The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women Read Online Free PDF

old hemp rope that would be reused on ships, tearing their flesh as they teased dirt and tar from the rough fibers. In The Borough , British poet George Crabbe described this “pauper-palace” 6 :
    Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power:
It is a prison, with a milder name,
Which few inhabit without dread or shame.
    If Mary McMillan had lost her job and been forced into a poorhouse, the overseer would have separated her from Agnes. He would have shorn Agnes’s hair to three inches, thereby reinforcing her beggar rank and discouraging a return to “poor relief.” Mother and child would have gone to sleep hungry. Food rations, deemed “an efficient test of poverty,” were half the amount served in prisons, just enough to keep the worker inmates on their feet. 7 In gaol, hard labor was generally not required, so, in effect, poverty was punished more harshly than stealing. The workhouse was a death sentence for 23 percent of those who entered, a mortality rate more than double that for the homeless.
    The End of Eden
    For a time, Mary McMillan was able to provide for Agnes by laboring at the nearby woolen manufactory, as the mill was called. The work was stifling and dangerous, but because she was paid based on her productivity, she trudged on. There was no ventilation, nor privies, nor provisions for water. Agnes’s mother considered herself fortunate to have a job, but toxic tedium and twelve years on her feet had finally ground her down. In theory, the Industrial Revolution offered women the potential for economic freedom. In reality, most earned between one-third and one-half of what a man brought home.
    No matter how Mary scrimped and saved, she was always behind. With wages on the order of four shillings per week, there was little chance to make ends meet. Her basic expenses required at least five shillings, exceeding her earnings in spite of working overtime. In neighborhoods like Goosedubbs Street, weekly rent cost one shilling, sixpence; oatmeal and flour, one shilling, ten pence; potatoes, five pence for a large sack; candles and fuel, one shilling, two pence.
    Facing the numbing struggle to make it through the next day, Mary McMillan found optimism beyond her grasp. Whether it was despair, drink, or a different reason, Mary ultimately gave up on motherhood. Unable to cope with work and parenting, she often left Agnes to fend for herself. By age twelve, Agnes was left entirely to her own resources. Her mother still allowed her to sleep at the flat, but Agnes spent many a night wandering the wynds. Luckily, she made friends easily, thanks to “a spirited demeanor,” as described by her descendants. Deserted by her family and consigned to wretchedness by her government’s grim prediction in Parliament’s Poor Laws report, the Goosedubbs Street girl found protection in what would be called a street gang today.
    Janet Houston, a year older, adopted the abandoned little songstress. Agnes’s alliance with a surrogate big sister provided a sense of belonging and a semblance of a family, at least for a while. Agnes sang to whoever would listen, and Janet collected coins from passersby. Together the best friends looked out for each other as they managed a lean existence along the River Clyde. Life on the dingy streets was certainly hard, yet these two independent souls had decided that sleeping in an alleyway was preferable to the workhouse or the factory. Now, however, the sunken-cheeked twelve-year-old was under arrest, chains shackled to her wrists. As the iron door closed, leaving her and Janet in the damp silence of the holding cell, Agnes cursed her bad luck. She knew what justice meant for the poor. Bloody Christmas, bloody hell.
    If a society is judged on how it treats children and the downtrodden, the British Empire failed on all fronts during Agnes’s lifetime. Voices of reason were few and rare, even among leading intellectuals. Francis Hutcheson, one of the founders of the eighteenth-century