amherstburg crime blotter, 1909
One of the interesting things about the research I do for my historical pieces on other sites is the odd items that pop up as I scroll through rolls of microfilm. While looking for material for a piece on events in Toronto on New Year's Day 1909, I stumbled upon a lurid tale of murder in that day's edition of the Mail and Empire...which took place in my hometown.
"His life-blood gushing forth in a great stream." I'm finding that this colourful, illustrative, gruesome language was commonly employed by the Conservative-leaning Mail and Empire, which merged with the Globe in 1936 to form the Globe and Mail.
By contrast, coverage in the Toronto World that day was muted and to the point:
I read these stories to Mom, who couldn't place the names or recall hearing any legends about this incident pass down through the years. I keep forgetting to check the Windsor papers on file at the Toronto Reference Library to see what they had to say about the murder.
Sources: the January 1, 1909 editions of the Mail and Empire and the Toronto World
"His life-blood gushing forth in a great stream." I'm finding that this colourful, illustrative, gruesome language was commonly employed by the Conservative-leaning Mail and Empire, which merged with the Globe in 1936 to form the Globe and Mail.
By contrast, coverage in the Toronto World that day was muted and to the point:
I read these stories to Mom, who couldn't place the names or recall hearing any legends about this incident pass down through the years. I keep forgetting to check the Windsor papers on file at the Toronto Reference Library to see what they had to say about the murder.
Sources: the January 1, 1909 editions of the Mail and Empire and the Toronto World
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