No preaching in the parks!

Report no. 4 of the Committee on Parks and Gardens,
“Your committee have considered His Worship the Mayor’s Message asking for immediate consideration of the matter of speaking or preaching in the public parks and squares of the City on Sundays, during the warm weather, together with a quantity of correspondence relating thereto, and in view of the disgraceful scenes of last year and the great annoyance that has been occasioned citizens visiting the parks on Sundays in the past, your committee would strongly recommend that all preaching, speaking or discussing in any manner whatsoever, in the public parks and squares of the City on Sundays, be hereafter strictly prohibited, and that the Police Department be asked to see that this rule is strictly adhered to.”
J.C. Swait, chairman
March 27, 1889
(City Council Appendix, 1889, 501)

Separating the men from the boys

The Toronto Harbour Commission built the Sunnyside Bathing pavilion in 1922. It was expected to hold lockers for 7,700 people. (Mike Filey. I remember Sunnyside: The Rise and fall of a Magical Era. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1996, 53) I think there’s a lot to be said about the bathing pavilion and the expectations regarding gender and class that went into its construction. But right now I’m looking at one of the interesting details about it. While the women’s change room was shared by women of all ages, the male’s change room was physically divided to separate the men from the boys. As the plans for the building show, the harbour commission relied on a 60 feet long by six feet high fence to do the job. (Series 544, File 52E, PR 006673L-94, Toronto City Archives). The plans also illustrate that the boys had a separate entrance. (Series 544, File 52E, PR 006673L-95, Toronto City Archives)

Is it a big deal that males were separated by age whereas females were not? I’m not sure. It could mean that there were concerns about mixing males youths with men. Was there a fear that the adult men would set a bad example for the boys? Or that the youthful boys would be tainted by seeing adult men in a state of undress? Maybe it means there were more boys than girls going to Sunnyside and their greater numbers warranted more control. I don’t know at this point. But I’m keeping an eye on that wall to see if it has anything else it can tell me.

When you gotta go, you gotta go

People need to go to the washroom. There's no getting around it. The question is where. In Toronto the city council spent a lot of time talking about exactly that problem. In 1873 The Board of Health had this to say:

“The necessity of the establishment of a number of urinals on the public streets, has received the attention of your Board, and it is recommended that they be empowered to place such necessaries at fixed localities, throughout the City, as may be deemed advisable.”
W.H. Chairman, Feb. 15, 1873, Report No. 2.
(City Council Appendix 1873, 22)

Certainly the police were keen to have them. Chief Constable Frank C. Draper had this to way in his annual report to council in 1876:

“I venture to suggest the propriety of applying to the Board of Works for the erection at different points, of public urinals, conveniences now greatly needed.”
(Chief Constable Annual Report for 1875, March 10, 1876, City Council Appendix 1876, 92)

And in 1881, Draper was back on the same subject:

“Public Urinals—Are much needed in our City, and His Worship the Police Magistrate has more than once refused to inflict a fine for indecent exposure, owing to the absence of these necessities.”
(Chief Constable Annual Report for 1880, Jan. 24, 1881, City Council Appendix 1881, 26)

By 1887, after dickering around with the issue for years and even fielding offers from private citizens willing to build the urinals, provided they would be allowed to advertise in them (City Council Minutes, 160), the city finally had some urinals up and running. The city gave the final order to contruct them on July 4, 1887 (City Council Minutes, July 4, 1887, 770).  Oddly, the urinals didn’t solve the problem of indecency. While before the city and the police had fretted about men exposing themselves on the street when they wanted to go to urinate. Now the concern was focused on what men were doing when they went into the urinals. As the Committee on Markets and Health noted in a report to the city just weeks after the new urinals had been constructed:

“Your committee would recommend that the Board of Police Commissioners be represented to issue instructions to the members of the police force to inspect the various urinals now erected in different parts of the city two or three times daily, so as to prevent nuisances being created therein, and also to prevent using them for any other purpose than that for which they are intended.”
(Report no. 17 of the committee on markets and health, F. Johnson, chairman
Aug. 26, 1887, City Council Appendix 1887)

They don’t specify what the uses the urinals were being put to and I’m not sure that’s critical. To me the interesting point is how the construction of urinals pushes the city to engage even more with how people went to the washroom; to become even more engaged with policing bodies. Draper might have hoped urinals would take urination out of the public and police eye. But it appears to have had quite the opposite impact.

For more on toilets and Toronto see:
Steven Maynard. Through a Hole in the Lavatory Wall: Homosexual Subcultures, Police Surveillance, and the Dialectics of Discovery, Toronto, 1890-1930. Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), pp. 207-242

Metering the trough

The problem with charging for water? Suddenly nobody wants to give it away for free any more. And what's a dumb animal to do then?

Report No. 1 of the Committee on Water Works
“Your committee have had under consideration the advisability of constructing suitable water troughs at convenience localities, not being adjacent to saloons or hotels. In the past it has been the custome of the hotel keepers to provide such accommodation for horses, etc; but since these troughs have been metered many of their proprietors have cut off the supply entirely. The public interest demands that the wants of the dumb animals be provided for as well s those of foot passengers, especially during the heated term. Your committee therefore recommend that proper troughs, of approved pattern, be erected at suitable localities and supplied with water at the expense of the city, the cost not to exceed $2,000.”
Jas. B. Boustead, chairman,
Jan. 23, 1888

Toronto City Council Minutes and Appendix Volume 1, Appendix, 22

Bicycle lanes in Toronto in 1896

From the Mayor's inaugural address 1896:

“In the construction of streets hereafter the Council should pay special attention to the needs of those who ride bicycles. A part of each street should be paved with the most suitable material for them. In addition to this, strips on a large number of streets in different parts of the city, where asphalt or brick does not now exist, should be put in first-class shape for bicycle riders. We must remember the fact that the traffic upon the streets is changing rapidly, both because of the electric service and because of the introduction of bicycles, and parts of the streets hereafter should be graded and paved with special reference to the comfort of those using wheels.”

Nature's Great Bath

“A party of five or six Toronto gentlemen, well known as occupying somewhat prominent official positions in the city, took a boat and rowed a little way along the lake shore. Having selected a suitable spot they landed, and quickly divesting themselves of clothing made for a swim in Nature’s great bath. The morning being fine and warm, they were in no hurry to assume a state of civilization, but indulged themselves in all the freedom of naked manhood with merry sport and fun … In this condition the luckless party were all unconscious of spectators. It so happened that a small party of ladies had made their way to the cliffs just above the heads of our heroes, and were of course shocked at the spectacle on the shore. Instead, however, of the usual shriek and run peculiar to the sex, they resolved on avenging themselves and society against such exhibitions, and therefore seized sundry lumps of muddy soil, and hurled them with too steady aim at the unclothed human targets ... The fair antagonists having wreaked their vengeance on “man” for appearing au natural, gracefully retired, leaving the discomfited heroes of the siege to heal their wounds as best they could.”[1]

[1] Grimsby Camp: Proceedings and Scenes of Yesterday,” The Globe, Tuesday, August 15, 1882, Page 3.