Bob’s Column is one of the highlights of my week, and giving me an excuse to share one of my favorite bits of Canadian history is always good.
Mr. Grylls neglects to mention the Circus Riot of 1855, one of the more surreal moments of Canadian History. During the summer, a Toronto brothel was visited by a troupe of clowns from a passing circus, and a chance run-in with an Orangeman (protestants who at the time a lot of political power and a hatred for Catholics) volunteer firefighter brigade led to a brawl that led the firefighters to return the next day to the circus site, and tear it apart in a conflagration of ironic arson known as the Circus Riot. The Police Chief at the time, an Orangeman himself and put in his position by a city government formed of the same order, tried alone to stop the riot when his own men refused to stop their brothers in religion, succeeding only in saving one clown from being hit in the face with an axe.
This adorable instance of horrific violence led to the entire Toronto police force being restructured and the slow process of the nepotism and corruption in the city being purged over the next few decades.
Look online for the full story, as it’s honestly one of the most interesting bits of Canadian history I’ve read in a while, but my sources for this were several blogs news articles.
I love clowns, you see. Love both the joyful and comedic origins, and the sinister horror that others have cloaked them in in the last century. Something about a colourful person being silly and mocking everything around them appeals to me, likely because a clown is far more difficult to sue for slander or libel than a journalist.
While I am not a clown, and debatably not a journalist either, I do have a healthy appreciation for both.
I grew up with the Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour has 22 Minutes, when satire was a canadian pastime. Making fun of ourselves was one of the major points of pride we had against the Americans; we didn’t see ourselves as such a big deal. Of course, we did, and we just wanted to be quietly smug, but that was a bitter pill we all have to swallow now.
Aside from a certain Premier who was an embarrassment in Toronto and keeps opening the province too early and shutting it too late, we don’t see many clowns out of Toronto anymore. Nor do we appreciate satire when the news is rife with crack-smoking mayors and bizarre Internet pyramid schemes. It feels like the world is too full of clowns nowadays, and none of them are particularly funny, only scary and hurtful.
The clown has morphed into a nightmare, fueled by horror movies and attacks by makeup wearing individuals in American cities. Like how the clowns in 1855’s Toronto were actually rough brothel-goers who picked a fight with corrupt firefighters, our clowns can do real damage, leaving our province and our health devastated.
It’s a sad time, and it’s when we needed comedy the most.
