{"id":216,"date":"2016-05-27T10:15:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/?p=216"},"modified":"2016-09-21T11:40:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T18:40:26","slug":"run-in-with-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/2016\/05\/27\/run-in-with-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Run in With The Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apologies for the clickbait title but I wanted your attention to turn to this wonderful resource we’ve been able to add to the Libraries digital collection with the help of the Victoria Police Historical Society. The Victoria Police Department Charge Books collection<\/a> includes several charge books, a complaint book, and three mugshot books from the late 1800s and early 1900s.<\/p>\n

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed scanning these as I do sometimes read or look at the contents even if I don’t have time to read them in full while I am working. I found a wonderful reference to the well-known architect, Francis Rattenbury<\/a> in the complaint book:<\/p>\n

\"Detail<\/a>
Detail from Victoria Police Department Complaint Log Book 1911-1912<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feb 1912, 22nd, 7:30 pm, Mr. Rattenbury phoned to say that when he was passing the Union club, he saw two small boys apparently about 8 years of age pick up half a brick and throw it at one of the cluster lights and break it. He tried to catch them but they ran away too quickly. J. M. Abbott.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mugshot books are equally engrossing, for showing the variety of individuals charged with all manner of crimes and sometimes in multiple jurisdictions — the borders were a little more porous in that era, so there are sometimes notices from New Westminster, Seattle or San Francisco police departments! I was pleased to learn after digitizing these that the mugshot books had been used a few years ago in a research project by Patrick Dunae, a historian at Vancouver Island University, that resulted in the article, “Geographies of sexual commerce and the production of prostitutional space: Victoria, British Columbia, 1860\u20131914<\/span><\/a>”<\/p>\n

Now that these artifacts are available to more people, I’m curious to see what else can be learned from these volumes!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PLEASE NOTE: Within this collection there is language used that is jarring to a modern reader — racist terms, most notably — but the artifacts are presented in their original state.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apologies for the clickbait title but I wanted your attention to turn to this wonderful resource we’ve been able to add to the Libraries digital collection with the help of the Victoria Police Historical Society. The Victoria Police Department Charge Books collection includes several charge books, a complaint book, and three mugshot books from the late 1800s and early 1900s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-and-manuscripts","category-collections","category-local-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1015\/2016\/05\/Mister-Rattenbury.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/theopenbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}