From the 1926 memoir "You Can't Win", Seven For Jack explores an episode in the life of BC born burglar Jack Black, his | dG1fR2U4Vnp3V19UcHc
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Short filmTranscript
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00:28 [music]
00:39 At Victoria, I put in a few very pleasant months.
00:43 I joined the colony of Chinese and opium smugglers
00:46 who ran their freight across the line in fast, small boats at night
00:50 into Port Townsend, Anacortes, or Seattle, Washington.
00:56 The manufacture of smoking opium was then a legalized industry in Canada,
01:00 and the smugglers were welcomed and harbored
01:02 because they brought much American gold to the Canadian side.
01:07 Being in the company of these characters, I was accepted by police as one of them
01:11 and went my way unmolested.
01:15 One fatal evening, as I stood watching a Faro game,
01:18 making mental bets and winning every one,
01:20 a devilish hunch came to me that I was lucky and I ought to make a play.
01:27 I made a bet, lost it, got stuck,
01:31 and feverishly played it in my last dollar.
01:35 [music]
01:53 This gambling habit is the curse of a thief's life.
01:56 He loses his last dime and is forced to go out in haste for money.
02:01 To make a mechanic out of a job, he takes the first one in sight.
02:05 He has no time to pick and choose or calculate carefully what he's about.
02:09 He must eat, and the minute he goes broke, he gets hungry.
02:15 I had strolled through the residence district
02:18 and noted several homes that looked prosperous and easy of approach.
02:21 House Burgly was almost unknown there then.
02:26 There was almost no police protection. None was needed.
02:32 Householders left windows open and doors unlocked.
02:37 [music]
02:46 One o'clock found me in one of the most pretentious places on my list.
02:52 But instead of picking up trifles right and left as I had expected,
02:55 I found but one room occupied.
02:59 I took nothing but money, and not much of that.
03:02 Less than $50 in silver and bills,
03:04 leaving his watch and some small articles of jewelry,
03:07 is not worth the chances I must take in trying to dispose of them in a strange town.
03:12 [music]
03:27 I went straight downtown to the only all-night bar and lunch counter to eat before going to bed.
03:33 Before I had my meal finished, two officers and two civilians came in,
03:37 and they all came over to where I sat eating.
03:41 One of the civilians looked at me closely and said to the other,
03:44 "Looks very much like the man."
03:47 I was in a bad hole.
03:49 If I objected to search, it would look bad, and they would do it anyway.
03:54 "Go ahead and search me," I said, making the best of a bad position.
03:59 "Lock him up," ordered the man.
04:01 "He has the exact amount of money I lost.
04:03 The paper corresponds, and so does the silver.
04:07 You're arrested in the name of the Crown, and anything you say will be used against you."
04:12 [music]
04:19 I was taken to the city prison,
04:21 where I gave the booking officer a very brief and misleading biographical sketch.
04:26 The jail I had fled from, with a China boy loomed before me.
04:30 I put in the balance of the night going over my case.
04:33 It looked hopeless.
04:36 By ten o'clock, I was taken into the magistrate's court.
04:39 The attachés and loungers crowded the house and stared at me curiously.
04:46 The photographer waiting at the jail took a number of pictures of me,
04:49 and I was locked up again.
04:52 The jailer, a sad-eyed, solemn-faced Scotchman,
04:55 gazed at me a long time through the barred door and smacked his lips.
05:01 "You're dead. You escaped from the provincial jail at Revelstoke."
05:11 I already knew I was lost,
05:13 but this conveyed to me the full force and effect of my predicament.
05:17 It made me feel like one buried alive.
05:26 [music]
05:30 In due time, the judge arrived in town.
05:33 My irons were struck off, and I went into court.
05:36 I got a brief, dignified, orderly trial.
05:40 Having no lawyer, the judge asked me if I wanted to go over the points in the case
05:44 and said I could not presume to instruct his lordship on points of law.
05:50 He gave his verdict, then. Guilty, both charges.
05:55 Two years in the provincial penitentiary for burglary,
05:58 six months for jailbreaking, sentences concurrent, and 30 lashes.
06:13 The train carried me to the prison in New Westminster.
06:16 My Scotch jailer loaded me with irons and handcuffed me to a seat
06:20 to make sure he delivered me safely.
06:26 In the town of New Westminster, I looked above me with interest.
06:29 It was my birthplace.
06:35 My parents were married in the United States,
06:37 but spent the first year of their married life in British Columbia,
06:41 where my father had some small business interests.
06:49 He was a British subject and never took the trouble to become an American.
06:56 That left me a subject of Great Britain, which I still am.
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