The Potato Factory

They became like small children, enchanted and silent when Mary read to them by the light of the candle from Gulliver's Travels. For the much-worn volume, which, in the end, cost her so dear, like her precious abacus had seldom left her side.

Mary also read to them from the Bible. But they were stories of conquests and the persecution of the Israelites and the wonders of the land of Canaan. She did not read to them of Christ's love and salvation, sharing with them the lack of enthusiasm for this particular God of love, and much preferring the one of wrath who practised revenge and waged war in the hurly-burly of the Old Testament.

Mary took to writing petitions for prisoners and preparing their pleas to be read in court, for few could afford the fees of even the most down-at-heel lawyer or screever. She would write letters to the authorities about husbands and the welfare of children of inmates carted off to orphanages. Or she would write to loved ones, this latter in particular for the Irish, who placed great store in the mystical properties of the written word. While they, and those who received their letters, could neither read nor write, the priest in their parish could, and so the entire parish would know of their love and tenderness. They fervently believed that writing a letter was a divine affair which would bestow good fortune and protection upon those they loved who still lived in the sad and broken places they had fled from in Ireland. A letter of love, they most fervently believed, had the spiritual substance to prevent these same loved ones from suffering the sad fate to befall its sender.

Mary would always begin an Irish letter with the same words, for it was this single opening sentence which inevitably brought those on whose behalf she wrote to swoon with the ecstasy of its poetry.

My dearest beloved,

The prayers of a sincere heart are as acceptable to God from the dreary Gaol as from the splendid Palace. The love of a prisoner as pure and sweet as that of a prince…

The cost in delivering such a letter to Ireland was prohibitive and would often mean that the sender must sell all that she possessed. But for the comfort it brought her, and the gift of love it was thought to bestow on the receiver, it was thought among the Irish women to be but a pittance to pay.

The inmates, usually the women, would often bring their squabbles to Mary to settle. Her judgments, using the peculiar logic of the criminal, left each with a portion of self-respect, and neither party's guilt confirmed. This would indubitably stop further trouble in the bird cages. When Mary was forced to judge one or another to be guilty this was seen as an exception, and her verdict, with the penalty she imposed, accepted by all and duly carried out.

This did not stop the drunke

The most cherished moment of Mary's life came the day Abraham Reuban arrived at Newgate to visit her.

The excitement of Ikey's escape from custody was on everyone's lips that day, the story of his escape having spread like gaol fever among the inmates. The tale of how he had persuaded the two turnkeys to take a coach which had been 'conveniently upon the spot' when it was needed, and how he had persuaded both turnkeys to unlock his manacles and be his guest at the Pig 'n Spit was the cause of great laughter in Newgate. The simple device of picking the pocket of Titty Smart, the fat turnkey, and letting himself out of the door of Mary-belle's parlour, leaving the key on the lintel, was told with glee and constantly repeated with not a little admiration for his braze

Ikey Solomon had, after all, escaped from the most notorious gaol in Britain without resort to violence and had been gone a full hour or more before the dunderheads realised anything was amiss. Moreover, the cu

Moreover, when the police had been alerted, they had immediately contacted the City division who had informed them, somewhat pompously, of the Bank of England's recapture of the villain. It had been a full eight hours later before Reuban Reuban revealed his true identity, and at least nine or ten since Ikey's initial escape from the Pig 'n Spit. By the time the hunt for him was under way again, Ikey had already slipped down the Thames, his ship long buried in the coastal mist as it headed for the North Sea and the kingdom of the Danes. In fact, even at the point when Reuban Reuban had revealed his true identity, the City police officials on duty that night had not believed him, thinking that Ikey had merely shaved his head in some clever ruse. But no amount of logic applied to the conundrum could reveal what intention this clever ruse might serve. Ikey had, after all, presented himself as himself at the premises of Coutts amp;Company, and if this be a ruse it was a most mysterious one. It was only then that Sir Jasper Water-low had been visited at his home in Kensington and aroused from his bed to be informed of the presence in the cells of the duplicate Ikey.

Ikey's double had been duly charged with complicity but this was small consolation for Sir Jasper who knew that, unless he brought the true Ikey Solomon to trial, his hopes for an illustrious future as Britain's foremost police officer, and ultimately a seat in the House of Lords, had been completely dashed.

He swore silently that Ha

The curious thing was that neither The Times nor any of the pe

It may only be supposed that the directors of the bank, not wishing to be the laughing stock of all England, had remained silent about the presence in the bank of the real Ikey and the transaction he had made. In fact they had suggested to The Times that the abortive ruse by Reuban Reuban was merely an attempt to gain notoriety. He was not to know at the time that the real escape of the notorious fence was taking place. A difficult coincidence to believe, but a coincidence nonetheless, life itself being so often stranger than fiction.

In actual fact, the Bank of England had deliberately conspired with Coutts amp; Company not to release the story of the real Ikey's visit in the supposed interest of national safety, thus making the story of the hapless actor's attempt at publicity necessary to explain the arrest of Reuban Reuban. In any event, Ikey's transaction was allowed to go through without hindrance to New York and the banker, Nathaniel Wilson, found himself somewhat of a hero for the ma