DOUBLE-SLANGED

                                  

Slang  

                        fetters, double-slanged if both legs locked in chains

Slung

                        thrown into Newgate, the stone jug, for your pains  

Rook

                        stealing like a brazen, black bird of thieving nature

Rake               

                        a wastrel and pisspot affecting to cut a figure

Cull

                        a simpleton that pays for favours given

Cell

                        a stone cubby, dark and damp, with iron bars riven

Whit

                        where the Newgate nightingale sings high pitch                   

Whet

                        as if keening the blade to stick the snitch

Chive

                        filing away or sawing through chains and ring-bolts

Chafe

                        scars and sores rubbed black and blue by bracelets

Spell

                        wasting away in the lock-up, doing time ill-spent

Spiel   

                        gaming at cards, dice, prick the girdle . . . Repent!

Hull

                        the cull’s shell rotting in some rank hell-hole

Hulk

                        whose creaking bulk stores vermin in its hold

Flog

                        striping skin to saltback for bolters sought at large

Flag

                        shaking your fist in defiance at blackguards and lobsters in charge

Heap

                        ropeable measures of a prig’s misfortune

Hope

                        a lag’s vain pleas for mercy to importune

Sneak             

                        a boman prig showing off brain rather than brawn

Snake

                        a dissembling varlet, a sham Abraham, himself finally shorn

Lurk 

                        extorting money by false pretences, going on a racket

Lark

                        a frolic or game or rum fraud to cop a packet

Sweat

                        clipping coins for gold dust with nimble hooks

Sweet

                        a honey-tongued forger of queer screens cooking the books

Bind               

making fast the beak’s law or debt or shackles

Bound            

destined to bolt-in-tun with raised hackles

Mab                

a covey of slatterns working Covent Garden and Drury Lane

Mob                

                        among rabblings top dogs snarl and reign

Pop     

                        a pistol flashed by a prigger of prancers on the gallop

Pup     

                        a young popinjay with the affected airs of a fop

Croak

giving your dying speech from the crooked tree

Choke

breaking the neck, the hangman's quinsy                                                                                                           

                                                                                                  Michael Small

August 23-28, 2014

                       

THE CRACKSMAN

    

                Thomas Stacey, 1812-1864

            Thomas Stacey, a Londoner, gets his blunt at the best, as

he musters his bag of tools:  a centre-bit with brace,

gimlet, knife, chisel, phosphorous-box or phos,

crowbar to jemmy, five skeleton keys or false screws,

            a dark lantern with candle burning or glim-jack.

And reckons it's good upon the crack to break

into Jabez Woodhill’s jeweller's-crib for gems, sparklers

and rings to fake the cull while he’s out and do the trick.

            Cracking the chain containing the grate in Cannon Alley,

            Thomas lowers himself nimbly from ground floor to cellar.

But slour'd up against the stairs' landing stands the jigger.

Stacey tugs and shakes but wakes the staunch assistant,

John Smith, who rouses the snoozing slaveys in an instant.

Shop-lobber Guy Clarke is woken, peels his peepers,

witnesses Stacey heave out the cellar about to scarper.

'Watch!  Watch!' cries Clarke.  'Shut your shop!' mutters.

Thomas.  George Nichols, a fly watchman, hears the cry,

comes bang up to the mark and spies a crack halter,

a cracksman intending to bang-slang it, collars

and floors him hard by the cellar door.

Bowled out at last, the lime-juicer is shopped,

hobbled and led shame-faced to the roundy-ken to cop

the verdict.  'Guilty!' declares the beak.  The sentence: death.

Thomas must pay lagging dues; indeed, must pay the earth:

            confined on the John then setting sail for New South Wales.

                                           Cox’s River, 1833

            It lies along a dusty track, the Bathurst Road, this wooden

            jug just a blot or blur neath the boundless blue-domed horizon.

            Quartered in the stockade a gang of ironed lags in slops marked

            with broad arrow, surly scowls and salt-crusted backs scarred.

            Scarce two months pass afore Stacey takes to the bush, bolts

            with five renegades, two lairy lags and three crooked reds irate,

            disarming a sentry, seizing his musket, shot and bayonet.

            These bushrangers shake a settler’s house of needy grub,

            but are apprehended and charged with highway robbery.

            Stacey is pronounced prancer, dubbed crib-cracker, again

            absconds, is arrested and tickled fifty lashes for his pains.

            The cuffin-queer sentences the gang for life to Norfolk Isle.

            In the hulk’s cell they smuggle tools, undub their irons

            and by means of cutters sheer through the outer boards.

             In the waves below, a waiting boatswain clasping oars.

                                     Norfolk Island, 1834-54

             For twenty years the desperately reckless cove suffers torment

            on the isle, a long reign for an old file in solitary confinement,

            forced to endure three hundred lashes for being absent!

            Other charges include possessing tobacco, disobedience,

            refusing to work, robbery, possessing cards, insolence,

            absconding, having bootlaces, fighting, dishonest conduct,

            possessing tea and coffee, obscene language, neglect . . .

            And fifty lashes for not answering the guard.at night!

                                                                                  Michael Small

            June 30-July 8, 2014

Thomas Stacey was given his ticket-of-leave in 1858 and a conditional pardon in 1860.  He spent thirty-eight of his last forty-one years behind bars.

           

             

                                                  

MURDER BY MILL STREET BRIDGE

      Eliza Dore 1829-1875        Abel Ovans   1830-1852

Brought up afore the beak, we were much afeared,

me 'n' Abel Ovans, my intended, my troth, my bud.

Very moment they condemned him, I vent an almighty scream.

Such a worrit was he, always bullyragging me, Abel.

Even when I was with child, he’d treat me ill.

How I regret we put a sham upon my ma and pa;

leastways, I hoped to make a goodly mother.

Abel was like tinder, a tongue pad, ‘cause he would

not care a splinter for any bub. Even told

a neighbour he wished the child were dead.

‘Twas better when I was house servant to a victualler

and my beloved Abel was hired a farm labourer.

For my confinement I went to live in Newport,

leaving my caring parents for old grumble-guts,

who begrudged drudgery, would not touch the baby.

We were in bad bread.  O mama, please forgive me.

I missed my sisters something dreadful, begged them visit.

Abel vouched he’d meet them at the Newport packet.

When I was belly up, I had a bellyful of pain.

Seedy, we couldn’t cough the rent, so were turfed out

of our lodgings on a winter’s day, carrying our

bundle of belongings, what with my baby wailing

and Abel kicking up, muttering oaths, scowling.

We quit the Carpenter’s Arms, a Monmouth inn,

where folks said my baby looked bobbish, a treat,

a picture of blooming health – if left to fate!

But next day, God help us, Abel struck me chill.

‘Get rid o’ that dam bub!  It ain’t mine!  All to hell!’

Acting the mule, I refused to hand her tender body over.

We walked in broody silence till Mill Street bridge.

‘Give me that child if you want us to live together!’

I was sore afraid he’d give me fits with his blathery.

‘Let me have the young bugger!’  Snatching the swaddle

clouts, he wrested the child wrapped in a shawl

and strode over the bridge and along by the canal.

‘I don’t care a tuppenny dam no more, you trapes!’

‘Give me back my baby!  O give me back my babe!’

Ten minutes lapsed afore his brassy, sullen return,

roughly bunching shawl and clothes.  Of my babe no sign!

‘What have you done with my little girl?’ I urged too late.

‘I’ve done away with it,’ he barked.  ‘I’ll not keep it!’         

‘It?’ I cried.  ‘My poor precious daughter!  Never no It!’

‘Don’t make that racket here!’  For I couldn’t stop sobbing.

Yes, damn my soul, I’d still have lied to save his skin.

Strangers asked after the baby, suspicions grew, rumours.

About Stowe there was such an unholy stir.

On the morrow the naked baby’s body was found

drowned, floating amid the reeds of the mill pond.

My poor little mite was given burial by Stowe’s chaplain.

Fond and foolish was I to lie for Abel’s skin.

I changed my tune and confessed to police.

Abel swore I’d wished to poison the child.  What dreadful lies!

My late lost love was charged and nubbed.  I was saved

the noose with two days’ grace for mercy’s sake.

Michael Small

June 9-21, 2014

Eliza Dore was spared the death sentence but not transportation.  One of 219 female convicts on the Duchess of Northumberland, the last transport to carry female convicts to Van Diemen’s Land. She arrived in Hobart in April, 1853 after a five month voyage. The following year she re-married and gave birth to thirteen more children.  Abel Ovans was publicly hanged.in 1852.