Not only was there a riot in Riverside Park in the 60s and a massive fight at the old Victoria Public School/ Town Hall in 1879- it seems it was a common occurrence to have a few drunken brawls in Carleton Place. I found this stated in the notes of historian Howard Morton Brown.
A similar scene, checked at its onset, is found in James Poole’s press report of the next generation’s Spring Fair Day of 1852 at Carleton Place:
Drunken Bipeds
“The Spring Fair was held at Carleton Place last Tuesday. Very indifferent Milch cows brought 20 pounds. There was an average stock of drunken bipeds in the village, some of whom were under eighteen years.
The day was finished with one of those party fights between Orangemen and Catholics, which have been the disgrace and ruin of Ireland and which occasionally break out among her sons in this land of their adoption. We know not what length their passions would have carried them had they not been checked by the prompt and decisive action of Mr. Robert Bell, who was called there by the uproar, where there were about fifty actually engaged, and the whole crowd which filled the street were fast giving way to their passions.”
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