STILL TROUBLESOME AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Victoria flashback: Drugs, slot machines and unruly teenagers were
all part of the cityscape during the first decade of the 20th
century. Some things never change.

Drugs, perfidious slot machines, out-of-control teenagers on the
street, vociferous teachers -- and cops with communication problems
in the field.

The drugs were opium and alcohol. The teenage troublemakers were
street corner layabouts and brave only in numbers. The slot machines
were nickel-a-chance, cheaply produced spinoffs of the "one-armed
bandits" invented in the late 1800s. Teachers, banned from
participating in politics or even voting in B.C. until 1883, were
shocking some citizens by voicing opinions at public meetings. And
the city fathers had approved an expenditure to "install 10 direct
telephone links to police headquarters to be strategically placed in
small neat boxes" around the city to make reporting easier and calls
for backup more reliable than the old police whistle.

The debate on opium was the same back in the early days of the 20th
century as it is today: Should access be made easier and controlled?
Or should access be made increasingly more difficult for addicts to
obtain with fearsome punishments for dealers and addicts when caught?

Back in the late 1800s "the authorities" decided on the easier access
route. Alcohol, holding favoured acceptance status since man first
learned how to brew beer and ferment grape juice with even the
apostle Paul approving "a little wine for thy stomach's sake," still
retains legal open sale status for an addictive drug.

Back then three retail liquor outlets were authorized for each
population block of 500 with a fourth permitted when the population
reached 1,000. The same ratio today would see a bar on every street corner.

For opium smokers the legislature moved Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1890, that
it would "be desirable to reduce the amount payable for licences to
sell opium outside of a radius from any city municipality to $50
every six months."

Presumably, if you produced and sold opium inside the five-mile
limit, you paid extra. Agree to move the original version of today's
proposed "shooting galleries" [heroin is produced from raw opium gum]
away from the city centre and you got a break on the licence fee.

The licence to manufacture and sell opium was revoked in 1908, a few
years after B.C. launched the big push to increase the head tax on
Chinese immigrants from $100 to $500, and satisfied a sudden great
moral urge to keep the province white by condemning all things Asian.

"Opium dens" became the great evil example of Oriental decadence and
the hysterical fear of "the yellow peril." They had to be closed but
more for racial than for moral reasons.

And then there were the slot machines threatening the integrity of
every Christian community. In 1906, E.A. Morris, tobacconist, (the
store at 1116 Government St. still bears his name) was charged with
maintaining "a disorderly house," a charge usually reserved for
bawdyhouse operators. On this occasion "disorderly" meant the
operation of a slot machine offering the prize of a nice cigar with
the lucky drop of a five-cent coin.

Such was the horror of the slots a hundred years ago even the
rough-and-tumble seaport of Seattle protested their presence.

One Seattle newspaper fulminated: "It is admitted today that in the
city of Seattle the greatest curse which stands in the way of youth
and young boyhood is -- the slot machine, found upon every street
corner and in every place where tobacco and liquor are sold -- and
sometimes in the corner grocery store."

The Colonist reprinted the comments with full "pay attention, it's
happening here" emphasis.

A couple of weeks ago our legislature's public accounts committee was
reviewing gambling matters in B.C. -- and wondering about the
proliferation of "the slots" in our up-dated digital world. They're
still trying to figure out how many is too many -- and whether the
revenue they generate can justify the addictive degradation they can
bring to society.

Whether it was the ready availability of nickel slots with cash or
cigar prizes, or whether other factors entered the picture, teenagers
(decades before the word was invented) were getting out of hand on
Victoria city streets in the first decade of the 1900s.

The Colonist lamented in 1903: "A gang of young hoodlums who are a
disgrace to the name of labour, make their presence disagreeably
prominent on Pioneer Street each even about six o'clock. Disgusting
obscenity is their delight and decency and politeness unknown
quantities. To offer insult to lady pedestrians is with them the
climax of ambition, and they have only words of contempt for the
feelings of respectable residents. A good able-bodied policeman could
do effective and much appreciated work among these savages who make
Pioneer Street their promenade."

Pioneer Street was a short street running between Blanchard with a
"c" (It became Blanshard with an "s" in 1914) and Quadra. In 1905, by
city edict Pioneer became part of what is still North Park Street and
by 1907 was no longer mentioned on the city's street roster.

Maybe the city fathers obliterated the name to remove all traces of
the "promenade" taken over by cursing, loitering, and obstreperous
youth but the real reason for change was probably prosaic -- it
likely made sense to have a longer North Park Street than a North
Park Street with a one-block Pioneer appendix.

If they did make the switch in the hope that by changing the street
name they could change the attitudes of those in the twilight zone
between youth and adulthood, they lost the gamble.

In Victoria, circa 2006 a late evening stroll by some open-late
convenience stores, or the closing time exits from clubs and pubs,
will demonstrate the foul-mouthed untidy ones are still around, and
still making older folk nervous when they cluster.

Then there were schoolteachers, given the right to vote in B.C. 1883
and five years later beginning to flex their muscles in public. At
least that's what it looked like in 1888 when Victoria's MLA (or MPP
- - Member of Provincial Parliament as they were then known) Robert
Beaven demanded some answers on a noisy teacher "disgracing himself"
at a public meeting.

Beaven demanded with rhetorical flourish that then Provincial
Secretary John Robson provide some immediate answers to a letter to
the editor published in the Colonist in February 1988. The demand,
recorded in legislative records for Feb. 28 of that year: "Can you
inform me which one of your public teachers was it that is said to
have disgraced himself at the (public function) Saturday evening last
by making himself conspicuous, as I hear, in creating disturbances
amongst the audience, thus setting forth anything but a laudable
example to the many school children present?"

Robson, who became premier a year later, replied he had far more
important duties to fulfil "than that of taking cognizance of
anonymous scandal mongers." Even Jinny Sims would nod in BCTF approval.

But maybe not.

As I've been suggesting for the last few minutes, some things never change.