Police Chief McKinnon's Absence (Part 5) - January 1895

The McKinnon scandal had been played out in the Hamilton Herald for several days. With the arrival of the weekend, and with the chief himself bedridden and out of sight, a pause in all things McKinnon might hyave been expected.

Such was not the case.

On Saturday, January 12, 1895,the Herald weighed in, editorially, on the matter once again:

“If the Police Commissioners continue to trifle with the grave and important matter of the alleged misconduct of Chief McKinnon, our people will begin to think that they are bent on – well, making themselves ridiculous.”¹

¹ “The McKinnon Matter.”

Hamilton Herald.   January 12, 1895.

The editorial writer that while McKinnon might be too sick to attend a Police Commissioners meeting, the Commissioners were not too sick to got to him to get a statement as to whether the stories about his conduct were true or not :

“It should not be a difficult matter to answer that question.

“Indeed, if he means to set up a denial of the charges, how is it that he has not forwarded his denial to the Commissioners? What innocent man would submit for a moment while his name was being dragged through the mud of such a cheap and nasty public scandal as this?”¹

The editorial then proceeded to put the Police Commissioners on notice :

“We warn the Police Commissioners that they cannot continue to play with this question as they are doing. The public welfare demands that it should be approached and disposed of without prejudice, but with dispatch.

“We say that it is a public scandal and a public outrage that Chief McKinnon should continue to hold office while this vile reproach hangs over his head without even the slightest pretense of a denial.

“Days have passed since these charges were made, but no denial has been forthcoming. And Mr. McKinnon continues to be Chief of the Hamilton Police Force !”¹

While McKinnon and the Police Commissioners were maintaining silence on the matter, Thomas H. Gould, estranged husband of one of the ladies, was much less hesitant to speak out.

On Monday, January 14, 1895, the Herald published the following lengthy letter from Tommy :

“Editor Herald – As you have been using my name a great deal lately, in justice to myself and the public I hereby give a ful statement of the chief’s week’s outing.

“He left here with his own wife and daughter, and stayed in Toronto a day or two with them, he parting from them in Toronto, and going from there to Guelph. The young ladies first left here on Thursday and went to Guelph, where they met the chief, staying there that night and doing a little shopping in the drygoods and millinery stores. Then they travelled back to Toronto in his company and went straight to the Grand Union Hotel on the 4^th, I think. But the fake names did not appear on the hotel register till two or three days after. They were registered as using three rooms – Nos. 6, 7 and 8. They stayed there till the evening of the 8^th. That day they were met by a young man out of a King street east store. After spending that day in the hotel without the chief’s company, they came up to Hamilton on the 10:30 train in the evening, taking a hack to the American hotel here.

“I went to Toronto the next day on the 4:10 train with the photos of them, also letters of introduction, and there, with Mr. Hodgins, private detective, of Toronto, I went to the hotel, where we got the undoubted facts of Chief McKinnon being there with the young women in question, through the clerks and the dining room girls of the hotel. They knew the chief, and also knowing the ladies through the photos shown to them by myself. After satisfying ourselves to the above being right and indisputable facts, we went uptown, and after I left Mr. Hodgins, I ran across the chief and followed him till he got on the 10:30 train for Hamilton, he taking a sleeper private apartment up. This was on the evening of the 9^th. I rode up on the same train with him, and saw him meet meet his wife and a male friend at the station here, and walked home to his hotel up on Macnab street. After that I met the women in question at 1:30 a.m. with a tall, young man, and followed them to the house on the corner of Park and Barton streets.

“Now, I think in justice to myself and to the public, the Police Commissioners should investigate and pass judgement as they find the facts, as they can easily do.

“I close by thanking Chief McKinnon for his kindness to me in trying to give the ladies a good time and careful protection, which I do not propose to do, but mean to use his fun and foolishness to make myself a free man.”