jaywalking: the early years

I should be used to waking up to the radio blaring our glorious mayor's latest blunder. Should be, but it's still aggravating, maddening, and saddening all at once. That there are people who actually still admire the oaf is among the things that makes me fret about the future of humanity.

It appears our best mayor ever may have been ticketed for jaywalking last night. Which got me to thinking, especially after reading a story on the early history of jaywalking, when did the term first appear in Toronto newspapers? Cue a quick trip to the online archives of the Globe and Mail and the Star...

The answer appears to be two stories published a century ago. First, an item from the May 18, 1914 edition of the Star, which compares jaywalkers to another emerging menace of the automotive age, the joyrider.

Source: the Toronto Star, May 18, 1914.

The next day, the Globe published the following piece - less body, more headline:

Source: the Globe, May 19, 1914.