Excerpt from Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire Into the Prison and Reformatory System of Ontario, 1891 The powers necessary for the proper discharge of the duties thus imposed upon the Commissioners were given by the same instrument, and they were required - "Forthwith after the conclusion of such enquiry to make full report to the Lieutenant-Governor touching the matters concerning which the said enquiry is to be made together with a report of all or any of the evidence taken by the Commissioners respecting the same." The Commissioners having met to take into consideration the best means of discharging satisfactorily the important duties imposed upon them, the Chairman stated that, having regard to the fact that the conduct of the enquiry not only involved the expenditure of money in the visitation of institutions, but necessitated the preparation of statistics by certain officials, he had submitted to the Honourable the Attorney -General an outline of the system on which the Commissioners proposed to proceed. The expenditures for the purpose as well as the system proposed received the approval of the Attorney-General. This authority having been obtained and such statistical information as was immediately necessary, notice was given through the press that the Commission would hold sessions in the cities of Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, Ottawa and London and all persons interested in the matters into which inquiry was to be made were invited to attend at the time and places named and state their views. Sheriffs, gaolers and other officials were notified to be present at the sessions held in their districts and give evidence. It was arranged that having visited Ottawa the Commissioners should proceed to the State of Massachusetts and afterwards to the State of New York to observe the working of the penal and reformatory systems which obtain in those States, and to gather all the information which they deemed useful for the purposes of their enquiry; and that having visited London they should proceed to the States of Michigan and Ohio, and visit the best and most successful of the penal and reformatory institutions of those States, and ascertain as far as possible the special merits of their respective systems. It was further arranged that they should obtain the evidence of a number of eminent specialists who have devoted much of their lives to the study of prison management as a science. It was decided that copies of the reports of the best known institutions in the United States should be procured; also such information respecting the management of the principal penal establishments in Great Britain and Ireland, and in other European countries as could be obtained, and copies of the "transactions" or reports of proceedings of the several congresses held in Europe and in the United States of late years to consider the subject of prison reform. It was considered that when the Commissioners had thus by personal observation and from the evidence of witnesses of experience ascertained the general working and results of the Prison and Reformatory system of Ontario, and had obtained such information respecting the most advanced systems of the United States and those which obtain in Great. Britain and Ireland and other countries of Europe as would enable them to institute a proper comparison of all those systems and their results, they would be in a position to consider intelligently the subjects upon which they were required to report. In order that the evidence might be taken in a systematic way, it was decided that the Chairman should prepare a series of questions to be put to such witnesses as might appear before the Commission. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

Excerpt from Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire Into the Prison and Reformatory System of Ontario, 1891 Sub-section 27, the Criminal Law, except the constitution of Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction, but including the procedure in criminal matters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Seeking to historicize the 2007-2009 Great Recession, this volume of essays situates the current economic crisis and its impact on workers in the context of previous abrupt shifts in the modern-day capitalist marketplace. Contributors use examples from industrialized North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia to demonstrate how workers and states have responded to those shifts and to their disempowering effects on labor. Since the Industrial Revolution, contributors argue, factors such as race, sex, and state intervention have mediated both the effect of economic depressions on workers' lives and workers' responses to those depressions. Contributors also posit a varying dynamic between political upheaval and economic crises, and between workers and the welfare state. The volume ends with an examination of today's "Great Recession": its historical distinctiveness, its connection to neoliberalism, and its attendant expressions of worker status and agency around the world. A sobering conclusion lays out a likely future for workers--one not far removed from the instability and privation of the nineteenth century. The essays in this volume offer up no easy solutions to the challenges facing today's workers. Nevertheless, they make clear that cogent historical thinking is crucial to understanding those challenges, and they push us toward a rethinking of the relationship between capital and labor, the waged and unwaged, and the employed and jobless. Contributors are Sven Beckert, Sean Cadigan, Leon Fink, Alvin Finkel, Wendy Goldman, Gaetan Heroux, Joseph A. McCartin, David Montgomery, Edward Montgomery, Scott Reynolds Nelson, Melanie Nolan, Bryan D. Palmer, Joan Sangster, Judith Stein, Hilary Wainright, and Lu Zhang.

Patterns of the Past has been published to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Ontario Historical Society. Organized on 4 Sept 1888 as the Pioneer Association of Ontario, the Society adopted its current name in 1898. Its objectives, for a century, have been to promote and develop the study of Ontario’s past. The purpose of this book is both to commemorate and to carry on that worthy tradition. Introduced by Ian Wilson, Archivist of Ontario, and edited by Roger Hall, William Westfall and Laurel Sefton MacDowell, this distinctive volume is a landmark not only in the Society’s history but in the prince’s historiography. Eighteen scholars have pooled their talents to fashion a volume of fresh interpretive essays that chronicle and analyze the whole scope of Ontario’s rich and varied past. New light is thrown on our understanding of early native peoples, rural life in Upper Canada, the opening of the North, the impact of railways, and the growth of businesses and institutions. And there is much social study here too, especially of the new roles for women in industrial society, of working class experience, of ethnic groups, and of children in our society’s past. As well, there are innovative treatments of the conservation movement, of science’s role in provincial society, and of the relationship between society and culture in small towns. Anyone with an interest in the history of Canada’s most populous province will find much in this comprehensive collection.

Toronto’s Poor reveals the long and too often forgotten history of poor people’s resistance. It details how people without housing, people living in poverty, and unemployed people have struggled to survive and secure food and shelter in the wake of the many panics, downturns, recessions, and depressions that punctuate the years from the 1830s to the present. Written by a historian of the working class and a poor people’s activist, this is a rebellious book that links past and present in an almost two-hundred year story of struggle and resistance. It is about men, women, and children relegated to lives of desperation by an uncaring system, and how they have refused to be defeated. In that refusal, and in winning better conditions for themselves, Toronto’s poor create the possibility of a new kind of society, one ordered not by acquisition and individual advance, but by appreciations of collective rights and responsibilities.