At The South-
Western Extremity A Noble Dry Goods Store Has Just Been Erected By Mr.
George Alford; It Is Four Stories High, 155 Feet Long And 72 Feet Wide,
And Faces On Dalhousie, Laporte, Union Lane And Finlay Market.
It is
occupied by a wealthy and ancient dry goods firm, founded in Montreal
about 1810, with a branch in Quebec, in 1825.
The original founders were
Messrs. Robertson, Masson & Larocque; this firm was subsequently changed
to Robertson, Masson, Strang & Co., to Masson, Bruyere, Thibaudeau & Co.,
to Langevin, Thibaudeau, Bruyere & Co., to Thibaudeau, Thomas & Co., to
Thibaudeau, Genereux & Co., and finally to Thibaudeau Freres & Co., at
Quebec; Thibaudeau Bros. & Co., Montreal; Thibaudeau Bros. & Co., London,
Manchester and Manitoba.
In the early days of the colony, the diminutive market space, facing the
front of Notre Dame Church, Lower Town, as well as the Upper Town Market,
was used for the infliction of corporal punishment, or the pillory, or the
execution of culprits.
On the area facing the Lower Town Church on Notre Dame street, the plan of
the city, drawn by the engineer, Jean Francois or Jehan Bourdon, in 1641,
shows a bust of Louis XIII., long since removed; this market, which dates
from the earliest times of the colony, as well as the vacant area (until
recently the Upper Town market, facing the Basilica), was used as a place
for corporal punishment, and for the exhibition in the pillory of public
malefactors.
"Among the incidents," says Mr. T. P. Bedard, "which claimed the privilege
of exciting the curiosity of the good folks of Quebec (then 1680,
inhabited by 1,345 souls,) was reckoned the case of Jean Rathier, charged
with murdering a girl of eighteen - Jeanne Couc. The case had been tried at
Three Rivers, and Rathier sentenced to have his legs broken [95] with an
iron bar, and afterwards to be hung. Judgment had been confirmed. An
unforseen hitch arose: the official hangman was dead; how then was Rathier
to be hung? The officers of justice cut the Gordian knot, by tendering to
Rathier, in lieu of the halter, the position, little envied, of hangman.
He accepted. Some years after, the wife and the daughter of Rathier were
accused and found guilty as accomplices in a robbery; the daughter, as the
receiver of the stolen goods, was sentenced to be whipped, but in secret,
at the General Hospital by the nun appointed Provost Marshal (Maitress
de Discipline), and the mother was also adjudged to be whipped, but
publicly in the streets of the city. This incident furnished the singular
and ludicrous spectacle of a husband publicly whipping his wife with
impunity to himself, as he was acting under the authority of justice." -
(Premiere Administration de Frontenac, p. 39.)
The whip and pillory did not go out with the old regime. The Quebec
Gazette of 19th June, 1766, mentions the whipping, on the Upper and Lower
Town markets, of Catherine Berthrand and Jeanotte Blaize, by the hand of
the executioneer, for having "borrowed" (a pretty way of describing petty
larceny), a silver spoon from a gentleman of the town, without leave or
without intention of returning it.
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