‘A carnival of crime’ hits the Royal City
An “epidemic of crime” was plaguing New Westminster on Nov. 9, 1888. And things weren’t so rosy in Victoria, either.
“A CARNIVAL OF CRIME IN THE ROYAL CITY,” blared a frontpage headline in the Vancouver Daily World. “Sneak Thieves and Footpads at Work.”
The Oxford dictionary defines a footpad as “a highwayman operating on foot rather than riding a horse.” Alas, both “footpad” and “highwayman” have fallen from daily use — basically it’s slang for a bad guy who held somebody up with a gun.
In this case, a trio of no-goodniks accosted New West merchant Henry Harvey in his general store at 349 Front St. on Nov. 6, “commanding him to hold up his hands.”
Harvey refused, so “the ruffians fired three shots, wounding him, and then decamped.” But they didn’t get far — four men were quickly arrested. The case went before the courts two days later.
“There were several suspicious circumstances connected with these men, all of whom are ex-jailbirds,” the World reported. “Their clothing bore traces that they had evidently been out late the night of the outrage, and it may be remarked that the bullets fired at Mr. Harvey corresponded with the pistols belonging to the men under arrest.”
But Harvey was unable to identify the footpads who had tried to rob him, so the accused men were set free. This upset the World’s New Westminster correspondent, who wrote “the question of law and order in this city is becoming a serious one.”
The anonymous correspondent called on New West to put on extra police patrol at night to deter ne’er-do-wells like the “sneak thieves” who had executed a “cool and daring ” heist at the Royal City Planing Mills. “Clothing, boots, etc., were taken in large quantities,” they wrote, “and among the other items of vanished goods may be mentioned $150 worth of tobacco.”
The correspondent also reported the attempted mugging of a guy named Robertson, “who had a tough fight with two ruffians whilst he was escorting a lady from the Odd Fellows Hall. He received an ugly wound from a knife, but succeeded in besting his assailants.”
Over in Victoria, meanwhile, a “short, thick-set man” had demanded the landlady at the Northern Hotel open the till at the bar and give him the cash.
It was about two in the morning. The Victoria Daily Times reported she told him “there is no money in the till, I took it out a few minutes ago and put it in my stocking. If you want it you must excuse me for a minute.”
She then “glided around the billiard table and made a pretence at extracting the money.” She grabbed a pool cue and “struck the intruder a stinging blow in the face which marred his visage and caused his borrowed moustache to collapse.”
“Staggering from the blow he reeled and made for the door, ( but) as he was about to step upon the threshold the cue descended a second time upon his head and he fell to the platform with a groan of ‘Oh my God!’”
The hotelkeeper thought she’d killed him and was found “in hysterics” by two of her boarders. But the villain had woken up and made off into the night.
A fellow in Dresden, Ont., wasn’t so lucky. The World carried a small story on Nov. 9, 1888 saying a man named Scott “was in the habit of getting intoxicated when in town and going home and abusing his wife shamefully. Last night she procured an ax, or club, and going to bed beat him to death with it.”
The story concluded “she is insane.”
The same edition of the World carried a story out of London it dubbed “Whitechapel Horror.”
“Another mutilated body of a woman was found this morning in a house on Dorset Street,” said the World. “The murder was committed in the woman’s own room and the body was cut up in a horrible manner. This is undoubtedly a repetition of a series of woman murders in Whitechapel. The victim had a husband, but led a life of abandonment. The woman’s name is believed to be Lizzie Fisher, nicknamed ‘Mary Jane.’”
In fact the poor soul was Mary Jane Kelly, the fifth victim of a serial killer who came to be known as Jack The Ripper.
The World reported that bloodhounds had been taken to the scene “and are working on the trail of the murderer.” But no one was ever caught or prosecuted for the five murders in Whitechapel in 1888.