The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [9]
Peeking out onto Goosedubbs Street as a five-year-old on her own, Agnes saw a world of cobblestone and brick, full of misery and manure. Coal particles stung her eyes at every blink. Each sip of water she drank from the brackish public well carried the risk of dysentery or typhoid fever. She and everyone else who lived near the mills coughed out pieces of black grit breathed in from Glasgow’s raging industrial fires. Neighbors overhead tossed their garbage out the window onto the walkway. Most had witnessed some unfortunate soul drop dead in the street or on the job. The grey-eyed five-year-old had already proven to be lucky, since half the Scottish children born in 1820 had already been laid in the ground by their parents. In the slums, dunghills and raw sewage blanketed the crowded space with a sticky black glaze. This was Agnes’s playground and schoolyard.
Children dashed around the wynds playing tag, hide-and-seek, and peever—the Scottish version of hopscotch. Boys picked up sticks to bat whatever they could hit in the air. An old barrel hoop started a contest for who could spin it the farthest. Street waste offered an abundance of possibilities for games and entertainment. Clever mothers sewed dolls from scraps of cloth. Discarded shoe heels, hammered with nails resembling eyes and a mouth, formed the perfect face for the doll. Pieces of rope were snatched up for skipping along the bank of the River Clyde. Nothing went unused, and nearly everything was used again and again with renewed purpose.
Among the laboring class, a child’s role included the duty of earning a living. By age seven, Agnes would have been expected to contribute to the McMillan household income. Every penny mattered. Children her age, and younger, worked full time as chimney sweeps or factory workers, hired for the ability to reach small crevices and machine parts. Weans sometimes earned more than their parents because of the market value attached to their small size. Mine owners employed five- and six-year-olds to crawl through muddy scum deep inside the shafts and scurry back with a heavy load tied over their shoulders.
Hunger and hopelessness incited families to commit unthinkable acts. Some parents relied on punishment to make their children earn money or commit a crime, whatever it took to keep the family afloat. Five-year-olds were forced to stitch gloves until the midnight hour. Six-year-olds were booted into the streets and ordered to steal a pocketbook or grab a loaf of bread. Small bodies with fast legs made good criminals. Other parents made valiant attempts to protect their sons and daughters from miscreant street influences, sometimes hiding their clothing so they could not venture outside.
Most Glasgow families lived in poverty. Even with two incomes, subsistence wages were not enough to lift a family out of destitution. Absent the availability of homegrown meat or vegetables, the average city dweller spent at least 60 percent of earnings on food, some spending up to 90 percent. Members of the laboring class, like the McMillans, lived on oatmeal for breakfast and potatoes for dinner. Bread, beer, and lard rounded out their diet. Luxury items like milk, butter, cheese, or a piece of pork were rarely purchased. The largest meal portions were reserved for Michael McMillan, the primary breadwinner, especially when he could afford meat. When food ran short, mothers and children were expected to go without and sacrifice for the survival of the household.
A Glasgow father spent very little time in the home. When his shift ended late into the evening, he generally headed straight for the flash house to “swallow a hare” at the pub. Workmates in tow, he drank heartily into the wee hours. Glasgow taverns, one for every fourteen people, guaranteed escape from the bleakness of a one-room flat. “Drunken statistics” published in the Scotsman revealed that Glasgow residents drank more