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"The Laws Are Like Cobwebs": Popular Resistance To Authority In Mid-Nineteenth Century British North America, Michael S. Cross

Dalhousie Law Journal

The three men began their work on the morning of 26 January 1850. They were in the snowy street of the village of St.-Grrgoire le Grand, on the St. Lawrence south shore, to assess the population for school taxes. Hardly had they begun when they were confronted by a mob of three hundred angry men who ordered them to stop, tore up and burned their assessment books, and warned them not to attempt to carry out the government's work. A week later, on 2 February, the assessors went to the grand jury of the Court of Queen's Bench at Trois …