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Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine

Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877 M. P. Sendbuehler

Volume 22, Number 1, October 1993 Article abstract In the nineteenth century, the tavern was an important institution in urban URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016720ar working-class life. Because of the social ills associated with alcohol abuse and DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1016720ar public drinking, there were frequent attempts to lessen the tavern's importance or to eliminate it entirely. This paper examines several See table of contents tavern-related issues that emerged in Toronto in the 1870s and 1880s. The Crooks Act, passed in 1876, employed powerful measures to deal with political and temperance questions simultaneously. The intersection of class, politics, Publisher(s) temperance, and urban life led to a territorial solution to the liquor question. These issues were dealt with by the people of Toronto in 1877, when they Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine declined to prohibit public drinking in the city via the Dunkin Act, a local option prohibition statute of the Province of Canada. ISSN 0703-0428 (print) 1918-5138 (digital)

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Cite this article Sendbuehler, M. P. (1993). Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 22(1), 30–48. https://doi.org/10.7202/1016720ar

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Battling "the bane of our cities": Class, territory, and the prohibition debate in Toronto, 1877

M.P. Sendbuehler

Abstract Taverns were an important aspect of the The Tavern in the City: Objections, In the nineteenth century, the tavern nineteenth-century urban working-class accommodations, and regulations, was an important institution in experience, yet there are few systematic 1870s-1890s urban working-class life. Because of examinations of tavern life, and fewer still the social ills associated with that assess its significance in the culture During the 1870s and 1880s, liquor con• alcohol abuse and public drinking, of the city as a whole.1 This paper will trol in Ontario moved from being non• there were frequent attempts to make a case for closer scrutiny of tavern existent to being a set of restrictions lessen the tavern's importance or to life and its regulation, as part of a call for prescribing acceptable times and places eliminate it entirely. This paper a more inclusive approach to the study for buying and consuming beer and examines several tavern-related of workers and cities. It will survey the spirits. These restrictions developed issues that emerged in Toronto in class and gender issues of temperance, gradually, arising at least in part from the 1870s and 1880s. The Crooks Act, discuss major changes in the regulation social and political conflicts in the passed in 1876, employed powerful of Ontario's taverns in the 1870s and province's cities, particularly Toronto. measures to deal with political and 1880s, and examine events that pre• Three themes recur here: the Province's temperance questions simul• ceded what I call a territorial solution to taneously. The intersection of class, desire to promote moderation and politics, temperance, and urban life the liquor question. abstinence, particularly among male led to a territorial solution to the workers; the largely successful effort to liquor question. These issues were By the end of the 1880s, Ontario's laws wrest political influence from license inspec• dealt with by the people of Toronto included mechanisms that effectively tors and tavern keepers; the accom• in 1877, when they declined to eradicated taverns within many residen• modation of urbanités who wished to prohibit public drinking in the city tial areas, but created a relatively large make or preserve "dry" neighbourhoods via the Dunkin Act, a local option number of them in commercial areas. and the impracticality of enacting local- prohibition statute of the Province Residential areas that retained licensed2 option prohibition in relatively large urban of Canada. establishments were usually inhabited by areas. members of the working class. I call this feature of liquor law a "territorial solution" Temperance and the Urban Working because territorial division and areal dif• Class ferentiation were used to achieve a com• promise on a contentious and divisive As early as 1876, the claim was made issue. This regulatory regime, which per• that Toronto's taverns were no longer sisted until prohibition in Ontario (1916- hotels, but "drinking dens" and boarding 1927) and was revived afterward, can be houses in disguise. In such places, "sim• traced to class divisions, working-class ple and straitened young men" paid less drinking patterns and ways of life, and for their rooms than they would at ordi• the increasing segregation of classes nary boarding houses, but were drawn within Canadian cities.3 In 1877, the citi• into buying liquor, and so paid more in zens of Toronto spent most of the sum• the long run. "Will anyone tell us that the mer debating, via a referendum crowds of taverns on Yonge and Queen campaign, the merits of closing all of the streets, or, still more, in all the out-of-the- city's taverns at once. The fact that territo• way places in the city, are for the accom• rial considerations were muted in the modation of travellers?"4 The notion that campaign show that the failed attempt to the tavern's exclusive function was to combat the liquor trade on a city-wide accommodate travellers stood in opposi• basis forced the later adoption of territo• tion to important realities. By the time the rial options. Globe had made this complaint, the urban tavern was primarily a place of lei• sure for the city's residents. In most establishments licensed for public drink• ing, working-class men were the bulk of the clientele; the Globe's lament suggests

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Résumé that for some of these men, the tavern performed service functions above and Au 19ieme siècle, la taverne était une was not only a social centre, but a home. beyond serving the "travelling public."6 institution importante de la classe Moreover, the tavern helped to define In some eyes, alcohol's relationship to ouvrière urbaine II y a eu, du aux working-class masculinity and thus other economic relations made tavern life maux sociaux associés à l'abus de became a significant, but problematic, heinous and thus grounds for prohibition. Vacool et à sa consommation institution in urban working-class life. Ironically, these aspects of tavern life publique, des essais fréquents forced labour leaders, if not others, to d'amoindrir ou éliminer cette The tavern's economic aspects led both retreat from pressing for prohibition. importance. Cette monographe to an assault from the middle class, and While capitalist social relations made examine d'abord plusieurs débats, to divisions within the working class. some people migrants and under• axées sur la taverne, qui ont Ultimately, labour leaders, the workers employed casual workers, one could not émergés à Toronto aux décennies most inclined to temperance activism, fully oppose the institutions in which they 1870 et 1880. Ensuite, Vauteur came to tolerate, if not to accept, the were housed and fed, or the alcohol that examine en bref les implications du tavern's significance in the lives of fellow- financed the only indoor common mouvement anti-alcool vis-à-vis la 7 classe et le genre, ainsi que les workers. The tavern was a labour spaces available to them. conséquences du'Crooks Acf de exchange and a home for unattached 1876, un tentatif à résoudre men whose work was sporadic or sea• The use of taverns by urban workers who simultanément les questions de sonal. The economy of the day included were not transient, underemployed, or politque urbaine et du contrôle de la a significant contingent of transient work• without other lodging was also problem• taverne. Vauteur développe ers. For migrant labourers who jammed atic. The emerging working-class consen• l'argument que l'intersection de urban taverns and boarding houses dur• sus on the liquor question held that while classe, de politque, de prohibition, ing the winter doldrums, licensed taverns heavy drinking and tavern life may have et de la vie urbaine s'est résolue avec were a necessity. Without a liquor been integral parts of older plebeian cul• une solution territoriale— la license, a tavern could not provide a tures, such traditions had no place in a concentration des établissements large indoor common space, and no effective "culture of solidarity and resis• licenciés aux zones commerciaux. such space was available elsewhere. In tance" 8 Even if workers were organized, Finalement, cette monographe offre 1876 two Ottawa aldermen wrote to Pro• radical, or disposed toward challenging une discussion des actions et des vincial Secretary Adam Crooks that more capitalism, respectability could be diffi• interprétatyions des Torontois à licenses than those allowed under a cult to attain if a few bad examples propos de ces issus en 1877, lors newly-imposed statutory limit were encouraged stereotyping. Achieving d'un tentatif, abortif, à fermer les needed, for "owing to the floating popula• respectability was not simple: individu• tavernes de la ville par référendum tion that numbers three thousand during ally sobriety was enough, but for it to be selon les provisions du 'Dunkin Act', a good portion of the year the city is recognized at the class level, wide• un statut de prohibition locale de la obliged to provide special accom• spread sobriety was necessary. There Province de Canada. modation [in the form of numerous tav• were, as in other segments of the popu• erns], as it is a class that will not mix with lation, disagreements among workers on others."5 Since the new statute required whether widespread sobriety was best the closing of the lowliest establish• achieved through liquor control or pro• ments, Ottawa faced the prospect of hibition. It was precisely because values social unrest among drovers and loggers and opinions were not universal among or, worse, of mingling between these the working class that tavern life threat• rough workers and respectable fellow-citi• ened the sober worker far more than it zens. There was also a danger that the did the sober architect, dentist, banker, City's relief bill would soar in the or lawyer. All of the latter would be absence of tavern keepers' services. respectable despite the state of affairs in taverns, even if one of them was as sod• Being an important lake port, rail trans• den as the most miserable "jack", barring portation hub, and general regional cen• public disgrace. Public disgrace was un• tre, Toronto was host to a "floating likely, however, as professionals were population" and it had many taverns that less likely to be found drunk in public,

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and hence to be arrested. Also, nine• explicit, attention in this period. As the in the places where the sale takes teenth-century magistrates were main location, along with the street, of place, but often is not to be met with in inclined to leniency if the accused was working-class public life, the tavern was their own homes. Discomfort, badly respectable9 an institution in which the ideals of mas• cooked food and ill-ventilated dwell• culinity, one of them being male domi• ings have much to answer for in con• The perceived need for widespread nance in domestic life, were passed on. nection with intemperance. Attention to sobriety within the working class did not The attack on the tavern was therefore these matters, and more especially to result in a great wave of working-class an attack on men's freedom to practice the training of the female portion of the prohibitionism, though such sentiments what many saw as masculinity.13 The population in a knowledge of domestic did appear.10 For example, prominent plight of women drinkers was targeted by economy and household duties, the labour leaders Alfred Jury and Samuel some reformers, but concern was more undersigned are satisfied would have Heakes voted for prohibition in Toronto in commonly for women and children who an elevating and most beneficial effect.14 1877. Such decisions highlighted the suffered privation, violence, or both at gap between prominent worker advo• the hands of drunkard husbands. This, The commissioners placed inferior hous• cates and the large body of people who too, was seen largely as a working-class ing behind working-class women's bad posed a threat to working-class respect• problem. Temperance was thus part of "domestic economy" as the main culprit ability by defending the right to drink. an effort to construct a different set of behind the liquor trade's popularity, ignor• That defense persisted strongly enough patriarchal relations within the working- ing the long hours, low wages, and multi• under prohibition that upholding the right class household. Figure 1, a J.W. ple-earner strategies that would have to drink in public became the sensible Bengough cartoon used in Toronto's made it impossible for working-class peo• choice. For this reason Heakes changed 1877 temperance campaign, provides ple to keep house to middle-class stan• his mind in the 1890s. "After my experi• an example of the ideal working-class dards of comfort and cleanliness. But ence of Scott Act [dry by local option] household: the man is still the breadwin• even this modest nod to the working- counties and towns," he concluded, "I ner, his wife and children his depen• class viewpoint highlighted the myopia of am afraid prohibition won't work. ... Five dents. However, they can depend upon the widely-held prohibitionist view that vir• years ago I was an ardent prohibitionist; I his coming home smiling and sober, his tually all social ills, particularly working- would have voted for it."11 Nevertheless, pay intact. Sobriety, discipline, and con• class domestic strife, could be traced to Heakes "would oppose any increase [of sent to the dominance of industrial capi• legal liquor alone. The Commissioners' taverns] in the neighbourhood where I talism could not be produced within the assessment owed much to the views of live."12 Like other labour leaders, he had factory alone: they had to inculcated into labour leaders such as Heakes, who no personal use for taverns, and even every member of the working-class claimed that abhorred them. But he came to believe household. that the only way to lessen their import• As the people have increased opportu• ance as social centres was to provide The interrelations between class divi• nities for studying and reading, there alternatives, and to improve the material sions, gender relations, and the liquor spring up demands for public libraries conditions of the working class. Mean• question were being articulated with and reading rooms ... and people in while, the next best thing was to locate some clarity by the early 1890s. The my line of life prefer to occupy their taverns in places where workers would majority report of the Royal Commission time in these ways to spending it not be tempted to frequent them. Thus, on the Liquor Traffic (1892-95) contained around saloons. As a rule, among the arose the territorial solution that was to a conclusion based on the comments of working people the ones who drink are be articulated beginning in the 1880s: the handful of labour leaders who had those who work the longest hours, keep the taverns, but keep them away spoken: obtain the smallest wages, and never from residences. reach the line of comfort in life. ... I The spending of money unnecessarily think if more attention were made to While the liquor question was being on, and the over-indulgence in liquor the social question ... and more seri• framed increasingly in terms of class divi• amongst the working classes, the ous efforts were made to remove the sion (and growing intra-class consen• [Commissioners] are convinced fre• poverty that exists among the people sus), its implications for gender roles and quently result, not so much from a love through uncertain employment and relations within the working class also of liquor, as from the love of sociable small wages, we would hear less of the 15 received considerable, though less society; and the comfort that is found drink traffic.

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For middle-class prohibitionists, improv• ing material conditions was anathema: to them, the only thing standing in the way of material improvement was the liquor traffic. Thus, two very different percep• tions of the causal relationship between liquor and poverty were in evidence, and, at least until the early 1890s, the two perceptions were strongly conditioned by class.16 William Sandilands showed clearly the gulf separating temperate, anti-liquor unionists and middle-class prohibitionists when he said that as far as the working class was concerned, "the only other problem that is equal to [the liquor traffic] is the combination of capital."17

Politics and the Territorial Solution: The Significance of the Crooks Act

Ontario's Liquor License Act as amend• ed in 1876 was known as the Crooks Act. Prior to its passage, corruption was widely thought to have undermined attempts to cut liquor consumption through legal restrictions. Some even thought that the liquor trade was the most powerful force in local politics. In 1873, an attempt was made to root cor• ruption out of Ontario's liquor licensing system by moving the power to grant licenses from corruptible, politically- appointed Inspectors to police commis• sions and municipal councils. "The certificate of the Inspector in favor of any applicant was absolute, and with it [the Inspector] could demand a license from the [Police] Commissioners or [muni• cipal] Council. Now the latter only have all the power and it is upon these bodies that Temperance efforts can be made immediate and effectual," wrote Adam Crooks in 1874. He noted that "[t]he Gov• ernment can interfere more directly under the Act than it has thought fit to do, but it lies more properly with the mu• Figure 1: From Grip 9(12), August 11,1877. McMaster University, William Ready Archives nicipalities to enforce the provisions of and Research Collections, Bengough Papers. the law."19 The 1873 law had received the approbation of the Province's major

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temperance societies» yet by 1876 it was clear that local officials could not be trusted to work for temperance and that more direct interference would be nec• essary. Under the Crooks Act, indepen• dent boards of commissioners were appointed for each municipality by the Provincial government. This central• ized control was a key feature of the Crooks Act.

Even if, as some of its critics claimed, an important effect of the provincial appoint• ment of commissioners was to create new opportunities for patronage at the Provincial level, the Act was still a major achievement in that it placed tav• ern keepers under the supervision of persons who did not depend on their favors. Under a system in which the municipal council granted licenses through the agency of an Inspector it had appointed, "the liquor interest virtu• ally controlled the council; the licen• sees therefore practically issued their own licenses."20 By favouring appli• cants of a particular political affiliation, the Inspector could have a profound influence on elections, since taverns served the crucial function of hosting political meetings, which generally had to be held indoors because local elec• tions were held in January. In exchange for good work at elections, in hosting meetings, getting out the vote, and organizing mobs, tavern keepers could expect the opportunity to dis• pense petty patronage and to have a blind eye turned to minor license viola• tions. For over a decade before the en• actment of the Crooks Act, Toronto's Inspector had been Ogle Gowan, founder of the province's Orange Order, OFF WITH HIS HEAD! an organization with well-documented «RICHARD III" AS PLAYED BY MR. CROOKS THROUGHOUT THE PROVINCE. ties to Toronto's Tory machine.21 It was for such reasons that George Albert Mason, Toronto's chief liquor detective, in 1868 called taverns "the bane of our Figure 2: from Grip, May 6,1876. McMaster University, William Ready Archives and cities."22 As shown in Figure 2, the Research Collections, Bengough Papers. Crooks Act was not intended to stop

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the liquor trade, nor could such a result Inspector. The argument was made have been expected; but the trade was That the licensing thereof is not that there was no use for those places "decapitated" in that under the Crooks required in the neighbourhood, or that in the residential part of the city, and Act, the liquor trade ultimately lost its the premises are in the immediate consequently a great many of these "head" for politics. Nevertheless, the vicinity of a place of public worship, places in the outskirts ... were refused Province downplayed this aspect of the hospital, or school, or that the quiet of licenses. ... The ground was taken that law, taking pains to point out that no the place in which such premises are they were of no use to the travelling political party had been targeted either situate will be disturbed if a license is public, and that they were only patron• by the appointment of Commissioners granted25 ized by mechanics and labourers or by the Acts other noteworthy innova• going to and from their work.29 tion, also depicted in Figure 2: durable Three years later, provisions were added reductions in the number of licensees. allowing seventy-five electors from a poll• "The temperance people" could be ing subdivision to file a petition based on found in any North American locality in The Acts population-based formula for the locality in question being residential the nineteenth century, and "agitation" determining the maximum number of and not commercial; ten electors, prior to was something in which they special• licensees in a jurisdiction led to the clo• organizing the petition, could ask the ized. Generally, their first preference was sure of 80 Toronto taverns in 1876, leav• Commissioners to decide whether the for total prohibition of the liquor trade, on ing 220. Further reductions followed in area was residential or commercial.26 the grounds that drinking was detrimen• subsequent years. Next to prohibition, (Unfortunately, records of the tal to family life and to working life, and license reduction was the temperance Commissioners' deliberations on such that the trade represented a waste of measure of choice at the time: older questions are not known to survive for resources that would be better spent in Ontario laws had made it possible at Toronto or any other Ontario city.) By the producing useful items. Faced with resis• municipal discretion. Toronto, however, early 1890s, such means of neighbours' tance to prohibition, however, temper• had never seen a lasting license reduc• opposition and accompanying mea• ance activists were sometimes willing to tion before the Crooks Act24 License sures, notably local councils' ability to settle for a say in regulation. In the case reduction was soon followed by a series cap the total number of licenses (a of London, as Inspector Henderson of companion measures affecting the power first used by Toronto in 1887),27 noted, this included upholding the often- geographical distribution of the remain• had had important impacts on Ontario's ignored technicality that taverns existed ing licenses, which gave franchised citi• cities. In 1892, Toronto's Chief Consta• for the benefit of the "travelling public." zens significant opportunities to ble, Henry Grasett, claimed that "[t]he That argument stood in opposition to influence the process. dwelling districts of the city have a very another common claim, that the tavern sparse number [of licensed houses], but was the "poor man's club" and hence the Throughout the 1880s, the list of objec• sufficient for the local requirements. The rightful territory of the working-class tions from citizens that the Boards of trade is more concentrated in the central male. It is significant that Toronto's move License Cornmissioners were to consider parts of the city."28 The Council's 1887 to a 150-license ceiling was achieved on admissible was lengthened consider• action had frozen the number of licenses the initiative of Mayor W.H. Howland, ably. While the regulations initially pro• at 150, a number that held until it was fur• whose election in 1886 had been made vided mainly for objections based on the ther reduced to 110 after a referendum possible by the support of Toronto's applicant's reputation, peace and quiet early in 1909. Under such a freeze, the organized labour movement. Like other soon became a key concern. By 1884, city's growth alone would have caused a planks of Howland's platform, this one the Province had enacted that concentration of licensed premises in the could not have been achieved without centre of the city. Unlike Toronto's the support of Toronto's male working- It shall be the right and privilege of any Grasett, London's Inspector indicated to class voters, a support denied ten years ten or more electors of any polling sub• the Commission that other processes earlier, when Howland had chaired the division to object by petition, or in any were at work: committee that sought to deny all similar manner, to the granting of any licenses for public drinking. "The coali• license within such sub-division. The There was an agitation among the tem• tion of antidrink and labor causes was a objections that may be taken to the perance people to centralize the trade potent political force" but the "antidrink" granting of a license may be one or in order that it might be under better forces would not have seen their candi- more of the following: supervision by the police and the

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date elected had the temperance plank would be, misinterpreted by the advo• ries Nevertheless, though the motive been total prohibition.30 cates of the measure" as a vote against for launching the campaign might have temperance32Totten did not comment been to shift cash flow from the liquor Despite almost annual tinkering with the on the fact in 1877, Toronto became the trade to other sectors, the focus of the statutes, the Province's temperance largest city to reject the Dunkin Act debate quickly shifted. The Dunkin Act efforts were never enough to make liquor before it was replaced by the Scott Act in referendum in Toronto was also a forum problems go away completely. In some 1878.33 for a clash between class interests. eyes, voluntary temperance and regu• lated taverns would never be enough. Class Conflict and the Tavern: Despite any ulterior motives, the Prohibitionists had, in federal law, an eas• Toronto's Dunkin Act Referendum, referendum's sponsors hoped that the ily accessible alternative to licensing. In August 1877 right measure would, with one dose of 1864 the legislature of the Province of prohibition, remedy the various evils Canada passed the Temperance Act, Prohibitionists did not wait long before thought to be related to the tavern, para• known as the Dunkin Act after its spon• deciding that Crooks Act licensing was mount among them drunkenness. As sor, Christopher Dunkin.31 Under this the same "licensed murder" as any other "Grip" (J.W.Bengough) put it, law, thirty qualified electors in cities, liquor licensing. Between September counties, and towns could petition for a 1876 and September 1877, fifteen This is a cur—a very beast of prey, referendum. If the electors then voted in Ontario counties and three cities, Brant- That roams our city's streets both favour of the Act, council would be com• ford, Kingston, and Toronto, held référen• night and day, pelled to enact a bylaw forbidding the dums on the Dunkin Act. Most of the rural A monster whose foul, pestilential retail sale of alcohol within the juris• areas passed the measure by a slim mar• breath diction. Under the "five-gallon" clause, gin, the most notable exception being On all it touches brings the blight of producers and wholesalers of alcoholic Wellington County that, with its major death. beverages would be permitted to con• town, Guelph, voted in the negative by a But now the Public heart is beating tinue their trade, with a minimum sale of substantial margin. Toronto's campaign high five gallons or twelve quarts if in bottles. was one of the last, followed by passage In hopes his end at length is drawing The Dunkin Actwas therefore directed at of the measure in Bruce and Lanark nigh, taverns and not at the consumption of counties less than a month after the So let each valiant arm its right alcohol perse. This reflected a widely- Toronto setback.34 As the province's larg• assume, held belief that public drinking occurred est city, Toronto held special signifi• Let's scoop him up, and cart him to his under conditions that encouraged cance for temperance activists; it also doom!36 excess, whereas private drinking was posed special problems. All three moderate thanks to familial social con• themes discussed above played a part In the cartoon accompanying these lines trols. The five-gallon clause, meanwhile, in the Toronto contest. Entrenched politi• (Figure 3), public opinion can be seen in would in principle have put liquor out of cal power and the mobilization of work• the background, filing into the Dunkin the common labourer's reach. Conse• ing-class men defeated the Dunkin Act\n Act Amphitheatre to hear speeches and quently, the Dunkin Act was often Toronto. A willingness among temper• sermons, while several gentlemen put attacked as "class legislation." Soft sup• ance advocates to work within the con• their elbows into the task of catching the port from those who liked the idea of pro• fines of the Crooks Act, and the cur37 This was prescient in a way that hibition was one result of the five-gallon subsequent emergence of the territorial Bengough did not intend: while many citi• clause. Investigating the Acts working in solution, were some more notable, albeit zens attended the Amphitheatre regu• 1876, the province's chief licensing offi• indirect, results. larly, not enough of them used their cial, Henry Totten, asked residents of "elbows." But if too few voted, a good Prince Edward County why so few peo• The Toronto campaign began with the many participated and made themselves ple had voted for the Act. He found that presentation to City Council of a petition, heard on either side in other ways by "although morally in favour of temper• bearing forty-five signatures requesting a going to rallies held for and against, by ance, if they were in principle opposed to Dunkin Act referendum. Motives related writing letters, by appearing drunk in the Dunkin Act [because it was class leg• to the depression, then in its fifth year, Carlton Street on a Sunday evening. The islation], they would not vote against it, are implicit in the presence of at least Dunkin Act campaign brought a host of as such a vote was liable to be, and twenty merchants among the 45 signato•

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Figure 3: from Grip 9(10), July 29,1877. McMaster University, William Ready Archives and Research Collections, Bengough Papers tavern-related issues up for unusually ring" controlled council had been circulai He had been one of those who had heated discussion. ing for at least a decade, and were now voted against the reduction of the renewed as an argument in favour of the liquor licenses, by which the city lost Prominent among such issues was the Dunkin Act. To judge from the leanings $14,000. He would say, although he relationship between tavern keepers and of the newspapers (the Tory Mail and was sure he would be called in ques• City Council. "As citizens of Toronto it is Leader alone were opposed to the Act)'3 9 tion for it, that the sum had been voted humiliating to confess that we are ruled and the "whiskey ring" claims, the Dun- away by a ring in that Council, simply by the whiskey ring," wrote "An Elector" kin Act campaign was an assault not with a view of perpetuating the liquor in The Evening Telegram38 For Elector it only on the liquor trade, but also on traffic41 was obvious that some members of Toronto's Tory machine.40 For example, Council, including the Mayor, were the outspoken alderman John Hallam That reductions in the number of licenses actively helping the Anti-Dunkin Associa• went so far as to assert that were really a Provincial assault on munici• tion, the organization arrayed against the pal revenues was an argument fre• prohibitionists. Claims that a "whiskey quently used by Tory defenders of the

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old system. In response to such claims, total prohibition of wartime. Most few old-fashioned patricians (old-guard the Government noted that municipal rev• prohibitionists recognized early that Tory Councillors and their supporters) in enues were maintained at their old levels broad consensus would be necessary if the fight to preserve the tavern. or higher under the new system by the prohibition were to be workable. The ref• institution of higher fees and an appropri• erendum of 1877 provided a strong indi• In some newspapers, particularly the ate provincial/municipal division of the cation that Torontonians were far from nearly neutral (but on the whole pro-Dun- money 42 Yet Hallam was arguing not in consensus. For Canada as a whole, local kin) Telegram, correspondents engaged favour of the Tory machine, but against it. option referendum results reveal that in lively debate over the Act's true signifi• He was apparently unconvinced that the throughout the nineteenth century, prohi• cance for the workingman. Other papers Crooks Act was an effort to deal a blow bition was most strongly opposed by city carried more esoteric correspondence; to the Tory machine ("whiskey ring" in dwellers and Québécois.44 the Mail, for example, printed letters rang• Hallam's lexicon). ing from a long discourse based on In Toronto, the group most persistently Spencerian sociology on the inevitable The Dunkin Act was not the best way for opposed to prohibition was the working harmfulness of prohibition to debates reformers such as Hallam to achieve class, both immigrant and native-born. about the price of beer. Other letters pro• their goals. First, voting was by open, not Despite their social, cultural, and material vide insight into the importance of the secret, ballot. Under the open ballot, diversity, Toronto workers in 1877 had English working-class Torontonian to the there was only one polling station for the among them a broad consensus that the debate. "A Cockney" wrote to the Mail city, in the drill shed behind City Hall (at Dunkin Acfs passage would unjustly that the Dunkinites were close to endan• Front and Jarvis). Because of the slow• have deprived the workingman of his gering themselves by their behaviour: ness of the procedure, the poll could principal recreation: socializing at the tav• have taken forty days to complete; in ern over beer or whiskey. The wealthy I am what is called a "Cockney" resi• fact, in fifteen days, excluding Sundays, would still be able to afford their private dent in Toronto, and, I assure you, I just over 7,000 people voted. There were clubs or to keep liquor at home, and have been astonished at the self-com• myriad opportunities for trickery in such would have enough room there to be mand and quietness exhibited by the 45 circumstances. According to contempo• able to drink it with guests Since the workingmen and the liquor trade dur• rary observations, the only side that took Dunkin Acfs minimum legal purchase of ing the discussions of the last few advantage of such opportunities was the five gallons of beer represented roughly weeks. Had any crotchety people anti-Dunkinite coalition, or the "Antis." two days' work for a common labourer dared to put forward such a measure The Antis were accused of forming an and about four days' work for the same as the Dunkin Bill in the British metro• intimidating mob at the poll, swapping amount of whiskey, most workingmen polis, with any probability of its being whiskey for votes, hiring the city's hacks would do without both liquor and a place carried, I can tell the Dunkinites they to give free rides, and trying to influence to drink it, at least in theory. Some observ• would have had worse to encounter people while they were voting. All this ers feared that the workingman would not than a little pushing and jostling [at the trickery depended upon an alliance only consume the same amount of liquor, poll]. There would have been exciting between the Anti organizers, known at but also place it (perilously) before popular demonstrations, window- other times as the Licensed Victuallers' women and children. Drunkenness smashings, and unpleasant charivaris Association, and a segment of the work• would become virtually impossible to at the houses of the leading support• 46 ing class43 The five-gallon clause of the police, let alone prevent Workers ers of such a foolish, uncalled-for for, Act helped to solidify that alliance. shared such concerns, but were more 4ft vocal about the affront to their liberty and and unjust law. In the summer of 1877 the conflict in respectability implicit in the Act. In The absence of charivaris and window- Toronto regarding the tavern was one of arguing that the mere presence of tav• smashings was hardly a sign of the erns caused people to drink exces• masses' good behaviour, as far as the the last Canadian attempts to deal with 47 drinking problems by launching a city- sively, the Act's supporters called into Dunkinites were concerned. To them, the wide assault on the retail liquor trade. question working-class men's ability to majority of voters favoured the measure, Although in the 1880s and 1890s saw vig• do as they pleased without descending but abstained from voting because of the orous local option activity in rural areas, into wretched excess. Workers thus Antis' dirty tricks. Moreover, "exciting Canada's larger cities, and most of its stood largely united alongside self-inter• popular demonstrations" had indeed smaller ones, remained "wet" until the ested tavern keepers and brewers, and a occurred on both sides, though not the

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violent rampages described in The absence of long-established, rigidly seen in the manner in which this so Cockney's letter. Every evening in the defined classes made no difference to much denounced Dunkin Act is car• weeks before and during the vote, the Act's working-class opponents. Their ried in rural and more or less purely between two and three thousand people concern was not with the historic divi• Canadian districts, while in towns and gathered at the Amphitheatre, a tem• sions of the Old Country. They consid• cities ... there is a disproportionately porary structure consisting of bleachers ered the new country's class divisions to large amount of those who still have and a stage, in a vacant lot at the corner be every bit as real, notwithstanding their not only their Old Country prejudices of Yonge and Queen streets. These gath• theoretical impossibility or the absence ..., but their Old Country habits to erings were held by the pro-Dunkin side, of an explicit "caste" system: "the cry of which they cling with even greater but featured debate on both sides until the supporters of the Act [is] the same tenacity 5é the polling station opened; after that they old cry: the rags and the wretchedness were support rallies that resembled reli• of the working man. ... The workingmen Years later, the same accusation would gious revivals more than political gather• of Toronto [do] not want gentlemen ... to be levelled at the German, Italian, and ings. Prayers opened the meetings; come to them and mourn over them and Slavic immigrants who gathered in cities ministers dominated the podium (with tell them what they should, or should not, and helped to defeat prohibition and promises of damnation and hellfire for do."52 Likewise, the city's coopers "in license reduction when it was put to a their opponents, whatever the result of mass meeting assembled" resolved, vote.57 In Toronto in 1877, several largely the earthly contest); hymns were sung among other things, "That we call upon working-class voting blocs had been between speeches and at the close of our fellow-workmen and all other electors identified in the aftermath of the poll: the proceedings. The main difference who can sympathize with us, to go to the city's approximately 200 voters of Ger• between such meetings and revivals was polls and aid us in voting down this man-origin, and almost 1,000 Catholics. that clergy shared the stage with capital• piece of class legislation" that they "The credit justly due to our German fel• ists and aldermen. claimed had already, before the casting low citizens for their steadfastness in the of the first vote, led to a decline in the [Anti] cause, should not be ignored: the 53 For the Act s supporters, the measure's coopers' trade. It was argued in principle of freedom of the subject ver• defeat was a function of "the combined response, reasonably it seems, that coo• sus sumptuary laws, found in them able 58 influence of the Licensed Victuallers and perage should have benefitted from the and resolute defenders." Together with the English workmen."49 This combina• Dunkin Act, through an anticipated boom English Protestant workers, who had put 54 tion had been bound together by in five-gallon kegs. Even if claims class first and Christian duty second, the unwarranted cries of "class legislation" about negative effects on coopers' trade Germans and the Catholics had formed and "arbitrary measures." The Globe de• were inaccurate, coopers did have a a group of voters oblivious to the nounced such arguments, for "in Canada strong tradition of Saturday night tavern (intended) true nature of the measure, such a thing as class legislation is life that meshed closely with established thanks to their unfamiliarity with the impossible."50 This position was labour processes in the work-shop. To Globes version of true democracy. explained in an editorial entitled "English have eliminated the licensed tavern from Workmen and the Dunkin Act" in which it the Toronto landscape would have been Despite the glimmerings of working-class was argued that to outlaw an important part of what it solidarity apparent in the 1877 cam• meant to be a cooper. paign, it is important to stress, as did the Whatever grounds there may be for Dunkinites, that except for the coopers' such class jealousies in England, there Moreover, the Globe, though ever loyal to initiative, opposition to prohibition in 1877 are literally none in this country, inas• the Queen, was not ready to credit fellow Toronto was not worker-led, but worker- much as the social circumstances with subjects newly arrived from Britain with supported. At the height of the cam• us are such that anything like caste is the same loyalty. In the "English Work• paign, local labour movement leaders out of the question, and, consequently, men" editorial, the nativism that would were occupied with the fifth annual con• anything like partial and oppressive later permeate the prohibition movement gress of the Canadian Trades' Unions, at legislation is not to be thought of. What• was given an early airing: which the liquor question was not on the ever is done is done for the whole of agenda, and was mentioned only briefly. the community, and by the votes of a A change for the better in this respect Even in debating the Nine Hours ques• 51 clear majority of the people. [drinking] has been silently going on tion, the specifics of how workingmen for many years past, and the result is used their leisure time were scarcely

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mentioned in the published version of the Act was an infringement of workers' lib• station. Of all the ward organizations, this proceedings 59 Meanwhile, anti-prohibi• erty probably was only an implicit cri• one alone had managed a "comprehens• tionist appeals consisted of speeches, tique of social relations, thanks to the ive canvass" of its territory. The import• mainly by powerful and wealthy men, Antis' patrician leadership." Neverthe• ance of territory had become apparent to about the workingman's civil liberties. less, even a debate so strongly struc• Dunkinite leaders too late in the game. Liquor interests and their supporters tured from above had room for more After two weeks of polling, the Dunkinites among the elite carefully marshalled their radical perspectives, particularly in the grew increasingly alarmed at the other arguments to mobilize sufficient working- newspapers and out in the streets. More side's growing margin of support. They class support for their cause to assure importantly, meetings and rallies pro• saw it as a result of the various inconve• victory. This support came in the form of vided a common experience and a niences of voting, particularly the votes and gathering en masse at strate• sense of common interest, no matter who shouted insults, pushes, and shoves of gic times and places. It is therefore initiated them. The campaign thus pro• the "rowdies" who had been especially tempting to dismiss the entire process as moted a unity among workers that would numerous and boisterous during the first the directed response of a subordinate later be expressed without patrician week 67 They began to advertise condi• class to the sops of a few "bread-and-cir- help.63 Whether patricians were using tions at the polling station: cuses" Tories. But despite the absence workers or vice versa is therefore moot. of a working-class leadership, evidently Poll Clear! the campaign played a role, however Several aspects of the campaign indi- . No inconvenience to voters. minor, in working-class formation. Even if cate that neighbourhoods were becom• COME ON NOW! the alliance between the working class ing an important part of social John T. Moore, sec'y Dunkin Bill Asso• and the liquor trade was fragile and organization. Though not "neighbour• ciation68 ephemeral, even if the "working class" in hoods" in the sense of being small, func• this case was heavily weighted toward tional social areas, wards were the This appeal having failed, a more frantic, the common labourer (who was most self- commonest territorial units of the time. and pointed, call for support was forth• interested of all when it came to the tav• Since neighbourhoods are difficult to coming; ern), even if the elite of the labour define in strict spatial terms, wards are movement was prohibitionist (though not used here as a convenient surrogate VOTERS READ THIS! yet vocal about it) and would be for years (unless otherwise noted) because of their The following is a statement of the to come, it cannot be argued that the contemporary use in political orga• number of Votes in the several Wards exhortation for "Workingmen [to] rally in nization64 These political structures and remaining unpolled: 60 defense of [their] rights" was merely a the distribution of votes within them sham perpetrated by a desperate elite reveal important relationships between St. Andrew's 983 on rowdy dupes. class and territory. After the Dunkinites St. David's 782 had focused their attention all summer on St. George's 548 Even contemporary commentators who holding large meetings at the St. James' 1259 claimed that the Antis had won the refer• Amphitheatre, William Gibson argued on St. John's 953 endum dishonestly did not dare claim August 11 that "[i]t would be a better St. Lawrence 838 that the over seven thousand and ten course now to discontinue the meetings St. Patrick's 1163 thousand men and women who had gath• at the Amphitheatre and hold ward meet• St. Stephen's 502 ered at two separate rallies (the August ings all over the city."65 Meetings did St. Thomas' 796 11 rally, and the victory parade on continue at the Amphitheatre, but almost August 23) had done so merely on the halfway through the voting, the Dunkin• Of this aggregate of nearly 8,000 promise of free drinks.61 Freedom to ites set up a committee for each of the unpolled votes, we have reason to drink, not free drinks, underlay such mas• city's wards. The only one that managed believe that a very large proportion sive displays. Moreover, by the late to hold a public meeting well-enough would, if recorded, be in favour of the 1870s some members of the working attended to merit reporting (and that was Dunkin Act. Many hundreds who have class were examining relationships reported as "not very large") was the St. promised to support the Act have among poverty, crime, and alcohol in Thomas's Ward Committee 66 St. delayed going to the poll until they terms of the social relations inherent in Thomas's was both relatively wealthy could do so without personal inconve• capitalism 62 The claim that the Dunkin and relatively close to the lone polling nience or loss of time.

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THAT TIME IS NOW! should a half hour pass without a vote message to working people. Meetings This notice is to ask that the professed being polled. Neither side objected, and rallies at downtown locations such friends of the Measure will display their though the announcement must have sur• as the Grand Opera House (which also loyalty to the Cause by recording their prised many, since newspaper reports occasionally hosted the other side, as votes in its favour dated August 21st were based on the well as D.I.K.Rine's temperance revival assumption that a good three weeks of meetings)74 were supplemented with TO-DAY! voting remained, becuase of the size of gatherings at places such as Scholes' If our friends remain indifferent to the the as yet unpolled vote. Tavern/Hall on Queen St. West at present opportunity, the responsibility Dundas (where the audience was "com• of the failure of this movement must Unlike the pro-Dunkin forces, the Anti- posed principally of working men"75), rest upon those who have thus Dunkin Association had based its cam• and in the open air in the heart of work• neglected their duty. paign on ward organizations from the ing-class Toronto: start. Not surprisingly, the committees John T. Moore were composed overwhelmingly of tav• THE EAST END MEETING. Secretary ern-keepers, and also included three Last night a meeting called by the Anti- Dunkin Bill Association69 wine merchants, three brewers, a soda Dunkin Association was held on the water manufacturer, and a cigar manu• vacant lot on the corner of Queen and That the Association should have drawn facturer72 In canvassing, "the most River streets. The audience was very attention to the number of unpolled votes trusty and active agents were employed large, and difficult to manage, espe• by ward as well as compiling such by our Executive Committee, with instruc• cially when the speaker's remarks detailed figures (which would have tions to report daily to the Chairmen of were in favour of the Act.76 required both knowledge of the total eligi• their respective wards, while others were ble vote by ward, and of the home ward engaged classifying the voters' lists, and The importance of territory is made of each voter to date), is testimony to the registering the results of the returns of clearer by an analysis of voting patterns. importance of the ward in the nineteenth the canvassing agents."73 Class was Such an analysis reveals a territorial century. reflected in the conduct of the ward-by- logic that can be interpreted only in ward campaign. The nine committees terms of neighbourhood and class. On The turnout problem was especially dis• ranged in size from one member in thinly- the crudest level, tabulation by wards, tressing with respect to St. Thomas' and populated St. George's to seven in heav• the data reveal a pattern that corre• St. James' Wards: both provided more ily-populated, predominantly sponds to the broad social geography of pro- than anti-Dunkin voters, but at low working-class St. Patrick's. The two the city: the highest concentrations of levels of turnout. St. James' Ward, for largely middle- and upper-class strong• pro-Dunkin votes were in the wealthiest one, was said to house 1,500 potential holds of support for the Dunkin Act, the wards, namely St. Thomas' and St. yea votes, but delivered only 490.70 wards of St. Thomas' and St. James', had James' (see Table 1). There were also "Were the voters existing of whom the committees of three each. On the whole, class differences in the composition of Amphitheatre gentlemen speak so areas of strong support for the Act had the over-all vote (Table 2). The yea side glibly," the Mail replied to such claims, "it smaller committees in opposition, and was weighted toward the upper classes. would be a poor compliment to them to areas of weaker support, larger commit• Though the numbers on either side in the say they are so lukewarm in the cause tees. This is not to say that committee high-middle category are almost equal in that they cannot be got to the polls. The size determined voting patterns; rather Table 2, it should be remembered that fact is, they are not to be found."71 this pattern suggests that the leaders of almost 300 of the over 1,200 "high-mid• Wards other than St. Thomas' and St. the liquor trade knew the city well, and dle" Antis were tavern keepers, brewers, James', some of them much farther from knew where to focus their efforts. and licensed grocers. Skilled workers the poll, accounted for higher levels of were slightly weighted to the Anti side, both turnout and Anti-Dunkin support The holding of meetings in a variety of and semi- and unskilled labourers (Table 1 ). On August 21, despite the places complemented the Anti-Dunkin leaned strongly to opposing the Act: Dunkinites' pleas, established voting Association's ward-committee approach. almost 80% of semi- and unskilled work• trends continued; the Mayor announced While the Dunkinites could consistently ers who voted cast a nay. That the nay that by the consent of both sides August muster a crowd at the central side owed its margin of victory to this 22nd would be the final day of voting Amphitheatre, their opponents took their group is particularly impressive, considér•

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were located on the east side of Yonge Table 1 : Dunkin Act voting by ward 79 Street, the ward's western boundary.

3 b An analysis of all votes by residents of a Ward Turnout Yeas Nays west-end neighbourhood shows that the 0/ n /o n % n % area mirrored the aggregate figures for the city, while yea voters were not clus• St. Lawrence 565 (40) 173 (30) 392 (70) tered around the local tavern.80 Despite St. David's 939 (55) 348 (36) 591 (64) the fact that the territorial solution's St. Thomas' 630 (44) 349 (55) 281 (45) enshrinement in law was still eight years St. John's 1092 (53) 458 (42) 634 (58) away, the tavern was already a phenome• St. James' 869 (41) 491 (56) 378 (44) non associated with working-class St. George's 388 (41) 141 (37) 247 (63) neighbourhoods and commercial streets. St. Andrew's 865 (47) 305 (36) 560 (64) The class and ward patterns of the vote, St. Patrick's 1125 (49) 474 (43) 651 (57) together with the geographic distribution St. Stephen's 500 (50) 201 (40) 299 (60) of taverns, suggested that a territorial approach to liquor law would be more workable than the outright prohibition of Totals 6973 (47) 2940(42) 4033 (58) public drinking.

Notes and sources Conclusions a The total number of eligible voters was estimated by adding actual votes (calculated from Licensed Victuallers' Association, The Yeas and Nays) and votes unpolled as of August 21, as reported in the On the evening of Wednesday, August Dunkin Bill Association's advertisement in the Globe and Telegram of that day. There is thus a slight 22, 1877, over ten thousand people discrepancy between turnout levels listed here and real figures. The grand total produced by this method (14,797), however, is close to that estimated by the Mail on August 6 (between 14,000 and marched in a torchlight procession 15,000). Percentages in this column represent percent of eligible votes polled. through the streets of Toronto, celebrat• ing what had been sold to them as a tri• b Percentages in these columns represent vote split, and add horizontally. 'Yeas' are pro-Dunkin votes, 'Nays' Anti-Dunkin. Compiled from LVA, Yeas and Nays, in which each voter is listed by address and umph of workingmen's rights over rich ward. man's law. As members of a capitalist, patriarchal, and class-divided society, that was indeed what they were celebrat• ing that most of Toronto's approximately Streets, for instance, was surrounded by ing. The victory procession was, by working-class pro-Dunkin votes. Yet if 5,000 unfranchised adult men would some accounts, peaceful and joyous; it 77 such behaviour had been common, the have fallen into it ended in Queen's Park with speeches of working class as a whole would have self-congratulation and motions of thanks voted to close the taverns: it was already The class composition of the vote, the to the Licensed Victuallers' Association living next door to most of them. Taverns ward distribution of the yeas and nays, and to the workingmen of the city. "As were typically located on noisy thorough• the territorial organization of the respec• yet, no accidents ... have been reported, fares such as Yonge and Queen Streets, tive campaigns, and the questions of nor, as far as has been heard, have any or clustered around the St. Lawrence class raised in debate all suggest that cases of disorder come under the notice Market, along the Esplanade (presum• 81 voting behaviour was related to class of the police." By other accounts, the ably sailors' haunts). Some of the most and territory, not to a class-blind desire procession was a disgusting display of notorious dens were to be found on York to rid neighbourhoods of taverns. Is this bacchanalian barbarity, a celebration of and Terauley Streets. The infamous Stan• conclusion, suggested by macro-scale social rot and moral decay. For 78 ley Street (by 1877, Lombard Street) was evidence, upheld at the micro-scale? A prohibitionists, the fight had just begun. located in St. Lawrence Ward, a few detailed micro-analysis is not possible The next evening, they held a rally in cel• blocks west of the Market. Yet around the here, but there is some evidence to sug• ebration of what they considered their Market itself, yea votes were scarce. As gest that the answer is yes. That yea great moral victory: the Dunkinite vote for the two wards that showed a yea plu• votes were sometimes motivated by the was honest and heartfelt, but Anti-Dunkin rality, there was not a single tavern in St. proximity of a tavern is implicit in some voters had been influenced through brib• Thomas', and all of those in St. James' cases: a tavern at Ontario and Gerrard ery and corruption. The losers were cer-

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The record of working-class struggles in Table 2: Class and voting the nineteenth century reveals that

( workers' political leaders—many of the Occupational Toronto Voters craft unions, the Knights of Labor—were 3 class 1881^ nay yea not particularly enthusiastic about the tav• n column% row% n column% row% ern. Their main concerns were with much larger issues of social structure and High-middle 35.0% 1240 30.5%d 49.6% 1260 43.8% 50.4% social justice, and with the working condi• Skilled 42.5 1300 32.0 55.0 1060 36.8 45.0 tions of their rank-and-file members. Yet Semi- and unskilled 22.5 1080 26.6 78.3 300 10.4 21.7 6 many of those rank-and-file workers Unknown 0.0 440 10.8 58.0 320 10.9 42.0 defended the tavern in 1877 and at other times or simply used it. This rift within the Totals 99.9 4060 99.9 58.0 2940 100.0 42.0 working class can be seen as a rift be• tween two different groups of workers, that is, a group who supported the strug• Notes gle to humanize or even to supplant capi• a Adapted from Katz, People of Hamilton, and Sanford, "Origins of Residential Differentiation." See note talism, and a group that wished only to 77 for a detailed discussion. live a peaceful and reasonably prosper• b Adult males engaged in paid work, classified according to occupation. Source: calculated from Sanford. ous life and have access to some form of c All estimates in these two columns are calculated from a 5% sample of voters. Source of sample: traditional recreation. Seen in this way, LVA, Yeas and Nays. The sample was cross-referenced with Might & Taylor's Toronto Directories for the triumph of "partyism" over working- 1878 and 1877. class solidarity in Toronto in the 1870s d Includes approximately 300 tavern-keepers, licensed shop-keepers, and brewers. and late 1880s takes on a new meaning. e No occupation listed in directory. The Conservative Party, which won most f Discrepancy between these totals and those in Table 1 arises from calculation of totals from sample of the votes of Toronto workers, repre• (sample nx 20). sented not only the National Policy, but also worked consistently in defense of "the poor man's club." Widespread acceptance of the unified "movement cul• tain that further education of the people places for tavern life were defined, to the ture" that emerged in Toronto in the would see the ultimate victory of the advantage of domestic and working life. 1880s would have meant acceptance of forces of righteousness 82 the leadership's prohibitionist stance. It Views on the tavern's economic aspects was only with the moderation of that We know now that these hopeful reform• also shifted. As late as 1868, one ob• stance in the 1886 and 1887 local elec• ers were wrong. Ultimately, no amount of server claimed that all of Toronto's pov• tions that labour was able to unite behind bureaucratic and police control over the erty was attributable to "thriftlessness 83 wider issues of urban reform under the tavern could overcome the facts of city and dissipation." By the late 1870s, five mayoralty of W.H. Howland. In 1877, loy• life articulated in the campaign of 1877: years of high unemployment and "hard alty to the party and the tavern triumphed. taverns were social clubs to which work• times" had spawned the increasingly ers (specifically, working men) had an plausible view that most poor people established, deeply-rooted claim. (Figure were poor through no fault of their own. The campaign of 1877 was at once 4, although from a different time and Such views, however, were largely con• about working-class civil liberties and place, provides evidence that the late fined to trade unionists and the poor good government. Although the local nineteenth and early twentieth century themselves. Nevertheless, as early as political scene was soon cleansed of the Ontario tavern was a man's world.) Socia• 1882, in some official eyes the prolifera• tavern's influence, its social aspects ble tavern life could not be eradicated by tion of homeless wandering from town to remained an important part of urban prohibition or missionary zeal. However, town was seen as the result of hard working-class life. In the 1877 the tavern and its long-standing place in times, not of any individual tramp's weak campaign's aftermath, some reformers the community were changed in the nine• character84 began to look more closely at the way teenth century. Appropriate times and urban society worked. There was, for instance, much discussion of substitutes

43 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXII, No. (October, 1993) Battling "the bane of our cities":

Figure 4: Interior, Bank Hotel, corner of Talbot and King Sts., London, Ont., 1908. Photo by Clifford 5. Bastla. National Archives of Canada, PA 122703.

for the tavern. But attempts to provide quarter has shown, other recreations are see Figure 5. Note the portrayal of the alternative recreation were still fraught not so much alternative as complemen• Antis' victory procession in the back• with difficulty. Coffee houses were not an tary. Reformers also began to see the ground.) Consequently, class quickly immediate success; there were as yet no obstacles to their vision of "progress" not emerged as an important theme in the Sunday cars to High Park; parks were vir• as "rings" or faulty institutions, but as liquor debate. The tavern served to mark tually useless in winter or at night; and social structures and relations. Lack of not only divisions between residential libraries and reading rooms were not urban support for moral reform was often and commercial neighbourhoods, but good places to socialize. Spectator explained away by bitter activists as the between good and bad ones and sports were just beginning, and could result of workers' and immigrants' ostensi• between the unclean city and the whole• not provide regular evening diversion. bly inferior moralities. (Although in 1877, some suburbs. The tavern was, and is, difficult to sup• poor organization was given as the main plant. As the subsequent century and a excuse for the Dunkin Acts defeat:

44 Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXII, No. 1 (October, 1993) Battling "the bane of our cities":

Figure 4: Interior, Bank Hotel, corner of Talbot and King Sts., London, Ont, 1908. Photo by Clifford S. Bastla. National Archives of Canada, PA 122703.

for the tavern. But attempts to provide quarter has shown, other recreations are see Figure 5. Note the portrayal of the alternative recreation were still fraught not so much alternative as complemen• Antis' victory procession in the back• with difficulty. Coffee houses were not an tary. Reformers also began to see the ground.) Consequently, class quickly immediate success; there were as yet no obstacles to their vision of "progress" not emerged as an important theme in the Sunday cars to High Park; parks were vir• as "rings" or faulty institutions, but as liquor debate. The tavern served to mark tually useless in winter or at night; and social structures and relations. Lack of not only divisions between residential libraries and reading rooms were not urban support for moral reform was often and commercial neighbourhoods, but good places to socialize. Spectator explained away by bitter activists as the between good and bad ones and sports were just beginning, and could result of workers' and immigrants' ostensi• between the unclean city and the whole• not provide regular evening diversion. bly inferior moralities. (Although in 1877, some suburbs. The tavern was, and is, difficult to sup• poor organization was given as the main plant. As the subsequent century and a excuse for the Dunkin Act's defeat:

44 Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine VoL XXII, No. 1 (October, 1993) Battling "the bane of our cities":

Pamela Moss, Wayne Reeves, Edward the salaries of inspectors in each jurisdiction in perance and a New Social Order in Mid-Nine• Relph, and John Weaver. 1875 (at which time the Inspector was paid a 6% teenth Century Canada and Red River," Ph.D. commission on license fees). The context of the Thesis, University of Toronto, 1987. quote indicates a reference not to the city coun• Notes cil, but to the city as a whole. 10. Such sentiments waned between the 1870s and the 1890s; widespread working-class support for 1. See Bryan Palmer, Working-Class Experience 6. Edwin C. Guillet Pioneer Inns and Taverns, v. 1 prohibition again emerged during the First World (Toronto, 1983), 84-89; Peter DeLottinville, "Joe second edition: Ontario, with Detailed Reference War. See Richard Allen, The Social Passion; Reli• Beef of Montreal : Working-class culture and the to Metropolitan Toronto and Yonge Street to gion and Social Reform in Canada 1914-28 tavern, 1869-1889" Labour/Le Travail 8/9 Penetanguishene(Toronto 1954), passim. Marga• (Toronto, 1971), Chapter 17. (1981/82), 9-40; Judith Fingard " 'A Great Big ret McBurney & Mary Byers, Tavern in the Town. 11. Samuel R. Heakes, carpenter, RCLT, minutes of Rum Shop': The Drink Trade in Victorian Halifax," Early Inns and Taverns of Ontario (Toronto, testimony, Ontario, 602. in Tempered by Rum: Rum in the History of the 1988), passim; John E. Zucchi, "Italian hometown settlements and the development of an Italian Maritime Provinces, ed J.H. Morrison and J. 12. Ibid., p. 605. Moreira (Porters Lake, N.S., 1988) and Fingard, community on Toronto, 1875-1935," in Gathering The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax (Porters Place, ed. Harney, 126. 13. J.M. Kingsdale (1973) "The 'Poor Man's Club': Lake, 1989) chapters 1-4. Social functions of the Urban Working Class 7. Other cities provide more examples: Montreal's Saloon," in The Making of Urban America, ed. Irish and French Canadian canal day-labourers 2. Altough "licence" is now the standard spelling, R.A. Mohl (Wilmington, 1988); DeLottinville, "Joe lived between two poles: the docks and the this paper uses "license" throughout, because all Beef"; E.C. Moore, "The Social Value of the waterfront taverns, Joe Beef's Canteen being the contemporary sources consulted used this spell• Saloon, " American Journal of Sociology 3(1), most (in)famous among them; dockside workers ing. 1897. in Montréal were routinely hired and paid in tav• 3. On segregation and differentiation, see Peter erns. See DeLottinville, "Joe Beef"; William 14. Report of the RCLT(Ottawa, 1895), 506. Goheen, Victorian Toronto, 1850-1900: Pattern Sandilands, machinist and Knights of Labor Mas• and Process of Growth (Chicago, 1970); Barbara ter Workman for the Montreal district, before the 15. Heakes, RCLT, minutes of testimony, Ontario, Sanford, "The Origins of Residential Differentia• Royal Commission on the Liquor Traffic [hereafter 601-602. tion: Capitalist Industrialization, Toronto, Ontario, RCLT], minutes of testimony, Québec, 361. In 1851-1881," Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto colonial Québec City sailors deserting their ships 16. By 1897, the capitalist reformer, H.B.Ames, rec• (Planning), 1985; Michael J. Doucet, "Working found new berths with the help of tavern keepers. ognized that the causal relationship was not Class Housing in a Small Nineteenth Century Judith Fingard, Jack in Port (Toronto, 1981), clear: he would only go so far as to note the Canadian City: Hamilton, Ontario 1852-1881," in Chapter 2. In Halifax, sailors and soldiers spent strong correlation between the incidence of tav• Essays in Canadian Working Class History, ed. their time on shore or on leave in the taverns of erns and liquor shops and poverty (as he defined Gregory S. Kealey and Peter Warrian (Toronto the city's high streets and, again, found work (if it). Ames, City Below the Hill, 74. 1976), 83-105; Ian Davey and Michael Doucet, not already employed by the military) through the 17. 39 Vic. Cap. 26, An Act to amend the Law "The Social Geography of a Commercial City," in tavern keeper. Tavern keeping was also the respecting the sale of Fermented orSpiritous Michael Katz, The People of Hamilton, Canada usual main business of pimps. Fingard, " 'A Liquors. West (Cambridge, 1975); Herbert Brown Ames, Great Big Rum Shop' "; and Fingard, Victorian Halifax, Chapters 1-4. The City Below the Hill (Montreal 1897, reprinted 18. Sandilands, RCLT, minutes of testimony, Toronto, 1972), 6-9; Sherry Olson and David Québec, 368. Hanna, "The Social Landscape of Montréal, 8. Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer, Dream• 1901," plate 30 in Historical Atlas of Canada III: ing of What Might Be. The Knights of Labor in 19. AO, Mowat Papers, MU 2176; memoranda from Addressing the Twentieth Century (Toronto, Ontario, 1880-1900. (Cambridge, 1982), 282 ff. Crooks to Mowat re liquor law amendments of 1990); Daniel J. Hiebert, "Winnipeg: a City Here, Kealey and Palmer are not referring specif• 1873 and 1874, October 8, 1874. Divided," plate 31 in ibid; several of the essays in ically to the liquor question, though they make Gathering Place: Peoples and Neighbourhoods clear in their few passing references that the 20. Henry Totten, RCLT, minutes of testimony, of Toronto, 1834-1945, ed. Robert Harney views attributed to labour leaders in this paper Ontario, 928. (Toronto, 1985) contain insights on this point: see are in line with the positions taken by Knights of 21. Gregory S. Kealey, "Orangemen and the Corpo• especially the contributions of Murray Nicolson, Labor leaders in the 1880s and 1890s. ration. The politics of class during the Union of John Zucchi, and Lillian Petroff. 9. See, for example, Fingard, " 'A Great Big Rum the Canadas," in Forging a Consensus: Historical Essays on Toronto, ed. Victor Russell (Toronto, 4. Globe, 11 Jan. 1876. Shop' "; Perry Duis, The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920 (Chicago, 1984). 5. Archives of Ontario [herafter AO], RG8-II-1 Pro• 1983), Chapter 6. It should also be remembered 22. George Albert Mason, The Licensed Victualler's vincial Secretary, License Branch correspon• that the categories of "respectable" and "rough" [sic] Association. Their Petition to the Legislature dence files 1870-1890. These files consist mainly are historically contingent. As late as the 1820s, and Conduct of City Officials. Chapter 1: The of initial responses to the Crooks Act from every drunkenness had been acceptable for gentle• Mayor and the Clerk of the Police Court, both jurisdiction in the province except Toronto. There men regardless of time or place. For a detailed published 1868. Metropolitan Toronto Reference is also a file of form letters (instructions to local account of the temperance movement to 1855 Library, Baldwin Room, broadsides collection. officials), a file of names submitted for consider• and the drinking habits against which it was Though the latter carries the banner "Published ation for appointment to new offices, and a list of arrayed, see Janet V. Noel, "Dry Millenium: Tem• Weekly, by the Whiskey Reformers' Association,"

46 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXII, No. 1 (October, 1993) Battling "the bane of our cities":

Mason's two broadsides are the only such docu• difficult to determine because several of the the provincial level" and that sectarian division ments known to survive from Toronto during this names were common ones. provided diversions from class-consciousness" period. (115). The argument is similar to Ira Katznelson's 36. Grip, 28 July 1877. in City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Pattern• 23. See Mowat and Good Government: the License ing of Class in the United States (Chicago and 37. Bengough is here alluding to another local issue: Question; Financial, Municipal, and Social. Tory London, 1981), especially Chapter 3. Katznelson the same summer, the implementation of the Attacks Disposed of. September 1882. University argues that class consciousness in U.S. cities city's first dog-licensing bylaw had led to the cap• of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library. was restricted to the shop floor because territorial ture and destruction of several hundred stray or loyalties were based not on class but on race 24. For an example of a short-lived license reduction, unlicensed dogs. and ethnicity. see Kealey, "Orangemen," 49. 38. Evening Telegram, 21 Aug. 1877. 41. Globe, 25 Aug. 1877. 25. Statutes of Ontario, 47 Vic. Cap. 34: An Act to 39. An additional point of interest is that the Leader, improve the Liquor License Laws. 42. See Mowat and Good Government. the erstwhile Tory organ, was also the publisher 26. RSO 1887, c. 194: The Liquor License Act, 13.1, chosen by the Licensed Victuallers for printing 43. Personation and other trickery Evening Telegram 13.2. The Yeas and Nays. Though a direct connection 20 Aug. 1877 and various other days. The Globe is not evident, the Leader's stand during the cam• and Christian Guardian also made claims of dirty 27. City of Toronto, Council Minutes for 1887 Appen• paign suggests not only support, as shown by tricks, but did not provide the sorts of accounts dix 10: By-law No. 1795, Respecting the issue of the Mail, but that the Leader was the Victuallers' contained in the Telegram. Full details of voting Tavern Licenses (erroneously dated 1886). See organ. procedures can be found in the Mail, 6 Aug. also By-Law 1796 which similarly limited the num• 1877. ber of liquor shop licenses to fifty. 40. I use the term "machine" here to refer to a party apparatus designed explicitly for the purpose of 44. See Report, RCLT, 753-5. 28. RCLT, minutes of testimony, Ontario, 580. attaining and reproducing power. The federal Tory and Ontario Liberal machines in Post-Con• 45. See Duis, The Saloon, chapter 6. 29. Robert Henderson, London, Ontario's License federation Ontario were both "based on the pyra• inspector, fîCLFminutes of testimony, Ontario, miding of patron-client alliances to form networks 46. For example, see the letter by "Scrutator" in the 389. of exchange in which patronage and other mate• Mail, 20 Aug. 1877. rial benefits flowed downward and electoral sup• 30. Kealey and Palmer, Dreaming, 213-15 (quote: 47. E.g. Evening Telegram, 4 Aug. 1877. 214). port flowed upward; and in both brokerage was a vital function." S.J.R. Noel, Patrons, Clients, Bro• 48. Mail, 8 Aug. 1877. 31. 27 & 28 Vic. Cap. 18, The Temperance Act, kers: Ontario Society and Politics, 1791-1896. 1864. See Ruth Spence, Prohibition in Canada (Toronto, 1990), 276. Noel uses liquor law as a 49. Globe, 29 Aug. 1877. (Toronto, 1919), 91-101. The Dunkin Act was case study of the growth of the Mowat machine replaced by the Scott Act in 1878, partly without mentioning taverns or tavern keepers; 50. Globe, 29, Aug. 1877. because the Dunkin Act, being a statute of the more importantly, he also interprets the Crooks 51. Globe, 4 Sept. 1877. Province of Canada, was restricted in its opera• Act solely in terms of underlying political motives, tion to Ontario and Québec. with little reference to temperance (281-93). As 52. Mail, 4 Aug. 1877. the present paper should make clear, the two are 32. Ontario Sessional Papers, 40 Vic. No. 42, Sched• not easily separable. Temperance must be under• 53. Mail, 4 Aug. 1877. ule F, 33. stood in terms of its class politics; Ontario poli• 54. Globe, 6 Aug. 1877. tics, whether municipal, provincial, or federal, 33. 41 Vic. Cap. 16, The Canada Temperance Act, must be understood at least partly in terms of the 1878. There were frequent amendments to this 55. Gregory S. Kealey, Toronto Workers Respond to street-level liquor trade. law. Court challenges prevented its widespread Industrial Capitalism, 1867-1892 (Toronto, 1980), Chapter 4. use until 1884. Having been carried in numerous On the federal Tory machine and the role of the rural counties in 1884 and 1885, it was repealed tavern keeper therein, see T. Brady, "Sinners and 56. Globe 29 Aug. 1877. in many of them three years later, the earliest Publicans: Sir John A. Macdonald's Trial under date permitted by the law. the Controverted Elections Act, 1874," Ontario 57. Allen, The Social Passion, 276; Graeme Decarie, History 76(1), 1984. See also Barrie Dyster, "Cap• 34. Ontario Sessional Papers, 41 Vic. no. 28, Sched• "Paved With Good Intentions: the Prohibitionists' tain Bob and the Noble Ward. Neighbourhood ule K. Road to Racism in Ontario," Ontario History and provincial politics in nineteenth-century 66(1 ), 1974. See also the Daily Mail and Empire, 35. The names of the petitioners can be found in Toronto," in Forging a Consensus, 87-115. His 2 Jan. 1909 for an excellent example. In the Licensed Victuallers'Association [LVA], The paper deals with the 1850s and 1860s, not the license reduction referendum of that year, early Yeas and Nays polled in the Dunkin Act Cam• entire century. To Dyster, "neighbourhood" is returns had shown an apparent setback for tem• paign in Toronto. Carefully compared with the offi• defined in terms of political organization, and perance forces, until "returns from the northern cial returns. With introductory remarks and vice versa. Ward bosses, tavern keepers, and and other outlying districts [of Toronto] began to extracts of speeches delivered during the cam• taverns were the people and organizations arrive. ... More and more the big lead began to paign. With an appendix. (Toronto, 1877; CIHM around which men's lives in the neighbourhood give way." "The majority against license reduc• microfiche), iv. The exact number of merchants is revolved. In his case study, Dyster finds that tion upon the last occasion of a plebiscite ... had class issues "were not yet sharply articulated at now been turned into a decided victory, and that

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in spite of the fact that there had been an influx in major role in the DunkinAct campaign, thanks to 79. On tavern locations see Might & Taylor's Toronto the last few years of many foreigners from coun• a classic contradiction: though he favoured the Directory, various years; on the Esplanade and tries still far behind our own glorious land in sentiment and motive behind the measure, he York and Terauley streets, see Night Hawks of a moral development," said the license reduction was not thoroughly convinced that it was the Great City (Toronto, 1885), a compendium of arti• committee chairman, N.S.McKendry. These "for• appropriate way to stop people from drinking. He cles from the Toronto Worldon the city's night eigners" were mostly central-city dwellers. therefore came out in support, but was not espe• life, ranging from the activities of bakers to the cially prominent. dissipations of the less respectable classes. Uni• 58. LVA, Yeas and Nays, xxi. versity of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Books 75. Mail, 3 Aug. 1877. Library. 59. Mail, 9 Aug. 1877. 76. Mail, 4 Aug. 1877. 80. See Sendbuehler,"Making Toronto the Good," 80- 60. The slogan was contained in advertisements for 2. a "grand mass meeting" held at the Rink, Ade• 77. The modified version of Katz's classification laide St., on August 11. See the Mailand the (Katz, People of Hamilton) used in this discus• 81. LVA, Yeas and Nays, xxi. Leader, various days. sion and in Table 2 is an imperfect measure of class, since drawing boundaries is bound to be 82. Globe, 24 and 25 Aug. 1877. 61. Both sides agreed on these estimates of crowd an arbitrary act to some extent. This should lead size. to extreme caution in interpreting "class" as 83. A Globe Reporter, Christmas Eve on Stanley revealed by such a classification. Nevertheless, Street(Napanee, 1868), CIHM microfiche. 62. Kealey, Toronto Workers; Kealey and Palmer, this system's use here permits comparison with Dreaming. 84. Mowat and Good Government. the male population as a whole, since Sanford 63. Kealey documents extensive worker-led activism used the same measure in "Origins of Residential 85. Certainly the existence of some of these precur• during the 1880s in Toronto Workers. Differentiation." I have compressed the six cate• sors to modern planning have been mentioned gories used by both Katz and Sanford into three, by most historians of planning, but the role of the 64. For an argument that the ward is an adequate as follows: 1) I have removed the "unclassified" state in urban development before the passage surrogate for neighbourhood, particularly on category, which was the catch-all used by both of Planning Acts has generally been down• grounds of political organization, see Dyster, authors to include women's occupations, since played. For example, see Peter W. Moore, "Zon• "Captain Bob." women were not eligible to vote; 2) I have com• ing and Planning: the Toronto Experience, bined the "semi-skilled" and "unskilled" catego• 1904-1970," in The Usable Urban Past, ed. A.F.J. 65. Mail, 13 Aug. 1877. ries; and 3) I have combined the "high" and Artibise and G.A. Stelter (Ottawa, 1979). "middle" groups. 66. Mail, 11 Aug. 1877. 86. This complaint refers to a waning trend, repre• 67. These were traditional tactics under the open bal• An admittedly crude class breakdown of the fran• sented by such infuential works as E.P. Thomp• lot. Dyster, "Captain Bob," 106 et passim; S.Noel, chise can then be inferred. Of Toronto's approxi• son, The Making of the English Working Class Patrons, Clients, Brokers, 133-4. mately 75,000 people in 1877, roughly 20,000 (Harmondsworth, 2nd. ed. 1980), Kealey, were men over 21. Of these, about 4,500 would Toronto Workers, and Palmer, A Culture in Con• 68. Evening Telegram, 16 Aug. 1877. have fallen into the semi- or unskilled category, flict: Skilled Workers and Industrial Capitalism in 8,500 into the skilled group, and 7,000 into the Hamilton, Ontario, 1860-1914 (Montreal and 69. Evening Telegram and Globe, 21 Aug. 1877. high-middle group, assuming a distribution sim• Kingston, 1980). In the interim, there has been a ilar to Sanford's calculations for 1881. Meanwhile, growing trend to a consideration of the import• 70. Meeting account reproduced in LVA, Yeas and the Mail (August 6) claimed that there were about ance of urban form and spatial aspects of social Nays xviii; vote count derived from the list of vot• 15,000 eligible voters in 1877 (see also my esti• life to class formation and social conflict, but ers in ibid. mate in note a, Table 1). Assuming, then, that all there is still a shortage of works that integrate of those in the high-middle category had the fran• 71. Mail, 21 Aug. 1877. effectively the insights of labour and working- chise, the turnout for this group was only about class history and social geography. For import• 72. Members of the Anti-Dunkin committees are 36% (2,500 votes polled out of a possible 7,000); ant steps in that direction, see Roy Rosenzweig, listed in LVA, Yeas and Nays, v. on the other hand, for the skilled and semi- or Eight Hours for What we Will: Workers and Lei• unskilled categories together, turnout was about sure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, 73. LVA, Yeas and Nays, v. 47% if the "unknown" category is not included, 1983) and Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: 56% if "unknown" is assumed to be composed Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cam• 74. Rine led a working-class temperance crusade, mostly of working-class people. (That is, between bridge, 1990). Stuart Blumin, The Emergence of aimed at saving topers through religiously-moti• 3,740 and 4,500 working-class votes were polled the Middle Class: Social Experience in the Ameri• vated total abstinence. A.J. Birrell, "D.I.K. Rine out of a possible 8,000.) can City, 1760-1900 (Cambridge, 1989), though and the Gospel Temperance Movement in Can• not about working-class culture, is perhaps the ada," Canadian Historical Review 58, 1977. Rine 78. Unfortunately, even the macro-scale evidence most fully elaborated integration of urban social was very active in Toronto in the summer of must suffer from a major lacuna: data on class geography and cultural history to date. 1877, but he does not seem to have played a structure by ward are not available.

48 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXII, No. 1 (October, 1993)