Bloody Jack and the Soldier of the Horse (part 2 of 2)

At some point during the hunt for the escaped Bloody Jack and its aftermath, the police saw fit to question my father, even putting it to him that he had attempted to file the serial number off the Colt pistol used by Jack in his escape. Reflecting on this many years after Dad told me the story, it occurred to me that he never actually said whether he had or had not done so. But, knowing him, I am sure he assumed nobody would seriously think he would do any such thing.
The newspapers of the day had a field day, what with the trial of Krafchenko and his eventual execution, as well as the just as sensational trials of the conspirators to the jailbreak, including lawyer Percy Hagel. I did some research in the archives of the Free Press, in order to check out my father’s story. It was with considerable satisfaction that I came across an item saying something like “...and the conspirators returned to Hagel’s office, where the clerk Mackie was...”. I have no doubt it was with great relief that Dad and his family saw the error—his name of course was Tom Mackay, but we in the family have always pronounced it like “Mackie”. So the family was spared some embarrassment, and I was able to corroborate my dad’s story.

Bloody Jack and the Soldier of the Horse

When loosely telling my dad's story of his time in the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, I could hardly leave out a version of how he ended up in a recruiting office and "volunteering". He was then an articled clerk, ie law student, in the offices of John Hagel, KC. Unfortunately for him, John's son Percy, a real rascal, was also working there as a lawyer. Percy was defending Bloody Jack Krafchenko, an accused bank robber and murderer, who convinced Percy to help him break out of jail. Jack did break out, and the subsequent hue and cry made a laughing-stock of the Winnipeg Police. For a contemporary account, and an amusing cartoon, click here.
More about this in a post later this week.