Trying to imagine the street life of Louisbourg in the eighteenth century, we are probably all influenced by the cliché of the lusty, brawling port town of olden days, as built up by bad history and the movies. In fact, Louisbourg does provide many examples of public disorders, from thefts and killings to tavern brawls and street arguments. And since we know that a large part of the population consisted of groups of young men and that drinking establishments were important social centres, it is easy to suspect some truth behind the cliché. Nevertheless, Louisbourg was not anarchic. Powerful instruments of social control did exist and managed to impose limits to the range of public disorders. In attempting to give some hint to the street life of Louisbourg, the following pages may stress deterrence and control rather more than crime and disorder. However, the reader, by changing the emphasis from punishment to crime and from law enforcer to law breaker, will perhaps set his own balance among these examples of law enforcement in Louisbourg and its contribution to the town's street life.

1. The Town Guard 

Louisbourg had no police force or marshalcy to preserve public order or arrest and hold suspects, but the military garrison was an effective substitute for such a force. In Ile Royale as in other colonies and in France, policing was one of the routine functions of town garrisons, sanctioned by the Code Militaire and other ordonnances. Consequently the Louisbourg ordonnateur could leave the routines of police duties to the town major and his adjutants, who supervised guard and patrol duties ...

In theory, all soldiers did their share of guard duty, but some individuals preferred to specialize in fortification work or other pursuits. Since all soldiers employed in fortification building contributed five per cent of their earnings to a fund which  reimbursed the soldiers doing guard duty, it was possible for some soldiers to become full time labourers, paying compensation to those who gave up builder's wages to do extra guard duty. In 1741 the Swiss company of soldiers claimed that because they did more construction work than the average French soldier, their obligatory contributions to the guard fund were benefiting the French companies rather than themselves. In the 1741 building season, they contributed 760 livres to the fund but collected only 517 livres for guard duties. Evidently they were paying the French soldiers to do about a third of their guard-service ... Guard duty could also be sold or bartered. In 1751, a soldier promised to serve four sessions of guard duty in return for debts he owed and favours done for him ... Some soldiers could have been on policing duties almost full time.

When assigned to guard duty, a soldier moved from his regular barracks or residence to one of the town's five guardhouses. Stationed there, soldiers  could eat and sleep between periods of sentry duty, but they were not supposed to leave the guardhouse without permission. One soldier questioned about his absence from the guardhouse claimed that his sergeant or corporal had permitted him to go away to eat ... but the records of military discipline refer to punishments for soldiers absent from their guard posts ....

Throughout their session at the guardhouse, soldiers were "on call" in case they were needed, but the principal duty of the soldiers assigned to guard duty was to take their turns at the sentry posts. The town had five guardhouses in 1745: at the Dauphine Gate, at the townside entrance to the King's Bastion, at the Queen's Gate, at the Maurepas Gate and at the Pièce de la Grave. From, these, sentries were posted to survey all areas of the town from twenty-one principal sentry posts, the location and manpower requirements of which had been listed by Governor DuQuesnel in 1741....  DuQuesnel's list was intended to back his contention that the garrison was barely large enough to perform the peacetime routines, let alone respond to wartime needs. It appears to permit each soldier two days out of three in other pursuits, and thereby triples the number of men actively engaged on guard service. However, neither DuQuesnel's list nor any other source makes clear how long an individual soldier's tour of guard duty would last.

The normal sentry routine probably followed the twenty-four hour schedule proposed by Suthren's Drill Manual, with each soldier spending an entire day at the guardhouse: eight hours as sentry, eight hours "on call", eight hours sleeping. Suthren states that the guard should be changed at mid day and documentary evidence includes such supporting examples as Sgt. Louis-Jean Romelo dit Charly, who was on duty at the King's Bastion guardhouse at 8:45  on a Sunday evening in 1740 and was still there the following morning....

DuQuesnel reported that sentry duty "is very tiring for the soldier, particularly in a country as hard as this," but boredom and resulting slackness were perhaps the most serious problems .... The previously mentioned permission given one guardsman to go into town to eat and drink with friends suggests the relaxation of routine which the officers evidently-, tolerated while the numerous disciplinings for drunkenness and unauthorized absence during Surlaville's tenure as Major des troupes in the 1750s suggest that even when discipline, was firm, the soldiers' behaviour was lax. One guard admitted that while on guard at the King's Bastion, he left his post to relieve himself, leaving his weapons by a fence. Having relieved himself without having his absence, noted, he took the opportunity to break into an adjacent house and  steal some money before returning safely to his sentry post.... Despite such lapses, a guard routine was maintained throughout the town. Guards frequently quelled-disturbances, stopped soldiers out after retreat, and seized lawbreakers. There is regular testimony to the presence of soldiers performing their functions at their proper posts. A King's Bastion sentry met Gabriel Hyathinthe LeBon as he left the chapel towards midnight and insisted that he go to the guardhouse to light a tallow candle before going on. Because LeBon was drunk and also bleeding, the guards persuaded him to spend the night at the guardhouse. He was later charged for damage he had done in the chapel, but keeping him at the guard house seems to have been done on the initiative of the guards ... Quay area guardsmen who were cited as witnesses to events occurring in that area provide additional evidence that the guard routine was generally performed properly .... Furthermore, guards themselves were under scrutiny, not only by the officer commanding  their guardhouse, but also by la Ronde, a regular circuit of the guard posts made by the senior guard officers....

DuQuesnel's report is the best source of information on the placement of sentries. One sentry was placed in front of each guardhouse where the officers, non-commissioned officers, drummers and off-duty guards were based. In addition to its guardhouse sentry, the King's Bastion guardhouse provided three other sentries: one at the governor's door, one at the prison door and one on the ramparts at the flanked angle, that is, by the guerite where the two fronts of the bastion meet. The Queen's Gate guardhouse sent sentries to the flanked angle of the Queen's Bastion, to the Princesse demi-bastion platform and to the Queen's Gate itself, as well as maintaining one sentry at the guardhouse. The Maurepas Gate postings were similar. Besides the man at that guardhouse, there were sentries on the ramparts at the Brouillan and Maurepas Bastions, and another at the Maurepas Gate between them.

Few of these postings would have been much noticed by the townspeople, for they were at predominantly military locations where few townspeople would be found. More significant to town activities were the Dauphine Gate and Pièce de la Grave guardhouses, whose sentries were closer to the civilian population and the busiest streets. From the Dauphine guardhouse, one man guarded the powder magazine and at night one patrolled the ramparts. One sentry stood at the Gate itself (the town's main entrance) and one stood before the guardhouse. The Pièce de la Grave guardhouse had a sentry in front of it and another at the Pièce de la Grave battery. The other guards from this post were in the town: one at the entrance to the Magazin du Roi in Block One, one, at the entry to the Marine Treasury offices in the ordonnateur's building in Block Two, and another (in the daytime only) at the hospital door, on Rue d'Orléans.

Sentries did not stand constantly in one spot. The ramparts sentries probably moved back and forth to keep in touch with other and cover the full length of the ramparts. A town sentry, Sgt. Bellefond dit LaRochelle, described himself "walking along the Quay, being on guard at the Dauphin bastion" and responding to an emergency on Rue de l'Etang south and east of the quay.... The guard was able to cover even more territory by deploying a town patrol of six men. DuQuesnel's 1741 list allocated two extra soldiers per shift to the King's, Queen's and Pièce de la Grave guardhouses, for duties which the list does not specify. These six men may have formed a patrol, for disciplinary records of the 1750s refer to soldiers "caught by the patrol" after retreat.... Special patrols could also be formed to conduct a search or make an arrest: "at seven to eight in the evening he heard it said that soldiers and a sergeant had been sent to visit, the houses of the residents because Sieur Ganda had complained of being robbed a very short time before."....

Sentry duty from the town's guardhouses was limited to the area within the fortifications. However the Royal Battery guard performed a similar policing function on the north shore. In response to a call for assistance after a fight on the north shore fishing property of the widow LaFlourie, Sgt. Jean Riviers, commanding the Royal Battery guard in 1744, led a patrol of six soldiers and arrested six men before they could flee.... Some patrols went further afield: the colonial budgets often recorded expenses for boatloads of soldiers sent up or down the coast in pursuit of deserters or criminals....

The sentries, the patrols and the "on call" guards in the guardhouses were the principal representatives of military policing, but soldiers could be used for other security services. From at least 1726 soldiers were stationed aboard all New England vessels at Louisbourg. Every foreign vessel needed permission from the governor and ordonnateur before it could sell its cargo, and the soldiers were placed aboard to ensure that the limits on foreign sales were obeyed. By the 1750s well over a hundred New England vessels visited Louisbourg yearly, so soldiers guarding ships may sometimes have out-numbered town sentries....

Sentries were empowered to seize and hold individuals overnight In the guardhouses. As soon, as possible after the arrest of a civilian, the guard sergeant made an arrest report from which the procureur du roi could begin criminal proceedings if he chose. Once the decision to hold and charge the suspect had been made, he was transferred to the King's Bastion prison, or perhaps, after 1742, to the newer one at the Maurepas Gate. In this way the guards could easily transfer their prisoners to the civil power for trial.

The mere existence of a town guard could be used to quell minor disturbances: Baptiste Dion, a mason, "heard noise on Rue de l'etang around eleven o'clock of the same night and, going to a dormer window in the attic, he stopped it by threatening the noisemakers with the guardhouse." .... If such threats were insufficient, the guards themselves were brought in. When Michel Daccarrette came home about four o'clock on a Saturday in 1734, he kicked his servant awake and the boy, only fifteen, fled into the yard where he discovered a stranger. Daccarrette himself collared the man and, finding stolen goods under his coat, sent a servant to alert the officer at the guardhouse. The guard officer sent a corporal and two "mousquetaires" who arrested the thief.... Sometimes the sentries discovered thefts or disturbances themselves. The aforementioned Sgt. Bellefond dit LaRochelle heard shouts of "On m'assassine! On me tue!" while patrolling the Quay late at night. Going to investigate, he discovered that one of the fighters had been stealing tobacco from Louis Delort's warehouse. He brought four "fusiliers" from the guardhouse. They took the suspect back to their guardhouse, after depositing the tobacco for safe keeping with the sentry at the ordonnateur's building....

2. Other Social Controls 

The presence of the guard doubtless limited violence and disorder in Louisbourg's streets, for the preceeding examples testify to the soldiers' ability to act promptly to prevent crimes or seize wrongdoers. However, twenty-one sentries scattered about the town could not cover every part of Louisbourg, still less police the more remote fishing stations. Many disorders were quelled without the assistance of the sentries. In the theft at Daccarrette's house, Daccarrette himself pursued, caught and searched the thief before calling the guard, and this sort of personal intervention seems to have been common, even when one's own property was not endangered. In one case, a participant testified modestly, "he heard the plaintiff crying loudly, 'Au voleur, au voleur' which led his two friends and the witness himself to go out and run to see what it was." .... Similarly, a group of sailors aboard a ship in the harbour voluntarily pursued a man seen using a small boat to steal from an anchored vessel, even though naval authorities on a royal ship were close at hand. Disorders in settlements without garrisons always had to be settled by the residents themselves. Probably the majority of the theft cases tried in the Louisbourg courts developed, not from discovery and capture by guardsmen, but from civilian complaints and investigations after the fact.

Apart from crimes that evaded the notice of the guard, there was a class of public disorders in which the guard was reluctant to become involved. Most public arguments, child abuse cases and family fights and even some physical attacks were evidently settled by private citizens or left simmering until an aggrieved party complained to the courts. It is likely that the soldiers preferred to avoid involvement in many personal disputes and that the guard authorities did not insist that the sentries quell every minor disturbance among the civilians.

Documentation on fights and family quarrels is abundant. A new guardian was demanded for the orphaned Koller children after witnesses saw them being beaten outdoors by their grandmother .... Servanne Bonnier. and Angelique Butel went to court to complain of each other's slanders after an argument provoked by the way one was treating her children.... Several witnesses testified in separate wife-beating cases involving Jean Laumonier, an artisan, and Jacques Mullot, a merchant.... Half a dozen people saw innkeeper Louis Marie attack a guest who had complained about the food being served.... Some disputes were more serious: merchant Léon Fautoux and a military administrator fought in a public house; Marc Riollay was severely beaten on the Royal Battery road by a group of north shore residents; Bertrand Imbert was nearly killed by a sailor in a north shore cabaret.... In all these cases there were  no guards but an abundance of witnesses and interveners. In the case between Mullot and his wife, the witnesses included two people who had been sitting on their doorsteps on Rue de l'Etang on the Sunday afternoon in question. Other cases brought forth witnesses working outdoors at a wide variety of jobs digging wells, crushing almonds, feeding chickens, running errands or simply walking by.

All the examples in the preceeding paragraphs came to court without any involvement by the sentries, for though the guard did not often become involved in civil or family matters, the courts regularly did. These disputes and a great many other instances of trivial conflict led to hearings before the bailli. The swiftness with which a complaint could be made and a sentence imposed probably formed a deterrent to disapproved behaviour less obvious but as influential as the presence of the town guard. In a tavern fight, one combatant taunted another not to call the guard but, if he disliked what was happening, to "run tell Monsieur Mayracq" (the bailli and Admiralty judge of the 1750s).... Though his advice seems a defiance of the courts, it also suggests their prominent role in the control of disturbances.

The sentry provided by the garrison, the participation of civilians in law enforcement, the constant presence of witnesses, and the proximity of law courts all formed controls upon public disorders in Louisbourg. The controls  seem to have been fairly effective, for most public disorders fell into only a few categories. Most crimes and disturbances seem to have been either: 

• (1) committed secretly in the hope of avoiding sentries or other interveners; or 
• (2) emotional outbursts, such as family quarrels, tavern arguments, and most of the town's killings. 

There are virtually no examples of banditry or outlawry, few cases of over defiance of authority (the 1744 mutiny being an important exception), and little in the disorders, deviant behaviour and lawbreaking, to be sure, but the social controls operating in the town ensured that the street life of Louisbourg was not dominated or, typified by disapproved or disruptive activities.

The same probably applies to the "lusty" part of the "lusty and brawling" cliché mentioned at the start of this paper, though guides and animators are used to being asked which building housed the town brothel. Doubtless there is a history of prostitution in eighteenth century Louisbourg to be written, but the researcher undertaking the project would spend much of his time reading between the lines of the documents. The parish records furnish some possibly relevant examples of illegitimacy and there are a few references to "filles de mauvaise vie". Both high and low society in Louisbourg provide examples of liaisons which should have scandalized the devout, and sexual innuendo was a basic component of many of the insults thrown back and forth in arguments. But disapproved forms of sexual conduct were probably subject to social control like other kinds of disapproved behaviour. It seems certain that no building could have been publicly labelled as the brothel. Sex, like violence, was certainly no stranger to Louisbourg, but the town was probably fairly successful in keeping both of them off the streets, except perhaps in cases of spontaneous and emotional incidents. Spontaneous violence might be typified by the soldier disciplined for breaking bottles and a window in a tavern, and sex by the man who tried to kiss a young girl against her will in the Dauphin fauxbourg and was promptly hauled into court.

3. Public Punishments

The Louisbourg courts ruled on cases ranging from capital crimes such as premeditated murder to misdemeanors such as selling, liquor after hours. Depending on the offence and the courts' view of its seriousness, the sentences imposed could be anything from torture and execution to a small fine. Many of the sentences, however, were to be served at least partly in the public view, for public punishments were seriously intended to educate and to discourage potential lawbreakers. "It is important to make an example to prevent such licence, which could become more frequent," wrote the procureur asking the Superior Council to impose a harsher sentence than that, given by the Bailliage.... The need to deter potential. lawbreakers was a common theme of discussions over sentencing. Public punishments on the streets of Louisbourg were another form of social control. It is easy to believe that a deterrent effect would have been achieved by the grisly punishments sometimes used.

The response of the people who witnessed the public punishments of the the eighteenth century is unclear. Public support was not entirely on the side of the authorities. It was difficult to find executioners and the house that the authorities eventually built for the executioner was carefully placed remote from the rest of the town. On the other hand, some evidence suggests that. public support for the punishing authorities added to the convict's ordeal. Public shame reinforced judicial punishment in a case of December 1733, when Thérèse Petit, wife of innkeeper Julien Auger dit Grandchamps, was convicted and fined for contempt during a Superior Council hearing. Later in the mouth, Petit's sister, wife of merchant and sea-captain Joseph Brisson, appeared before the council to say that her sister's conviction had caused the whole family to be mocked and reproached. She asked that the council make clear that the sentence was only a fine, not a note of infamy." .... The public scorn to which the family was apparently subjected for such a minor sentence suggests that being pilloried or whipped or otherwise punished in public must have meant severe humiliation. So public scorn for convicted of f enders may have been an important deterrent to disapproved forms of behaviour, at least for people established in the community.

A fine was the simplest court sentence, and could be imposed for a wide variety of offences. For her disrespect to the council, Thérèse Petit paid three livres to the court and thirty livres "to be distributed to the poor of this town." For making a wrongful accusation, Pierre LeBlanc was fined ten livres "for the poor of this town," to be paid to the parish curé.... For signing a contract in contravention of the 1743 ordonnance on the fishing industry, merchant Pierre Rodrigue and fisherman Jean Darracq each paid fifty livres ... For his attempt to kiss a girl against her will, Mathurin Josset paid ten livres for the poor and thirty livres to the girl. Court costs could be assessed in addition to the fine, which sometimes went "to the King" or to the Admiralty rather than to the poor or the victim. Apparently no publicity was attached to fines, except by the work of mouth communication which led to Thérèse Petit's humiliation.

Prison sentences were sometimes imposed in addition to or instead of a fine. Though prisons were principally used for holding suspects before and during trial, prison sentences were not unknown. The military authorities in particular used confinement as a disciplinary measure, at least in the 1750s, but the civilian courts also gave prison sentences. Fisherman Pierre Lamet received four days for striking Jean Dobiola at Niganiche. His sentence might have been severe had he still been Dobiola's indentured servant, for to strike one's master was a serious offence, but the fight had happened the day after his service had ended..... In another civil imprisonment, Marie Tanquerel and her husband were each given eight days "for invective." ....

The town's main prisons were in the King's Bastion barracks and, after 1742, adjoining the guardhouse at the Maurepas Gate. Before the first siege there was no prison in which to hold women, and Judith Pansart dit LaBretonnière, being held until she could be banished in the spring of 1735, was boarded with a resident of the Dauphin Fauxbourg.... After 1749, part of the Queen's Gate guardhouse and two King's Bastion casemates served as prisons. A 1752 report gives evidence of the horrible condition they were in .... and in 1740 a man being jailed until banishment was allowed to remain free for the winter, "considering the harshness of the prisons and the rigours of the climate." ....

The courts could order a variety of physical punishments, and these were usually inflicted in public. The mildest physical punishment was the pillory or carcan in Place du Port, which has been described elsewhere.... Soldiers were sometimes put in the carcan as a military discipline, and the courts sentenced a variety of individuals to a few hours in the carcan. Judith Pansart, the woman banished in 1736, had been ordered pilloried as well, for two hours on each of three consecutive days, but that part of 'her sentence was removed on appeal..... Unfortunately, no evidence has been found that suggests either the size or mood of crowds which gathered when convicts were subjected to the pillory or any other public punishment.

Physical punishments were often used to reinforce the authority of employers and masters, and punishments were sometimes carefully used as an object lesson to all employees. When an engage named Jean Fanton was convicted of attacking his employer, Guillaume LePestour of Niganiche, in 1730, all the engagés of the fishing proprietors of Louisbourg, Laurembec and Baleine were ordered to gather on the Quay. Fanton, bare shouldered, was brought from prison and made to run the gauntlet of the engagés whips (verges) seven times. He was then returned to Niganiche to suffer the same punishment from the engagés  of that harbour..... Similarly, when four sailors were convicted of disobedience in the same year, one was obliged to "courir la bouline", that is, to run the gauntlet of ropes' ends, five times. One of the others received one turn at the same punishment and the other two had to watch. To administer the punishment, two crewmembers from each merchant ship in the harbour were ordered to gather on the Quay..... In other cases, when there was no need to involve fellow employees, whippings were administered by the executioner.. Mathurin Bunau, a convicted thief, was condemned on December 24, 1737 "to be beaten and thrashed bare (shouldered) with whips by the executioner of high justice in the four principal intersections of this town at three in the afternoon and to be branded at the last intersection with a hot iron representing a fleur-de-lys on his right shoulder...." .... Other thieves were similarly whipped and branded, though the brand was sometimes in the form of a V (for voleur) ... Another case specified twenty-one coups de fouet at each intersection .... ....

More bizarre physical punishments apparently existed. Nicolas Casteloir, who stole a fishing shallop, was sentenced to "avoir la cale mouillé", that is, to be tied into a rope and harness and dropped three times into the sea from a spar of the mainmast of a vessel in the harbour. The Superior Council replaced this sentence with three hours in the carcan, but since the Admiralty sentence had ordered that the punishment be administered "à la manière ordinaire", this ordeal may have been inflicted on other occasions perhaps as a naval or shipboard punishment.... Soldiers were subject to punishment on "the wooden horse", but it is not known whether the horse located out in public view within a a predominantly military area.

The courts did not give long prison sentences, and serious offenders were often deported, usually back to the place they came from, "outside the town and the jurisdiction of this Bailliage" (i.e., out of the colony). Apparently banishment, which could be proceeded by a physical punishment, a fine, or forfeiture of local assets, led to no further punishment at destination, but simply removed the convict from the locality of his crime. The procedure affected all regions, for Ile Royale, which frequently returned convicts to France, itself received salt smugglers called faux saulniers  who had been convicted and banished from France for evading the high taxes on shipments of salt. A 1739 document gives the names of thirty faux saulniers sent to Ile Royale for life, but so far their later careers have not been uncovered.....

A grimmer form of banishment used in Ile Royale was sentencing to the galleys .... The French navy maintained a fleet of galleys in its Mediterranean service, and convicts from all over the French empire were sent to Toulon to become rowers. Louisbourg contributed its share of galley prisoners, usually sentenced for life for a serious crime.

"Finally there was capital punishment, more often sentenced than carried out (for the higher court commuted several death sentences) but still a familiar part of the justice of Ile Royale. Thieves, deserters and other criminals as well as murderers were executed, though execution seems to have been most certain in cases of planned, pre-meditated murder. Even capital punishment had degrees of severity. Some men were hung on a gallows erected either on the Quay near the carcan or at gallows sites outside the walls, near Black Rock or beyond the King's-Dauphin curtain wall..... Some bodies were to be quartered after death or to be left hanging for long periods. Other men suffered a harder death. Bernard Darospide dit Detchepart, convicted of the murder of several of his fellow crewmembers aboard the fishing schooner Marguerite in 1740, was condemned "to have his arms, legs, thighs and neck broken while alive on a scaffold which for that purpose shall be erected on public square by the carcan and to be placed subsequently on a wheel, face turned toward heaven, there to finish his days; This done, his dead body to be carried by the executioner to the highway on the other side of the Pledien bridge leading to the end of the bay" evidently for abandonment there. The Superior Council confirmed this sentence, though it added permission for the executioner to secretly strangle Darospide on the scaffold hours after his bones had been broken, rather than leave him alive for a longer time. Secretly presumably meant only that the victim would not be told of what was about to happen. This grim ceremony was carried out on August 23, 1740.....

Some sentences made provision for a public ceremony of amends. In civil cases, apology and restitution to the injured party could be required, as when a merchant apologized and withdrew suggestions about another merchant's insolvency before a representative group. of merchants and sea-captains .... In criminal trials, the convict could be ordered to ask forgiveness "from God, King and Justice" before his sentence was- carried out. Bernard Lailloque, one of the men arrested by the Royal Battery patrol organized by Sgt. Jean LaRiviere, was told, "to make honourable amends, wearing only a shirt, with a noose around his neck and holding in his hands a burning wax torch weighing two livres, at the~ door of the parish church of this town and at the place where the Carcan is situated, and being there, bareheaded and on his knees, to say and declare in a loud and intelligible. voice that by accident and thoughtlessly [comme mal avisé] at night. he struck with a club Jacques Dubé who died of the blow, that he repents this act and asks forgiveness for it from God, King and Justice. Subsequently [he is] to be conducted to la chaisne to be joined to it and to serve as a prisoner in the King's galleys in perpetuity." .... What effect the blockade and slege of Louisbourg later that spring had on the plans for Lailloque's transport to France is unknown.

4. Conclusions 

This paper has no specific conclusions to offer about deviant behaviour or societal mores in Ile Royale. Though some opinions can be found in the text, this does not claim to be a major study of criminality in Louisbourg, which for a start would have to attempt to measure and compare local crime rates. However, this brief survey of some examples of Louisbourg's law and o4cd-ar, apart from possibly providing some starting points for such a study, does offer some ideas for street life animation.

A sentry routine could be a useful element of animation and interpretation at Louisbourg. On the other hand, whippings, brandings, hangings and the crimes which produced them are poor candidates for town life animation, for there are surely limits to the realism of historic site animation. Even the pillory should be used with restraint, for though it is less violent, it perhaps suffers from overuse as a feature of colonial town re-creations. What may be most important about a record of law forces and public punishments is the chance to restore and animate a town which certainly was not free of crime and violence, but which had powerful instruments of deterrence and punishment to limit and control such disorders. A grasp of that situation could be a useful hint to animators' behaviour and activity while in costume ... [Extract from Christopher Moore, "Law. Order and Street Life" (March, 1977) in Second Draft Report, Contract Research 1977, Unpublished Report H F 39R (Fortress of Louisbourg, 1977), pp. 1-18.]