‘Pardon Tales’ from Magistrate’s Court: Women, Crime, and the Court in Peterborough County, 1920–50

'Pardon Tales' from Magistrate'sCourt: Women, Grime, and the Court in PeterboroughCounty, 1920-50 JOAN SANGSTER iN 1929 A GROUP OFMENANDWOMEN facedPeterborough's magistrateafter policehad intervened in a particularly loudand raucous party.Charged withbeing found in a disorderly house, themenand womentried to convince the magistrate to be aslenientaspossible. The men basedtheir pleasfor tolerance on their statusas wageearning , respectable married menwithfamilies to support, andthis being a firstoffence in anotherwise morallife.Themagistrate, however ,enforcedfines,pointingout that mere attendance at a party wherethere wasalcoholand youngsinglewomensignified their 'neglect ofduty'totheirfamilies? Fortheyoung women, theimage of the hard-working familymandidn'tpromise leniency; instead, theirpleas were based onmercy, na'ivety, andrepentance. Claiming theyhadnever beenin such an embarrassing situation, andthey were'verysorryandwouldneverdo it again ': thewomen were allowed togoaftera stern lecture onmorality fromthemagistrate. These disorderly house arrests illustrate howmenandwomen employed different defences toprove theirinnocence orjustify their crime, andhowthecourt responded withjudgments shaped bythe I amindebted toMarg Phillips, whose research assistance was essential tomyinterpretafion ofthequantitative data in thisarticle. Thanks also toKaren Dubinsky, Elwood Jones, and Ken Cruikshank, who commented onanearlier draft; toBob Beal forhelp with thegraphs; andespedally tomyHalifax colleagues, Judith Fingard, Frances Early, Janet Guildford, and Jane Parpart, who offered critidsms, comments, and support during mysabbatical. Thanks finally toDavid, who endured myendless tales ofMayHillwhileI wrote this artSde. 1 Peterborough Examiner (hereafter Examiner), 30Dec.1929 2 Ibid. Canadian H/stor/ca/Rev/rw, LXXIV, 2, 1993 0008-3755/93/0600-0161 $01.25/0¸ University ofTorontoPress 162 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW dominant socialdefinitionsof normal and proper gender roles.An analysis ofthewomenmostlikelyto comebeforeMagistrate's Court, thecourt'sclaimto 'knowledge' aboutwomen's crimes, and women's owninterpretations anddefences of theircrimes arethethreethemes of this article. Whileaquantitative analysis ofwomen arrested in theperiodfrom 1920to 1950emphasizes boththe economic and social marginality framingthesewomen's lives,and the importance of changingpolicing concerns aboutthe verydefinitions of crime,the knowledge of women'scriminalityclaimedby the magistrate and other legalexpertsexposes competing discourses, onestressing the environmental causes, the other the inevitableseedsof immoralitybehind female law-breaking.Legal experts'explanations for women'scriminality wereshaped byshifting class andgenderpowerrelations, by cultural traditions,and by moral anxieties. Althoughthesedefinitionsdid alter overthesedecades, theyconsistently reflectedsocial,economic, andgenderexpectations rootedin theestablished powerrelations of class and patriarchy. Finally,women's own interpretations of their lawbreaking are of specialinterest.Though sometimes represented by counsel,many women spokealone,and evenwomenwith lawyershelped to construct their defence.'While newspaperaccountsoffer a slanted versionof their stories, fashioned for thepaper'srespectable readership ,women's ownvoices andagencyarestillvisible,oftenrevealing women'sattemptsto shapethe court'sagenda. Indeed, the very subjectivity of women'sstories may offerus the richestinsightsinto how womenperceivedand tried to controlthe magistrate's justice meted out to them. As Natalie Zemon Davis argues for women defendants in an earliertimeperiod,women'shaped and moulded' their storieswith 'carefulchoiceof language,detailand order to presentan accountthat seemedmeaningfuland explanatory. '• In manycases, women's stories incorporated accepted themes of femininity and repentance, implyingthe needfor leniencyand a second chance.Fewerwomen,thoughquiteawareof whatwasexpected, mockedor evenrejected the knowledge of experts. Their challenges to the courtspeakto a currentof resistance oftenforgottenin the historyof womenand crime. 3 I always notethiswhena lawyeris involved. 4 Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives:Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France(Stanford1987), 3 'PARDON TALES' FROM MAGISTRATE'S COURT 163 FEMALE ARRESTS AND MALE MAGISTRATES Previous examinations of women and crime in Canada have focused on women in conflictwith the law in large urban centresin the nineteenthand earlytwentiethcenturies, and sometimes on pivotal trialsin the highercourts? My intentionis to refocus our sights on womenfrom a smallcityand its rural hinterlandwhoare brought beforeMagistrates Courtin the mid twentiethcentury.For over90 percentof theOntariowomen arrested at thistime,justicestarted and ended with the magistrate, 6 who tried almostall summary offenses,as well as some felonies, and drafted indictmentsfor cases 5 Sources areobviously betterfor thehighercourts. Evenoverviews of female offenders , such asD. OwenCarrigan, Crime and Punishment inCanada: A Histo•(Toronto1991 ), chap. 5,tendtostress sensational trials. Most studies focus onthelate nineteenth andearlytwentieth centuries, drawing on quantitative sources or on records lettbyreformers. Some also examine thefamilial andcultural background of criminals. Forthelattersee JudithFingard, Th•DarkSide ofVictorian Halifax (Porters Lake, •4s I989),andCarolyn Strange, 'TheVelvet Glove: Maternalistic ReformattheAndrew Mercer Reformatory forFemales, 1874-1927' (M•thesis, University ofOttawa 1983). Other Canadian literature includes B.Jane Price, 'Raised in Rockhead, Diedin thePoorHouse:Female PettyCriminals in Halifax,186490 ,'in PhilipGirardandJimPhillips, eds., Essays inthe History ofCanadian Law: NovaScotia...