ce from the gaol erected four years before in St. Stanislaus
Street within the walls. On the 20th of May in this year, Patrick
Murphy paid the extreme penalty of the law for the wilful murder of
Marie Anne Dussault of the Parish of Les Escuriels. Four years later
Charles Alarie and Thomas Thomas were executed at the same place, "for
stealing to the value of forty shillings in a vessel on a navigable
river." The same register chronicles the dire fate of John Hart, a
Nova Scotian who, for larceny, was sentenced to six months'
imprisonment, and to be publicly "whipt between ten and twelve in the
market-place." Hart had no stomach for this ignominy, and escaped from
gaol on the 14th of February, 1826. Having been recaptured three days
later, in November of that year he stood with the noose about his neck
upon the fatal door.

[Illustration: OLD MARKET SQUARE, UPPER TOWN]

It is doubtful, indeed, whether the unfortunate creatures behind those
stout walls on the Cote St. Stanislaus ever breathed the prayer
contained in a quaint inscription which till lately survived upon the
lintel of their prison-house: "_Carcer iste bonos a pravis vindicare
possit._"[39] To-day the building itself serves a more kindly purpose,
though the pious legend over the doorway might need but slight
revision. Morrin College occupies one wing, and the other contains the
well-stocked library of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.
Valuable manuscripts have taken the place of useless malefactors in
the donjon keep, and the vaults are full of the gold and myrrh of
history.

[Illustration: FRONTENAC TERRACE TO-DAY]

[Footnote 39: "May this prison cause the wicked to bear testimony to
the just."]

The punishment of crime undoubtedly underwent more change in the last
half of the nineteenth century than during several of the preceding
centuries. There is, for instance, a striking resemblance between the
public whipping of John Hart and the chastisement of offenders so long
before as the time of Frontenac. In the year 1681, one Jean Rattier
was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted on condition of
accepting the post of public executioner. Fourteen years afterwards
Rattier's own wife was apprehended for theft, and according to her
sentence, she was publicly whipped in the Lower Town Market-place by
the dutiful husband.

CHAPTER XIX

THE STORY OF THE GREAT TRADING COMPANIES

But now to leave the fortress city for a little