1883-11-30oo

“Theodore Stafford opened the dog pound at the Crystal Palace yesterday, and in the course of a couple of hours some six canines were in. Two men are doing the city, hunting for tagless brutes.”

“The Diurnal Epitome : What Goeth On In and About the City”

Hamilton Spectator.  November  22, 1883.

The Crystal Palace had been used for many functions since it had been officially opened twenty-three years before, when the Prince of Wales toured the building.

However, by the late fall of 1883, the wood and glass structure had seen better days and was used for a less glamorous purpose.

The City of Hamilton officials were determined that all dogs within the city limits must be tagged, and those untagged were to be captured and taken to the Crystal Palace, and if unclaimed, put down.

The dogs barking in their cages soon had some champions from the neighborhood, ready to help them:

“The enterprising west end tough is never idle. Eternally is he at mischief. He is a very guileless and innocent sort of a personage and his heart must bleed drops of sorrow and his conscience be stricken sore when he does anything wrong, but heart and conscience are both helpless to prevent his wrongdoing, and with a strange disregard for the terrors of the law, he skips gaily and blithely down the broad, pleasant path that leadeth to destruction.

“Sunday morning, there were nineteen yelping curs in the dog pound at the Crystal Palace. Large curs, small curs, medium-sized curs, white curs, black curs and brown; curs of every description almost under the sun, but all endowed with a common idea of making as much noise as possible.

“But Sunday night, the dogs were gone. Through the day sometime, the festive west ender broke open the Crystal Palace gate, smashed in the window in the dog pound and knocked the lock off the door.

“The dogs howled, no doubt, when the gang dropped in upon them unawares, but no notice was taken of the noisy manifestations. The ropes that held the dogs were carefully untied and the captured canines, released from imprisonment, fled as fast as they could.

“One or two of them have since been gathered into the arms of the blest, but the many days’ work of the dog catchers vanished Sunday as the dew drops fade away before the blushing beams of the morning sun.”¹

¹ “The Wicked West : the Locke Street Gang Let Loose the Dogs of War.”

Hamilton Spectator.     November 30, 1883.