A Montreal journalist wrote an article so bad that he was ordered to spend one year in prison, without any criminal trial or legal conviction.
If this seems alarming, that's because it is, as it sets a precedent that any Quebec resident could conceivably be put behind bars simply for displeasing elected provincial authorities.
John H. Roberts was born in Wales and moved from England to Montreal in 1907 in the loudest possible way.
His plan was to tour Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and South Africa to battle alcohol but it seemed he largely stayed in Montreal.
On every occasion he offered all-you-can-hear helpings of fiery oratory to small crowds in such places as Dominion Square from 1909, when he was aged about 45 to 50.
Roberts, already a veteran anti-alcohol crusader, after founding the National Independent Temperance Party in Yorkshire, England in 1904. The group persuaded judges to set aside sentences to drunks who vow to stop drinking, and the practice caught on across the U.K.
In Montreal he railed against alcohol, as a member of the Good Templars, an anti-alcohol group that for a time had a significant foothold in Montreal. (They've disappeared from Canada but maintain a presence abroad).
Membership floundered so he jumped to the Dominion Alliance, which did pretty much the same thing.
In one instance a gang of thugs attacked him while giving a talk in a vacant lot at Beaubien and Christophe Colombe in June 1913.
According to an unsigned editorial in the Calgary Herald in 1923.
When officers asked to see his permit to hold a public meeting on Mount Royal in 1912. He defied them, suggesting they instead take aim at the real miscreants they were turning a blind eye towards.
Roberts's wife Martha Kenyon (1865-1963) was also vigilant, as she spoke out against pornographic postcards floating around the city in an address to the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
Roberts ran for city council in 1917 but didn't come close to beating his opponent, the well-known Billy Weldon.
Roberts rejoiced when the province passed a form of prohibition in May 1919, but the booze ban was partial and was later repealed.
Roberts skedaddled for New Zealand, where he fought against the right to drink booze.
He returned after three years and launched The Axe newspaper on 13 January 1922 with a sub-headline "lay the axe at the foot of the tree." It supposedly had a circulation of 60,000 by 1923.
He claimed that he had returned to Montreal because he wanted to fight against booze.
(All 33 editions of the huff-and-puff bluster of Roberts' The Axe weekly newspaper are available online at the BANQ site.).
Roberts ramped up the outrage in each edition, brazenly pointing fingers, insinuating corruption and malfeasance among police, bank officials and anybody else he could take aim at.
Roberts, doubtlessly encouraged and emboldened by support from his co-religionists, also made many enemies.
He took aim at low wages given to female employees at Goodwin's department store with a headline "Girl Slaves at Goodwin's" and decried that two Jewish girls (Eva Gill and Dorothy Gilmore) were fired for taking a Jewish religious holiday off. The edition was a hit.
But the next week police detained Roberts on 18 October 1922 in connection with a libel complaint filed by the stockbroking firm of Logan and Bryan.
His troubles were only getting started. The tipping point came a few days later.
Roberts published an accusatory article on 27 October 1922 typed with CAPS LOCK entitled "Blanche Garneau's Blood Cries Aloud for vengeance."
It would prove problematic.
***
So who was Blanche Garneau and why did her blood cry for vengeance?
In short, Garneau was a 21-year-old woman in Quebec City who was raped and strangled to death in a Quebec City park.
In long, Blanche Garneau was raised, along with her sister, by her uncle, who was not wealthy. On 22 July 1920, she closed the teahouse where she worked on St. Vallier street and walked home with a friend who left her at the Parent Bridge. She continued alone through Victoria Park where she was assaulted and killed near the riverside.
Her body was discovered but for reasons unclear, police investigator Laureat Lacasse took a few days to show up to examine the crime scene and left swiftly after arriving.
The park groundskeeper told journalists that her assailants must have come to the spot by boat and news reports soon championed this unlikely notion.
Police arrested and charged Raoul Binet and William Palmer but their prosecution fell apart in the fall of 1921, as the Crown was unable to even establish that either were even in Quebec City at the time.
Popular frustration at the ineffective police and prosecturorial work fed various conspiracy theories.
People started suggesting that high-ranking provincial government officials close to Liberal Premier Louis-Alexandre Taschereau were involved in some sort of cover-up.
The rival Conservatives fed this notion while campaigning for a by-election and it wasn't far from anybody's mind when the parliamentary session opened on 24 October 1922.
Roberts was brazen in his accusations published in The Axe a few days later. He offered a $5,000 reward to anybody who could turn up the killer.
Roberts was arrested and taken to Quebec City by the Sergeant at Arms and forced to testify at a special hearing at the National Assembly (provincial legislature) on 2 November 1922.
Roberts, upon counsel of his lawyer, refused to explain or justify his article. He simply pleaded his goodwill in the effort to solve a terrible crime.
The assembly declared Roberts in contempt for refusing to name the two members he claimed were involved in the murder.
According to British law, the provincial authorities only had the right to imprison Roberts for the duration of the session but Premier Taschereau considered that too soft a punishment, so he tabled Bill 31, specifically designed to imprison Roberts for one year.
It wasn't the first time they had done such a thing to a journalist.
The Quebec government had imprisoned Montreal publisher Olivar Asselin for 24 hours in the legislature in 1907 for having printed what they considered defamatory articles in his paper Le Nationaliste.
The Conservative opposition hesitated to go along with Roberts' punishment, even though they shared Taschereau's distaste for the man.
The bill was passed on 14 November and Taschereau swore that he'd defend it to the highest authorities in London if required.
Before becoming law, the bill needed to pass a second reading in the upper chamber and some representatives, like Narcisse Perodeau applauded it and suggested it should go "even further."
However Thomas Chapais, the well-respected Conservative MNA for the Laurentians, saw the legislation as problematic.
Chapais, a 64-year-old veteran with 30 years experience in the Quebec legislature, was a powerful voice. He had served in the top levels of cabinet and edited the Courrier du Canada newspaper. He had once singlehandedly blocked a cornerstone legislation presented by the Liberals in 1897. Ears opened when he spoke.
Chapais entitled his speech "requisitoire sur un ton d'un dignite parfait" and argued to put off the legislation, citing unfortunate precedents in the jailing of editors Daniel Tracey of The Vindicator and Ludger Duvernay of La Minerve in 1832, who were forced behind bars for an entire parliamentary session.
Chapais expressed doubts that the legislature had the authority to do the same to Roberts.
All during this time Roberts was in house custody, being offered hospitality in the form of good food and free cigars. This changed, however, when he was put inside a real prison after the bill became law.
The law was entitled "An act to amend the Revised Statues, 1909 and to provide for the imprisonment of John H. Roberts"
Roberts began his jail sentence on 30 December 1922. His newspaper continued publishing with him behind bars.
Groups such as the Canadian Labor Party slammed the government for jailing Roberts "before giving him the right to appear before a public court."
In December 1922 Arthur Sauve brought forward a motion to repeal the bill condemning Roberts to one year in jail, as he stated that it "violated the privleges of the house."
In April 1923 Leslie Roberts petitioned the federal government in Ottawa to have his father freed on the basis that he was "condemned without trial."
Soon after his release New York authorities charged him with grand larceny, claiming he had written three cheques to his son Leslie M. Roberts, of an amount totalling $965.
Roberts later traveled to New York to fight the charges but it's unclear what became of that affair.
Roberts was released from prison after serving 103 days in prison on 12 April 1923. He never apologized for his article.
Within a few weeks Roberts spoke to an audience about his "distinction of being the only man in the British Empire and probably in the whole world for whom a special law existed providing for his imprisonment."
His paper went broke soon after and its equipment seized for debt.
Not much was heard from Roberts after this and even his dates of birth and death remain unknown, although he was likely born around 1865 and clearly died anytime before 1963.
His son Leslie M. Roberts became a notable Montreal newsman, as did Leslie's namesake grandson, who was on radio in Montreal last we listened.
Quebec authorities announced in late 1922 that many fellow inmates witnesses had come forward to note that Binet, who had been acquitted of the crime, had later confessed to killing Garneau but he was not retried for the crime.
 |
| Roberts |
John H. Roberts was born in Wales and moved from England to Montreal in 1907 in the loudest possible way.
His plan was to tour Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and South Africa to battle alcohol but it seemed he largely stayed in Montreal.
On every occasion he offered all-you-can-hear helpings of fiery oratory to small crowds in such places as Dominion Square from 1909, when he was aged about 45 to 50.
Roberts, already a veteran anti-alcohol crusader, after founding the National Independent Temperance Party in Yorkshire, England in 1904. The group persuaded judges to set aside sentences to drunks who vow to stop drinking, and the practice caught on across the U.K.
In Montreal he railed against alcohol, as a member of the Good Templars, an anti-alcohol group that for a time had a significant foothold in Montreal. (They've disappeared from Canada but maintain a presence abroad).
Membership floundered so he jumped to the Dominion Alliance, which did pretty much the same thing.
In one instance a gang of thugs attacked him while giving a talk in a vacant lot at Beaubien and Christophe Colombe in June 1913.
According to an unsigned editorial in the Calgary Herald in 1923.
When he hit a town he always organized a parade into the saloon district. He spoke best with infuriated bartenders hurling kegs of beer at him. He soon made himself, in certain, not quite the most selected, circles, the best hated man in Montreal. When he set out to raid a place he had the Northwest Mounted Police habit of bringing in his man. Twice inside a fortnight he was blackjacked by the gangsters and it took a squad of police to get his inanimate body off the field of combat to the nearest drug store.Roberts took frequent aim at politicians and police, who he accused of turning a blind eye to various illegal bars, gambling dens and whorehouses.
Once in Sherbrooke he had, if not as rough, at least a wetter passage, for he was ducked in the Magog river.
In 1918 he was accused of accepting $300 for illegal protection. His accuser was arrested for perjury and Roberts was vindicated by his temperance activities suddenly and considerably slackened. After a period of comparative inaction he blossomed out into an editor and his present brand of fame.
When officers asked to see his permit to hold a public meeting on Mount Royal in 1912. He defied them, suggesting they instead take aim at the real miscreants they were turning a blind eye towards.
Roberts's wife Martha Kenyon (1865-1963) was also vigilant, as she spoke out against pornographic postcards floating around the city in an address to the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
Roberts ran for city council in 1917 but didn't come close to beating his opponent, the well-known Billy Weldon.
Roberts rejoiced when the province passed a form of prohibition in May 1919, but the booze ban was partial and was later repealed.
Roberts skedaddled for New Zealand, where he fought against the right to drink booze.
He returned after three years and launched The Axe newspaper on 13 January 1922 with a sub-headline "lay the axe at the foot of the tree." It supposedly had a circulation of 60,000 by 1923.
He claimed that he had returned to Montreal because he wanted to fight against booze.
 |
| Garneau |
Roberts ramped up the outrage in each edition, brazenly pointing fingers, insinuating corruption and malfeasance among police, bank officials and anybody else he could take aim at.
Roberts, doubtlessly encouraged and emboldened by support from his co-religionists, also made many enemies.
He took aim at low wages given to female employees at Goodwin's department store with a headline "Girl Slaves at Goodwin's" and decried that two Jewish girls (Eva Gill and Dorothy Gilmore) were fired for taking a Jewish religious holiday off. The edition was a hit.
But the next week police detained Roberts on 18 October 1922 in connection with a libel complaint filed by the stockbroking firm of Logan and Bryan.
His troubles were only getting started. The tipping point came a few days later.
Roberts published an accusatory article on 27 October 1922 typed with CAPS LOCK entitled "Blanche Garneau's Blood Cries Aloud for vengeance."
It would prove problematic.
***
So who was Blanche Garneau and why did her blood cry for vengeance?
In short, Garneau was a 21-year-old woman in Quebec City who was raped and strangled to death in a Quebec City park.
In long, Blanche Garneau was raised, along with her sister, by her uncle, who was not wealthy. On 22 July 1920, she closed the teahouse where she worked on St. Vallier street and walked home with a friend who left her at the Parent Bridge. She continued alone through Victoria Park where she was assaulted and killed near the riverside.
Her body was discovered but for reasons unclear, police investigator Laureat Lacasse took a few days to show up to examine the crime scene and left swiftly after arriving.
 |
| Premier Taschereau |
Police arrested and charged Raoul Binet and William Palmer but their prosecution fell apart in the fall of 1921, as the Crown was unable to even establish that either were even in Quebec City at the time.
Popular frustration at the ineffective police and prosecturorial work fed various conspiracy theories.
People started suggesting that high-ranking provincial government officials close to Liberal Premier Louis-Alexandre Taschereau were involved in some sort of cover-up.
The rival Conservatives fed this notion while campaigning for a by-election and it wasn't far from anybody's mind when the parliamentary session opened on 24 October 1922.
Roberts was brazen in his accusations published in The Axe a few days later. He offered a $5,000 reward to anybody who could turn up the killer.
The names of two members of the provincial legislature are coupled with this sinister crime and one may hear their names openly mentioned and their alleged guilt publicly discussed in the city of Quebec and is freely and frankly said that the cause of the inaction on the part of the authorities in clearing up the mystery and bringing hte guilty justice is because of the fact of these two persons being members of the legislature.Conservative MNA for Montreal St Georges riding, Ernest Gault laid a complaint about the coverage with the Crown Prosecutor.
Roberts was arrested and taken to Quebec City by the Sergeant at Arms and forced to testify at a special hearing at the National Assembly (provincial legislature) on 2 November 1922.
Roberts, upon counsel of his lawyer, refused to explain or justify his article. He simply pleaded his goodwill in the effort to solve a terrible crime.
The assembly declared Roberts in contempt for refusing to name the two members he claimed were involved in the murder.
According to British law, the provincial authorities only had the right to imprison Roberts for the duration of the session but Premier Taschereau considered that too soft a punishment, so he tabled Bill 31, specifically designed to imprison Roberts for one year.
It wasn't the first time they had done such a thing to a journalist.
The Quebec government had imprisoned Montreal publisher Olivar Asselin for 24 hours in the legislature in 1907 for having printed what they considered defamatory articles in his paper Le Nationaliste.
The Conservative opposition hesitated to go along with Roberts' punishment, even though they shared Taschereau's distaste for the man.
The bill was passed on 14 November and Taschereau swore that he'd defend it to the highest authorities in London if required.
Before becoming law, the bill needed to pass a second reading in the upper chamber and some representatives, like Narcisse Perodeau applauded it and suggested it should go "even further."
 |
| Chapais |
Chapais, a 64-year-old veteran with 30 years experience in the Quebec legislature, was a powerful voice. He had served in the top levels of cabinet and edited the Courrier du Canada newspaper. He had once singlehandedly blocked a cornerstone legislation presented by the Liberals in 1897. Ears opened when he spoke.
Chapais entitled his speech "requisitoire sur un ton d'un dignite parfait" and argued to put off the legislation, citing unfortunate precedents in the jailing of editors Daniel Tracey of The Vindicator and Ludger Duvernay of La Minerve in 1832, who were forced behind bars for an entire parliamentary session.
Chapais expressed doubts that the legislature had the authority to do the same to Roberts.
All during this time Roberts was in house custody, being offered hospitality in the form of good food and free cigars. This changed, however, when he was put inside a real prison after the bill became law.
The law was entitled "An act to amend the Revised Statues, 1909 and to provide for the imprisonment of John H. Roberts"
Roberts began his jail sentence on 30 December 1922. His newspaper continued publishing with him behind bars.
 |
| Arthur Sauve |
In December 1922 Arthur Sauve brought forward a motion to repeal the bill condemning Roberts to one year in jail, as he stated that it "violated the privleges of the house."
In April 1923 Leslie Roberts petitioned the federal government in Ottawa to have his father freed on the basis that he was "condemned without trial."
Soon after his release New York authorities charged him with grand larceny, claiming he had written three cheques to his son Leslie M. Roberts, of an amount totalling $965.
Roberts later traveled to New York to fight the charges but it's unclear what became of that affair.
Roberts was released from prison after serving 103 days in prison on 12 April 1923. He never apologized for his article.
Within a few weeks Roberts spoke to an audience about his "distinction of being the only man in the British Empire and probably in the whole world for whom a special law existed providing for his imprisonment."
His paper went broke soon after and its equipment seized for debt.
Not much was heard from Roberts after this and even his dates of birth and death remain unknown, although he was likely born around 1865 and clearly died anytime before 1963.
His son Leslie M. Roberts became a notable Montreal newsman, as did Leslie's namesake grandson, who was on radio in Montreal last we listened.
Quebec authorities announced in late 1922 that many fellow inmates witnesses had come forward to note that Binet, who had been acquitted of the crime, had later confessed to killing Garneau but he was not retried for the crime.
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