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EMANUEL, Elizabeth
Dancing a pas seul, 1833 Sydney
THURSDAY–Elizabeth Emanuel advanced trippingly to the bar, charged with the following dereliction of duty which she owed to her lord and master. The day before she went out early in the morning, and having become “hard-a-weather and she cracks,” put all fear of the Police in her pocket, and proceeding to the Police Office Yard gave a war whoop, and sprung on the centre of the green and commenced dancing a pas seul ; the charleys horrified at this sacrilege committed on the sunctum sanctorum, called on her to desist, instead of which she redoubled her evolutions ; finding their author-ity thus set at defiance, two of them thought to hand her into the Watch-house, but they had reckoned without their host, for no sooner had they approached within arms length, than they found themselves sprawling on their backs, they again made a similar attempt and again bit the dust ; the whole corps was now put into requisition, and after a good deal of hard fighting she was secured neck and heels and carried off. She now snivelled and looked prim, but the Bench gave her, and her spouse to understand, that a short visit to the third class would most certainly be her doom.
“Oh, Oh ! pray don’t ” said John-
” For I prefer the least ringlet that curls,
“Down her beautiful neck, to the thrones of the world.”
The Bench however from her repeated tricks of a similar description, turned a deaf ear to the melody of John, and sent her to give Mrs. Gordon* a step for two months. Mrs. Elizabeth on this, attempted to become bouncible, but was again borne off in funeral procession.
*Mrs Ann Gordon was the matron of the Parramatta Female Factory from 1827 to 1836.
POLICE INCIDENTS. (1833, June 24). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), p. 2. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12847090
Offending women were sent to the Female Factory in Parramatta.
Female penitentiary or factory, Parramata [i.e. Parramatta], N.S. Wales. Augustus Earle (1826)
National Library of Australia
ERSKINE, Harriet
Dancing Highland fling, 1833 Sydney
Harriet Erskine, a very how came you so sort of a lady, was charged with kicking up a rare shindy in her master’s house on Sunday, boxing her fellow servant’s ears, pulling the pot off the fire, and clapping it on her head, danced the Highland fling, shouting and singing most discordantly, in contravention of the act in that case made and provided. Harriet had but little to say for herself, and that little availed not, for she was sent to the academy* for a month.
*The Parramatta Female Factory
POLICE INCIDENTS. (1833, June 20). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 – 1842), p. 3. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12847070
