Fowl stew for den of thieves

Friday, 22 January 2010 05:00

January 22, 1896. The Montreal Star describes a den of thieves who steal chickens and knock down and rob people.

In St. Constant Street near Ontario [Street], is a dingy cellar into which the sun’s rays very seldom penetrate. In this cellar is an old filthy bed of straw, and in the centre of the apartment stands a stove, rudely made of four pieces of stove-piping. The smoke is conveyed out of the building by a zigzag old pipe, small at one end and very large at the other. This place is the headquarters of a gang of thieves who devote their attention principally to hen roosts and clotheslines. Sometimes when two or three of the gang are together, a lonely individual is knocked down and relieved of his watch.

One day not long ago one of the party was arrested on suspicion of having a part in a robbery lately committed. He told the detectives the history of the cellar. The night before his arrest they had a royal supper, the bill of fare being a savoury stew composed of eight hens, two turkeys and two ducks… It is hoped that the last feast has been enjoyed, and the neck of the last hen wrung.