. 3 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Jacques Perrault, Joseph Tetro dit Ducharme, and Marguerite Vegiard, 19 September 1810. 4 Jules Vallès, La Rue à Londres (Paris, 1951 [1866]) but quoted in BarretDucrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria, 9. 5 Farge, Fragile Lives, 11. 6 Atherton, Montreal 1535–1914, 2:131. 7 See for example, Connelly, The Response to Prostitution; Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood; Hobson, Uneasy Virtue; and Gilfoyle, City of Eros. 8 Howell, “A Private Contagious Diseases Act,” 380. See also Hinther, “The Oldest Profession in Winnipeg,” 2–13. 9 Early nineteenth-century American cities were characterized by their amorphous nature, with unlimited accessibility to both women and men. The beginnings of gender differentiation merged between 1825 and 1840 with the development of so-called male space in the form of public halls, theatres, and merchant exchanges. By mid-century, class became the means to differentiate public space: virtuous middle to upper-class women, to prevent an affront to their sensibilities by encounters with so-called “danger-

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Notes to Pages 36–9 ous” women, had their access to public space curtailed. Working-class women on the other hand continued to share public space with prostitutes. (Ryan, Women in Public, 64–79; see also Stansell, City of Women, 63–75). Both Timothy Gilfoyle and Marilynn Wood Hill contend that the integration of prostitution in the neighbourhoods of all social classes did not occur until 1820. This widespread dispersal of the sex trade was short lived according to Gilfoyle, with the development of Soho as a red-light district (“The Urban Geography of Commercial Sex, 383–4). Wood Hill, on the other hand, suggests that despite the dispersal of prostitution, certain areas of the city gained notoriety as centres of prostitution. (Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 184) Her definition of a red-light district works better than Gilfoyle’s much stricter one. He claims that in New York City before 1820, the sex trade was a private affair: little streetwalking took place outside informal, spatially defined areas of prostitution, which were not red-light districts. By 1850, Soho, with 40 per cent of the city’s prostitution, became a new large-scale primary centre for the sex trade and thus, a red-light district (“The Urban Geography of Commercial sex,” 375–88). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1798. Corfield, “Walking the City Streets,” 141–9. Henderson, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London, 52–75. Timothy Gilfoyle adheres to a rigid definition of red-light district based on its quantitative features and as the end result of some process. He does not consider the public perception of and behaviour toward informal areas of prostitution and the red-light district of Soho. By contrast, Penelope Corfield and Tony Henderson emphasize both the process of differentiation and the lived experience of London’s inhabitants in public space. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Anne Sanscartier, 28 November 1814. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1823; and the Montreal Gazette, 23 January 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1840. Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women,” 548–9. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter McCormick, 15 January 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jean-Marie Cadieux, 18 August 1812. Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women,” 554–6. Library and Archives Canada (hereafter lac), rg31, Census Returns, 1831, Montreal, City of Montreal (Que), Microfilm c-5941. For more on the methodology of identifying brothels and inmates using census returns, see Dunae, “Sex, Charades, and Census Records.” Dunae, “Sex, Charades, and Census Records,” 293. Lovell’s Montreal Directory. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Fitzpatrick and Thomas Garvey, 15 December 1841.

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24 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Edwin Atwater and Michael Filben, 9 December 1835. 25 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louinda Hoadley, 9 February 1841. 26 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie Leger, Marie Payette, and Julie Brunelle, 31 August 1814. 27 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Chapleau and Adolphe Dumaine, 9 March 1842. 28 Howell, “Sex and the City of Bachelors,” 35. 29 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Johnson, 23 August 1825. 30 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Dredge and Toussaint Garreau, 27 February 1840. 31 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Deselle, 29 February 1842. 32 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Archange Lavallée and Elizabeth Gallagher, 18 February 1839. 33 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Burt, 26 October 1814. 34 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Potvin, 13 June 1835. 35 Montreal Herald, 2 September 1826. 36 Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 26. 37 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Catharine Ryan and Sarah Singleton, 16 February 1827. For information on the Theatre Royale, see Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 152–3; Klein, “The Opening of Montreal’s Theatre Royale, 1825,” 24–38; and Bains, “Frederick Brown and Montreal’s Doomed Theatre Royal, 1825–26,” 65–75. 38 Johnson, “That Guilty Third Tier.” 39 Heron, Booze, 27–8. 40 Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches, 57–60. 41 Roberts, “Women, Men, and Taverns in Tavern-Keeper Ely Playter’s Journal.” 42 Roberts, In Mixed Company, 161–2. 43 The Scribbler, No. 36, 28 February 1822, 282. 44 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Calendar of the House of Correction, 2 July 1825. 45 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 19 December 1836. 46 Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 26. 47 Montreal Transcript, 18 February 1841. 48 banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, No. 388, Ellen Spiring, 6 August 1841. 49 Sweeny, “Making a Bourgeois Town.” 50 Lauzon and Stewart, “The Bourgeois Town,” 112–16. 51 Bouchette, A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada, 143. 52 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Register, Vol. 38, 23 December 1836. 53 Montreal Herald, 17 May 1817. 54 Buckingham, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the other British Provinces in North America, 107. 55 Since policemen usually served as plaintiffs in depositions against street-

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70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82

Notes to Pages 46–52 walkers, they were most often apprehended within a circumscribed area of the city where policemen patrolled or occasionally elsewhere while conducting other related police business. For example, high constable Benjamin Delisle arrested streetwalker Frances Dobbins while he was “on his way from his residence to the court house between the hours of nine and ten” (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 9 July 1838). Dicaire, “Police et société à Montreal au milieu du XIXe siècle,” 42. Montreal Herald, 14 October 1815. Frank Mackey identifies Black lamp men who, before lights were installed on the street, illuminated the way home for those who could afford to pay. Mackey, Done with Slavery, 188. Montreal Herald, 2 December 1815. Carole Simard, “L’éclairage des rues Montrealaises de 1818 à 1850,” 18. See for example, Bouman, “Luxury and Control,” 28; Baldwin, ““Nocturnal Habits and Dark Wisdom,” and “In the Heart of Darkness,” 752. Montreal Herald, 9 November 1811. La Minerve, 25 Octobre 1827. M.J.D. Roberts, “Public and Private in Early Nineteenth-Century London,” 276–7, 281. Montreal Herald, 20 May 1820. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Gospel, 30 November 1829. Rendell, “Displaying Sexuality,” 79. Domosh, “Those “Gorgeous Incongruities,” 222. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Deacon, 17 January 1842. Lauzon and Stewart, “The Bourgeois Town,” 109. For more on the significance of the promenade see Domosh, “Those “Gorgeous Incongruities,” and Lawrence, “The Greening of the Squares of London.” Sweeny, “Making a Bourgeois Town,” 5. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louis Malo, 30 May 1832. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1836. Lawrence, “The Greening of the Squares of London,” 94. Marsan, Montréal en évolution, 140. Lawrence, “The Greening of the Squares of London,” 101. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 21 May 1834. Police constables James Smith and Théophile Foisey witnessed three or four military officers belonging to different regiments trying to enter Josephine Raymond’s brothel in the early hours of the morning (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of James Smith and Théophile Foisey, 6 June 1839). Senior, British Regulars in Montreal, 149–51. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Kiernan, 19 March 1842. Senior, British Regulars in Montreal, 149. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Fraser, 11 March 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Critchley and Adam Elder, 19 April 1842.

Notes to Pages 52–61

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83 Woodbridge, Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature, 6. 84 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Charbonneau, 13 July 1819. 85 Atherton, Montreal 1535–1914, 2: 131. 86 Fyson, “Eating in the City,” 100. 87 Ibid., 88–9. 88 Originally from Lake Como in Italy, Delvecchio was a prosperous businessman and a respectable member of the Italian community who had established a natural museum to attract customers to his inn. Dechesne, “Thomas Delvecchio.” 89 Petition by Widow Joseph Perrault, Journal of Lower Canada House of Assembly, Vol. 25, 21 February 1816: 298–302. 90 Lauzon and Forget, Old Montreal, 114. 91 Coke, A Subaltern’s Furlough, 64. 92 Bergeron, “Le XIXe siècle et l’âge d’or des marchés publics au Quebec,” 18. 93 Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 149–51. 94 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1840. 95 Cited in Jenkins, 267. 96 Sweeny, Thomas Doige’s Directory of 1819 (database), and the databases of Montreal l’avenir du passé, Department of Geography, McGill University. 97 This information was received from Alan Stewart’s examination of taverns near the Quebec Gate Barracks (Archives de la Ville de Montreal [hereafter avm], Rôle foncier, Cartier ouest Centre est, 1849). 98 Roberts, In Mixed Company, 88. 99 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 50, 19 October 1842. 100 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 50, 8 December 1842. 101 Brennan, Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century, 278–94. 102 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 62, 11 April 1842; 12 April 1842. 103 lac, rg4 B14, Police Registers, Vol. 50, 8 December 1842. 104 Fyson, “Eating in the City,” 90. 105 Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 101. 106 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Bernard Kelly, William Ireson, and David Baird, 30 May 1817. 107 Bouchette, A Topographical Description, 152. 108 Jenkins, Montreal, 255. 109 Coke, A Subaltern’s Furlough, 59. 110 Olson, “Ethnic Partition of the Work Force in 1840s Montreal,” 188. 111 Montreal Gazette, 7 July 1824. 112 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Benjamin Durand and Louis Malo, 9 January 1832. 113 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Lucie Monarque and Appolline

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123

124

Notes to Pages 62–4 Desjardins, 15 September 1832; Depositions of Louis Duchâtel, Jean Arcouet, and Joseph Potts, 17 September 1832; Depositions of Jean Arcouet and Louis Duchâtel, 17 September 1832. Tulchinsky, The River Barons, 204–5. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Richard Lochar and Samuel Stewart, 23 December 1841. Bouchette, A Topographical Description, 160. Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 39–40. Bouchette, A Topographical Description, 161. Jenkins, Montreal, 262. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 33, 27 May 1840. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 58, 25 September 1839. The clerk of the court sometimes provided extra details, such as the names of the intersecting streets if a particular brothel was located on a street corner or some other characteristic, as in the case of a brothel that was described as situated at the end of College Street. The number of complaints against brothel-keepers is represented on corresponding streets. These periods coincide with changes in the policing practices of the city and in the turbulence of the rebellions. Before 1830, a professional Police Office had been established which operated daily out of the Court House, with special police attached to it. The Police Office, managed by two salaried magistrates who also acted as chairmen of the Quarter Sessions, took over much of the business of the clerk of the peace, which involved receiving depositions and issuing warrants and summonses (Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society and the Local State,” 73). The office of the clerk of the peace served a less important position in the daily business of city policing, limiting his activities to the administration of the city and to the more serious cases handled by higher criminal courts (ibid., 75). By the end of the 1820s, the Police Office came under attack. The two salaried magistrates, Thomas McCord and Jean-Marie Mondelet, were dismissed and replaced by a single magistrate, Samuel Gale. In 1829, the Police Office was closed and the position of chairman of the Quarter Sessions abolished. The Police Office as well as its funding were transferred to the Peace Office and thus became the responsibility of the clerk of the peace (ibid., 79). The “new” system was an attempt to return to an older one in which the justices were voluntary and non-salaried, operating out of their homes (ibid., 80). In addition, an internal reorganization of the watch was made in 1832 and completely restructured by 1836, with watchmen regularly patrolling the suburbs. Following the Rebellions of 1837 and 1838, and on the recommendation of Lord Durham, the police force was reorganized by an 1838 edict from the Special Council, which augmented the complement of constables and changed their method of patrolling. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of John Anderson and Cornelius Davernek, 12 February 1813.

Notes to Pages 65–73

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125 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Augustin Cadieux, 7 September 1831. 126 David Garrioch, “Sacred Neighborhoods and Secular Neighborhoods,” 407. 127 Jenkins, Montreal, 255. 128 Montreal Herald, 23 October 1821. 129 The quartier centre-sud is the focus of a permanent museum exhibition, “A coeur de jour! Grandeurs et misères d’un quartier popular” at the Ecomusée du Fier Monde which is dedicated to the working-class history of the area. The term Faubourg à la Mélasse is used there. See also Marsan, Montreal en évolution, 143. 130 avm, vm-6 Services du Greffe, Coupures de presse par rue, 31 decembre 1995, r.3847.A au r.3886.2 (807 a 869 est), No. 31, Petition of Mr Honey for the Homologation and Amelioration of Dabord Street St Lewis Ward 1847, Presented 27 May 1847. 131 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Etienne Benêche dit Lavictoire, 7 May 1831. Etienne Benêche dit Lavictoire was familiar with sex commerce given that both his brother Eloi and sister Marguerite were accused of operating brothels in the 1830s. Eloi married a well-known madam, Rosalie Paquet, in 1843. 132 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1823. 133 Twenty-four prominent Montreal men, including lawyer and future judge Samuel Monk, petitioned an 1834 grand jury to rid their neighbourhood of a house of ill repute, which had been operating on Vitré Street for ten years. Divided into two flats, both of which were deemed brothels by the petitioners, the building was owned by a Mrs. Lemery and leased to women characterized as lewd and disorderly. According to the authors of the petition, the brothels disturbed the public peace by operating at all hours of the day and night and by the assaults and riots that occurred regularly. Moreover, residents and visitors publicly exhibited obscene behaviour to the “great moral danger” of the neighbours. The jurors agreed that the petition merited immediate attention (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Petition to the Grand Jury, 29 April 1834). 134 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Stanley and Thomas Bye, 4 April 1835; Deposition of Thomas Bye and Nicholas H. Baird, 16 April 1835; and deposition of Andrew White, 16 April 1835. 135 Jeffrey S. Adler, “Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts and Good-forNothing Huzzies,” 741–2. 136 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 64, 22 December 1841. 137 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 15 February 1837. 138 Hill, Women Alone, 116. 139 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ann Wilimite and Susannah Fisher, 22 August 1836. 140 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Paris, Antoine Cassepelle,

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144 145 146 147

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Notes to Pages 73–8 and Pierre Dubois, 2 September 1834; Deposition of Jean-Baptiste Homier, Charles Marois, Joseph Paris, and Antoine Cassepelle, 4 September 1834. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie Bricault dite Lamarche, 21 November 1835. lac, rg4, b 20, Applications and Recommendations for Pardons and Clemency, Vol. 15, 15 November 1830. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Jacob Hyatt and Edouard Douaire, 26 August 1837; Depositions of Joseph Gariepie and Emélie Desjardins, 7 October 1837; Depositions of Guillaume Lognon and Joseph Casavant, 30 November 1837; Depositions of Richard Fogerty and Richard Thomas, 18 December 1837; and Depositions of John Evans and Joseph Robeau Duplessis, 11 January 1838. Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 184. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Robert Woods, 17 February 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Bénomi Allin, 4 March 1820. A Jackeen is a derogatory name given to a Dubliner. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “A contemptuous designation for a self-assertive worthless fellow” (The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971]). I wish to thank colleague and Irish scholar D’Arcy Ryan and Dubliner Kevin Whelan for their assistance. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of George Mackin and Hypolite Simon, 4 August 1837.

Chapter Two 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Teavill Appleton, 4 November 1822. Elizabeth Deganne’s father, Jean-Baptiste, was the brother of Marie-Louise Deganne. Marie-Louise married German-born Johann-August Moses in 1791 and bore eight children: Eugene, Jean-Joseph, Marie-Julie, MarieScholastique, Auguste, Catherine, Michel, and Jean-André. 2 Elizabeth Deganne and Joseph Moses were both found guilty of being accessories to theft and receiving stolen goods (Montreal Herald, 21 August 1824). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment of Isabelle Marcotte and Joseph Moses, 18 August 1824; Indictment of Catherine Marcotte, 27 August 1824; Deposition of James Benny, 14 October 1826; Deposition of Marguerite Boisjolie and F-X Mareille, 18 October 1826; and Indictment of Elisabeth Deganne, 24 February 1827. 3 D’Amico, “Shameful Mother, 109–13. 4 Kwolek-Folland, “Customers and Neighbors, 136–7. 5 See Bettina Bradbury’s award-winning book, Working Families. Consider also Fingard, The Dark Side of Life; Gilfoyle, City of Eros; and Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers. 6 Hufton, “Women without Men,” 361.

Notes to Pages 79–84

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7 A renewed interest in the history of single or independent women has resulted in a growing and rich literature. Such investigations demonstrate that single women made up a significant percentage of the population in major European urban centres. Given the difficulty of identifying independent women among the labouring classes, many of the studies focus on middle-class women. See for example, Larsen, “For Want of a Good Fortune”; Green and Owens, “Gentlewomanly capitalism?”; Adams, “A Choice Not to Wed?” Other publications that include single women of all classes are Hill, Women Alone; Bennett and Froide, eds, Single-women in the European Past, 1250–1800, 10; and Palazzi, “Female Solitude and Patrilineage.” 8 See for example, Judith Fingard’s study of Victorian Halifax, wherein she acknowledges that married couples kept houses of prostitution (The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax). So too does Marilyn Wood Hill, who argues that throughout most of the nineteenth century in New York City women and men, as husbands, lovers, or friends, shared the responsibilities of operating brothels (Their Sisters’ Keepers, 291). In large part, this is a problem with the sources themselves, which reflect the gender bias of the record keepers. Men are nearly invisible in police records, institutional accounts of Magdalene Societies, reformers’ tracts, and reports by local commissions established to investigate prostitution. 9 Gregory Thomas Smith, “The State and the Culture of Violence in London, 1760–1840,” 146. 10 Gillis, A World of Their Own Making, 37. 11 Hill, “Introduction,” 2. 12 Bradbury, Working Families, 47, 153. 13 Morgan, “Duelling in Upper Canada,” 540. 14 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 21 April 1803; 19 July 1823. 15 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1840. 16 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1838. 17 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Louis Malo and George Graff, 6 May 1831. 18 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Louis Poirier and Louis Bourdon, 1 October 1832; Indictment, 10 January 1834. 19 Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 17–18. 20 Montreal Transcript, 11 July 1837. Crawford’s first arrest for keeping a brothel took place in August 1837; four more followed from October 1837 to January 1838 (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Jacob Hyatt and Edouard Douaire, 26 August 1837; Depositions of Joseph Gariepie and Emélie Desjardins, 7 October 1837; Depositions of Guillaume Lognion and Joseph Casavant, 30 November 1837; Depositions of Richard Fogerty and Richard Thomas, 18 December 1837; and Depositions of John Evans and Joseph Robeau Duplessis, 11 January 1838).

334

Notes to Pages 84–8

21 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Rousby, 20 November 1823. 22 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John G. Degan, 6 February 1829. 23 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Josephte Collare (sic), 13 March 1809. 24 Hufton, “Women without Men,” 362. 25 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of François Joseph Aloes and Joseph Poltz, 5 April 1836. 26 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Louis Poirier and Louis Bordon, 1 October 1832; Indictment of Barnabé Cardinal, Pierre Landreville, Richard Lane Sr., Edward Lane, Richard Lane Jr., and Mary Cardinal, 10 January 1834. 27 Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 62. 28 Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women,” 557. 29 Lucie Rolland was the only person formally charged with keeping a disorderly house (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment of Lucie Rolland, 21 October 1828). 30 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Adelphe Delisle, Francis Perry, Louis Malo, and Antoine Lafresnière, 7 September 1830. 31 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Robert Elliott and Jean-Baptiste Serra, 7 April 1823. 32 Edmonds, “Unpacking Settler Colonialism’s Urban Strategies.” 33 See for example, Rueck, “When Bridges Become Barriers.” 34 Robert, Atlas historique de Montreal, 79. 35 To determine the social class of the brothel-keepers, I employed a methodology developed by historian Donald Fyson for his study of Montreal’s criminal justice system between 1780 and 1830. Obviously certain occupations in this period do not lend themselves well to particular categories. Nonetheless, occupations of brothel-keepers or their husbands and fathers were situated in one of six groups: the elite; a middling group; artisans or tradesmen/women; farmers; the unskilled; and the marginal. The elite group consisted of individuals whom Fyson identified as merchants, members of the liberal professions, and those distinguished by the title gentleman or esquire. The middling group, perhaps the most controversial of the categories, included those who were neither elite nor from the popular classes. Fyson considered “clerks, mid-level government bureaucrats, and small shopkeepers” as belonging to this group. Men and women who were identified as having a skilled trade were included in the artisan category along with low-level officials such as constables, policemen, and watchmen. (Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society,” 374–5). The unskilled group consisted of labourers, servants, voyageurs, and milkmen. Using Jean-Marie Fecteau’s discussion of marginal people, I have included prostitutes, vagrants, and soldiers in this category (Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 128).

Notes to Pages 89–96

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36 Bernard, Linteau and Robert, “La structure professionnelle de Montréal en 1825,” 389. 37 Olson, “Ethnic Partition of the Work Force,” 199. 38 François Proulx placed an advertisement in La Minerve announcing that because his wife Marguerite Benêche dite Lavictoire had deserted him, he would no longer be responsible for her debts (La Minerve, 30 November 1829). 39 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Robert Wood and William Wilson, 17 February 1837. 40 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Mathew Wertz and Louis Samson dit Brioche, 13 December 1831; Depositions of Louis Malo and Richard Webb, 16 November 1837. 41 banq-m, cn601, Greffes de notaire J.D. Vallée, 6 February 1846. 42 I am grateful to Bettina Bradbury for this information. See her book Wife to Widow, 374. 43 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Dunwoody and William Needam, 13 February 1838. 44 Young, The Politics of Codification, 153. 45 Olson, “Ethnic Partition of the Work Force,” 187. 46 Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750–1789. See also Stansell, City of Women; Smith and Valenze, “Mutuality and Marginality”; Ross, Love and Toil; Bradbury, Working Families; and Anna Clark, Struggle for the Breeches. 47 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 16. 48 Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women,” 558. 49 Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 70–3. 50 Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 105. 51 Following Alan McCullough, 4/4 Halifax currencies was equal to a dollar. See his book, Money and Exchange in Canada to 1900, 92. 52 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Sarah Murphy, 26 May 1841. 53 Yamin, “Wealthy, Free, and Female.” 54 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Delonais and Peter Brackin, 16 June 1838; Deposition of Joseph Brien and Seraphin Bricault, 9 December 1841. 55 Ross, Love & Toil, 8–9. 56 Bradbury, “Surviving as a Widow in 19th-Century Montreal,” 151–5. 57 Bradbury, Working Families, 211. 58 Ibid., 199. 59 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Barnes and Edward Venner, 16 December 1839. 60 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jean-Marie Cadieux, 18 August 1812. 61 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Critchley and Adam Elder, 19 April 1842.

336

Notes to Pages 96–102

62 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Rousby, 20 November 1823. 63 Bradbury, Wife to Widow, 65–6. 64 Bradbury, Working Families, 184–95. 65 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment, 11 January 1841. 66 Green and Owens, “Gentlewomanly Capitalism?,” 511–12. 67 Bennett and Froide, Single-women in the European Past, 14. 68 Hill, Women Alone, 47. 69 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adin W. Ayers and John Dodge, 16 April 1834. 70 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment, 21 October 10 1828; Depositions of Adelphe Delisle, Francis Perry, Louis Malo, and Antoine Lafresnière, 7 September 1830; Depositions of André Beaune and Lucie Beaune, 12 April 1837; Deposition of Charles Colombe and Joseph Racette, 9 April 1840; Indictment, 21 October 1840. 71 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1844. 72 Mowry, “Dressing Up and Dressing Down,” 80. 73 Valverde, “The Love of Finery,” 169, 172. 74 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1844. 75 Ibid. 76 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Indictment 16 July 1822, 18 July 1822; Sentence, 19 July 1822. Henri and Marie-des-Anges Duclos married in 1801 in La Prairie. Their son Henri was born the following year. 77 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Michelle Sanders, Joseph Brouille, and Antoine Billette, 24 June 1826. Seven months after his arrest, Henry the younger married Marie-Françoise Pary; another daughter Eulalie-Elie would marry Antoine Charron dit Cabana in 1830. 78 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Indictment, 12 July 1826, 13 July 1826, 14 July 1826; Sentence, 19 July 1826. 79 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 27 June 1826. 80 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Sentence, 19 July 1826. 81 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Catherine Zacharie, 16 February 1832; and Indictment of Joseph Mongeon, Dorothée Mongeon, Julie Mongeon, and Mary Sutherland, 21 April 1832. 82 Adams, “A Choice Not to Wed?,” 884. 83 Carlisle, “Disorderly City, Disorderly Women,” 560. 84 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Charles Coulombe and Louis Malo, 13 July 1841. 85 Cruickshank, London’s Sinful Secret, 36. 86 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Raphael Belisle dit Lafleur, 12 February 1841. 87 Myers, Caught, 177–203. 88 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1844. 89 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Francis Grossman, 16 January 1841.

Notes to Pages 102–7

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90 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Jean-Marie Cadieux and André Roi, 18 August 1812. 91 See her numerous publications, which include the following: Myers, Caught; Myers, “Regulation, Agency, and the Transformation of Care for “Predelinquent Girls”; Myers, “Deserting Daughters”; Myers, “The Voluntary Delinquent”; and, Myers, “Qui t’a débauchée?”. 92 Howell, “A Private Contagious Diseases Act,” 376. 93 McCord Museum of Canadian History Archives, McCord Papers, Vol. 692, Quarter Sessions of the Peace, 18 January 1847. 94 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Teavill Appleton, 4 November 1822. 95 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Brown and Jean-Baptiste Billetdoux, 3 April 1826. 96 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Patrick Murphy and Benjamin Edwards, 22 April 1839. 97 Best, Controlling Vice, 59. 98 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1840. 99 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of William Hall and Adelphe Delisle, 7 June 1824. 100 lac, MG24 b 173, James Reid Papers, Vol. 3, 19 February 1819. 101 Mackey, Done with Slavery, 243. 102 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of John George Dagen, Christopher Byrne, and Benjamin Wicklin, 14 April 1825. 103 Mackey, Done with Slavery, 243. 104 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Patrick Graham, 8 May 1820. 105 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Garvey, Thomas Fitzpatrick, and William Leason, 15 December 1841. I would like to thank Suzanne Morton for explaining the meaning of “knocking on the table.” 106 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louis Luissier and Benjamin Desroches, 9 September 1839. 107 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Bernard St-Germain, Joseph Lemoine, Elizabeth St-Romain and Pierre de Rocheblanc, 1 December 1819. 108 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Robert Drake and Mary McEvitt, 26 June 1835. 109 Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 101. 110 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of John Trimble and Hugh Mains, 19 March 1842. 111 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Rousby, 20 November 1823. 112 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of François Deragon and Léon Dufresne, 20 January 1842. 113 Tavern-keepers were to close their establishments at seven o’clock in the evening during winter and at nine o’clock in summer. (31 Geo IV c 7, AD 1829) The 1838 Ordinance stipulated they had to close at ten o’clock in

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117 118 119 120

121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

Notes to Pages 108–11 the evening and remain closed until five o’clock in the morning between 21 March and 1 October and close at nine o’clock in the evening and reopen at six o’clock in the morning between 1 October and 21 March (2 Victoria c2, AD 1838). A year later they were allowed to revert to the original hours (2 Victoria c14, AD 1839). banq-m, tl 32, S26 ss1, Enquête du coroner, 13 November 1842. banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Depositions of Hugh Mins and John Trimble, 19 March 1842. Harsin, “Crime, Poverty and Prostitution in Paris, 1815–1848,” 200. See also Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 242–4, and Best, Controlling Vice, 53–4. Five sols were equal to 5 shillings or a quarter of a pound sterling. Soldiers were given a daily ration of a half-pint of rum (Heron, Booze, 32). banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 13 January 1829. banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 17 April 1832. An examination of depositions against Montreal residents not involved in the sex trade but selling liquor without a license reveals that pastry cook Susannah Smith sold two glasses of wine to Arthur Gilmore at 3 pence a glass (banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 8 November 1842) and that Pierre Monette paid Josephte Archambault 6 pence for four glasses of rum (banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 25 February 1841). Thomas Fowler, The Journal of a tour through British America to the falls of Niagara, 124. Six pence was the equivalent of half a shilling. Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 94. Dubinsky, “Afterward,” 363–4. Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, 101–3. Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 102. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 10 June 1824. lac, r5374-0-4-e, Abraham Joseph – Diaries, 1834–1883, Reel No. m– 185, Diary l, 21 and 22 December 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of James Smith and Théophile Foisey, 6 June 1839. banq-m, tl36 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Louise Benêche dite Lavictoire, 15 December 1832. lac, r5374-0-4-e, Abraham Joseph – Diaries, 1834–1883, Reel No. m– 185, Diary l, 21 and 22 December 1841. Barret-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria, 10. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of William Delisle and Emmanuel d’Aubreville, 15 March 1824. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Amable Gaudry, 1 December 1825. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Julie Bertrand, 20 August 1839. Both being from Burlington, Vermont, William Castle accused his brother-

Notes to Pages 111–15

136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

146 147 148 149 150 151 152

153 154 155

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in-law Joseph Spraker of counselling him to live off the fruits of brothel larceny. Spraker suggested that Castle accompany him to Montreal, where he would teach him how to steal money from Lucie Rolland’s brothel and if possible from the Duclos bawdy house. He admitted that he was already familiar with Rolland’s house of prostitution where he had honed his skills (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Castle, 10 February 1841). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louinda Hoadley, 9 February 1841. Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keeper, 226. McCord Museum of Canadian History Archives, McCord Papers, Vol. 700, 16 January 1855. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 36–7. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Sparling, 9 August 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Joseph Monette and Philip Heffernan, 21 September 1842. Lyon, Sex among the Rabble, 198. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Trimble, 19 March 1842. McCord Museum of Canadian History Archives, McCord Papers, Vol. 691, 15 January 1846. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Castle, 10 February 1841. For this advice, Spraker was incarcerated in the Common Gaol for two months. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Sparling, 9 August 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of William Thompson Richardson, Louis Malo, Charles Barron, and Thérèse Gareau, 16 July 1829. Best, Controlling Vice, 29. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Pierre Poitras, 24 December 1838. Harsin, “Crime, Poverty and Prostitution,” 112–14. Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 99–104. Policemen caught associating with streetwalkers or discovered in brothels lost their jobs but were not incarcerated, unlike the district hangman Benjamin Field, who spent two years in prison after he was arrested with Jane Graham, Anthony Billow, and his two children, Joseph and Mary Field, as vagabonds and bawds. Field’s dubious social standing resulting from his occupation as the district’s hangman, in addition to being African-American in the racist society of 1820 Montreal, most likely contributed to his lengthy jail sentence. lac, rg4 a 1, (S series) Civil and Provincial Secretary, Lower Canada, Vol. 95, 7 July 1807. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Seath and Robert Akin, 18 December 1835. The 1836 murder of Helen Jewett in New York City is one such case that has been explored by Marilynn Wood Hill in her book, Their Sisters’ Keepers and by Patricia Cline Cohen in The Murder of Helen Jewett. Barbara Meil Hobson examines two murder cases in Uneasy Virtue. One involves

340

156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

165

166 167 168 169

170 171 172 173 174 175

176 177 178

Notes to Pages 115–20 the death of Boston prostitute Maria Bickford at the hands of her lover and the other the death of a lover at the hands of New York prostitute Amelia Norman. Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett, 73–5. Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 79–81. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Euphrosine Auger, 21 August 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Euphrosine Auger, 29 October 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louise Horn, 29 October 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie Lussier, 8 February 1833. Ramos, “A Most Detestable Crime,” 28. Ibid., 38. Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 90–1. Gilfoyle never addresses the binary construction of prostitution, that is to say, women as purveyors of commercial sex and men as purchasers of it. Acknowledging the participation of men in the organization of brothel keeping contradicts this interpretation and the view that the sex trade was controlled by women until the advent of pimps. Thus this early male presence destroys the paradigm. Future research will show a more complex and changing perspective of men in prostitution. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jean-Baptiste Parriquette, Nicholas Pominville, and Pierre Roseau, 19 September 1826; covered in Montreal Herald, 20 September 1826. La Minerve, 1 June 1829. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Burk, 8 August 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Catherine Minan, 30 December 1834. Registers of the court of quarter sessions reveal that women and men who were indicted for keeping a disorderly house formed partnerships in 147 out of 314 cases. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Collins, 7 May 1836. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, No. 350, William Collins, 2 May 1841. Lyons, Sex amongst the Rabble, 285–7. See also, Hill, Women Alone, 111. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Mathew Wertz and Louis Samson dit Brioche, 13 December 1831. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Louis Malo and Richard Webb, 16 November 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Bower, Robert Wood, and William Wilson, 17 February 1837; Deposition of John Dredge and Toussaint Garreau, 27 April 1840; Indictment, 21 October 1840. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Alexander Busby and Pierre Martin, 19 July 1834. For more on remarriage in Quebec, see Gossage, “Tangled Webs.” banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of François Dyon, Marie-Anne Poirier and Joseph Dyon, 11 November 1814.

Notes to Pages 120–4

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179 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1815, 13 January 1816, and 19 January 1816. 180 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Lucie Rolland, 30 July 1829. 181 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 21 April 1841. 182 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 17, 29 December 1832. 183 Although a Catherine Lafrance had been arrested for brothel-keeping in Montreal five years before, it is unclear if it was the same person. 184 lac, rg4 b 20, Applications for Clemency and Pardons, Vol. 6, (no other date) 1817: 1905–6. 185 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Bingham, 29 May 1830. 186 Pilarczyk, “‘Justice in the Premises.’” 187 McIntosh, Boys in the Pits, 31. 188 Renée Joyal, “L’Acte concernant les écoles d’industrie (1869),” 228–30. 189 Gilfoyle, City of Eros. 190 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 30. 191 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Amable Breton, 26 March 1832. 192 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Cinqmars, 12 February 1841. 193 See for example Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives, and Kathryn Harvey, “‘To Love, Honour and Obey,’” 128–40. 194 Bradbury, Working Families, 178–80. 195 Kathryn Harvey, “To Love, Honour and Obey,” 129. 196 Between 1800 and 1830, Donald Fyson identified at least 300 women who prosecuted abusive husbands. A formally complaint to a Montreal justice of the peace meant that the police took the men into custody, and they then entered into a recognizance to keep the peace under threat of imprisonment. Battered wives seldom pursued their complaints as far as trial at Quarter Sessions. While the police took these cases seriously, not all justices were willing to prosecute, nor could the police and courts provide the protection that these women needed (Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society,” 392–6). Ian Pilarczyk identified 571 complaints of spousal abuse between 1825 and 1850 (Pilarczyk, “‘Justice in the Premises,’” 259). 197 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louise Corbeille, 31 October 1836. 198 Smith, “The State and the Culture of Violence,” 163. 199 See for example, banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie Bricot (sic) dite Lamarche, 23 June 1835; 23 November 1835; 25 November 1835; and 28 October 1839. 200 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Félicité Hirbour dite Mathurin, 19 November 1823. 201 Roderick Phillips, “Women, Neighborhood, and Family in the Late Eighteenth Century,” 3–5. 202 Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches, 50–3. 203 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ann Hartley, 5 August 1814. 204 Donald Fyson, “Women as Complainants,” 11. 205 Pilarczyk, “‘Justice in the Premises,’” 230.

342

Notes to Pages 125–30

206 207 208 209 210 211

banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Ann Turner, 12 March 1841. Cited in Pilarczyk, “‘Justice in the Premises,’” note 607. Pilarczyk, “‘Justice in the Premises,’” 237. Bradbury, Working Families, 183. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Christine Rodier, 18 August 1820. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Millard and Charles Colombe, 18 February 1840. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Eliza Peebles, 5 March 1827. Eliza Peebles eventually reconsidered working as a prostitute. By 1839, she had incurred her first arrest for prostitution and in 1841 police detained her for grand larceny following a complaint by Charles Titus Greece that she took a cloak from his office. Peebles argued that she had told Greece that he would get it back when he paid her the $5 he owed her “for acting as a wife to him” over the course of three hours (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Eliza Peebles, 25 January 1841). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Julie Doyer and Pierre Doyer, 23 October 1823. Best, Controlling Vice, 30–1, 60–1. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Julia Donaghue, 5 March 1830. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Agathe Florentin and Julia Donahugh, 24 April 1830. Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 103. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Ann Burns, 21 March 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Lucie Rolland, 29 July 1829. Shani D’Cruze, “Sex, Violence and Local Courts,” 40. Best, Controlling Vice, 70. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Archange Lavallée and Elizabeth Gallagher, 18 February 1839. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Dufresne, 8 June 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Maria Cunningham, 15 March 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Julie Mathurin, 1 February 1816. Byrne, Criminal Law and Colonial Subject, 160. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Margaret Conroy, 8 October 1830; Indictment, 24 February 1831. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Rosalie Laprise, 1 July 1839. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Rosalie Laprise, 3 May 1833. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Alexander Comeau, 25 March 1842. Montreal Herald, 21 April 1824. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Benny, 14 October 1825; Indictment, 24 February 1827. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ann Joyalle, 20 April 1841.

212

213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233

Notes to Pages 132–8

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Chapter Three 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Henry Hébert, 2 September 1836. 2 As I have argued elsewhere, not all women the police arrested for vagrancy were street prostitutes. While it was often the case, vagrancy ordinances were applied to a range of public behaviours. Women who were not soliciting at the time of their arrest are not included in this study. 3 Philip Howell, “A Private Contagious Diseases Act,” 376. 4 Montreal Herald, 2 November 1816. 5 Montreal Transcript, 3 November 1840. 6 Montreal Transcript, 21 December 1841. 7 Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 25–6. 8 White, “Prostitutes, Reformers, and Historians,” 206–11. 9 Where information about social class is known, and this applies to a very small number, most streetwalkers came from families headed equally by artisans (thirty-five or forty-two per cent) and by unskilled workers (thirtysix or forty-three per cent). Slightly more than a tenth (nine or eleven per cent) of the fathers or husbands came from middling occupations. Note also that some may have been arrested before or after the period under study but I will not be able to determine this. 10 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Judithe Latourelle, 5 January 1819. 11 McGill University Archives (hereafter mua), rg 96, Montreal General Hospital Casebook, Vol. 84, 4 June 1829. 12 Ibid., 3 August 1830. 13 Ibid, 23 February 1832. 14 Fyson and Fenchel, “Prison Registers, Their Possibilities, and Their Pitfalls, 16–20. 15 Ibid., 6. 16 mua, rg 96, Montreal General Hospital Casebook, Vol. 85, 2 July 1835. 17 In at least four calendars of the House of Correction, the place of birth was recorded. The following table shows that among those women who were confined for street prostitution, the majority were born outside of Montreal. Year Born in Montreal Born Elsewhere 1819 3 8 1821 2 4 1825 4 8 1826* 2 3 (*two women did not have place of birth recorded) 18 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Calendar of the House of Correction, 21 October 1819. 19 Mackey, Done with Slavery, 266.

344

Notes to Pages 138–43

20 Ibid., 185. 21 Since the 1990s, there has been a near explosion of publications on the Irish and hierarchies of whiteness. Consider the following examples, Steve Garner, “Atlantic Crossing: Whiteness as a transatlantic experience”; Allen White, “Irishness, Whiteness and Place: The Political Geographies of Asylum Seeker Dispersal in Contemporary Ireland”; Catherine M. Eagan, “‘White’ If ‘Not Quite’: Irish Whiteness in the Nineteenth-Century IrishAmerican Novel”; Michael de Nie, “A Medley Mob of Irish-American Plotters and Irish Dupes”; David A. Gerber, “Caucasians are Made and Not Born: How European Immigrants Became White People”; Donald M. MacRaild, “Crossing Migrant Frontiers: Comparative Reflections on Irish Migrants in Britain and the United States during the Nineteenth Century”; Alastair Bonnett, “Geography, ‘Race’ and Whiteness: Invisible Traditions and Current Challenges”; and, Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White. 22 De Nie, “A Medley Mob of Irish-American Plotters,” 214; and, Garner, “Atlantic Crossing,” 129. On laying claim to inclusion as white, see Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color; Eagan, “‘White’ If ‘Not Quite’”; and Rochmes and Griffin, “The Cactus That Must Not Be Mistaken for a Pillow.” For a discussion on Italian immigrants and race in the United States, see Guglielmo, “The Racialization of Southern Italian Women.” 23 Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts, 54–5. 24 Journal of Lower Canada House of Assembly, Vol. 41 (December, 1831): 202–3. 25 See for example, Lloyd, “‘Pleasure’s Golden Bait’”; Hessinger, “Victim of Seduction or Vicious Woman?”; De Cunzo, “On Reforming the ‘Fallen’ and Beyond”; Hurl-Eamon, “Policing Male Heterosexuality”; and, Cruickshank, London’s Sinful Secret, 36–40. 26 “The Dying Prostitute; An Elegy,” Montreal Gazette, 7 June 1787. 27 Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 59. 28 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Lucie Rolland, 26 March 1830. 29 Lloyd, “‘Pleasure’s Golden Bait,’” 63. 30 Montreal Transcript, 6 May 1841, 8 May 1841, 11 May 1841, 12 May 1841, and 15 May 1841. 31 Rosenthal, Nightwalkers, xvii. 32 banq-m, tl19 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, November 1820. 33 Old Countryman, A friendly advice to emigrants from Europe, on their arrival in Canada, 4. 34 Cowan, British Emigration to British North America, 223. Bridget Hill makes a similar argument for England: emigration was seen as a solution to dealing with the large numbers of single, young women who languished in an overcrowded Britain. In Canada, Australia, and the United States, they could work and find husbands (Hill, Women Alone, 128–9). 35 Olson and Thornton, “The Challenge of the Irish Catholic Community in Nineteenth-Century Montreal,” 333, 340.

Notes to Pages 143–6

345

36 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Calendar of the House of Correction, 21 January 1826. 37 Montreal Herald, 19 December 1818. 38 Montreal Gazette, 5 January 1820. 39 Emigration Report of Commissioners, 9. 40 Olson, “Ethnic Partition of the Work Force,” 187. 41 lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 9 December 1836. 42 Montreal Transcript, 20 June 1837. 43 Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches, 49–51. 44 Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 86–7. 45 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of François Cochu, 28 July 1830. 46 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Brackenridge, 18 February 1829. 47 Block, Rape and Sexual Power, 57–8. 48 Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 252. 49 Stansell, City of Women, 189. 50 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Nathaniel Goodwin, 20 May 1815. The Goodwin family seemingly disappears from the city after this date and from the St Gabriel Presbyterian Church records even though Nathaniel, a carpenter by trade, and his wife Elizabeth had six of their children baptised on the same day in 1808 following the death of two-year-old George Junior. 51 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Charles Leclerc, 26 July 1825. 52 Stansell, City of Women, 174. 53 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Eliza Peebles, 25 January 1841. 54 Reputed to be a woman of “very intemperate habits,” Anna’s brother-inlaw, Richard Gregory Greece, discovered her lying on the bedroom floor with her head quite literally in the chamber pot, having “suffocated” after an evening of heavy drinking with her husband (banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, No. 626, Anna Walton Greece, 16 February 1843). Three years later, forty-five-year-old Charles Titus Greece followed her to the grave. 55 She explained to the constable, who had arrested her for the theft of the cloak, that “for the use of my person, I took his cloak in payment because he afterwards tried to cheat me of my wages.” Peebles claimed that she had told Greece she would return it when he paid her (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Voluntary Examination of Eliza Peebles, 25 January 1841). Greece offered a different rendering of events to the court clerk. He described Eliza Peebles as a respectable-looking woman who had come to his law office asking to see Léon Gosselin. Since Gosselin was out of the office at the time but expected to return shortly, he suggested that Peebles wait for him. Greece then left the office for ten minutes. When he returned, Peebles was about to leave; Greece helped her put on a cloak. Shortly after Peebles’ departure, he noticed his cloak missing (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition

346

56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73

Notes to Pages 146–50 of Charles Titus Greece, 25 January 1841). Peebles was particularly courageous in presenting her side of the story and in standing up to Greece. The grand jury ruled that the evidence did not support Greece’s complaint and the case was dismissed. In her examination of the Old Bailey sessional papers, which registered verbal responses to larceny charges brought before the court, Lynn MacKay identified commonplace explanations that women made to accusations of theft. They included offering no defence; claiming to have purchased, found, or borrowed the object; throwing doubt onto the accuracy of the prosecution and the reputation of the prosecutor; declaring innocence; providing extenuating circumstances to excuse the act or to suggest being a casualty of circumstances; and admitting guilt (MacKay, “Why They Stole,” 624–5). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Brown, 17 November 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Voluntary Examination of Julie Deschamps, 21 October 1839. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, 25 November 1841. Mackey, Done with Slavery, 188–9, 211–12. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, 25 November 1841. Cassel, The Secret Plague, 12, 25–6. Taithe, “Morality Is Not a Curable Disease,” 343. lac, rg1 e15a, 127, Tableau représentatif des Prisonniers reçus dans la Maison de Correction de la ville & district de Montreal, de la dépense pour l’entretient ainsi quelles achats des différents ateliers & leur recette depuis le 9e avril 1811 au 31 décembre 1815, and Statement of the Prisoners confined in the House of Correction of Montreal, etc., 30 January 1826. MUA, rg 96, Montreal General Hospital Casebooks, 1829–42. Gossage, “Absorbing Junior.” Woodbridge, Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature, 4. Montreal Gazette, 15 September 1835. What signified the appearance of self-support varied according to race as well as to gender (Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies, 51–5). Lawson, “Patriarchy, Crime, and the Courts,” 52. See also MacKay, “Why They Stole”; John Beattie, “‘Hard Pressed to Make Ends Meet’”; Walker, “Women, Theft and the World of Stolen Goods”; and Farge, Délinquance et criminalité. Woodbridge, Vagrancy, Homelessness, and English Renaissance Literature, 6. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 2 October 1825. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Bartholomew O’Brien, 7 April 1835. For more on Bartholomew O’Brien, see Olson and Thornton, Peopling the North American City.

Notes to Pages 150–5 74 75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

347

banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Tassie, 27 November 1835. Farge, Le Vol d’aliments à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, 77–156. Ibid. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Marie-Amable Charbonneau (23 July 1812), Marie Godaire (23 July 1812), and Marie Vaillancour (8 September 1812). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Dodds, 13 September 1839. Walker, “Women, Theft and the World of Stolen Goods,” 99. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Voluntary Examination of Eliza Peebles, 25 January 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of George Wells, 5 December 1839. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jacob Abdella, 5 January 1831. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Josephte McFarlane, 30 December 1830. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Henry Herbert, 18 November 1835. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of George Bourne, 21 June 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Quinn and Thomas Busby, 10 July 1824. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 21 April 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Pierre Beaudry, 27 July 1839. Massicotte, “Le Refuge des filles repenties à Montreal,” 375. Ibid., 373–7. “Report on Petition relating to Female Penitents,” House of Assembly, 22 December 1831. Journal of Lower Canada House of Assembly, Vol. 45 (21 February 1834): 307. Monk claimed that priests and nuns at Montreal’s Hôtel Dieu engaged in sexual relations, then baptised, murdered, and buried the babies born from these unions in the basement of the convent. See also Sylvain, “Maria Monk.” banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Madame DC McDonnell, 27 July 1836. Billington, “Maria Monk and Her Influence,” 296. lac, rg4 b 13, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 26 January 1837. De Cunzo, “On Reforming the ‘Fallen,’” 25, and Hessinger, “Victim of Seduction or Vicious Woman?,” 212. lac, MG 17, a 7-2-3, Vol. 14, c-5941, Recensement de la cité de Montreal, 1831. De Cunzo, “On Reforming the ‘Fallen,’” 26. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Madame DC McDonnell, 27 July 1836. Massicotte, “Le Refuge des filles repenties à Montreal,” 376. Castillo, “The Enduring Legacy of Maria Monk.”

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Notes to Pages 157–60

104 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Madame DC McDonnell, 27 July 1836. 105 Monk, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, 20–40. 106 Montreal Gazette, 21 July 1836. 107 Driver, Culinary Landmarks, 85–6. 108 Harvey, “Dealing with ‘the Destitute and the Wretched,’” 74. For more on the differences and similarities between denominational charities, see Cohen, “Introduction.” 109 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1821. 110 The wardens of the House of Industry had a very different perspective on the situation. In their petition to the House of Assembly requesting more funds, they argued that the institution had succeeded in reducing the number of beggars in the streets and in dissuading some of them from returning to their old ways. In the opinion of the wardens, the oppressive rules of the House of Industry served to discourage re-admission and encouraged many to find employment (Journal of the Lower Canada House of Assembly, 15 February 1823). 111 O’Connor, The Workhouses of Ireland, 165. 112 Lees, The Solidarities of Strangers, 37, 71. 113 Hitchcock, “Begging on the Streets of Eighteenth-Century London,” 481, 488, 490. 114 The small number of the women who received assistance were usually widows and in some cases their children or spouses. Those who had succeeded in obtaining charity had distanced themselves sufficiently in time from prostitution. (See Poutanen, “To Indulge Their Carnal Appetites,” 93–4.) 115 Montreal Gazette, 5 October 1833. 116 McKenna, “Women’s Agency in Upper Canada,” 356. 117 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jane Grames, 8 April 1835. 118 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Hélène Angelière, 22 June 1826. 119 Harsin, Crime, Poverty and Prostitution in Paris, 1815–1848, 184. 120 Between 1810 and 1836, police apprehended at least seventy-one homeless women as a measure to protect them from death due to starvation and hypothermia, another feature of the violence associated with living on the streets. In 1837, when the court introduced printed forms, such information was no longer recorded. Fortunately, police registers disclose that the practice of providing shelter to vagrants continued throughout the late 1830s and early 1840s. 121 banq-m, tl32 s26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, 24 November 1842. 122 Reprinted in the Montreal Gazette, 22 October 1836. 123 Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England, 5. 124 Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 77–85. 125 Schlör, Nights in the Big City, 148–9. 126 Vidler, “The Scenes of the Street,” 73. 127 I analyzed the number of streetwalkers who were arrested alone, in pairs,

Notes to Pages 160–6

128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

349

and in groups between 1810 and 1836. Seventy per cent of these women were arrested with others. By 1837, the courts adopted a printed form that accommodated the name of one woman per document, making it impossible to extend the analysis beyond 1836. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 36. Luddy, “An Outcast Community.” Ibid. Newman, Embodied History, 35. Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 113. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter N. Rossiter, 10 July 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Charles Picard, 16 June 1836. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 64, 15 June 1842. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du coroner, No. 325, Mary Ann Bothwell, 2 February 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marguerite Bleau, 29 December 1836; and Indictment, 10 January 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jane Ferguson, 7 November 1839. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Elizabeth Gallagher, 18 February 1839. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 55, 9 May 1840 and 6 June 1840. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du coroner, No. 312, Marguerite Bleau, 1 December 1840. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 59, 26 May 1841. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 55, 9 March 1840. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 55, 2 May 1840. Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 296–7. Poutanen, “Images du danger dans les archives judiciaires.” banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Catharine Ryan, 16 February 1827. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Elizabeth Reid, 1 December 1828. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 31 October 1831. Rogers, “Policing the Poor in Eighteenth-Century London,” 135. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 61, 22 October 1840. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Phillip Ryan, 22 January 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Josephte McFarlane, 5 January 1831. lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 27 April 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Harris, 15 June 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 30 October 1815. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Jean Dérouin, 26 October 1831. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Adams, 8 November 1840. Gillis, A World of Their Own Making, 37. Ibid., 36–9. Bynum, Unruly Women, 93. Montreal Herald, 9 October 1821.

350

Notes to Pages 166–9

163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170

Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 292. Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches, 57. Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris, 202. Ibid., 278. Farge, Fragile Lives, 154–6. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Auger, 8 May 1833. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 21 July 1824. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Henry Lesperance, 9 November 1833. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Rawdon, 28 June 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Lemon, Henri Latreille, and Marie-Anne Labonne, 24 April 1815. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Charles Leclerc, 26 July 1825. The relationship between prostitutes and soldiers has been explored in a number of important international studies. See for example, Finnegan, Poverty and Prostitution. She has argued that prostitutes likely made unofficial provisions for visits to the barracks. Although she could find no evidence in the military records, there are numerous newspaper accounts of prostitutes discovered in the company of soldiers. Other studies include Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, and Luddy, “An Outcast Community.” Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 98. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James King, 2 July 1824. Montreal Gazette, 11 November 1816. There are numerous instances of tavern-keepers who encouraged prostitutes to congregate in their establishments as a way to attract customers. See for example, Chief Constable Fitzpatrick who accused Nolan Millette of harbouring prostitutes in his tavern “for the accommodation of soldiers” (lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 64, 11 April 1842). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Earl and Mary Fraser, 11 March 1841. Henderson, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London, 31. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Moses Judah Hayes, 11 December 1841. Bradbury, Working Families, 178–80. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 33, 27 May 1840. lac, mg 24 b 173, James Reid Papers, Vol. 11, 6 September 1837. Montreal Transcript, 1 August 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Demarais, 6 September 1837. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 64, 8 December 1841. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 58, 19 September 1839. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 58, 29 September 1839. Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada,” 25.

171 172 173 174

175 176 177 178

179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190

Notes to Pages 170–81 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200

351

Bramwell, “Public Space and Local Communities,” 43. Montreal Gazette, 2 November 1826. Farge, Fragile Lives, 161–2. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 13 June 1841. Montreal Gazette, 27 February 1834. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Smith, 7 May 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Smith, 8 September 1829. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William O’Brien, 9 June 1830. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William McKay, 8 July 1824. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 7 August 1841.

Chapter Four 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John King and Mary Blay, 7 January 1840. 2 According to Richard Burn, only one witness or deponent was necessary to lay a complaint. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 13th edition, 1:505. 3 Ibid., 1:97. 4 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John King and Mary Blay, 7 January 1840. 5 Hurl-Eamon, Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680–1720, 17. 6 McSheffrey, “Detective Fiction in the Archives,” 74. See also Paula Byrne, who has identified this popular use as a normative function of law (Byrne, Criminal Law and Colonial Subject, 209 and Stephen Robertson (“What’s Law Got to Do with It?,” 181). 7 King, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740–1820, 357. 8 Harris, Policing the City, 5. 9 Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” 79. See also his book The Making of the English Working Class. 10 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 261–2. 11 Ibid., 361. 12 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Richard Hart, 4 August 1820. 13 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Prenouveau, 12 July 1824. 14 Ibid., 12. 15 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 87. 16 Extract from Burn, translated by Perrault in Le juge à paix et officier de paroisse, pour la province de Quebec. Decades later, Perrault published a guide for law students to explain the fundamentals of Lower Canada’s criminal law. See Perrault, Questions et réponses sur le droit criminel du Bas Canada. 17 Jim Phillips, “Recent Publications in Canadian Legal History,” 253. 18 Poutanen, “Regulating Public Space in Early Nineteenth-Century Montreal,” 37–8.

352

Notes to Pages 182–7

19 20 21 22 23

Young, “Positive Law, Positive State,” 50. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 13th edition, 3:216. Ibid., 3: 97. Ibid., 220. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John King and Mary Blay, 7 January 1840. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 13th edition, 4:253. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 145. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 13th edition, 3:98. Ibid., 217. Blackstone’s Commentaries, 68, 169. Rowe, “Femes Covert and Criminal Prosecution in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania,” 151–4. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 19th edition, 3:107. banq-m, Lovell’s Montreal Directory, 1842–1843, 54. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Benjamin Delisle, 9 February 1841. 2 Victoria c.2 AD 1838. Chitty, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 169. Perrault, Questions et réponses sur le droit criminel du Bas Canada, 130–1. Ibid., 126. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 10 July 1803. See Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 29–31. Constables received two shillings for apprehending each beggar, who could be confined in the Common Gaol for up to three months (Montreal Herald, 25 May 1822). Despite the evolution of this law, which permitted police to arrest these indigents, city elites continued to voice concern in local newspapers about the growing number of beggars in the streets of the city and the suburbs. Lawson, “Patriarchy, Crime, and the Courts, 53. Byrne, Criminal Law and Colonial Subject, 3–7. Donald Fyson’s study of Montreal criminal justice shows that slightly more than half of the 4,804 defendants whose cases were heard before justices of the Court of Quarter Sessions received a verdict. A high attrition rate occurred between the time the defendant appeared before the justice of the peace to answer to the complaint lodged by a plaintiff and coming before the formal court. Many prosecutors wanted to bring the defendant in front of the justice but then go no further (Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society,” 328–31; see also Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 253–7). lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 1, 2 July 1838. Rogers, “Policing the Poor,” 131. Walkowitz, “The Making of an Outcast Group,” 147, 72. See, for example, the Vagrancy Act of 1822, which contained the following. “All common Prostitutes or Night Walkers wandering in the public Streets or public Highways, not giving a satisfactory account of themselves,

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45

Notes to Pages 187–92

46 47 48

49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

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shall be deemed idle and disorderly Persons; and it shall and may be lawful for any Justice of the Peace to commit such Offenders (being thereof convicted before him, by his own View, or his, her or their own Confession, or by the Oath of One or more credible Witness or Witnesses,) to the House of Correction, there to be kept to hard Labour for any Time not exceeding one Calendar Month.” (3 Geo IV c. 40 (1822). Backhouse, “Nineteenth-Century Canadian Prostitution Law,” 389. An Ordinance for Establishing a System of Police for the Cities of Quebec and Montreal, 2 Vict (1) (1839), c2. See the work of Constance Backhouse, Petticoats and Prejudice, 233–4, and of Jane B. Price, “‘Raised in Rockhead. Died in the Poor House,’” 202–4. Backhouse, “Nineteenth Century Prostitution Law,” 389. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 97–8. In early nineteenth-century Paris, police arrested streetwalkers for disturbing the peace – the largest single offence – indecent behaviour, drunkenness, attracting a crowd, and posing a threat to the public security (Harsin, “Crime, Poverty, and Prostitution,” 117–22). And in Oxford, the university paid the city constabulary for every woman arrested as a common prostitute. The municipality had organized a separate police force to regulate nighttime street prostitution. Arthur Engel has suggested that regular police took no notice of prostitution during the day unless streetwalkers exhibited some type of offensive behaviour such as drunkenness or public indecency (Engel, “Immoral Intentions,” 81–4). Adler, “Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts,” 745. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Charles Coulombe, 2 February 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Charles Coulombe, 10 May 1841. Fyson, “Women as Complainants before the Justices of the Peace in the District of Montreal, 1779–1830,” 3. Fyson, Magistrates, Police and People, 4. Ibid., 23–32. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 198. King, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740–1820, 17–31. See for example, Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada.” McKenna, “Women’s Agency in Upper Canada,” 334. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Teavill Appleton, 4 November 1822. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ellen Welsh, 25 January 1841. Murray, Justice, Morality, and Crime, 55, 61. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1830. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 45. Ibid., 45. Ibid., 321.

354

Notes to Pages 193–200

68 69 70 71

banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 29 April 1815. Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 99–100. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer (1800), 1:142. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adelphe Delisle, 21 October 1839. Although Delisle never mentioned how many officers were involved in the raid on Miller’s house of prostitution, Constables Shaud and Gordon, accompanied by twelve men, arrested Pierre Forget, Hypolite Jérémie, Alexander Marion, Félicité Bleau, Amable Breton, and Margaret Bloom after they stormed Miller’s brothel following a complaint made by Thomas Conner (lac, rg4 b 14, Police Register, Vol. 38, 10 April 1837). Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 93. Ibid., 83–7. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Recognizance of Elizabeth Laramé, 18 February 1818. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Brackenridge, 18 February 1829. Kittredge, “Introduction,” 7. Amanda Anderson, Tainted Souls and Painted Faces, 3. Best, Controlling Vice, 81. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Bernard St-Germain and Joseph Lemoine, 1 December 1819. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Anne Dufond, 24 June 1837. McKenna, “Women’s Agency in Upper Canada,” 363–4. For a comprehensive discussion of the use of insult in early modern England, see Laura Gowing, “Language, Power and the Law,” 26–30. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ann Connor, 8 September 1842. Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer (1800), 3:106–7. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Mary Ann Hoy and Mary McKinnon, 7 May 1833. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter McCormick, 15 January 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Thomas Parker and Samuel Wilson, 13 March 1832. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Anne Dufond, 24 June 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Victoire Mazurette and Mathew Vertz, 9 December 1831. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of François Dyon, Marie-Anne Poirier, and Joseph Dyon, 11 November 1814. Twenty per cent of the depositions had no identifying data by which to determine the relationship of the plaintiff to the brothel-keeper. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louis St-Romain, 13 June 1820. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Lucie Rolland, 29 July 1829. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Anne Loriau, 19 June 1820. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Rousby, 20 November 1823.

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Notes to Pages 200–11

355

96 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Julie Doyer and Pierre Doyer, 23 October 1823. 97 Montreal Herald, 1 November 1823. 98 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marguerite Leprohon, 4 March 1824. 99 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of William Woodhouse, 4 October 1833. 100 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Dubord dit Latourelle, 19 November 1841. 101 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Anne Keenan and John Wood, 4 January 1841. 102 Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 255. 103 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Elizabeth Sharpe, 7 March 1839. 104 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marguerite Leprohon, 3 March 1841. 105 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Pierre Brodeur dit Lavigne, Angèle Garrant, and Calixte Gervais, 2 February 1841. 106 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie Labelle, 14 April 1841. 107 Donald Fyson, “Women as Complainants,” 3. 108 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 24 August 1840. 109 Francophones represented fifty per cent or (272) and non-Francophones forty-nine per cent (or 268). 110 Gowing, “Language, Power and the Law,” 30. 111 Harris, Policing the City, 5. 112 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 29. 113 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Hypolite Jérémie, 13 December 1842. 114 banq-m, tl317 s1 ss11, Register of the Police Court, Vol. 1, 18 July 1838. 115 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 135. 116 Burn, The Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, 142. 117 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Josephte Allard and Rose Aymong, 12 November 1832; banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Dom Rex vs Julia O’Brian, William O’Brian, James Burke, and Catherine Burke, 18 January 1833. 118 banq-m, E17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 1, 16 February 1832. 119 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Dom Rex versus Marguerite Belhumeur, 12 November 1832. 120 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1842.

Chapter Five 1 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 27 October 1841. 2 Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts, 20. 3 Allan Greer argues that police activity tended toward moral reform with

356

4

5

6

7 8

Notes to Pages 212–13 pronounced class and gender biases (“The Birth of the Police,” 24). Michael McCulloch maintains that the police acted as agents of social welfare by providing shelter to the homeless, yet were preoccupied with public order offences and with regulating the brothels (“Most Assuredly Perpetual Motion,”109). In his study of the Toronto police force, Nicholas Rogers claims that its main responsibility was to curb immorality. The bulk of a policeman’s time was spent prosecuting drunk and disorderly persons, raiding brothels, and arresting streetwalkers. By cleaning up the city, police activity reinforced certain values about work, religion, and respectability. The marginal poor bore the brunt of policing; there was, he suggests, little resistance from the working class as a whole (“Serving Toronto the Good,” 132–5). See, for example, studies by Robert Storch, “Police Control of Street Prostitution in Victorian London,” and Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Harsin contends that a prostitute’s relationship with a policeman was the most influential one in her life as it had the ability to affect her life circumstances as well as her integration into the larger community. While she has suggested that prostitutes utilized the criminal justice system in hard times, she views the relationship between policemen and sex workers as almost entirely based on coercion and claims that there was no direct evidence the police were involved in corruption. Harsin’s claim that a policeman represented the most important association in a prostitute’s relationships overlooks those with family, friends, and coworkers (Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 53). In a more recent study, Marilynn Wood Hill argues that the most important factor determining the impact of the laws on New York City prostitutes was their relationship with policemen, given the authority of police to designate women as prostitutes. Unfortunately, Wood Hill views the association between sex trade workers and police rather idealistically and fails to acknowledge that policemen could also be intimidating and involved in unlawful activities that directly affected streetwalkers and brothel-keepers (Their Sisters’ Keepers, 146–58). Marion Goldman acknowledges the ambiguities of their affiliation. Often lawbreakers became policemen who enforced prostitution laws at their discretion, permitting them to befriend sex trade workers, demand bribes, ignore misdemeanours, or strictly enforce the laws (Gold Diggers and Silver Miners, 107). Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 14. See also Joel Best’s study of the regulation of St Paul brothels in the second half of the nineteenth century, which shows that the police saw their role regarding vice as one of maintaining order rather than abolition (Controlling Vice, 20). Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 106, and Price, “‘Raised in Rockhead. Died in the Poor House,’” 202, 220. Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 141. Elsewhere, Michael Sturma

Notes to Pages 213–19

9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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(Vice in a Vicious Society, 5–6) has referred to nineteenth-century Australian elites as moral entrepreneurs who both defined and enforced moral categories. He suggests that their view of criminality and the motives behind these perceptions as well as the discrepancy between perception and reality must be acknowledged. banq-m, tl19, s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 15 September 1828. Fyson, “Jurys, participation civique et représentation au Quebec et au BasCanada,” 115–19. Ibid. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 211. The urban poor, in contrast, depended upon access to city streets where they could eke out a living or at the very least to supplement an inadequate one (Blackmar, Manhattan for Rent, 170–1). M.J.D. Roberts, “Public and Private in Early Nineteenth-Century London,” 290. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 29. Luddy, “‘Abandoned Women and Bad Characters,’” 485. Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 12. Montreal Herald, 13 November 1819. Noel, Canada Dry, 57–65. Buckingham, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Other British Provinces in North America, 130. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1836. Adler, “Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts,” 737. Ibid. Montreal Herald, 18 November 1820. Montreal Gazette, 6 November 1822. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1823. Howell, “Prostitution and Racialised Sexuality,” 325. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1836. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics, 38. Parent-Duchâtelet, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris. Gauvreau, “Dr Daniel Arnoldi (1774–1849),” 79. See also Janson, “Daniel Arnoldi.” Montreal Gazette, 1 July 1830. Montreal Gazette, 25 November 1822. In Montreal, as elsewhere, a culture existed wherein constables and watchmen flagrantly disregarded regulations or at the very least applied them unevenly. All ranks participated. The high constable, Benjamin Delisle, was named in a petition for accepting a $5 bribe to exempt Laurent Pary (sic) from serving as a constable, applying liquor laws erratically, and permitting some individuals to live off the fees they received as witnesses and spies in legal actions pertaining to infraction of police regulations (banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury

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35 36 37 38

39

40 41

Notes to Pages 219–22 Presentment, 29 April 1834). Ordinary policemen and watchmen broke the rules they were expected to enforce, accepted graft, were inebriated on the job, fell asleep at their posts, and were insubordinate. Patrick Carroll, who lived on King Street in Griffintown, denounced Sub-constable Charles Portsmouth for allegedly leaving his post on Wellington Street to imbibe at Carroll’s father’s house. While there, he propositioned Carroll’s sister. Carroll’s complaint illustrates, among other things, how socially embedded policemen were in the neighbourhoods they patrolled (lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 61, 5 October 1840). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 21 April 1834. See for example the work of Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, and Price, “‘Raised in Rockhead. Died in the Poorhouse.’” Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 246. This is generally true for policing in British North America. Earlier studies commemorated special anniversaries in the histories of local police forces. See for example, Turmel, Premières structures et evolution de la police de Montreal (1796–1971). A new generation of historians interested in police history have made important contributions. For more on this, see Dufresne, “La justice pénale et la définition du crime à Quebec, 1830–1860”; Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts; Marquis, “Towards a Canadian Police Historiography; Greer, “The Birth of the Police in Canada”; Weaver, “Social Control, Martial Conformity, and Community Entanglement; Weaver, “Introduction,” 79; McCulloch, “Most Assuredly Perpetual Motion”; McGahan, Crime and Policing in Maritime Canada; Dickinson, “Réflexions sur la police en Nouvelle-France”; Rogers, “Serving Toronto the Good.” For Montreal, see Dicaire, “Police et société à Montreal au milieu du XIXe siècle,” and Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 136–83. More recent studies have challenged this view. See Reynolds, Before the Bobbies; Philips and Storch, Policing Provincial England, 1829–1856; King, Crime, Justice and Discretion in England, 1740–1820; Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750; and Harris, Policing the City. Greer, “The Birth of the Police,” 18–19. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 137–41. His study echoes the British historiography of policing which shows that transformations in policing had already occurred before the arrival of London’s Peel police (considered the prototype of a modern force) in 1829. Ruth Paley (“‘An Imperfect, Inadequate & Wretched System?’”, 95) argues that scholars have over-emphasized the inadequacies of the old-style police and ignored the continuities between the old and the new. Although historians have characterized the pre-Peel London police as “corrupt, drunken, old watchmen,” Elaine Reynolds’ research shows that by 1828 the police had developed into a complex organization with many features of a modern constabulary (Reynolds, “St. Marylebone.”) In a recently published study

Notes to Pages 222–6

42

43 44 45 46

47

of the London police, Andrew Harris contends that radical changes in policing had already began in the 1780s, far earlier than has been previously suggested and that policing was not only sensitive and answerable to the local population but could and did contribute to police reform at a national level (Policing the City, 1). Robert Shoemaker suggests that prostitution statistics are more indicative of attitudes towards using the law than of actual changes in the incidence of this offence (Prosecution and Punishment, 7). Fecteau, Un nouvel ordre des choses, 249. Storch, “Police Control of Street Prostitution,” 52–3. Phillips, “Poverty, Unemployment, and the Administration of the Criminal Law,” 134–42. Phillips relates seasonal cycles in the economy to incarceration rates for vagrancy. He claims poor relief was generally more available in the winter and that there was a more sympathetic population (“Poverty, Unemployment, and the Administration of the Criminal Law,” 134–42). Proportion of Individuals Arrested in Brothels Each Month, 1810–11 Month January February March April May June July August September October November December

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

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No. 113 131 150 214 185 150 84 197 134 94 89 130

% 7 8 9 13 11 9 5 11 8 6 5 8

Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Court, 47–8. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 156. Ibid., 146. Ibid., 157–8. Ibid., 158–9. Ibid., 165. Ibid. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1818. Montreal Gazette, 17 November 1836. For their efforts, watchmen were paid only three shillings a day, slightly more than canal workers; the quartermaster and deputy quartermaster earned £75 and £50 per annum respectively (Dicaire, “Police et société,”

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58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76

Notes to Pages 227–31 41). These earnings were roughly the equivalent of a Montreal teacher’s salary in the same period: the British and Canadian School, for example, hired a master in 1822 at £100 yearly and in 1823 a mistress was engaged at £60 per annum. The twenty-seven-year-old, French-born noble Emmanuel D’Aubreville became the city’s first quartermaster of the night watch. He remained in charge of the night watch until autumn 1827 when the Watch Committee dismissed him along with two other officers over allegations of drunkenness and neglect of duties. D’Aubreville died the following year in Nova Scotia (Senior, “Louis-Nicolas-Emmanuel de Bigault d’Aubreville”). Rules, Orders & Regulations for the Foreman, Deputy Foreman, & Watchmen of the City of Quebec, Article XIII (1827). Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 170. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 135. Dicaire, “Police et Société,” 42. When in late 1818 watchmen refused to take responsibility for lighting the street lanterns, the head watchman, Captain Emmanuel d’Aubreville, hired four Black Montreal residents, who were paid two shillings a month for each lantern they lit, to serve as lamplighters. Frank Mackey’s study of the city’s Black community in this period shows why it made good sense for d’Aubreville to engage Peter Dago, Warren Glossen, John Hyers, and Prince Thomson: before the installation of streetlights, some members of the Black population had eked out a living by carrying lamps to light the way home for Montreal’s notables (Mackey, Done with Slavery, 186–8). banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1819. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1823. Montreal Gazette, 25 November 1822. Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society,” 235–6. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 14 November 1836. Ibid. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 31 December 1836. Montreal Gazette, 3 November 1836. Rules, Orders & Regulations: Article XVI. Governor and Special Council of Lower Canada Ordinances, Vol. 1–3, 2 Vic c.2, 28 June 1838. Initially, the colonial government ensured the necessary funds to implement the changes. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1838. Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 181; Fyson, “La police au Québec, 1760–1878.” Dicaire, “Police et société,” 68, 78. Senior, “The Influence of the British Garrison On the Development of the Montreal Police, 1832 to 1853,” 63–4. The wives of policemen were also expected to comply with new forms of discipline. The station house, also home to the constables and their fami-

Notes to Pages 231–4

77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

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lies, became increasingly regulated. Constables’ wives were disciplined for a range of transgressions, including drunkenness, failure to carry out housekeeping duties, and quarrelling. For example, Chief Constable Farrell reported Mrs Hallum for being drunk and creating a disturbance in the station house (lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 53, 20 October 1840). Women were also corrected for poor or inadequate housekeeping. When Chief Constable Smith reported Mrs Burnes for neglecting to observe the rules of cleanliness demanded by the commissioner and inspector of police, Mrs Burnes retorted that she refused to help scrub the station house because she had enough to do minding her children (lac, rg 4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 4 June 1841). Sub-constable Arthur Burns used a similar decree as leverage in a marital dispute when he denounced his wife to his superiors after she had refused for two days to cook “his meat” and had announced to him that she intended to leave the barracks and presumably him (lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 56, 7 October 1840). They did not officially belong to the constabulary but were brought in under special circumstances. An Ordinance for Establishing an Efficient system of Police in the Cities of Quebec and Montreal, 1–2 Victoria, c.2, 28 June 1838. J.E. Hodgetts contends that the office of the civil secretary was “the nerve centre of the entire colonial civil service.” It acted as a clearing house for legal and civil service appointments as well as institutions such as prisons and asylums (Hodgetts, Pioneer Public Service, 35–8). Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 181; Lovell’s Montreal Directory, 1842–1843, 240. Dicaire, “Police et société,” 63–4. Ibid., 62. McCulloch, “Most Assuredly Perpetual Motion,” 105–7. Ibid., 74. lac, rg4 c1, Vol. 8, File 1438, 2 April 1940. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 32, 15 October 1842, 29 October 1842. Governor and Special Council Ordinances, Vols. 1–3, 2 Vic c.2, 28 June 1838. banq-m, tl317, Register of the Police Court, Vol. 2, 8 July 1839. King, Crime, Justice, and Discretion in England 1740–1820, 65. Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts, 17. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Patrick McGarry, 9 July 1836. Lyons, Sex among the Rabble, 213–14. Bramwell, “Public Space and Local Communities,”43. Ordinances of the Special Council, 2 Vic c.2, 28 June 1838. The Police Court was created by the same 1838 ordinance, which reorganized the city’s policing agencies as well as sanctioning the appointment of a remunerated inspector and superintendent of police. The same year,

362

95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

Notes to Pages 234–42 another ordinance granted the appointment of stipendiary magistrates. According to Donald Fyson they had criminal jurisdiction equivalent to justices of the peace in Petty Sessions. Two years later the Special Council abolished the position of inspector and superintendent of police and replaced it with police magistrates. In 1842, the reverse happened: inspectors and superintendents of police replaced stipendiary magistrates (Fyson, The Court Structure of Quebec and Lower Canada 1764 to 1860, 52). Of the 16,094 charges brought before the Police Court magistrates, 73 per cent or 11,680 involved public order offences. The remaining charges – twentyseven per cent or 4,414 – involved crimes against property and the person as well as master-servant violations (banq-m, tl317, Tribunal de la police, Vols. 1–6, June 1838 to January 1842). Adler, “Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts,” 744–5. See for example, Howell, “Sex and the City of Bachelors,” 24, 27; Stott, Jolly Fellows; and Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 86–7. Howell, “Sex and the City of Bachelors,” 27. Dodsworth, “Masculinity as Governance,” 20. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 106–19; Beattie, Policing and Punishment, 200. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Cospel, 22 December 1829. Montreal Gazette, 21 December 1829. Hill, Women Alone, 109. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 3 September 1840. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James Smith, 15 June 1841. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 18 December 1836. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 2 March 1837. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 64, 22 December 1841. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 52, 11 December 1839. lac, MG24 b 173, James Reid Papers, Vol. 11, 6 September 1837. Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 183. lac, rg 4 B14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 26 November 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Henry Garside, 15 March 1841; 24 February 1842; 15 December 1842; 20 December 1842. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 110. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louise Horne, 15 March 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ellen Ross, 30 March 1835. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 6 April 1841. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 13 September 1842. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 32, 17 September 1842. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 56, 12 May 1840. lac, rg4 b 14, Police Register, Vol. 64, 7 February 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 18 January 1823. Regulations for the Governance of the Police Force, Rural and City, 34–5.

Notes to Pages 242–7

363

123 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 34, 13 April 1841. 124 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Hypolite Jérémie, 27 December 1841. 125 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Burt, 13 January 1838. 126 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Modeste Guertin, 26 February 1839. 127 Corfield, “Walking the City Streets,” note 101, 170. 128 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marguerite Jolicoeur, 27 August 1825. 129 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 55, 11 December 1839. 130 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Ann Shadbolt, 11 December 1841. 131 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Jesse Keitley and Eliza Martin, 20 January 1840. 132 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Margaret Mitchell, 16 June 1838. 133 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Dufresne, 19 October 1839. 134 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Dufresne, 21 October 1839. 135 avm, vm 43, S2, Proces verbaux, Police Commission, 26 September 1849. 136 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Dom Rex versus Josephine Raymond and Adelaide Dufresne, 24 April 1840. 137 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Adelphe Delisle, Francis Perry, Louis Malo, and Antoine Lafresnière, 7 September 1830. 138 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joseph Brien and Seraphin Bricault, 9 December 1841. 139 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Thomas Webb, 13 December 1839. 140 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 19 July 1815; 2 October 1815. Souther had defaulted at both the July and October sessions of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace; a verdict was never reached. 141 Fyson, “Criminal Justice, Civil Society,” 161. 142 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Adélaide Déganne and Jean Vincent, 9 December 1839. 143 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Mary Ann Dunn, 13 November 1834. 144 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 58, 25 September 1839. 145 lac, rg1 E 15A, Accounts of the High Constable, 22 February 1827. 146 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 54, 5 August 1840. 147 Byrne, Criminal Law and Colonial Subject, 164. 148 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Abner Lambert, 8 October 1838. 149 McCord Museum Archives, McCord Papers, Vol. 691, 15 January 1846. 150 lac, rg4 b 14, Police Registers, Vol. 31, 8 February 1842. 151 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1838.

364

Notes to Pages 249–59

Chapter Six 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Emmanuel D’Aubreville, 7 May 1823, 10 May 1823, and 5 June 1823. 2 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Dom Rex vs Marie Louise, Sophie Bélanger, Marie Quenneville, Marie Tremoulé, Sarah Caldwell, Eliza Robinson, Marie Larivière, Charlotte Desjardins, and Matilda Régiste, 19 July 1823. 3 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Depositions of Phillip Dufresne and Louis Dubeau, 14 April 1823. 4 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Dom Rex vs Toussaint Ouimet and Charlotte Séné, 24 April 1823; 30 April 1823; and 11 July 1823. 5 Murray, Colonial Justice, 81. 6 Harris, Policing the City, 107–8. 7 banq-m, tl19 s1 ss1, Grand Jury Presentment, 15 September 1828. 8 Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 406. 9 Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, 150–2. 10 Bouchette, Topographical Description, 150. 11 Buckingham, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 129. 12 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 320. 13 Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, 150–2. 14 Sweeny, “Making a Bourgeois Town,” 3. 15 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 321. 16 Bouchette, Topographical Description, 150. 17 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 322. 18 Ibid., 329. 19 Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 158. 20 See for example, Brown, A Trying Question; Murray, Justice, Morality and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791–1849; Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada”; Frances Ann Thompson, “Local Authority and District Autonomy”; Price, “‘Raised in Rockhead. Died in the Poorhouse’”; Craven, “Law and Ideology”; Katz, Doucet, and Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism, 200–41. 21 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 322. 22 Ibid., 321. 23 Ibid., 326. 24 J.M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800, 316. 25 Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 163. 26 Taylor, Manual of the Office, Duties & Liabilities of a Justice of the Peace (1843), 225–6. 27 Fyson, Criminal Justice, Civil Society, 346. 28 Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 362–76. 29 Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 169. 30 Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 342. 31 Ibid., 376. 32 Burn, The Justice of the Peace, 4: 171.

Notes to Pages 259–66

365

33 Brown, A Trying Question, 4. 34 lac, rg4 a1, John Fletcher to Major General Wilson, Administrator in Chief of Quebec, 8 June 1816. 35 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1834. 36 Montreal Transcript, 3 November 1840. 37 banq-m, tl32, s1, ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1841. 38 Fyson, “The Court Structure,” 59. Between 1810 and 1838 vagrancy cases were occasionally heard in Special Sessions and Weekly Sessions. Special Sessions was held before the justices of the peace and were of greater importance than the Petty Sessions. While Special Sessions usually concerned themselves with non-judicial matters, they occasionally dealt with criminal matters involving contraventions of the police regulations (ibid., 49). The Court of Weekly Sessions had the same jurisdiction as that of the two justices of the peace who held it and covered a wide range of minor offenses, from police, fire, and market infractions to those against export regulations. Because of the growing number of arrests for misdemeanours, other courts with similar jurisdictions, such as Special Sessions and the Police Court, supplemented these weekly sessions (ibid., 47). 39 Fyson, “The Court Structure,” 52. 40 Cited in Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 128. 41 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 133. 42 Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 18. 43 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Joachim Berthelet, Pierre Longtin, and Veronique Juillet, 25 April 1828. 44 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Bénomi Leclaire and Joseph Donegany, 2 May 1831. 45 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment of George Bailey, Maria Bailey, and Games Gibb, 23 October 1839. 46 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Indictment of Ellen Kennedy and James Maighan, 10 January 1834. 47 Although John McCord kept handwritten notes about the testimony of witnesses who appeared before him during his tenure as a justice of the peace, such records are exceptional. 48 Price, “‘Raised in Rockhead, Died in the Poorhouse,’” 220. 49 Fingard, The Dark Side, 112. 50 banq-m, tl317, Tribunal de la police, Vol 1, 16 July 1838. 51 banq-m, tl317, Tribunal de la police, Vol 1, 13 July 1838. 52 Borthwick, From Darkness to Light, 42. 53 banq-m, tl32, s1, ss1, Motion by Rosalie Laprise, 23 October 1834. 54 banq-m, tl32, s1, ss11, 18 July 1831, 27 October 1831. 55 banq-m, tl32, s1, ss11, 24 April 1820; 27 April 1820; and 29 April 1820. 56 banq-m, e17, s1, ss1, Registres de la prison de Montreal, Vol. 3, 20 June 1836. 57 Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 266–9.

366

Notes to Pages 266–75

58 lac, rg4, b 20, Applications and Recommendations for Pardon or Clemency, Vol. 17, 18 December 1832. 59 lac, rg4, b 20, Applications and Recommendations for Pardon or Clemency, Vol. 17, 21 July 1832. 60 lac, rg4, b 20, Applications and Recommendations for Pardon or Clemency, Vol. 16, 24 February 1831. 61 Ibid., 26 February 1831. 62 banq-q, e17, s1, Quebec Common Gaol Prison Records, 26, February 1831. 63 lac, rg4, b 20, Applications and Recommendations for Pardon or Clemency, Vol. 20, 5 November 1836. 64 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 30 April 1811. 65 Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 412. 66 Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 45. 67 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of George Gibson, 19 July 1841 and 24 July 1841. 68 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 24 October 1839. 69 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 23 October 1840. 70 Montreal Transcript, 3 November 1840. 71 Brown, A Trying Question, 5. 72 Fyson, Magistrates, People, and Police, 256, 253. 73 Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 134–46. 74 Fyson, Criminal Justice, Civil Society, 255–8. 75 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Marie-Anne Sanscartier, 28 November 1814. 76 banq-m, tl32, s1 ss11, 19 July 1819. 77 banq-m, tl32, s1 ss11, 19 July 1813. 78 Lewthwaite, “Law and Authority in Upper Canada,” 201. 79 Gilfoyle, City of Eros, 82. 80 Ibid., 81–2, and Wood Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 159, 165–7. 81 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ursule Brouillet dite Bernard, 3 July 1838. 82 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Christine Brunet, 18 August 1835. 83 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Maria Cunningham, 13 March 1837. 84 Poutanen, “Images du danger dans les archives judiciaires.” 85 D’Cruze, “Sex, Violence and Local Courts,” 40. 86 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter Rossiter, 10 July 1838. 87 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louis Malo, 16 June 1831. 88 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Samuel Stewart, 22 October 1841. 89 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Angélique Clairmont, 21 May 1823.

Notes to Pages 277–85

367

Chapter Seven 1 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Robert Buttrick, 20 April 1842. 2 Ogborn, “Discipline, Government and Law”; Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England, 3; Dobash, “Labour and Discipline in Scottish and English Prisons.” See also Sharpe, Judicial Punishment in England. 3 Dobash, “Labour and Discipline in Scottish and English Prisons,” 7–9. 4 Mereamze, “The Penitential Ideal in Late Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” 420. 5 Caleb Smith, “Emerson and Incarceration,” 209–10; and Adamson, “Evangelical Quakerism and the Early American Penitentiary Revisited,” 40. See also Colvin, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs. 6 Graber, “‘When Friends Had the Management It Was Entirely Different,’” 18–19. 7 Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, 10. 8 Ibid., 16–17, 234–5. 9 Casella, “To Watch or Restrain,” 50–1. 10 Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, 271. 11 Mary Bosworth, “Confining Femininity,” 270–2; 277–8. 12 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1841. 13 Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody, 5. 14 Bouchette, Topical Description, 150–1. 15 Oliver, ‘Terror to Evil-Doers.’” 12. 16 banq-m, tl32, s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1825. 17 banq-m, tl32, s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1802. 18 Newman, Embodied History, 40–1. 19 Montreal Herald, 8 August 1817. 20 These regulations were reprinted in the Montreal Gazette, 23 September 1811. 21 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1828. 22 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1838. 23 banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1843. 24 See for example, Timothy Gilfoyle, who describes New York’s common jail or The Tombs as damp, smelly, overcrowded, insalubrious, and rodent-infested (Gilfoyle, “America’s Greatest Criminal Barracks”) and David Murray, who has argued that prisoners were subjected to cold, abuse by prison authorities, and food that was unfit for human consumption; the state refused to act despite regular Grand Jury complaints about the conditions of the common gaol (Murray, Colonial Justice, 62–3). See alsoVerin-Treusch, “Louts, Lunatics, and Loose Women at the Vaughan Street Jail,” 40. 25 “Gaols in Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers,” Journal of the House of Assembly, 28 November 1835: 211.

368

Notes to Pages 285–94

26 27 28 29 30 31

Oliver, “‘Terror to Evil-Doers,’” 61. banq-m, tl19 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, March 1815. banq-m, tl 32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, January 1826. Montreal Gazette, 12 February 1827. banq-m, tl19, s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, September 1827. Journals of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada, 28 November 1835, 216. Ovide Perrault, “Correspondence respecting Mr. Gugy,” 16. See also “Inquisition on View of the Body of John Collins,” Continuation of the appendix to the XLVth volume of the Journals of the House of Assembly of the province of Lower Canada, second session of the fifteenth provincial Parliament, 6 Will. IV (Quebec: King’s Printer, 1836), 37–8. Perrault, “Correspondence Respecting Mr. Gugy,” 16, 28. Ibid., 18–19. Fyson and Fenchel, “Prison Registers, Their Possibilities and Their Pitfalls,” 3. Newton Bosworth, Hochelaga Depicta, 160–1. “Report of Messieurs Clarke and Appleton respecting the Montreal new gaol,” Journal of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, from the 27th October 1835 to the 21st March 1836, in the Sixth year of the reign of King William the Fourth, being the second session of the fifteenth provincial parliament of this province, 1835–36, 218–19. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1839. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1840. Poutanen, ‘“To Indulge Their Carnal Appetites,” 302–4. Fingard, The Dark Side of Life, 48–55. Montreal Herald, 12 March 1825. Mereamze, “The Penitential Ideal in Late Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia,” 422–3. Montreal Herald, 22 February 1823, 17 September 1823. lac, rg4 a1 Vol. 230, Letter to Louis Montizambert, 23 September 1824. banq-m, tl32 s1, ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 10 March 1837. Montreal Gazette, 22 January 1825. Reprinted in the Montreal Gazette, 24 March 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1839. Borthwick, History of the Montreal Prison from A.D. 1784 to A.D. 1886, 10. banq-m, tl19 s1 ss1, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1830. Montreal Gazette, 14 September 1841. Montreal Gazette, 3 September 1836. banq-m, tl19 s1 ss1, Grand Jury Presentment, 13 September 1826. Floyd, “Dislocations of the Self.” See also Fyfe, Books behind Bars. Montreal Gazette, 6 September 1836.

32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Notes to Pages 294–303 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

369

Montreal Herald, 20 November 1821. Montreal Gazette, 12 March 1825. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1843. Montreal Gazette, 14 January 1836. Ovide Perrault, “Correspondence Respecting Mr. Gugy,” 28. “Gaols in Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers,” Journal of the House of Assembly, 28 November 1835, 211–12. Goldsmith, “History from the Inside Out,” 111. Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody, 4–5. See also Goldsmith, “History from the Inside Out,” 110. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1821. Newman, Embodied History, 37. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 29 April 1845. banq-m tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, No. 605, Lydia Cornell, 24 November 1842. banq-m, tl32 S26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, No. 603, Mary Brown Kennell, 21 November 1842. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 24 February 1837. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 38, 22 February 1837. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Louis Malo, 20 January 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter McPherson, 20 January 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Peter McPherson, 15 April 1835. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1836. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1843. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ignace Hodossi, 7 November 1832. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Ignace Hodossi, 21 January 1833. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Calendar of the House of Correction, 16 April 1822. Montreal Herald, 12 February 1812. Montreal Herald, 11 December 1819. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 January 1843. Aranguiz, Vagabonds et sans abris à Montreal. Henderson, Disorderly Women, 140. banq-m, tl32, s1 ss1, Deposition of Jacob Marsten, 26 February 1820. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Antoine Bergeron, 18 April 1835. Rogers, “Policing the Poor,” 136–7. Murray, Colonial Justice, 144. Price, “Raised in Rockhead,” 217. Montreal Gazette, 27 November 1832. lac, rg 4 b14, Police Registers, Vol. 54, 20 February 1842. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 April 1812. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 257. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1813.

370

Notes to Pages 303–9

97 98 99 100

banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1819. banq-m, E17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 2, 27 April 1835. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of James O’Neill, 2 December 1841. An Ordinance for Establishing a System of Police for the Cities of Quebec and Montreal, 2 Vict (1) (1838), c10. banq-m, tl317, Tribunal de la police, Vol. 1, 19 July 1838. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of John Dredge, 13 April 1841. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss1, Deposition of Nicolas Fournier, 18 February 1818. Beattie, Crimes and the Courts, 468–9. Kittredge, “Introduction,” 3. This was true in Montreal and elsewhere. See, for example, Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts, 23. Bothwick, History of the Montreal Prison, 4. Sanson, Sketches of Lower Canada, historical and descriptive, 233. Borthwick, History of the Montreal Prison, 4. De Gaspé, “Dénombrements de Quebec,” in his Mémoires. 47–8 but as translated and quoted in Mackey, Done with Slavery, 242. Montreal Herald 17 January 1821, 20 January 1821. Cited in Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 464. A woman with the same name had been arrested for keeping a brothel in Montreal five years before. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1810. Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 466–7. Montreal Gazette, 26 November 1810. Montreal Gazette, 19 July 1813. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1820, 19 January 1821. Gowing, “Language, Power, and the Law: Women’s Slander Litigation in Early Modern London” in Walker and Kermode, eds, Women, Crime and the Courts, 33. Montreal Gazette, 2 May 1821. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Indictment of Marie Deguire, 10 July 1829. Bill More Effectually to Punish Certain Offences Therein Mentioned, and to Abolish the Punishment of Exposure in the Pillory, and by Stripes, as Heretofore in Certain Cases by Law Authorized, Journals of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, from the 25th November 1823 to the 9th March 1824, 23 January 1824, 163. Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, 8–11. Miller, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” 30. “The Policeman No. 28,” The Montreal Tattler, 1:8 (21 September 1844): 3. banq-m , e17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 4, 2 February 1839. In 1835 Sophie Martin and Amable Breton were sentenced to six months each in the Common Gaol in addition to giving security of £40 each. banq-m, e17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 2, 27 April 1835.

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127

Notes to Pages 309–12 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142

371

banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 15 January 1839. Oliver, “‘Terror to Evil-Doers,’” 27. Best, Controlling Vice, 4–5. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 27 April 1840. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, 15 January 1841. banq-m, E17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 1, 18 December 1837. banq-m, E17 s1 ss1, Registre de la prison, Vol. 1, 10 January 1838. Fyson, Magistrates, Police, and People, 325. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 30 October 1828. Rules and Regulations for the Interior Order and Police of the Gaol at Montreal, [Montreal?: s.n.], 1840, 6. Ibid., 12. Ibid. banq-m, tl32 s1 ss11, Grand Jury Presentment, 19 July 1836. Montreal Herald, 20 November 1821. banq-m, tl32 s26 ss1, Enquête du Coroner, 21 July 1843.

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Index

Acton, William, 15 Adler, Jeffrey, 71, 188, 234 alcohol consumption, 28, 35, 81; alcoholism, 15,97, 107, 123, 136, 141, 148, 159, 315; drunkenness, 33, 35, 40–1, 43, 44, 57, 93, 97, 103, 105, 108, 112, 113, 114, 115, 121, 124, 132, 134, 138, 147, 151, 160, 170, 179, 198, 202, 214–15, 216, 219, 229, 230, 233, 234, 237, 240, 245, 248, 256, 287, 297, 304; and prostitution, 106–9; selling liquor without a licence, 104, 107, 108–9, 184, 234; sites of, 107, 132, 134; taverns/tippling houses/grog shops, 11, 14, 20, 26, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42–3, 45, 53– 4, 55–8, 62, 69, 107, 108, 109, 113, 132, 142, 146, 149, 151, 154, 165, 168, 184, 187, 203, 213, 215, 219, 221, 242, 259, 314; tavern licences, 20, 55, 58, 213; temperance campaigns, 55, 215–16; unlicensed establishments, 55, 221, 234 Allcart, Betsey, 132, 135, 171 Anderson, Amanda, 196 Anderson, Bridget, 112 Angelière, Hélène, 159 Appleton, Teavill, 104, 191, 289 Aranguiz, Marcela, 300 Archambault, Angélique, 98, 269 architecture. See court house; prison Arnoldi, Daniel, 44, 147, 148, 218, 286, 287, 297, 312 assaults and other violence, 3, 9, 21,

33, 72, 74, 84, 96, 104, 105, 114, 115, 116, 118, 122, 123, 126, 127, 128, 129, 141, 159, 163, 166, 168, 169, 170, 191, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 226, 230, 234, 244, 246, 252, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 302, 319; child abuse, 121; domestic violence, 14, 97, 118, 122–5, 131,145, 202; gossip, 127, 130, 166; insults, 14, 17, 75, 130, 169, 196, 197, 198, 273, 275, 276; maiming, 3; manslaughter, 169, 302; murder, 18, 114, 169; by prostitutes, 11, 75, 116, 127, 163, 168, 275, 277; on prostitutes (see prostitution); rape/sexual assault (see prostitution); safety strategies, 45–6; slander, 163, 197, 252; threats and intimidation, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13, 21, 72, 74, 75, 76, 104, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 123, 126, 127, 129, 163, 166, 169, 191, 196, 198, 199, 219, 233, 234, 238, 240, 243, 244, 246, 252, 273, 275, 276, 280, 298, 307, 316, 319 Auger, Claire, 96 Auger, Euphrosine, 115–16 Auger, Joseph, 91–2 Austin, Elizabeth, 153, 163, 169 Baby, Marie, 298 bachelor and male subculture, 27–8, 47–8, 114, 121–2, 140, 145, 210, 236, 245, 247 Backhouse, Constance, 9, 19, 188

398 Bageley, Peggy, 298 Bailey, George, 263 Bailey, Maria, 263 Barret-Ducrocq, Françoise, 15, 110 Beattie, John, 252, 256, 258, 267–8, 305 Beauchamp, Marguerite, 302 Beauchamps, Sophie, 137 Beaulieu, Rosalie, 4 Beccaria, Cesare, 291 beggars/begging, 17, 34, 57, 158, 185– 6, 213, 214, 299 Belan, Josephte, 263 Bélanger, Sophie, 249, 250, 254, 255, 261, 272, 276 Belhumeur, Marguerite, 207 Belisle dite Lafleur, Adeline, 101 Belleau, Elizabeth, 113 Bells, Jane, 177, 189 Benêche dite Lavictoire, Eloi, 90–1, 119, 122 Benêche dite Lavictoire, Marguerite, 72, 89, 90, 95, 315 Benêche dite Lavictoire, Marie-Louise, 110 benevolence, 95, 133, 139, 143–4, 149, 154, 157, 158, 210, 213; Grey Nuns, 95, 158; House of Industry, 157, 158; for repentant prostitutes (see Magdalene Asylum). See also Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society; Sisters of Providence Bennett, Judith, 12, 98 Benson, Elizabeth, 96 Berthier, Amable, 163 Best, Joel, 104, 113, 126, 196, 310 Billet, Etienne, 34, 307 Blackmar, Elizabeth, 214 Blais, Euphrosine, 104 Blanchard, Emélie, 141 Bleau, Félicité, 41, 127, 162, 163 Bleau, Marguerite, 41, 127, 162, 163 Block, Sharon, 16, 145 boarding/lodging-houses, 39, 90, 150, 151, 184, 187 Boissette, Cécile, 268 Borthwick, J. Douglas, 292, 306 Bosworth, Mary, 280

Index Bosworth, Newton, 287 Bothwell, Mary Ann, 162, 245 Bouchette, Joseph, 253, 282 Bourdeau, Angélique, 179 Boyle, Mary, 298 Bradbury, Bettina, 12, 77, 80, 95, 96, 97, 122 Bramwell, Bill, 169 Brennan, Mary, 97-8 Brennan, Thomas, 57 Breton, Amable, 92, 100, 122, 129 Breton, Emélie, 100 Breton, Henri fils, 100 Breton, Henri père, 100 Bricault (Bricot) dite Lamarche, Marie, 73, 123 brothels/disorderly houses: business practices, 4, 5; changing sites, 73–4, 129; and clients, 3, 22, 29, 37, 39, 41, 50, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76, 79, 82, 87, 91–2, 93, 94, 103, 106, 107, 108, 109–11, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116–17, 118, 120, 129, 153, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 224, 239, 240, 262, 309, 310, 315; and clothing, 73, 93, 94, 99, 107, 120; competition between, 5, 58, 107, 126–7, 129, 199, 315; culture of, 103–18; demography of keepers and prostitutes, 81–92; discipline of prostitutes in, 141; disturbing the peace, 71, 74, 94, 104, 123, 177, 180, 181, 182, 192, 196, 198, 201, 224; earnings, 93–4, 98, 102, 112; family-enterprises, 100–1; family relations, 118–21; in homes , 78–9; and household economy, 122; informal network of, 104–6; and neighbourhood safety, 74; and other forms of revenue, 107; and privacy, 112; reasons for establishing, 92– 102, 147; recognition of inmates, 104; riots in, 35, 81, 97, 114, 115, 129, 191, 273, 274; security of, 4–5, 29, 82, 97, 116–17, 118, 122, 141; services offered, 106–7; sites, 38, 50, 54, 60, 62, 64, 69, 71, 72; and stolen goods, 77, 109, 129, 216; thefts in, 40, 41, 73, 81, 111, 113–14, 120,

Index 126, 127, 128–9, 155, 162, 200, 244; types of, 39–40, 88, 92; violence in (see prostitution) Brouillet dite Bernard, Ursule, 274 Brousseau, Josette, 194, 305 Brown, Catharine, 297 Brunet dite Belhumeur, Marie-Christine, 274 Brutton, Catherine, 75 Burk/Burt, Mary, 117, 121, 242 Burnet, Mary, 161, 275 Burns, Margaret, 73 Burns, Mary Ann, 73, 127, 201 Bynum, Victoria E., 165–6 Byrne, Paula, 186, 246 Cabana, Marie, 82 Caldwell, Sarah, 249, 272 Campagna, François, 245 Campagneau, Margaret, 298 Campbell, Julia, 168–9, 240, 302 Cardinal, Marie, 85 Carlisle, Marcia, 93 Carr, Margaret, 275 Carthy, Bridget, 298, 301 Casavant, Marie, 48 Casella, Eleanor Conlin, 279 Cassel, Jay, 147 Cataford, Angélique, 48 Champs-de-Mars, 48–9, 50, 64, 69, 132, 149, 170, 189, 253, 275 Charbonneau, Emélie, 194 Chisholm, Margaret, 52, 107, 108, 112 Cinqmars, Adélaide, 122 Clairemont, Angélique, 194, 275, 304– 5 Clark, Anna, 11, 42, 124, 144, 166, 196 Clarke, Catherine, 48, 167 clemency petitions, 20, 22, 73, 120, 266–7, 306 Clifford, Rosey, 268 Clifford, Sally, 268 Cohen, Patricia, 115 Collins, John, 286–7, 295 Compagna, François, 95 Conroy, Margaret, 127, 128, 199 Corbeille, Louise, 123, 162

399 Corbin, Alain, 6, 18–19 Corfield, Penelope, 36 Corkan, Catherine, 298 Corker, Catherine, 41 Corneille, Lydia, 159, 297 Côté, Marie, 275 Courcelle dite Chevalier, Josephte, 85 court house, 20, 22, 48, 170, 177, 189, 190, 192, 193, 225, 227, 249, 253– 6, 282, 298, 300 courts: clerks of, 7, 12, 23, 64, 135, 136, 177, 179, 181, 189, 192, 197, 198, 208, 237, 239, 251, 254, 256, 257, 267, 272, 317; defendants’ resistance, 9, 30, 251–2, 268–9, 271, 276; King’s Bench, 4, 20, 21, 251, 254; noli prosequi, 250, 258, 276; Petty Sessions, 20, 191, 195, 227, 249, 252, 254, 255, 261–2, 272, 280, 300, 302; Police Court, 20, 191, 234–5, 260, 261, 262, 272, 280, 304; procedures, 193–4, 255; Quarter Sessions of the Peace, 5, 29, 49, 73, 105, 110, 187, 191, 192, 195, 205, 217, 224, 242, 249, 250, 252, 254, 255, 256–61, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 278, 280, 307, 310; recognizances to appear at court/for good behaviour/keep the peace, 20, 73, 125, 187, 194, 195, 205, 208, 249, 250, 258, 262, 271, 272, 273, 276, 303, 304, 305, 309, 310, 313; Special Sessions, 234 Couture, Magdeleine, 277, 278, 282, 290, 291, 301, 304, 312 Cowan, Helen, 142 Crawford, Mary Ann, 73–4, 84, 310 Crawley, Ann, 162 Crechetelli, Mary, 47–8 criminal justice system, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 19, 21, 29, 30, 49, 114, 117, 124, 127, 133, 177, 178, 180, 189– 90, 202, 204, 212, 220, 221, 247, 252, 263, 264, 268, 271, 273, 274, 277, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320; judicial process, 262–3; justices of the peace/magistrates, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 17, 18, 26, 34, 44, 55, 94, 106, 115,

400 119, 121, 123, 124, 126, 145, 169, 177–80, 181, 185–94,197, 202, 205, 206, 210, 212–15, 220–2, 224, 225, 227, 229, 230, 242, 249–52, 254–66, 272, 275–7, 280, 283, 289, 295–6, 298–305, 307–11, 313–14, 317, 319; law manuals, 181, 185, 189; Police/ Peace Office, 72, 177, 178, 179, 192, 193, 204, 226, 254, 255, 275, 330n123; police regulations, 17, 181, 185, 190, 213; popular-class knowledge of, 10, 178, 252, 274; preliminary detention (see prosecution); and reform-minded magistrates, 222, 224; relationships between authorities and prostitutes, 9, 10, 272, 281, 300–1; summary justice, 57, 208, 250 Cruickshank, Dan, 11, 101 Crumbie, Catherine, 75 Cuillerier, Josephte, 141 Cunningham, Eliza, 141 Cunningham, Maria, 128, 274 Daigneau, Julie-Archange, 164 Dalhousie Square, 50 Daly, Catharine, 167–8 D’Amico, Stefano, 78 D’Aubreville, Emmanuel, 229, 249, 261, 359n57 Dauphiné, Adélaide, 268 Davidoff, Leonore, 16 Davidson, Mary Ann, 112, 113 Davignon, Marguerite, 267 Day, Mary Ann, 164 D’Cruze, Shani, 127, 275 Dear, Mary, 163 De Cunzo, Lu Ann, 155 Deers, Mary, 301 Deganne, Adélaide, 94–5 Deganne, Angélique, 82 Deganne, Elisabeth, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85, 91, 92, 93, 94, 104, 129, 131, 191, 289 Deguire, Marie, 307 Delany, Margaret, 120, 153, 164, 205 Delisle, Adelphe, 24, 222, 243 Delisle, Benjamin, 24, 50, 163, 164, 222, 247, 264

Index Delisle, William, 24, 243 Depaté, Marguerite, 41 Deschamps, Julie, 146–7, 152 Desjardins, Charlotte, 249, 272 Desjardins, Marguerite, 199 Desjardins, Pierre, 119–20, 199 Desjardins, Rosalie, 302 Desjardins, Thérèse, 199, 302 Dicaire, Daniel, 46, 232 Diller, Marie, 128 discourses, 281; and daily life, 6, 10, 19, 20, 100–1, 213–14, 215; on intemperance, 107, 215–18; moral, 6, 7, 8, 10; on policing of prostitution, 114, 210, 212–15, 227, 271, 278; prostitutes as victims, 139–40; on prostitution, 5–6, 7, 10, 18, 81, 111, 141–2, 157, 213, 214–15, 216–17, 219, 260, 280, 316; on women’s behaviour, 80–1, 312, 317; on women’s role in the household, 80–1, 320; on women’s sexuality, 6, 7, 8, 10, 16– 17, 278, 316, 317 divorce; informal/self-divorce, 7, 16, 84, 97, 119, 315 Dodsworth, Francis, 236 Dogherty, James, 39 Dollar, Peggy/Caroline Miller/Peggie Conelier, 41, 162, 297–8 Donaghue, Julia, 126 Doyle, Ellen, 309 Dubinsky, Karen, 9, 12 Dubois, Catherine, 84 Ducharme, Génévieve, 272, 302 Duclos, Marie-Des-Anges Duffault, Elisabeth, 106 Dufresne, Adélaide, 128, 244–5, 274 Dunae, Patrick, 39 Dunn, Betsey/Elizabeth, 47, 297 Dunn, Jane, 112, 246 Dupéré, Sophie, 150 Duperoux, Henriette, 144 Duval, Emélie, 310 Dyon, Fereol, 310 economy: household, 12, 78, 79–80, 91, 92, 93, 122, 183, 201; and industrialization, 29, 121; and liberalism,

Index 10, 80, 204; makeshift, 93; moral, 13, 158, 178, 180, 202, 212, 214, 217, 221; and transition, 13, 24–7, 28, 29, 61, 138, 254, 317 epidemics, 80, 143, 148, 222; of cholera, 62, 82, 96, 143, 164, 222; of typhoid fever, 62, 143 Ermatinger, Frederick William, 106, 247 Farge, Arlette, 150–1, 167 farms: as part of subsistence strategies, 62, 63, 152, 162, 169, 171, 224; Gregory’s Farm, 64; Griffin’s Farm, 171; St-Gabriel Farm, 162; and solicitation, 62, 65, 132, 162, 163, 219, 220. See also Mount Royal; Priests’ Farm Fecteau, Jean-Marie, 222 female subculture, 11, 12; borrowing network, 127; community of outcasts, 5, 127, 134, 161; and solidarity 127, 160–5; tensions and conflicts within, 163 Feme coverte, 183–4 Feme sole, 98 Fenchel, François, 137 Ferguson, Eliza, 162 Field, Benjamin, 106, 309 Field, Mary, 106 Filiatreau, Susan, 101 Filiatreault, Dometilde, 275 Fingard, Judith, 19, 57–8, 94, 136, 160, 167, 212, 263–4, 290 Fleury, Véronique, 137, 167 Florentin, Agathe, 92, 126, 187, 263 Fob, Mary, 163 Fontaine, Antoine, 84 Fontaine, Peter, 50, 124 Forgette, Pierre, 91–2 Fortier, Hélène, 125, 194, 305 Fortin, Angélique, 194 Fortin, Charlotte, 194 Foucault, Michel, 8, 279–80, 308 Fournelle, Marie-Angélique, 38, 96, 102 Froide, Amy, 98 Fyson, Donald, 7, 9, 53, 122, 124,

401 137, 169, 179, 189–90, 192, 202, 204, 214, 221, 225, 227, 256, 270, 271, 302, 311 Gagnier, Marie, 48 Gagnon, Marie, 48 Galarneau, Angélique, 265 Galarneau, Eleonor, 132, 135, 171, 298 Gale, Samuel, 3, 192, 222 Gamache, Marie-Françoise, 144–5, 200 Gariepie, Adélaide, 268 Garrioch, David, 65 Gauthier, Desolives, 126 Gauthier, Emilie, 64, 104, 163 Gauthier, Marguerite, 274 Geremek, Bronislaw, 166–7 Gibson, Elizabeth, 111 Gilfoyle, Timothy, 28, 94, 109, 115, 117, 121–2, 140, 273–4 Gillis, John, 79, 165 Godin, Angélique, 307 Goldsmith, Larry, 295 Goodwin, Angélique, 145 Goodwin, Elizabeth, 145 Gordon, Linda, 9, 12 Gossage, Peter, 148 Gosselin, Catherine, 82 Goulet, Charlotte, 136, 310 Gowing, Laura, 196–7 Graham, Ellen, 106 Graham, Jane, 106, 159 grand jury, 5, 6, 13, 14, 36, 49, 71, 99, 126, 128, 129, 151, 178, 191, 192, 197, 201, 205, 207, 215, 216, 217– 18, 219, 227, 228, 230, 242, 243, 247, 250, 251, 254, 256, 257, 260, 262, 263, 267, 269, 278, 284, 286, 290, 292, 293, 295, 298, 299, 316, 317, 318; presentments, 20, 21, 55, 157, 213, 214, 217, 219, 271, 285, 289, 315, 317; petitions to, 71, 192, 331n133 Gravelle, Marie-Louise, 119 Green, Mary Ann, 135–6, 238, 240, 243–4, 264 Greer, Allan, 220–1

402 Griffith, Ann Grimes, Ann, 162 Grossman, Marie-Marguerite, 102 Guerrier, Josephte, 64 Guertin, Modeste, 130, 242–3 Gugy, Louis, 286, 287 Guilbeault, Esther, 94–5 Haines, Emilia, 177, 189 Haines, Euphrosine, 177, 189 Halifax, 57, 62, 94, 106–7, 126, 136, 160, 161, 167, 212, 263, 290, 301 Hall, Catherine, 16 Hamelle, Harriet/Henriette, 132, 135, 162, 171 Hamilton, Upper Canada, 138 Handley, Biddy, 152 Hannah, Mary, 189 Harris, Andrew T., 178, 204, 251 Harsin, Jill, 108, 114, 159, 240 Harvey, Eliza, 41 Harvey, Janice, 157 Harvey, Kathryn, 122 Harvey, Thomas, 106 Hayes, Moses Judah, 33 Hazette, Margaret, 143 Henderson, Tony, 6, 37, 93, 112, 160, 180, 188, 205, 212, 227, 236, 240, 262, 300 Heron, Craig, 42 Hershatter, Gail, 13 Hessinger, Rodney, 155 Hewitt, Esther, 163 Hichcock, Tim, 158 Hicks, Catharine, 167 Hicks, Jane, 152, 163, 164 Higgs, Jane, 24 Hill, Bridget, 17, 72, 80, 237 Hirbour dite Mathurin, Félicité, 123–4 historiography of prostitution, 18–19 Hobson, Barbara, 43–4, 144, 262 homelessness, 5, 9, 15, 29, 30, 37, 38, 52, 62, 64, 132, 133, 136, 145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 159, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168, 172, 185, 211, 213, 219, 223–4, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 240, 245, 252, 272, 275, 281, 285, 292, 297, 298, 300, 301, 312, 313,

Index 315; and hypothermia, 37, 148, 159, 166, 168, 237, 239, 248, 285, 286, 301; and malnutrition, 148, 158, 166, 239, 248; and security, 38, 52, 147, 165, 166, 172, 214, 240, 314 Hopkins, George, 246 Hopkins, Hannah, 112, 246 Horn, Louise, 116, 241 Howe, Bridget, 312 Howell, Philip, 40, 133, 236 Hufton, Olwen, 12, 79, 85, 93; and spinster clustering, 12, 78, 98 Huguet dite Latour, Agathe-Henriette, 153–7 Hurl-Eamon, Jennine, 178 Hyers, Martha, 147–8, 159, 162 Imbeau dite Matha, Marie-Vénérance, 119 immigrants/immigration, 24, 28, 42, 56, 61, 76, 80, 87, 97, 142–4, 145, 161, 203, 213, 222; Irish, 24–5, 28, 61–2, 97, 135, 138, 139, 141, 142–3, 158, 213, 223, 315 imprisonment. See punishment Industrial Schools Act of 1869, 121 Johnson, Eliza, 73 Jolicoeur, Marguerite, 243 Jordan, Catherine, 52, 107, 108 Jordan, Maria, 75, 114 Joyal, Rénée, 121 Joyalle, Marie-Anne, 130, 209, 210 juries: charges to, 197, 217, 256, 317. See also grand jury; petit/trial jury Kalman, Harold, 253 Kane, Margaret, 170 Kelly, Mary, 166 Kennedy, Betsey, 65, 113 Kennedy, Eliza, 137 Kennedy, Ellen, 263 Kennedy, Mary Ann, 92 Kennedy, Sarah, 298 Kennedy, William, 266 Kenneway, Mary, 128 Kerber, Linda, 149 King, Peter, 178, 190–1, 232

Index Kinville, Marie, 249, 250, 254, 255, 261, 272, 276 Kittredge, Katharine, 196, 305 Kwokek-Folland, Angel, 77 L’Heureux, Charlotte, 120 Labrie, Ellen, 127 Lacasse, Danielle, 19 Lachine Canal, 28, 38, 40, 61–2, 93, 149, 169, 214 Lafleur, Julie, 127 Lafrance, Catherine, 120, 306–7 Lafrance, Pierre, 106 Lafranchise, Betsey, 150 Lajeunesse, Louise 100 Laliberté, Adélaide, 4 Lamarche, Joseph, 100 Lamarche, Marie, 72, 108, 109, 240 Lamontagne, Félicité, 95, 245 Lanctôt, Marie-Anne. 205 Lapointe, Euphrosine, 119 Laprise, Rosalie, 128, 129, 264–5 Larammé, Elisabeth, 194, 304–5 larceny. See theft Larivière, Marie, 249, 272 Laurent, Marguerite, 84 Lauzon, Gilles, 44–5, 48 Lauzon, Marie-Anne, 104 Laverdure, Guillaume, 92, 126, 263 Lavictoire, Scholastique, 128 law manuals/books. See criminal justice system Lawrence, Henry, 49, 50 Lawson, Peter, 149, 186 Leblanc, Adélaide, 104 Leblanc, Elisabeth, 104 Leblanc, Josephte, 104 Leblanc, Olivier, 104 Leclaire, Angélique, 39, 247, 266 Leclerc, Josephte, 146 Leclère, Pierre-Édouard, 177–8, 192–3, 194, 195, 264 Lecompte, Caroline, 310 Lecuyer, Marguerite, 111 Lecuyer, Narcisse, 119 Ledoux, Adélaide, 310 Lee, Ellen, 163 Lee, Lynn Hollen, 158

403 Legris, Mary Ann, 238 Lenoir dit Rolland, George, 86, 98 Lenoir dit Rolland, Germain, 86, 98 Lenoir dite Rolland, Lucie, 4, 85–6, 98–9, 111, 115, 120, 127, 130, 141, 199, 241, 315 Lepage, Hypolite, 206 Lepine, Marie, 268 Leroux dit Cardinal, Barnabé, 82–3 Lévesque, Andrée, 19 Levine, Philippa, 8, 13, 218 Lewis, Eliza, 163 Lewthwaite, Susan, 193, 194, 257, 273 Livernois, Marie, 40 Lloyd, Sarah, 141 Locas, Caroline, 128 London, England, 11, 40, 101, 141, 162, 181, 212, 222, 240, 251, 262, 270, 283, 301 Lorrain, Emélie, 85 Louise, Marie, 249, 272 Love, Maria, 165, 240 Luddy, Maria, 161, 214–15 Lussier, Marie 116, 307 Lyons, Clare, 16, 112, 118, 145, 190, 201, 213, 233 Macdonald, Mary, 75 Mackey, Frank, 138 Magdalene Asylum/Charitable Institution for Female Penitents/Repentant Female Society, 7, 139–40, 153–7, 298 Mahoney, Mary, 162 Maighan, James, 263 Mailloux, François, 113 Mainville, Josephine, 103 Malo, Louis, 48, 82, 101, 184, 241, 244–5 Marcotte, Marie-Emélie, 77, 82, 85 Mark, Mary Ann, 298 markets, 11, 25, 29, 36, 37, 38, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 62, 64, 65, 69, 78, 88, 95, 117, 132, 149, 150, 152, 164, 165, 169, 179, 198, 228, 231, 233, 239 240, 249, 253, 306, 307, 314; and prostitution, 52–3, 54–5

404 Marston, Jacob, 105, 226, 247 Marteau, Marguerite, 298 Martin, Eliza, 64, 125–6, 162, 170–1, 200, 244 Martin, Mary, 52, 96 Mason, Angélique, 37 Mason, Michael, 109 Masson, Emélie, 104, 170, 237 Mathurin, Julie, 128 Matin, Marguerite, 164 Mattée, Marie, 34, 306 McCanister, Bridget, 205 McConvey, Ellen, 120, 153, 205 McCormick, Peter, 38 McCullough, Michael, 232 McDonald, Catherine, 132, 135, 171, 264 McDonald/Mcdonald, Magdeleine, 151, 239, 277, 278, 282, 290, 301, 312 McDonald, Mary, 146 McFarlane, Josephte, 152, 164 McGinnis, Margaret, 141, 163, 275 McGinnis, Richard, 106 McGinnis, William, 106 McGloan, Patrick, 97 McGuire, Ellen, 301 McIntosh, Emily, 152 McKay, Jane, 113 McKenna, Katherine, 13, 159, 191, 196 McSheffrey, Shannon, 23, 178 Menard, Adélaide, 152 Menie, Marie, 98 methodology, 20–4; sources, 12 Metthote/Mettote, Marie-Euphrosine, 40 military soldiers and officers: anxieties about, 14, 52, 74; barracks (see Quebec Gate Barracks); in colonies, 14, 218; deserted, 38, 62, 63, 171, 306; married, 50, 134, 167; relationships with prostitutes, 5, 11, 27, 33, 62, 64, 134, 153, 165, 167–8, 170, 172, 219, 246; rescuing prostitutes, 169, 228, 246; security for prostitutes, 168, 169; soliciting prostitutes/solicited by prostitutes, 27, 38, 39, 40, 42, 50, 52, 54–7, 58, 62, 63, 64, 76,

Index 104, 106, 107, 110, 132, 153, 189, 195, 227; and venereal disease, 218; violence against prostitutes, 126, 132, 200 Miller, Wilbur, 308 Miller, William, 194 Millette, Emélie, 170 Millette, Marie, 40 Milligan, Mary, 152 Minan, Catherine, 117 Miron, Marguerite, 41 Mitchell, Margaret, 244 Mitchell, Sarah, 152 Molloy, Margaret, 82 Molloy, Mary, 171 Mongeon, Dorothée, 100–1, 207 Mongeon, Joseph, 100–1, 207 Mongeon, Julie, 100, 207 Monk, Maria, 154–5, 157 Montgomery, Elizabeth, 177, 189 Montreal General Hospital, 137, 148 Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society, 95, 158 Morgan, Cecilia, 16 Morgan, Margaret, 264 Morrison, Catharine, 161, 275 Morrison, Sophie, 105, 109 Moses, Jean-Auguste, 77, 82, 104, 129, 191 Moses, Joseph, 77, 82, 104, 129, 191 Mount Royal, 25, 38, 62–4, 65, 132. See also farms Mulcahey, Mary, 309 Mullins, Francis, 244 Murphy, Bridget, 233 Murphy, Catharine, 163 Murphy, Sarah, 94 Murphy, William, 61 Murray, David, 192, 250, 301 Murray, Susan, 163 Myers, Tamara, 19, 101 Nelson, Maria, 264 Newman, Ann, 33, 197 Newman, Simon P., 161, 283, 296 New South Wales New York City, 40, 74, 85, 94, 109, 112, 116, 121, 140, 163, 214, 273

Index Noah, Biddy, 167 Noel, Jan, 215 Normandin, Angèle, 112 Norris, Ellen, 40 Norwood, Isabelle, 298 Noxon, Sarah, 3–4, 28, 114–15, 258, 319 O’Brian, Fanny, 177–8, 182, 183, 189, 193, 194 Oliver, Peter, 282, 285 Olson, Sherry, 89, 93, 143, 144 Ouellette, Louise, 268 Ouimet, Françoise, 86, 194, 254, 262 Ouimet, Touissant, 86, 249, 254, 256, 257, 258, 268, 276, 282 Paley, Ruth, 261 Panneton, Monique, 105 Paquet, Rosalie, 39, 90, 119, 122 Paquette, Marie-Anne, 102 Paré, Angélique, 41, 127, 162 Parent-Duchâtelet, Alexandre, 15, 218 Paris, France, 57, 65, 108, 114, 150–1, 159, 166, 167, 170, 217, 218, 219, 240, 280, 318 Parrant, Caroline, 64 paternalism. See police patriarchy, 12, 96, 114, 124, 130, 145, 180, 186, 244 Patrice, Geneviève, 117 pawn shops, 151, 152, 158 Peebles, Eliza, 125, 146, 151 Penneton, Monique, 109 Perigord, Margaret, 42, 163 Perkins, Mary Ann, 268 Perrault, Elmire, 153 Perrault, Joseph, 106, 128, 196, 265 Perrault, Louise, 48 Perrault, Marie, 263 petit/trial jury, 48, 115, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 263, 265, 266, 270, 276, 280, 295 Philadelphia, 38, 39 85, 93, 101, 112, 155, 161, 213, 233 Phillips, Jim, 181 Phillips, Roderick, 124 Pierce, Ann, 40

405 Pilarczyk, Ian, 121, 122 police: arrests of prostitutes, 64–5, 136, 194, 221–4, 226; assaults and threats, 64, 105, 168, 169, 233; authority of, 210; constables, 224–6; corruption, 21; discretionary power, 30, 57, 72, 110, 186, 204, 205, 210, 211, 233, 235–6, 243, 300, 308; discipline of, 229, 232, 238; “Durham’s Police,” 230; elite criticism of, 212– 20; extortion, 35, 72, 91, 107, 110, 211, 226, 235–47; hierarchy, 231; intimidation of prostitutes, 210, 211, 226, 235–47; limits of power, 216; and masculinity, 236; mediating community relations, 209, 232; misconduct of, 229, 232, 357n34; Night Watch, 226–30; paternalism/patriarchal role, 5, 35, 121, 186, 220, 300, 317, 318; patrols, 3, 64, 65, 219, 227–8, 230–1; Police Committee, 224; public assistance, 9, 37, 159, 164, 211, 223, 237, 239, 252, 318; raids on brothels, 34, 35, 61, 71, 73, 74, 76, 82, 94, 106, 107, 109, 153, 177, 178, 194, 205, 207, 208, 224, 226, 234, 250, 262, 263, 266; regulation of prostitution, 7, 14, 41, 43, 47, 49, 57, 60, 63, 71, 72, 76, 83, 84, 85, 101, 161, 167, 180, 186, 187, 188, 209, 215, 218–20, 221, 222, 223, 226, 234, 271, 316, 317; regulation of taverns, 56–7; relations with prostitutes, 5, 10, 16, 22, 29, 30, 34–5, 45, 72, 110, 114, 115, 135, 159, 165, 209, 210, 212, 226, 229, 252, 263, 314, 356n4, 356n5; reorganization of, 65, 202, 212, 213, 219, 220, 221, 222, 230–5, 281; resistance to, 211, 169–70, 233, 234; responsibilities, 210, 211; salaries, 225, 232; visits to brothels, 209, 210, 229, 236, 241, 242, 243, 244; violence toward prostitutes, 244 police stations, 10, 189, 304; as sites of public assistance, 153, 159, 164, 297, 299, 300 Ponivre, Thomas, 267

406 Prescott, Upper Canada, 191, 196 Price, Jane, 212, 263 Priests’ Farm, 26, 63–4, 241. See also farms prison, 7, 179, 282; classification of prisoners in, 142, 281, 293, 295; Common Gaol, 48, 137, 147, 249, 253, 285, 287–90; conditions of, 22, 285–7, 289–90; 291, 304, 311; for debtors, 282, 289; hospital, 10, 44, 148, 296, 297; House of Correction, 137, 249, 282–5; and insanity, 141; and mothers and their babies, 120; physician, 10, 44, 147, 218, 287, 297; and pregnancy, 164; provincial penitentiary, 277; and public assistance, 9, 37, 147, 148, 149, 159–60, 223–4, 226, 236, 238, 239, 281, 292, 296–301; records, 137; subsistent strategies and, 9, 30, 43, 149, 155, 159, 163, 172, 211, 281, 292, 297, 298, 299, 316; for treatment of venereal disease, 147–8; and work, 148, 279, 284–5, 291–2, 311–12; turnkey, 287; warden/gaol-keeper, 9, 286–7, 294, 295, 311–12, 316, 317; Watch House, 43, 44, 114, 179, 189, 194, 205, 227, 236, 237, 239, 249, 297, 299 prosecution: abandonment of, 18, 268; constructing legal narratives, 195–9; costs, 178–9, 190, 250–1, 268; defendants discretionary power, 18, 179, 186, 190, 251, 263–7, 268, 271, 318; demography of plaintiffs, 199–204; deterrence, 190; downcharging, 186; by family, 5, 14, 17, 101, 102, 136, 145, 199, 201, 202, 252, 320; and goals, 178, 252, 260, 268; malicious, 23, 73, 91, 242, 260, 266; by neighbours, 5, 14, 17, 69, 191, 199, 203, 204, 252, 268, 320, 323n49; outcomes, 250–1; plaintiffs discretionary power, 178, 191, 251, 262–3; by police, 5, 34, 65, 178, 179, 180, 199, 202, 203, 204, 252, 271, 318, 320; preliminary detention

Index and, 205–8; private, 4, 5, 9, 15, 30, 117, 150, 186, 178, 186, 190–5, 202, 204, 250, 251, 257, 268, 269, 289; procedures, 177, 190–5; by prostitutes, 5, 9, 117, 125, 199, 212, 243, 252, 263, 273–5; and recidivism, 91 prostitution: anxiety about, 13, 14, 47, 81, 140, 141, 142, 148–9, 216, 227, 234, 317; and “brutal passions,” 6, 140, 154, 210; and coerced sex, 24, 43, 48, 145, 166, 226, 241; communities of (see female subculture); conviction rates, 267–73; corrupting youth, 142, 148, 216, 296; earnings from, 40, 93–4, 110, 112, 129, 144, 146–7, 158; euphemisms for, 39, 101; geographic concentrations, 33, 36, 52–8, 61, 69–71; laws regarding, 17, 40, 103–4, 180–9; as necessary evil, 8, 111, 217; and rape/sexual assault, 21, 116, 118, 126, 141, 145, 200, 273, 276, 319; recruitment into, 15, 86, 98, 101–2, 125–6, 140, 141, 160; regulation of (see police); and rough/vigilante justice, 114, 115, 235, 240, 241, 244; seasonality of, 37; and security, 29, 38, 52, 82, 97, 103, 117, 118, 122–3, 130, 141, 147, 160, 166, 168, 172, 240, 319; solicitation, 29, 33, 34, 37–8, 39, 40–1, 42–3, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 57, 62, 63, 71, 74, 75, 102, 108, 125, 132, 153, 154, 158, 160, 162, 163, 216, 227, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 262; and street lighting, 46–8, 360n61; and theft, 21, 48, 72, 81, 110, 126, 137, 144, 146, 148, 149–52, 162–3, 170, 178, 187, 216, 234, 252, 273, 274, 276, 277, 298, 302; and violence, 4, 5, 9, 28, 33, 45, 72, 81, 97, 102, 114–16, 118, 122, 123, 125–30, 148, 159, 160, 163, 166, 168, 170, 191, 200, 210, 216, 226, 244, 245, 275, 317, 319 Proulx, Elisabeth, 105 Proulx, Fanny, 105

Index Proulx, Sophie, 98, 150, 269 public space, 5, 10, 11, 22, 27, 34, 36, 37, 38, 46, 52, 75, 102, 103, 134, 135, 149, 172, 214; cooptation of elite promenades, 29, 48–9, 50, 75; embourgeoisement of, 13, 48, 214, 213, 214–16, 280, 317; liminal space, 37; and popular-class culture, 213–14; resistance to embourgeoisement of, 13, 213, 273; surveillance of, 43–4, 182, 202, 219, 220, 223, 226, 227, 228, 234, 235, 236, 239 punishment, 6, 18, 22, 182, 184, 185, 187, 188, 258, 266, 273, 302–10; carting, 280, 305, 307; corporal, 264; discourse about, 30, 278, 279– 80, 291–5; fines, 261, 280, 309–10; and phrenology, 294; picking oakum, 292, 311; pillory, 120, 189, 253, 280, 305, 306–7, 308; prison sentences, 211, 238, 250, 261, 276, 277, 302–10; public humiliation/shaming rituals, 189, 280, 284; purpose of, 278–81; and racism, 309; stepping wheel/treading mill, 292; whipping; 264 Purcell, Ellen, 106 Quebec City, 25, 57, 73, 110, 120, 126, 128, 137, 181, 184, 187, 222, 230, 231, 232, 253, 256, 259–60, 266, 267, 278, 295, 304, 306 Quebec Gate Barracks, 3, 27, 48, 49– 51, 58, 64, 104, 132, 219, 301 Quesnel, Frédéric-Auguste, 139, 141, 154 Quick, Johannah, 246 race, 6, 8, 11, 12, 19, 92, 106, 314 Raigan, Catharine, 52, 161, 168 Ramos, Sandy, 116 Raymond/Faucas dite Raymond, Josephine, 50, 84, 110, 128, 244–5, 274, 310 Rebellions of 1837 and 1838, 13, 26, 27, 181, 212, 220, 230, 261, 284, 287, 302, 310

407 Récollets Barracks, 27, 48 Redden, Mary, 113 red-light activities, 35–7, 69, 325n9, 326n12 Reeves, Maria, 163 Regiote, Matilda, 249, 250, 254, 255, 261, 272, 276 respectability/non-respectability, 11, 116, 124, 133–4, 157, 158–9, 186, 196–7, 210, 229, 242, 299; definition of, 7, 13, 214; imposition of, 43, 138; resistance to, 81, 138, 213 Rice, Mary, 41 riots. See brothels Roberts, Julia, 42, 56 Robertson, Betsey, 170 Robertson, Eliza, 42, 163, 246 Robinson, Eliza, 249, 272 Rodgers/Rogers, Jane, 144, 195, 240, 246 Rodier, Christine, 125 Rogers, Nicholas, 187, 301 Rolland, Lucie. See Lucie Lenoir dite Rolland Rosenthal, Laura, 142 Ross, Ellen (historian), 12 Ross, Ellen (prostitute), 125, 241, 242 rough/vigilante justice. See prostitution Rowe, G.S., 183 Ryan, Catherine/Catharine, 42, 125, 163 Ryan, Mary, 11 sailors, 3, 11, 26, 27, 36, 38, 40, 42, 50, 56, 57, 58, 76, 165, 197, 227 Sanger, William, 15–16 Sanschagrin, Scholastique, 194 Séné dite Laliberté, Charlotte, 86, 249, 254, 256, 257, 258, 268, 276, 282 Senior, Elinor, 50 sexuality: anxiety about, 7, 13, 14, 17, 81, 110; containment of, 6, 8–9, 13, 16–17, 18, 34, 91, 116, 145, 186, 197, 210, 238, 252, 278, 280, 302, 317, 318, 319, 320; criminalization of, 5, 7, 18, 252, 320; and passion, 6, 16–17, 321n9; and single women, 6, 17, 78; and widows, 6, 78

408 Shadbolt, Mary Ann, 243 Shaw, Mary Ann, 40, 310 Shoemaker, Robert, 220, 270 Singleton, Sarah, 163 Sisters of Providence, 95, 154, 158 Smith, Eliza, 188–9 Smith, Gregory, 79, 123 Smith, Mary, 43, 144 Smith, Mary Ann, 152 Smith, Susan, 163 soldiers. See military Solomon, Marie, 39–40, 107–8, 111, 184 Spiring, Ellen, 44 Squires, Augustine, 163 St-André, Adélaide, 150, 162 St-Aubain, Christine, 274 St-George, Pierre, 307 St-Germain, Apolline, 152 St-Louis dit Flamand, 113 St-Onge, Sophie, 300, 301 Stansell, Christine, 11, 145, 146 Stevens, Betsey, 302 Stevens, Mary, 310 street prostitutes/streetwalkers/disorderly women: and access to charity, 139, 153–9, 186; as ambassadresses, 11, 42, 168; casual/part-time, 5, 21, 38, 141,142, 147, 237; clients, 28, 29, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 45, 50, 52, 57, 75, 108, 134, 146, 151, 153, 160, 163, 166, 168, 172, 188, 226, 227, 237, 239, 240, 275, 315; and clothing, 41, 42, 99–100, 122, 133, 150, 151, 152, 159, 162, 164, 285, 286, 301; demography of streetwalkers, 135–9; and being homeless, (see homelessness); influence on, 214, 280; and mental illness, 141; as police informers, 126, 243; and pregnancies, 148, 164; reasons for, 5, 14–15, 139–47, 164; and relations with men, 165–71; and relations with neighbours, 124, 127; and subsistence strategies, 149–60 Stewart, Alan 44–5, 48 Storch, Robert, 222

Index Sutherland, Mary, 100 Sweeny, Robert, 44, 48, 254 Taylor, Ann, 52, 138 Taylor, Charles, 40 Taylor, Eliza, 162 Tellier, Marie-Anne, 106, 196, 265 Tessier, Marie, 37, 272 Thain, Henry, 108, 109, 126 Theatre Royale, 42 Thomas, Patrick, 120, 153, 205 Thompson, E.P., 178 Thompson, Mary Ann, 138 Thomson, Elizabeth, 134, 168 Thornton, Patricia, 143 Timmens, Francis, 39, 246 Tomlinson, Isabella, 84, 96–7, 107, 200 Tremblay, Julie, 82 Trémoulie, Marie, 137, 151, 179, 189, 195, 249, 272 Trimble, John, 39, 106, 112 tuberculosis, 148, 163, 296 Turner, Ellen, 242, 243 Turner, Mary Ann, 124–5, 240 Turner, Sarah, 128 vagrant men, 5, 34, 38, 57, 63, 152, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 226, 286–7 Vaillancour, Antoine, 119 Vaillancour, Françoise, 104 Vallée, Alexandre, 107 Valverde, Mariana, 99 venereal diseases, 90, 137, 147–8, 202, 218, 219, 296 Viger, Denis-Benjamin Viger Square, 52 vigilante justice, 240 Vizé, Louise, 41, 82, 111, 240 Wagner, Louise, 163 Walker, Garthine, 151 Walkowitz, Judith, 11, 18–19, 41, 162, 187, 212 Wallis, Jane, 50 Watch House, 249 Waters, Susan, 40

Index Watkins, Catharine, 118 Weaver, John, 138, 209, 224, 233 Weeks, Mary, 300–1 Welsh, Ellen, 191 White, Luise, 135 Williamson, Mary Elizabeth, 43 Willix, Ellen, 309 women; and agency, 4, 5, 8–9, 10, 12– 13, 19, 48, 101–2, 133, 140, 149, 173, 263, 298, 314, 317; and legal incapacity, 97

409 Woodbridge, Linda, 52 Wood Hill, Marilynn, 111–12, 163, 273–4 Woolscamp, Mary, 118 Wurtele, George, 105, 194 Young, Brian, 93, 182 Zedner, Lucia, 281, 296