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Ottawa’s original combination courthouse and gaol – located on the site of the current Arts Court (next door to the hostel) and built in 1842 – burned completely on January 9, 1870. The reason: Ottawa’s two fire engines, the “Conqueror” and the “Queen”, were frozen in the city’s icy streets and never made it to the scene.
A report from The Times stated: “It cannot be said truthfully that the loss of the building was taken much to heart for the ugly comparison of the old building by the side of the handsome new gaol seemed to be the last argument necessary to convince everyone how dreadfully out of place it was. It was an old saying that the Judges suffered as much in the short time of trying criminals in the pestilential atmosphere of the old Court Room as the criminal did in serving out his time in gaol.” |
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