It’s clear from the contents of recently digitized leather-bound charge books that policing has changed considerably since the 1870s, when offences like being “a rogue and a vagabond” were entered in meticulous cursive with a quill pen in Victoria Police Department records.
Scofflaws’ acts such as riding a horse “at a pace faster than a walk” or hitting someone in the face with a fish are recorded in the five books, covering parts of 1873-1876, that were sent to University of Victoria Libraries to be digitized over the past several months. One man was given a choice of a $1.25 fine or six hours in prison for being drunk and disorderly.
The books were returned with fanfare to the department’s Caledonia Avenue headquarters Wednesday, arriving in Car 40, a restored 1940 police vehicle used for special occasions.
Thanks to UVic, the contents of the books — about 2,000 pages — are now preserved on a hard drive and will be made available online soon through the university and Victoria Genealogical Society, whose volunteers have begun indexing the information.
Victoria Police Chief Frank Elsner said the historical volumes are a little like the books that were used to record charges at the beginning of his career.
“We’ve progressed in policing light years in the last 30 years.”
Still, he said many of the offenses recorded in the historic books are not much different from those today. Along with drunken behaviour, the records are filled with references to break-ins and assaults. “Human nature really hasn’t changed as time has gone on,” Elsner said.
One difference, however, is that today’s police write much more about each investigation than appears in the old volumes, he said. “Our reports now are pages and pages and pages long. Here, it’s a paragraph.”
Victoria Genealogical Society president Pat Acton said her group enjoys helping to preserve historical material and make it more accessible. “It’s amazing history and we don’t want this record to disappear.”
Simply reading the police volumes is an experience, she said. One person commented that when she opened them up, “she smelled her grandfather’s pipe,” likely because so many people smoked in those days, Acton said.
Each entry spurs her to learn more about the stories, Acton said.
Established in 1858, the Victoria Police Department is Canada’s oldest west of the Great Lakes. “So something like this actually is very a propos for us,” Elsner said.
Victoria police have another 50 to 60 volumes of archival books in storage.
