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NO. 1.
The Toronto Daily News Library
TORONTO BY GASLIGHT.
Thrilling Sketches of the Nighthawks
of a Great City.
WRITTEN BY THE REPORTERS OF THE TORONTO NEWS.
EDMUND E. SHEPPARD.
Publisher.
PRICE
20 CENTS.
THIRD EDITION.
1885
THE NIGHT HAWKS OF A GREAT CITY, AS SEEN BY THE REPORTERS OF “THE TORONTO
NEWS.”
This series of sketches of the night side of life was commenced in THE
TORONTO DAILY NEWS on Monday, May 19th, concluding on June 7th. They are
but a sample of the interesting specialties which appear daily in THE
NEWS, which is certainly the most readable and spicy newspaper published
in Canada. Every Saturday, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage’s sermon of the Sunday
before, Clara Belle’s New York letter, a cartoon by Mr. S. Hunter, and
two columns of dramatic gossip, including many glimpses of life in the
Green Room, are regularly given, besides an endless variety of humorous
sketches, and a complete compendium of the news of the day. THE NEWS has
no Canadian rival as a first-class family newspaper, one which will be
read through every day by every member of the family.
PUBLISHED BY EDMUND E. SHEPPARD, 106 YONGE STREET TORONTO.
[Illustration: SKINNING A SUCKER.—See page 8.]
READ THE TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
TOILERS OF THE NIGHT 2
ALL-NIGHT EATING HOUSE 3
A HACKMAN’S EXPERIENCE 5
BILLIARDISTIC BOYS 6
THE GAMBLERS 7
PLUCKING THE SUCKERS 8
THE WORK OF THE CAPPERS 9
NIGGER LOO 10
SIGHTS SEEN BY THE NIGHT POLICEMAN 12
THE SERVANT GIRL’S “FELLER” 13
THE FINDERS 14
THE THIEVES 15
ALL NIGHT IN THE CELL 16
THE POLICE COURT 17
PROMENADING THE STREETS 19
“THE PIE-BITERS” AND BLACKMAILERS 20
ALL-NIGHT MEETING OF THE “SALS” 22
THE DANCE-HALLS 23
“MANNERS NONE—CUSTOMS NASTY” 24
A VAG BY CHOICE 26
THE SLUM DWELLER 28
RELEASED CONVICTS 29
GRACE MARKS; THE GIRL MURDERESS 30
THE BABY FARMS 31
IN “DE WARD” 32
A RUINED WOMAN 33
A PEST HOUSE WIPED OUT 35
SCENES ON THE RAILWAY 36
THE COFFIN ON THE NIGHT EXPRESS 36
THE EMIGRANT TRAIN 41
THE WRECKING TRAIN 42
MILLER’S FIVE-CENT PIECE 43
THE JAIL 45
THE STREET ARABS 48
HOSPITAL HORRORS 49
“NOBODY’S” BABIES 52
THE PRETTY BOY 54
“KEEPING IT OUT OF THE PAPER” 55
THE SCARLET WOMAN 57
BEHOLD THERE MET HIM A WOMAN 58
THE BAGNIO 60
A STORY OF SHAME 62
LUSTFUL REVELLERS 62
LEADING DOWN TO DEATH 63
[Illustration: BOUND FOR GLORY.—See page 22.]
TORONTO BY GASLIGHT: THE NIGHT HAWKS OF A GREAT CITY.
_Written by the Reporters of The Toronto News._
INTRODUCTION.
Night has fallen over the city. The hum of a hundred industries which
make the daytime resonant with the whirr of wheels, the clank of hammers,
and the throb of huge engines, is silent. Deserted are the factories and
workshops and warehouses, where a few hours ago all was life and stir
in the eager struggle for subsistence. The great arteries of the city’s
traffic still present a scene of animation. The stores are yet open,
and crowds, partly on business, partly on pleasure bent, throng the
sidewalks—standing densely packed at intervals round the store of some
tradesman more enterprising than his fellows, who displays amid a blaze
of light, some novel device to arrest the attention and tickle the fancy
of the passer-by. Workingmen and their wives, evidently out on a shopping
expedition, pass from one store to another in search of bargains.
Pleasure-seekers, bound for the different places of amusement, whirl past
in hacks or dismount from the humble and more economical street-car. But
the element which largely out-numbers all others is that of young men and
girls out for an evening stroll. Up and down Yonge street they pass in
parties of two and three, with frequent interchange of chaff and banter,
not always of the most refined order. There is a general aimlessness
in their demeanor as they slowly saunter along arm-in-arm, frequently
occupying the whole sidewalk, to the great annoyance of more active
pedestrians. The young fellows are mostly smoking pipes or cheap cigars
and talking loudly to their companions. Occasionally they stop for a bit
of horse-play, pushing and wrestling with each other. Now the “masher” is
in all his glory. It is not often that any self-respecting girl who goes
on her way quietly is accosted, but any lightness of demeanor on the part
of a young woman alone on the street is pretty certain to expose her to
the attentions of some lounger bedecked with cheap jewelry, who prides
himself on his fascinating powers and has an ever-ready “Good evening,
miss!” for any member of the fair sex not positively bad-looking, whose
appearance gives him courage to make an approach.
THE MASHER
is of all ages and stations. It is only the more reckless and less
experienced who venture to accost a stranger on the street without a
reasonable excuse. The old hands at the business who occupy respectable
positions in society generally assume a previous acquaintance, and if
their advances are not favorably received there is the ready excuse
of mistaken identity, “I really beg your pardon, I took you for Miss
So-and-So,” etc., and exit under cover of profuse apologies.
During the earlier hours of the evening there are kaleidoscopic changes
of scene. Sensations of all kinds draw the crowd hither and thither.
An arrest, an alarm of fire, with the rush of the engines and hook and
ladder wagons tearing like mad through the streets, a march out of the
volunteers with the inspiriting martial music of the band—any of these
distractions sift out the younger and more excitable element, who follow
at the top of their speed, leaving the streets half deserted. There is
nothing delights the rougher element more than to see an unfortunate
who has been imbibing too freely “run in.” A blue coat in charge of
anybody in fact always draws, particularly if the delinquent is noisy
and obstreperous. And a fire is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
At the first alarm the saunterers are all animation. “Where is it?”
is the question on everyone’s tongue, and as soon as the locality is
defined, away they go—fortunate if they arrive before the firemen cease
playing, for under the fire alarm system a conflagration has very little
opportunity of making headway.
Of late the Salvation Army is a frequent element in diversifying the life
of the streets after nightfall. Its parades invariably attract a crowd of
strollers, many of them of a class whom the ministrations of the regular
religious bodies do not reach. Their banners and uniform, their marching
music, and the stentorian voices of their street preachers have by this
time become a recognized and familiar feature of city life, and though
the novelty of their advent has worn off the people manifest as much
interest as ever in their sayings and doings. Their parade in the middle
of the street is accompanied by simultaneous parallel processions of a
less orderly character on the sidewalks. Whatever may be thought of the
ultimate effect of this manner of presenting religion to the mass, there
is no question that it arrests their attention.
As the night advances, the crowd thins out.
THE STREET-LOUNGERS,
male and female, disappear one by one, the stores have closed their
doors, until the only places which show signs of business activity are
here and there a saloon or a tobacco store, which may or may not have a
keg of lager on tap in the back-room or a “little game” upstairs. Now
the streets again assume for a few minutes a lively aspect as the places
of amusement are emptied of their audiences. Overladen street cars make
their final trips, toiling wearily up the ascent with frequent stoppages
as the suburbs are neared. And now the streets are almost deserted
again. Stray pedestrians hurry or totter homeward. The saloon lights are
extinguished, but acute ears can still hear the clink of glasses and
the subdued conversation of groups of revellers who are bound to make
a night of it, and are cheerfully fuddling themselves in a back room.
The wearied bar-keeper will let them out by a side door in an hour or
two. He will breathe a heartfelt sigh of relief as they stumble over the
threshold, and slipping the bolt with alacrity, to prevent any other
belated seeker after the ardent gaining entrance, he will knock down
about half of the cash the party have left, and congratulate himself on
his honesty in leaving so much for his employer.
One o’clock. The city sleeps. The few stragglers on the streets only
serve to make the general impression of silence and solitude the more
vivid by contrast. Here and there is a pedestrian on his homeward way,
or perhaps a party of two or three late roysterers laughing and bursting
into snatches of song, but growing suddenly silent and bracing up as
the measured tread of the blue-coated guardian of the night approaches.
Now and then a stray hack rumbles by, the noise of the wheels gradually
dying away in the distance and leaving no other sound audible. The night
watchman passes, carefully trying the doors of the stores and halting
for a friendly chat with the policeman on the corner of the block.
The puffing of the locomotive or steamboat engine a mile or two away,
inaudible during the day-time, sounds strangely near. Up and down the
long stretches of sidewalk hardly anyone is in sight. It is like a city
of the dead. The cold steely-blue brilliancy of the electric light makes
the darkness around their radiant circle seem denser and throws the
dark shadows of intervening objects across the street. The long rows of
gas-lamps on the side streets “pale their ineffectual fires” and present
but a sickly glimmer by contrast, and overhead shine the eternal stars,
whose distant scintillations amid the silence and darkness of midnight
have ever had power to speak from the soul of things to the soul of
man, and suggest the ever-old yet ever-new problems of life and destiny
unheard and unheeded amid the distractions of the day.
CHAPTER I.
THE TOILERS OF THE NIGHT.
When the streets leading from the center of the city are full of people
hurrying gleefully or otherwise homewards from their day’s toil, there is
another small section of the community who are hurrying in the opposite
direction. These men begin to work when all others have ceased. The
morning newspaper employes, the telegraph operators, the bakers, the
policemen, and the nightwatchmen are the most important divisions of
these toilers of the night.
In connection with the different newspaper establishments in the city
there are probably about 600 persons employed at night. These include
compositors, pressmen, stereotypers, mailing clerks, editors, reporters,
and route boys. All do not work during the same hours, but some portions
of their various tasks are accomplished when “Night draws her sable
mantle around and pins it with a star.” The compositors begin “setting”
about 7 o’clock and cease about 3. This does not comprise the whole
of their work, however, as the next day they spend two or three hours
filling up the cases which they did their best to empty the night
before. It is an exceedingly see-saw business—undoing in the day what
they performed in the night. The work is entirely by the piece, and a
fast hand makes a good wage to reward him for his toil, but this wage
represents twelve or thirteen hours of labor in the large establishments.
Many of the men think that it would be better to
RESTRICT THE HOURS OF TOIL
to ten, as they claim that bosses don’t look at the number of hours
worked, but at the money earned. The hours of the literary staff of a
morning paper are fitful and uncertain, but the general rule is that
when you are awake you had better go to work. The stereotypers get to
their cauldrons of boiling lead shortly after midnight, and the pressmen
are at their post about 3.30—just when the typo is washing his hands
and preparing to leave. The mailing clerks are the next to put in an
appearance, and almost simultaneously the little route-boy slips through
the door, prepared for his morning tramp.
About sixty-five policemen hold watch over the sleeping city by night.
Their work varies in winter and summer. Just now they remain on beat
eight hours at a stretch. In winter they are on three hours, off three
hours, and on again for the same length of time. Their work and its
incidents will form the topic of another of these sketches.
The next most important body of men, and probably more numerous, is
the bakers. It is calculated that about 300 persons find employment in
supplying our citizens with their bread. All of these, however, do not
work at night. Their labor begins about three o’clock, and they may be
seen about that hour in their floury garments hieing them to their shops.
Their work is performed in very hot rooms, and is on the whole
LABORIOUS AND MONOTONOUS.
On their skill depends one of the greatest luxuries of the table—a
well baked loaf of bread—and to their credit be it said, success very
frequently crowns their efforts.
The telegraph operators who work at night do not average over a dozen
men. This staff is lessened or increased very much in sympathy with the
quantity of dispatches which are coming in to the morning papers. When
any great event is transpiring in another land or another part of this
country, and long messages are coming in concerning it, the staff has to
be increased, and for this purpose men are drafted from the day staff.
It is an unhealthy business. In most mortality-tables, the life of the
operator shows the shortest average. Not long ago they struck for higher
wages and made a plucky fight, but monopoly was too much for them. Ever
since they have had the screws put on them pretty tightly. Reductions in
the staff and reductions in the salaries have been the order of the day.
In view of these facts some of them think that it is a good thing they
don’t live too long.
These are briefly the main facts connected with the toilers of the night,
men who work while the rest of the world are asleep—asleep feeling
assured that the telegrapher is gathering in for them the news of the
world, and that the newspaper men are printing it for them, that the
baker is preparing for them the breakfast roll, and that the policeman is
watching over their lives and their property, and keeping his weather eye
on those other people of the night, whom we are pleased to designate the
Hawks.