john the hugger and other scenes from toronto police court, 1909
As Toronto's police magistrate between 1877 and 1921, George Taylor Denison III passed judgement on thousands of people in his court. The press dutifully covered the proceedings daily, leaving historians with a record alternatively amusing, enraging, and heartbreaking. Over the years, I've saved several police court reports, usually topped with a catchy headline like this one. Who doesn't want to know the sordid details surrounding "John the Hugger" that caused him to be hauled in front of Denison? Let's dive into the details of John, the Stone family, the "saucy mendicant," and the other cases included in the News 's court roundup on November 22, 1909...