Evidence Type: Newspaper Report
27 September 1826
JOHANNA SALMON, one of the frail pair who were condemned to linger out an utter seclusion in the Factory, for twelve months, for making a temporary elopement from their three days’ spouses, with those “gentlemen of the road,” COOK and WARD, some part of whose exploits we have, with tremulous pen, attempted in some other paragraph to delineate, was not long without making an effort to escape from Factory thraldom. Her attempts to effect this desirable object, became so well known, that it was considered imperative to bestow the restive dame in a securer apartment, lest she might possible [sic] escape to her paramour, “and like another Helen, fire another Troy.”
A cell, narrow and comfortless, though better defended and barred from intrusive eye of man, than any make-shift “cool grot and mossy cell” to be found on the bleak sides and barren ridges of the transjacent Blue Mountains, was set apart for the heroine’s accommodation. Two constables, relieved occasionally by others, incessantly patrol or receive orders to do so, the Factory yard; and this by night, as well as by day. The object of their being thus doomed for “a certain term to walk the night,” as well as day, needs no explanation, or refutation. Two such Argus-eyed guardians were stationed within the Factory walls not half a dozen nights back, when some adventurous hero scaled the outward walls, crossed the “court of guard” unmolested, penetrated into the sanctum sanctorum of my lady matron — as if possessed of another enchanted myrtle, got to the cell where lay the trembling dove within; —“locks, bolts and bars soon fly asunder” — the frail captive was spirited most mysteriously away — no traces of her being discoverable except in the effects of a few trifling implements, useful in house-breaking remaining behind. The woman has not since been taken. The constables yet retain their places.
CITATION
Female Factory Online, (femalefactoryonline.org), “Law Report of JOHANNA SALMON,” https://femalefactoryonline.org/law-reports/p18260927-3/, accessed [insert current date].
RELATED CONTENT
See Original
Law Report of JOHANNA SALMON (3 January 1827)
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