On 11 August 1856, John McGlade was convicted of “Breach of Peace on Sabbath,” for which he paid a fine of £1 to the Town of Perth (Co. Lanark, Ontario, Canada). This was no doubt a hefty sum for a labourer, and especially for a recently married one, whose wife, Bridget Dunne, was expecting their first child (Michael James McGlade, born 28 December 1856 at Perth). Another man, Michael Lee, was likewise convicted of the same offence on the same day, but his was apparently deemed a more serious breach of the peace, since the fine levied against Lee was £3 10s. The charges were brought by George Graham, Chief Constable of the Town of Perth.
By all accounts, local authorities in mid-nineteenth-century Ontario had broad latitude to suppress “disorderly conduct” and to enforce “the due observance of the Sabbath”. As enumerated in J. Balfour’s Municipal Manual for Upper Canada (1855), municipal governments had the authority to make and enforce by-laws covering a wide range of conduct both commercial and moral, from the regulation of highways to the prevention of “the use of deleterious materials” in the making of bread to the prevention of cruelty to animals, and including:
Ninthly. For enforcing the due observance of the Sabbath; for preventing vice, drunkenness, profane swearing, obscene language, and any other species of immorality and indecency in the streets or other public places, and for preserving peace and good order; for preventing the excessive beating or cruel and inhuman treatment of animals on the public highways of such Village; for preventing the sale of any intoxicating drink to children, apprentices or servants without the consent of their legal protectors; for suppressing and imposing penalties on the keepers of low tippling houses and houses of ill fame visited by dissolute and disorderly characters; for licensing and regulating victualling houses or other houses of refreshment where spiritous liquors are not sold; for the regulation of all public billiard tables, and for licensing, regulating or preventing bowling alleys or other places of amusement; for regulating or preventing, restraining or suppressing horse-racing and gambling-houses, and for entering into them and seizing and destroying faro-banks, rouge-et-noir, and roulette-tables, and other devices for gambling; for restraining and punishing all vagrants, drunkards, vagabonds, mendicants and street beggars, and all persons found drunk or disorderly in any street or public place in such Village; for restraining or regulating the licensing of all exhibitions of natural or artificial curiosities, theatres, circuses, or other shows or exhibitions kept for hire or profit.2
1Return of Convictions made by Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace within the United Counties of Lanark & Renfrew from the July Quarter Sessions, 1856, to the November General Quarter Sessions, 1856. Perth Courier, 12 December 1856.
2J. Balfour, The Municipal Manual for Upper Canada. Fifth Edition (Toronto: Thompson & Co., 1855), p. 46.
3Schedule of Convictions, By Justices of the United Counties of Lanark & Renfrew, for the Quarter ending 21st November, 1854, as filed in the Office of the Clerk of the Peace at Perth. Perth Courier, 8 December 1854.
4Return of Convictions made by Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace within the County of Lanark, from the Eleventh Day of March to the Tenth Day of June, 1876. Perth Courier, 14 July 1876.