York township, referred to
interchangeably as a county, was Toronto’s western neighbour. A sprawling rural
township in the nineteenth century, it spawned a series of smaller
municipalities as we move into and through the twentieth century. Today it
forms part of the amalgamated city of Toronto. But in the 1910s it found itself in the frustrating position of being a liminal
space for a growing Toronto. I’m most interested in how that works
with the Humber River, but the car, as a technology for getting people out of
the city, also plays a role.
First the Humber; the city of
Toronto and York township spent a lot of time dickering over who should police
or provide lifesaving services on the river. I’ve talked about this already and I’ll have more to say about it in the future. But this Toronto Daily Star article from July 15, 1916 gives us some sense
of what the fuss was about:
Girl Arrested At Humber: Alexandria Industrial School Inmate Had Broken Her Parole
With the introduction of a motor patrol boat and the policing of the river by Constables Robert Dennis and Robert Wilkins, the county police authorities are tightening their grip on the traffic on the Humber. The police are paying special attention to young women and girls who frequent the river every day, and stay out on the water till all hours in the morning with undesirable characters. The first girl has been arrested by Dennis and Wilkins. She was taken into custody as she was about to enter a canoe at the mouth of the river. She is an inmate of the Alexandria Industrial School, and had been constantly on the Humber for several days and nights. To magistrate Brunton she admitted that she had broken her parole and had been in the school for seven years, having been in the school for seven years, having been sent there when 13 years old.
The county police are determined to put down rowdyism and motor boat speeding. Magistrate Brunton has issued a warning that any person brought before him will receive the maximum sentence and that there will be no fines. [1]
Descriptions of couples in canoes
bobbing along the Humber illustrates that it was a place for men and women to
couple up; the canoe providing both a public and a private space to do that. Here,
we get a sense of how the authorities were trying to step in and control that
process. The girl in question had already been flagged as a moral risk through
her placement at the Alexandria Industrial School and by ranging about on the
spatially risky area of the Humber she had made herself liable for arrest. The
implicit threat of jail time for appearance on the Humber suggests something of
how serious authorities were prepared to take the situation.
As for the car, The Toronto Daily Star carried a story on
Saturday, Nov. 27, 1915, entitled “Immorality rife in County of York: Toronto
Joy-Riders Blamed for Giving County Unsavory Reputation.” Within it County
Council reeve Griffith called for better police protection and a tighter watch
on automobile traffic in York township. “Some automobiles,” Griffith said,
“traveled too fast over the country roads. Others did not travel fast enough—in
fact, in some places did not travel at all when they should have been
traveling.”[2]
The article went on to say, “Inferences were left to the councilmen, but
language was not spared in condemning the obvious immorality and other offences
against the law as practiced by city joy-riders in portions of the township
favored by them.” Griffith’s call for more policing to protect pedestrians,
“especially ladies, travelling the highways after night” was received nods of
approval from representatives of Etobicoke, New Toronto and other communities
on the outskirts of Toronto.
The Star followed up the news article with a letter from William J.
Grigsby of Humber Bay who complained that a county constable had been removed
from regular police duty in the Humber Bay district. Grigsby cited the
township’s local population, which he listed as 1,500 people and the close
proximity of Toronto as the reason more policing was needed.
The reference to automobiles not
moving at all as a code for sexual behaviour within those cars is delightful in
its subtlety. I always hesitate to suggest how far that behaviour might have
went; it might have been as simple as holding hands, it might have been as
dramatic as having sex. The car as a space for coupling up has been well
covered by historians. In this case, I’m interested in how York served as a
space for people to go with those cars and in particular what “portions” of the
township were favoured by them. While the rivers, creeks, and waterfront seem
like obvious options, the article isn’t clear.
[1] “Girl
Arrested At Humber: Alexandria Industrial School Inmate Had Broken Her Parole,”
The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday,
July 15, 1916, Page 2.
[2] “Immorality
rife in County of York: Toronto Joy-Riders Blamed for Giving County Unsavory
Reputation,” The Toronto Daily Star,
Saturday, Nov. 27, 1915, Page 11.
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