“Bradley
and Flatt’s enormous raft, containing over $75,000 worth of square timber,
leaves this port tomorrow morning for Quebec. “
Hamilton Spectator June 13, 1876
Other than
a final reference to the major rafting effort of the past few months on the
bay, the June 13, 1876 issue of the Hamilton Spectator was dominated by stories
about crime and criminals in the city and vicinity.
Out
Jerseyville way, a robbery was interrupted in progress and the perpetrator was
taken to the jail on Barton street, which was mandated for city and county
criminals:
“On Sunday
morning an Indian was committed to the county jail in this city on a charge of
committing a robbery in Jerseyville. On Saturday night, a Mr. Obed Howell, of
Jerseyville, shortly after retiring, was awakened by a noise downstairs, and on
going into the parlour, was surprised at finding a strapping Indian there, who
with an axe and club was preparing for an attack on the safe which stood in the
corner. Mr. Howell tackled the Indian and taken him taken before Mr. Sexton, a
Justice of the Peace, who committed him to Hamilton jail, where he arrived
early on Sunday morning.”
That
aboriginal man probably encountered the subject of the following item:
“There is
no individual name since the days of John Henry Livingstone, that appears so
often in the Police Calendar as the above. He and his wife and the miserable
crowd who live in their neighbourhood are constantly in trouble, and almost
constantly before the Police Magistrate, charged with drunkenness, disorderly
conduct or assault. They are always drunk when they come to the Police Court,
and are very seldom sober when they are out of it. This morning Searles was
sent to jail for assaulting Mrs. Fink and destroying her property, and there
will be more quiet in the neighbourhood of the Searles estate, for at least the
next 30 days.”
As reprehensible as Searles was, even he was outdone in
rascality by the man described at length in the following:
“Perhaps there is no character in Corktown so much
dreaded, and in reality, so much to be feared, as Wm. Thornton, alias Poney
Spriggs, the subject of this sketch. He is a man of powerful frame, broad
shouldered and well knit, a small bullet head covered with short bristly hair,
a low retreating forehead, piggish eyes, flat nose, heavy jaws, dull, sensuous
mouth, swollen and discoloured by the use of tobacco, a big brutal neck, and a
shuffling gait, is the make up of a man who has never been known to do an act
of humanity, and who is quite capable of doing the most brutish and cruel
things. In days gone by, Poney was the bully of Corktown; peaceable citizens
shrank from him as from a reptile on the sidewalk. The rowdies of the city
either cultivated his friendship or kept aloof from him altogether. Everyone
shunned Poney, and perhaps it was as well for them. During the last ten years,
Poney has been convicted of thirty-five crimes, including some of the worst –
rape, arson, robbery, house-breaking, and murderous assault, and has served
terms of imprisonment for each. At the Fall Assizes he was tried on the charge
of brutally assaulting a poor wretch whose name does not now occur to our
reporter, and disfiguring him badly. The Chief of police made out a record of
his crimes, and pointed out to Judge Burton, who presided, the necessity of
having Poney withdrawn from society. Judge Burton, with remarkable leniency,
only sentenced Poney to six months in jail. He had been but a short time
released from durance vile when he commenced to show his hand in Corktown once
more. He commenced his antics on Saturday evening by entering a house occupied
by a man named Egan and his mother, an old and decrepit woman , who is not only
blind, but deaf. He struck the woman in the mouth, and when the poor creature
was lying on the floor he kicked her savagely on the ribs. The woman cried
murder, and her son who was sleeping on the floor was in the act of rising to
defend her, but had hardly gained his feet when he was knocked down and
brutally beaten. Flushed with victory he entered another house, turned the
inmates out, smashed the stove, and threw the tea kettle threw the window.
Being somewhat exhausted, and as it was too late to conquer other world, he
went to rest. In the morning, early, he opened the campaign by throwing stones
at a young man named Canary. Canary, not sufficiently appreciating this,
stepped across the street, and put a head on him, to use a fighting phrase.
Canary followed the matter up by having Poney arrested for assault.”
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