A shocking and haunting hanging took place in Montreal after the 1837 Rebellion but only made news across North American when the event was described by an eyewitness five decades later.
Rather than having the condemned fall through a trap door with a rope around their necks, soldiers executed prisoners by pulling the ropes upwards.
Delacroix managed to slip his stump out of the knot and loosened the rope around his neck before crying out "Mon dieu! Mon dieu!"
A Montreal Gazette article I had discovered years ago also revealed the not-well-known fact that there had once been a gallows located at the northwest corner of Guy and Dorchester (later renamed Blvd. Rene Levesque) near where a cross currently stands on the former property of the Grey Nuns, the buildings of which have recently been acquired, restored, and renovated by Concordia University for its use.
ReplyDeleteSee also: https://montrealgazette.com/sponsored/mtl-375th/from-the-archive-by-1960-wed-had-enough-rope
and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Nuns_Motherhouse
In a hanging properly done the fall is suposed to cause the neck to snap causing instant death, this was surly a more cruel form of punishment.
ReplyDeleteTabloids.
ReplyDeleteYears ago the French Tabloids featured many eye-opening visuals and these publications would sometimes be left on Tramways' streetcars and Autobuses by previous riders. As children we were forbidden to look at them account their content.
One issue showed a destroyed house in the outliers of Quebec it having been consumed by fire, apparently caused because the children were cold and had turned up the oil stove, the stove pipes ( remember them ) becoming red hot, and a chimney fire resulted.
One type of oil stove had a glass bottle on the rear, similar to those on a water cooler, with air bubbling up thru the oil inside, much to the amusement of the younger kids, and the cat, the latter who was always near the stove for it's radiant heat. The bottle was refilled from a tank in the wood shed.
Anyway, one of the photos showed a Fireman holding a long-tine fork, sometimes used to sift coal from dust, upon which was a calcined spinal column and ribs.
Text said it was the remains of one of the 13 children killed in the fire.
Doubters said it was a dog.
Adults were at the Taverne, it being Saturday night, watching Les Habs on Chanel 2, CBFT.
I had dreams about the photo long after.
Happened at least once, every winter.
An old friend of my parents burned to death in his house, it of the oil bottle stove, near Crabtree Mills c. 1960.
We used to travel there by car, tire chains mandatory, and leave the auto at the next farm as steep hill to climb, and even with chains you might not make it.
Long time ago.
Thank You.