1914-12-01po

At the Hamilton Police Court sessions, there was rarely a shortage of interesting cases and characters for the reporters to describe. For many readers of the Hamilton press, the accounts of the Hamilton Police Court were the first to be read.

The Spectator accounts of the Hamilton Police Court sessions of December 1st and 2^nd proved excellent examples of the ongoing show that at the King William street court room.

The Spectator account of the December 1, 1914 began as follows :

“It is a usual thing at police court these days when the magistrate imposes a fine to have the victim gloomily reply: ‘I don’t know how I can pay. I haven’t a cent. This comeback is beginning to weary the magistrate and when Mrs.Solomon Rocken pulled it on him today, his worship gave her some advice.

“ ‘You don’t look like a woman suffering because of poverty. Those rings you’re wearing ought to be worth some money – enough to pay the fine, anyway,’ sharply retorted the magistrate.

“ ‘One of them’s her wedding ring; the others don’t amount to much,’ explained Mr. Yarosh, court interpreter.

“ ‘That’s the big drawback to these imitation diamonds. A person can’t realize much on them,’ added the magistrate.

“Mrs. Rocken was fined $2 for allowing her boy to sell papers on the street after 9 o’clock. She said she had to send him out to make money because her husband had not worked in four months.

“Unless she pays the fine, she will spend three days in jail.”¹

¹ “Boy Sold Papers Late at Night : Magistrate Fined His mother $2 This Morning.”

Hamilton Spectator. December 1, 1914.

So many residents of Hamilton in 1914 were recent immigrants that it had been necessary to have not one but two court reporters on hand to help the magistrate in dealing with cases involving those “foreigners.”

On December 1, 1914, Magistrate Jelfs expressed his annoyance at how the court interpreters were conducting themselves in his court room:

“Interpreters Yarosh and Taylor had a merry battle when Joe Suliman and Carlo Perpetti were charged by Any Polowitz with assault. Yarosh twisted the defendant’s lingo into English and Taylor acted in a like capacity for the complainant.

“After three-quarters of an hour, the magistrate decided that they were acting as counsel, rather than interpreters, and he told them so.

“ ‘There nothing in the case anyway, but it struck me that the interpreters were too greatly interested. I will dismiss this case,’ said the magistrate.”¹

In other cases, Fred Meek was fined $5 for keeping his pool room open after the legislated closing hour of 11 p.m. Police Constable Chamberlain  neared the pool room while walking his beat. As he paused, he heard the click of the ivories, indicating that the tables were still in use.

Harry Petit was fined $4 for trespassing on the property of the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway. Petit and some companions had been found in the grounds of the Hamilton Cemetery and seen throwing stones at T.H. & B. property, where the line passed below the cemetery and beside Coote’s Paradise.

 Petit was the only one of the gang apprehended, and he was told that his fine would be reduced were he to identify his companions.

Sarah Berger, 45 Stuart street and Mrs. Nellie Budd, 268 Macnab Street north were near-neighbors, but did not have a friendly relationship. They got into a scrap over a baby buggy, which Mrs. Berger claimed had been stolen from her yard. Mrs. Budd in turn attacked Mrs. Berger and pulled great wads of her hair out by the roots. Mrs. Berger dramatically approached the magistrate’s bench and pulled some of her own hair from her head. She placed the hair on the magistrate’s throne to show just how it happened.

Magistrate Jelfs fined both ladies $5.

The final case involved William Smith who had become “tight as a new show” the previous afternoon.

Police Constable McGavin spotted him:

“Smith might have got away with the jag if he had not tried to sing. Drunk and disorderly was the charge and $2 the assessment.”¹

The next day’s docket was short but interesting:

“Some queer customers drift into the exhibit booth nat police court, and Bob Watson, of Welland, is probably the queerest of the lot.

“He is as bald as a billiard ball – and that’s some bald – but even might have escaped with slight reference if Bob had not walked into a novelty store on King street east yesterday afternoon and stole three combs, a hair brush and two cakes of shampoo soap.

“A clerk told the floor manager, she saw Watson slip the articles into his pocket, the floor manager told the police., the police told the magistrate and Harry Headland, caretaker extraordinary, told the bell in the station belfry.

“The magistrate inspected the combs, brush and shampoo and then transferred his gaze to Watson’s polished dome, glinting beneath the electric light like a highly polished ostrich egg.

“ ‘Tell me what use were you going to put these articles to?’ queried the magistrate.

“ ‘I don’t know – I might have used them on me moustache. There’s of no earthly use to me bean,’ sighed Watson, burnishing his nude brainpan with the palm of his right hand.”²

² “Bob Watson is Queer Customer : Not a Single Hair Adorns His Shining Dome :Yet He Stole Combs, Brush and Shampoo Soap.”

Hamilton Spectator. December 2, 1914.

Upon further questioning by the magistrate, it was learned that Watson had drifted in Hamilton from Welland and by his answers the magistrate felt that maybe Watson was demented. The bald defendant was remanded in custody and the police were directed to make enquiries in WElland about Watson’s status there.

The only other case involved E. Clark, of 297 Grosvenor avenue, who had been charged with willfully killing a chicken belonging to Anthony Banks. The dead bird was found in Clark’s back yard:

“ ‘I didn’t kill it, but I warned him early in the summer that I would kill his chickens if he didn’t keep them out of my yard,’ said Clark.

“ ‘If you did that, he has no claim on you. After you’ve given the owner warning, you can kill every chicken that comes into your yard,’ advised the magistrate, dismissing the case.”²

Rarely a dull moment for Police Magistrate Jelfs as he went about his daily duties.