The Potato Factory (54 page)

Hannah heard of Mrs Newman's plans and in a state of intoxication she confronted her, shouting wildly and accusing her of ingratitude while, at the same time, threatening to tell the authorities of the unlawful financial arrangement her husband had entered into with Hannah's son.

As with many mild-mannered people who are finally provoked, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Mrs Newman flew into a fit of fury such as had never occurred in her life and she struck Hannah repeatedly with a broomstick and drove her screaming from the cottage.

This was the moment for which the officials had been waiting. Under the governor's instructions they had been watching the goings-on in the Newman household and, at the first reasonable opportunity, had been instructed to move against the Solomons in the hope of ensnaring Ikey in some public misdemeanour. Hannah was arrested and taken to the Female Factory and her children, as they were still assigned to her care and therefore the responsibility of the authorities, taken to the orphanage.

An official investigation followed where it was convincingly shown that Hannah had never been treated as an assigned servant and that Newman, a constable and guardian of the law, had not reported as living under his roof a 'suspected' criminal who, though not positively confirmed, was thought to be the runagate Ikey Solomon.

While this was a slender enough accusation and one which would scarcely have withstood the scrutiny of even a colonial magistrate, it was sufficient to frighten Newman. In order to avoid possible censure, he claimed that Hannah's behaviour had greatly changed since the arrival of Ikey, who had on several occasions boasted to him that he had plans to take her out of the colony at the first opportunity. Newman completed his statement with the words: 'He told me that even should she be placed in the Female Factory he would use sufficient influence to free her again'.

This attempt to implicate Ikey in a conspiracy failed, but the colonial secretary, hearing of this boast by Ikey to bring about the escape of his wife, ordered that Hannah be closely confined within the Factory and never assigned as a family servant again.

Hannah once again took this to be Ikey's work, her reasoning being that, despite his constant supplications, her continued refusal to give him the combination to the safe had caused him to punish her further. Though she truly dreaded the prospect of the Female Factory, it was the loss of her children which caused her to hate Ikey even more, and she swore she would rather die than allow him the use of a single penny of their combined fortune.

Ikey, who still went officially under the name of Sloman and so was not permitted to attend the hearing, was greatly distressed at the outcome. Hannah was slipping further and further from his grasp. Though they had quarrelled incessantly since his arrival, he was certain she would eventually be persuaded to his cause. Now, with her incarceration in the Female Factory after nearly a year of freedom, her children taken from her, he knew the likelihood of his gaining her co-operation in the matter of the numbers to be severely diminished.

Ikey decided to throw all caution to the wind and appeal to the English weakness for an act of selfless nobility, and Arthur's strong desire not to waste the financial resources of the colony. He wrote directly to Arthur, dropping the name of Sloman and admitting to his real identity.

Hobart

His Excellency Colonel George Arthur

Lt. Governor of Van Diemen's Land

Sir, I beg to State the following for Which I most Humbly hope that Your Excellency will be pleased to take into Your Consideration.

While in America I have read of my wife's unfortunate situation and, acting solely from those natural causes, feeling and affections unnecessary, I trusts, to explain to Your Excellency, I have travelled 30,000 miles, expressly to settle and pass the remainder of my life in the bosom of my family. I therefore beseech Your Excellency most humbly that You may allow my beloved wife to be assigned to me as servant as I am certain that a woman of her refined nature and frail disposition will not long survive the place of oblivion in which she is now confined to the utter discomfiture and bereavement of your memorialist.

I wish to explain to Your Excellency that in the matter of Mr R. Newman of which You are well acquainted, were it not for his constant demands for money there would be no such trumped up complaint as was brought before You. With the result that my beloved wife has been torn from the arms of her precious children and sent to that dreadful confinement which is worse than death.

I further promise Your Excellency that should You release my wife to my care I shall be happy to enter into a bond of indemnity to prove my utmost good faith on this matter.

I have the honour to Subscribe- Your Excellency's Most Humble Servant

Isaac Solomon.

Arthur's reply was a blunt and unequivocal refusal:
'...the ends of justice would be entirely defeated, if his wife, so soon after her transportation to this colony, should be assigned to her husband.'

Meanwhile, Ikey, all his life a cautious man who seldom made mistakes of judgement concerning the law, seemed so entirely obsessed with the desire to get the information he needed from Hannah that he did not appear to realise he had come to the end of his efforts and ought to be making a hurried departure from Van Diemen's Land.

Caution, and the knowledge that opportunities are seldom singular and that another occasion will always arise to gain your purpose, had always been Ikey's favoured philosophy. This patience and trust in his luck had served him well in the past. Now it seemed as if, by giving his Waterloo medal to Mary, he had sacrificed his sound judgement and good sense. It was almost as though he was under a delusion that even the determined arm of the law was not long enough to stretch across the twelve thousand miles separating London from Hobart Town.

But stretch it did and its fingers began to close around Ikey with the necessary documents relating to the issue of a warrant for his arrest arriving in Hobart.

Time has warped the facts of Ikey's arrest and different versions have come to exist to satisfy the appetites of amateur historians bent on intellectual booty. The Sydney
Monitor
of 17th March 1830 reported Ikey's arrest thus:

At about 2 p.m. two constables, in the disguise of out-settlers, came into the shop, one of whom said he wanted some tobacco and the other a pipe. On coming in they asked for the old gentleman, as they preferred dealing with him to the young ones. Ikey, who was behind the counter, started up and said: 'I am the person,' and instantly one of the men seized him and said: 'You are the person we want.' On this apprehension, Ikey turned as pale as death, and after recovering from the stupor of a few moments exclaimed: 'So help me Heaven! I am a done man now, it's all over for me; I am done for!' He made a rush towards a desk at the upper end of the counter, on which there was lying a penknife, which he endeavoured to seize hold of, no doubt for the purpose of committing suicide, but was prevented in the attempt by the constables, to whose assistance four of the military, who were stationed outside, came with drawn bayonets and fire arms. Having rendered him powerless, they handcuffed him, and brought him before the Police Magistrate of the Colony. After identification as Isaac Solomon, he was committed to gaol, where to guard against the possibility of escape, he was heavily ironed.

It is on such dull documentation that history must build its case.

Mary would come to tell of it differently, for she had it from one of the prison urchins she taught in the Female Factory who was in the shop at the time.

Children have a better ear for the truth and can repeat quite clearly what they have seen and heard. This is particularly true of the street urchin, who must depend on his ears and his eyes to avoid trouble from shopkeepers, officials, grown-ups in general and, of course, the law. The boy, who stood in the corner of Ikey's shop unnoticed while the arrest took place, told it as an amusing piece in which two bumble-mouthed constables made a proper mess of the arrest procedure.

The young lad had barely entered the door when he was brushed aside by two settlers dressed in the rough manner of workmen from the bush. Ikey, who was trimming a split thumb nail with a small penknife, looked up and seeing the two men approach immediately placed the knife down upon the counter to give his two out-of-town customers his attention. His shopkeeper's smile appeared and his hands spread wide to welcome them.

'Gentlemen, a pinch of snuff, compliments o' the 'ouse, American, Kentucky blend and not to be sneezed at!' Ikey cackled at his own tired joke, expecting his grateful customers to do the same.

The two men became confused and then looked the one at the other.

'Go on, 'elp yourselves, lads, it be a custom o' the 'ouse when strangers comes to town.' Ikey pushed the yellow snuff tin along the counter towards the two men, one of whom gave a small shrug and took a useful pinch, first to one nostril and then the other. His partner did the same and almost at once their nostrils were seen to dilate, their mouths to open, eyes to close and their heads to draw back, whereupon the sneeze arrived at almost the identical moment for each. Their heads were thrown forward so that they were taken to bending quite involuntarily at the waist, so mighty was the report from their nostrils.

After a few moments they looked up at Ikey through watery eyes and the larger of the two men sniffed and wiped the mucus from his nose with the back of his hand. Ikey now stood most casually with both hands placed flat upon the counter.

'A king o' sneezes, say you not, my dears? A prime example o' the veritable art o' the most honourable Chinese emperor, Ah-Tishoo! That sniff o' snuff be the best in the colony, though a humble enough sample o' me wares and quite nothing compared with the Cuban cigars or blends o' baccy we 'as for pleasing those who come from out o' town. What say you, gentlemen, how may I serve you?'

'Ikey Solomon?' the second bushman said.

'To whom does I 'ave the pleasure?' Ikey asked pushing his long thin fingers across the counter.

'We 'as come to arrest thee, sir!' the man with the snotty hand said, not shaking Ikey's extended hand.

Ikey pulled back and clasped both his hands to his chest in a show of horror, his eyes rolled and his expression was most comic afraid, then he picked up the penknife and held it with the tiny blade pointed towards his heart. 'Oh, woe is me, so help me heaven,' he said looking towards the ceiling, 'I am a done man now!' He grabbed at his throat with his free hand and made a strangling sound, his tongue protruding. 'Aargh! I shall take me own life rather than be taken alive!'

It was a most amusing display and Ikey, seeing the urchin standing at the door, winked broadly at him. Children, he understood, were much more intelligent of wit than those who have lost the enchantment of pantomime.

'Arrest is it? How very amusing, gentlemen, shall you chain me now?' Ikey extended his wrists to beyond the counter, his hands clasped together. Then, as though suddenly grown tired of the childish game, he withdrew them and clasped the edge of the counter. 'What is it I can get for you, gentlemen? I have much to do in this pretty day.'

'A clay pipe!' one of the men shouted, and Ikey jumped at the boldness of his voice.

'An ounce o' shag!' the other shouted equally loudly, causing Ikey to throw up his hands in consternation at the manner of their delivery which, curiously, had not been directed at him but in the direction of the door.

Almost at once four troopers with drawn bayonets affixed to their firearms elbowed their way through the door in a clatter and banging of barrels and butts, the clinking of metal and thump of heavy boots. They wore their red coats and had polished their brasses in anticipation of the grand occasion.

'You are under arrest, Ikey Solomon!' the constable who'd earlier wiped his nose shouted, and this time produced a pair of police manacles from the pocket of his jacket.

'Ikey's luck 'as finally run out,' Mary said solemnly, after the boy returned in great excitement to the Female Factory to tell his story. She clasped the Waterloo medal to her bosom, the gold metal warm in her twisted hand. 'He should 'ave tried to see me, if only just to greet me!' Then she turned away so that the boy could not see her tears and in a voice too soft for him to hear she said, 'Stupid old sod! Maybe he could've shared some o' me luck.'

Mary moved from the old Female Factory where she had spent the past eighteen months to the new one where, for a short period, she returned to work in the bakery. If new meant a larger factory it did not mean a better one. The new female house of correction was a remodelled distillery, secured cheaply by the government, and its site in the damp valley of the Hobart Town rivulet, under the shadow of a large hill which blocked almost all direct sunlight for a large part of the year, was most unsuitable. It was damp and dark and so unhealthy that during the first winter in the new Factory eighteen inmates and twenty-seven newborn babies died from bronchial illnesses.

While the kneading of dough was hard work, Alary found it pleasant enough. The ovens were warm on the cold days of drizzle and sharp, cutting winds which blew up the wide Derwent River from the coast in winter. Van Diemen's Land has a contrary climate and lies sufficiently close to the Antarctic Circle to have at least one of its toes permanently in ice. No local would be brave enough to pronounce a part of any day of the year safe from sudden bone-chilling cold, when summer's blue brilliance is turned, with a malevolent growl from atop the great mountain, into the misery of a winter gale.