Hi! This story comes courtesy of reader Peter J., who shared it with me back in December of 2016. (I have a lot of old emails I’m going through.) Have a story I should write about? Reply to this email to let me know. I’ll get to it… eventually! 😀 — Dan

It was a normal day in Toronto in July 1855, except for one thing: the circus was in town. S.B. Howes’ Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus — an American troupe — came to Canada as part of a massive tour. The circus featured elephants — rarely seen at circuses in those days — horseback riders, acrobats, and of course, clowns.

The circus performed two shows on July 12, and the clowns decided to enjoy the city. Unfortunately, some firefighters did as well. And as a result — well, indirectly — Toronto’s police force is no longer controlled by city officials.

The clowns of Howes’ Star Troupe weren’t all jolly folk with red noses and bottles of seltzer. As the Toronto Star reported, “these were rough-and-tumble, ill-mannered, muscle-bound clowns who performed hard labor when they weren’t on stage, responsible for setting up and tearing down the circus as it roamed from town to town.” And that night, they were looking for a good time of the R-rated (or worse) variety. They made their way to one of Toronto’s brothels — Toronto was a much less cosmopolitan city at the time! — and…. well, didn’t actually do what typically happens in such places. Because before they could, a group of firemen from the local Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company also arrived at the bordello. And the two groups of men didn’t mix.

What happened next is unclear. One story has the clowns trying to skip the line, another has the firefighters stealing a clown’s clown hat (which is a weird thing to wear to a brothel, but whatever), and the truth is likely somewhere in between. But in any event, a fight broke out between the clowns and the firemen, and the clowns prevailed. The firefighters fled the brothel, bloodied and beaten, and probably ashamed, too. But the brouhahaha (sorry) was far from over.

The firefighters were part of a fraternal organization known as the Orange Order, which comprised many of the city’s municipal workers — including, importantly, most if not all of the local police force. The day after the fight at the brothel, the Orange Order descended on the circus, ratcheting up the violence. Toronto historian Adam Bunch explained what happened next:

The police ultimately arrived only to find that many other officers were already there, participating in the fight on behalf of the Orange Order. And the cops that came to restore order decided to stay mostly out of it. Per The Mighty, “when the mayor showed up, the police had done nothing except save the animals, so he called in the militia to stop the violence.”

The event became known, notoriously, as the Toronto Circus Riot, and the behavior of the police department provoked outcry from the city’s citizens. The provincial government took over jurisdiction of the police force, firing all the officers and creating a brand new one. (Some of the fired cops were rehired.) The new police force was governed by a board of commissioners established at the provincial level, a system that still exists today.

If you work in communications, you’ve probably felt it: AI is starting to change how the job actually gets done. To make sense of it for myself, I started The Comms Stack — a once-a-week newsletter where I share what I’m learning, testing, and building at the intersection of AI and communications. Nearly 1,000 comms pros already read it each week. Join us!

Today’s Bonus fact: In 2016, a group of four British men were suspected of stealing a car, and found themselves on the wrong end of a high-speed chase. The British police were able to get the suspects to drive over a spike, causing a tire to blow out, but the men didn’t give up — they took off on foot. One constable named Steve “Oscar” Hutton was chasing a suspect but wasn’t making any progress — so he came up with another idea. Hutton told the Swindon Advertiser, “I shouted out I was a police dog handler and to stay still. I then let out a couple of barks.” The culprit was sufficiently confused, standing still for a few seconds looking for a dog that didn’t exist. That was enough time for Police Constable Hutton to arrest the suspect. What gave Hutton such an idea? Apparently, it wasn’t his first time barking a bad guy into submission. As he told the paper, “I’ve done it before when I was based in Salisbury and we were trying to get a man at a school. He ran across the school field and I knew we were never going to catch him, so I let out a couple of barks.”

From the Archives: Why The NYC Police Darkened Their Blues: Amazingly, it has to do with doughnuts.

Now I Know is supported by readers like you. Yes, you! Many of my readers donate a few dollars a month to help Now I Know grow and thrive. And in exchange, they get an ad-free version!

Interested in supporting Now I Know? Click here!

And thanks! — Dan