The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [46]
Defying contemporary beliefs, Mrs. Fry perceived shades of grey in trying to understand the plight of the convict women. The popular view cast by the upper class considered girls like Agnes either “good” or “bad.” For the bad, there was no turning back from a destiny of damnation. Yet a male criminal, they believed, held the capacity for reform and redemption. Typical of the Victorian era, one code of morality applied to men and another to women. Members of a Committee Inquiring into Female Convict Discipline explained the duality this way: “Society . . . fixed the standard of the average moral excellence required of women much higher than that which it had erected for men, and that crime was regarded with less allowance when committed by a woman . . . because the offender was deemed to have receded further from the average proprieties of her sex.”2
Just one year before Agnes and Janet entered Newgate, the stately Quaker had testified before the House of Lords on the condition of British prisons and admitted: “We are doing the best we can with a very bad system.”3 A prison inspector for the government also testified and criticized her mission as meddling and naïve. Undaunted, she continued to blatantly defy the City Corporation, which had concluded it was “useless to attempt to reform such untamed and turbulent spirits except by punishment.”4
Mrs. Fry held high hopes that girls like Agnes and Janet could become enterprising women if guided by example and training. Her volunteers assigned them to groups gathered around tables, where they were taught to sew clothing, knit socks, and make patchwork quilts. Elizabeth persuaded local merchants to donate materials and negotiated agreements to market the finished products in both England and Australia. Prisoners produced more than one hundred thousand articles over a five-year period,5 shared the profits, and purchased “small extra indulgences,” like fresh food, soap, and beer.6
The girls put down their needles and thread at three o’clock to consume their main meal of bread and soup. Boiled beef from the lower part of the quarters, known as “mouse buttock,” was served several times a week unless the gaolers stole it. With good intentions, Fry advocated serving the Newgate girls white bread rather than the cheaper brown loaves, which were actually more nutritious. Believing their diet too meager, Fry’s association hired a woman to run a prison shop that sold tea, coffee, butter, and sugar, although the prison inspector looked askance at what he considered the sale of luxuries.7
At six o’clock, the Quaker ladies bid farewell with another scripture reading in the prison chapel. The number of names carved into the pews recorded a high degree of boredom among prisoners. Still skeptical about the do-gooders, the two friends rolled their eyes as the well-dressed women exited. At the very least, the Quakers provided diversion from their caged routine. Once Mrs. Fry and her volunteers were out of sight, it was business as usual. Drinking resumed, hidden card decks magically appeared, and fights ensued until the Quakers returned the next day.
While their cell mates sized up the petite lasses with thick Scottish brogues, Agnes and Janet were busy figuring out whom they might trust. Their search for allies commenced without delay. The sooner they discovered who was dangerous, the better their chances of leaving Newgate unharmed. Having had some experience in gangs and in gaol, the girls had an easier time adapting than most. They quickly found out who played the roles of “fixer” and “scrounger.” At the top of the convict hierarchy, these were the inmates who knew how to get special treatment and what it might cost. Under Fry’s system, the prisoners elected monitors who essentially managed the ward, distributing food rations