Crime and Punishment in Upper Canada
Описание книги
Crime and Punishment in Upper Canada provides genealogists and social historians with context and tools to understand the criminal justice system and locate sources on criminal activity and its consequences for the Upper Canada period (1791–1841) of Ontario’s history. Illustrative examples further aid researchers in this era of the province’s past, which is notoriously difficult to investigate due to paucity of records and indexes. An entertaining, educational read, the book features chapters with detailed inventories of available records in federal, provincial, and local repositories; published transcripts and indexes; online transcripts and indices; and suggestions for additional reading. Also included are engravings (jails and courthouses, public hangings, judges), maps (showing the boundaries of districts), charts (for statistics such as frequencies of different kinds of offences), and document examples (court minutes, jail registers, newspaper reports, et cetera), while case studies demonstrate the use and relevance of various records.
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Crime and
Punishment in
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In some cases, magistrates decided to prosecute for assault instead of rape. This allowed them to take the case to the Quarter Sessions (which was less intimidating and quicker) instead of the Assizes, and to increase the likelihood of conviction.
For example, in October 1836, Samuel Hathaway Farensworth of St. Catharines, yeoman, was charged with “assault with intent to carnally know a child under ten years of age.” The victim was a seven-year-old girl who had been liv–ing with Farensworth for a few weeks in the summer. The girl’s father prosecuted the case, bringing fourteen witnesses, includ–ing three doctors.The doctors all agreed that the child had been assaulted, which appears to have been rare. In all, twenty-nine witnesses and three constables testified at the lengthy trial. The jury convicted Farensworth and he received a sentence of three months in gaol and a fine of £25 and court costs, which would have been in the order of £20 (the fine would be equivalent to about seventy days work for a skilled labourer, perhaps $13,000 now37). He complained bitterly about the costs, saying that sev–eral of the witnesses were either not necessary or didn’t need to attend court for more than one day (witnesses were paid 2s. 6d. per day in court, plus mileage).38
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