Read Online The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss - Free Book Online
Authors: Deborah J. Swiss
Tags: General, Social Science, History, Biography & Autobiography, Political, australia, womens studies, 19th century, Women, Social History, Penology, Australia & New Zealand, Women prisoners, Tasmania, Convict labor, Convict labor - Australia - Tasmania - History - 19th century, Women prisoners - Australia - Tasmania - History - 19th century, Penal transportation, Exiles - Australia - Tasmania - History - 19th century, Penal transportation - Australia - Tasmania - History - 19th century
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skill for picking pockets and the tools for clean house breaks, they sneaked about seeking ready targets for theft.
Although a good friend, Janet was not an ideal partner. Her russet tresses stood out like a flashing beacon in a crowd. On July 2, 1834, two days after Agnes’s release, a constable caught Janet carrying off a bolt of blue-and-white fabric from a shop owned by James Fraser on High Street. A judge sent the sassy redhead straight back to Mr. Green’s mill for sixty days. Only half the pair was arrested because the lookout did not get caught. Out of the officer’s direct sight, Agnes must have blended into the crowd and made her getaway. It was Janet’s turn to take the fall. Theirs was a friendship but also a business partnership that helped them through another day. The fair wouldn’t be the same without her trusted confidante. Bad luck and bloody hell. Now she was a gang of one.
On her own for two months, Agnes knew enough street people to get by. The summer of 1834 lumbered on as she drifted through the alleys, counting the days until Janet’s release. She had big news to share. No sooner had Janet been freed from Mr. Green’s than Agnes grabbed her hand and dragged her to the corner of Saltmarket and Greendyke Streets. Ta-da! Englishman William Mumford had opened a theater in a ramshackle shed next to the Glasgow Green.
Listening for the sound of musicians who signaled the lifting of a canvas flap, the laboring class and the homeless gathered around and watched a new form of entertainment in a neighborhood rife with brothels and unlicensed taverns. Sword in hand, Mr. Mumford played the lead in Rob Roy , a play about the romantic Scottish outlaw born in the seventeenth century. As he poured glass after glass of gin down his throat, he lectured his patrons on the evils of drink. 4 Mr. Mumford might have been rather surprised to learn that his primitive theater would become Scotland’s most famous penny geggy , a Scottish term for “show.”
Boxing matches, cockfights, fortune-tellers, jugglers, and players of the “mouth organ” (harmonica) brought a kaleidoscope of entertainment to Glasgow’s teeming East End. These spontaneous, frequently ribald, and sometimes bizarre performances diverted attention from the daily real-life dramas of the weary and abandoned playing throughout the tenement slums.
Agnes turned fourteen during the second week in September, when the deep purple heather burst into full bloom. Her hair had grown long enough to be less conspicuous as she roamed the wynds around the Green. Janet had completed her sentence just in time for Agnes’s birthday and the lingering remnants of summer warmth.
The days were soon shorter as autumn approached and October’s heavy rains returned. By November, the sun all but disappeared. The first snowflakes fell in December and posted a stark reminder of the holiday celebration that had gone so terribly, terribly wrong nearly two years ago, when Agnes was involved with the gang of burglars. This year, Agnes and her blue-eyed chum managed to sing holiday songs and pilfer their way through the season without getting caught.
On December 31, Glasgow came alive in holiday celebration. Agnes and Janet brought 1834 to a close as they bellowed out a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne,” written by national poet and favorite son Robert Burns. Church bells across the city chimed at the stroke of midnight. This was Hogmanay night, Scotland’s most important holiday, elevated in importance because of a long-standing ban on Christmas. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Presbyterian Church forbade Christmas celebrations, fearing pagan origins among its traditions.
Hogmanay traditions, practiced continually since the 1600s, marked the season of rebirth as days became longer and nights shorter. Scots cleaned their homes thoroughly, paid off their debts, and burned juniper branches to ward off evil spirits for the coming year. Inside Glasgow’s west-side
Although a good friend, Janet was not an ideal partner. Her russet tresses stood out like a flashing beacon in a crowd. On July 2, 1834, two days after Agnes’s release, a constable caught Janet carrying off a bolt of blue-and-white fabric from a shop owned by James Fraser on High Street. A judge sent the sassy redhead straight back to Mr. Green’s mill for sixty days. Only half the pair was arrested because the lookout did not get caught. Out of the officer’s direct sight, Agnes must have blended into the crowd and made her getaway. It was Janet’s turn to take the fall. Theirs was a friendship but also a business partnership that helped them through another day. The fair wouldn’t be the same without her trusted confidante. Bad luck and bloody hell. Now she was a gang of one.
On her own for two months, Agnes knew enough street people to get by. The summer of 1834 lumbered on as she drifted through the alleys, counting the days until Janet’s release. She had big news to share. No sooner had Janet been freed from Mr. Green’s than Agnes grabbed her hand and dragged her to the corner of Saltmarket and Greendyke Streets. Ta-da! Englishman William Mumford had opened a theater in a ramshackle shed next to the Glasgow Green.
Listening for the sound of musicians who signaled the lifting of a canvas flap, the laboring class and the homeless gathered around and watched a new form of entertainment in a neighborhood rife with brothels and unlicensed taverns. Sword in hand, Mr. Mumford played the lead in Rob Roy , a play about the romantic Scottish outlaw born in the seventeenth century. As he poured glass after glass of gin down his throat, he lectured his patrons on the evils of drink. 4 Mr. Mumford might have been rather surprised to learn that his primitive theater would become Scotland’s most famous penny geggy , a Scottish term for “show.”
Boxing matches, cockfights, fortune-tellers, jugglers, and players of the “mouth organ” (harmonica) brought a kaleidoscope of entertainment to Glasgow’s teeming East End. These spontaneous, frequently ribald, and sometimes bizarre performances diverted attention from the daily real-life dramas of the weary and abandoned playing throughout the tenement slums.
Agnes turned fourteen during the second week in September, when the deep purple heather burst into full bloom. Her hair had grown long enough to be less conspicuous as she roamed the wynds around the Green. Janet had completed her sentence just in time for Agnes’s birthday and the lingering remnants of summer warmth.
The days were soon shorter as autumn approached and October’s heavy rains returned. By November, the sun all but disappeared. The first snowflakes fell in December and posted a stark reminder of the holiday celebration that had gone so terribly, terribly wrong nearly two years ago, when Agnes was involved with the gang of burglars. This year, Agnes and her blue-eyed chum managed to sing holiday songs and pilfer their way through the season without getting caught.
On December 31, Glasgow came alive in holiday celebration. Agnes and Janet brought 1834 to a close as they bellowed out a chorus of “Auld Lang Syne,” written by national poet and favorite son Robert Burns. Church bells across the city chimed at the stroke of midnight. This was Hogmanay night, Scotland’s most important holiday, elevated in importance because of a long-standing ban on Christmas. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Presbyterian Church forbade Christmas celebrations, fearing pagan origins among its traditions.
Hogmanay traditions, practiced continually since the 1600s, marked the season of rebirth as days became longer and nights shorter. Scots cleaned their homes thoroughly, paid off their debts, and burned juniper branches to ward off evil spirits for the coming year. Inside Glasgow’s west-side
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