Evidence Type: Newspaper Report
DATE: 7 September 1844
POLICE.
MONDAY.
Ecce-iterum M’CANN.—We had been in a dubiousness of mind for the last two or three weeks for the absence of this interesting female’s name from the Police diaries, was a matter involving awful surprise. We knew not what to think; could it be possible that this Queen of Cyprus—the goddess of the Brickfields—had been trying the cold water process in the Parramatta River, or disgusted with the state of affairs in this town, had betaken herself to the wild dreary bush of the interior in company with some kindred soul of a bullock driver, there to waste her native sweetness on the desert air, and ruminate on beef and damper. Certes it might be as extremes meet, she had seen the error of her former ways and backslidings, and humbug being the order of the day, turned saint and opend [sic] a house of prayer for the pious and devout. MARY’s entrance, however into the Court this morning dispelled whatever hopes and illusions we might have formed respecting her; more particularly our imaginings of her having become a convert to secular employment, when it appeared that the charge to be preferred against her was, in addition to the heinous one of drunkenness, that of being a common something, a word not at all expressive of uprightness of behaviour or strictly moral conduct. It appears that at a very late hour of Saturday night, Inspector FOX found the fair MARY setting like a bewildered maid under a hedge with dishevelled hair, being a man of fine feelings his heart was touched at seeing so young and beautiful a creature exposed to the pitiless pelting of the blast, and he kindly offered her the protection of the watch-house. As she was accompanying the man of dread down Church-street, a few of the native youth recognized her in the custody of this Holofornes of Parramatta, and MARY having given the whoop halloo to her old pals and acquaintances, an attempt at rescue was made, and had not there been other constables present, FOX’s head would now have been an admirable specimen of gelatine. The Bench was ruthless, and MARY had to return to her old quarters at the Factory for four calendar months.
CITATION
Female Factory Online (femalefactoryonline.org), “Law Report of MARY McCANN,” https://femalefactoryonline.org/law-reports/p18440907-2/, accessed [insert current date].
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