WEBVTT - A high-wire act for poor Mabel Worley: Part 2. 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.680 She's pickled inside and out. She's toughened inside and out. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.960 She's lost pretty much everyone close to her by death, disease, 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.720 or her own bad behavior. She's burnt a million bridges, 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.439 but she just keeps going because she has nothing. You know, 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.280 she has no other form of resistance than to keep persevering. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.720 I do find that quite admirable in any ways, she 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.920 puts up with conditions that would flaw most people. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:32.839 I'm Jen Kelly from The Herald Son and this is 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.520 In Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.920 forgotten characters. Today, we're back for part two of the 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.560 story of vaudeville performer Mabel Walley. Make sure you listen 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.960 to part one first. We're chatting again with Carin Ball, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.720 Senior curator at the History Trust of South Australia. As 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.159 we heard in part one, Mabel gave birth in a 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:57.760 destitute asylum after falling pregnant in scandalous circumstances, then ran 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.600 away and joined a circus. Left part one, Mabel was 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.120 beginning her journey onto the stage. Let's jump back in 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:12.520 to find out what happened next. So back to South Africa. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.959 So eighteen ninety nine. What's happened next? So they finished 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.520 the tour and then home, Yes, so without incident, I 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:20.880 hope without incident. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.120 Yes, they come home briefly, and then they start another 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.000 contract in nineteen oh three, and the trail kind of 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.720 goes a little bit cold there. I haven't quite worked 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.479 out how Eleanor who is then going by a stage 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:36.880 name which I'm not going to tell you. I'm going 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.440 to be a bit kober. She eventually makes her way 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.880 back to Australia, I think via England, but I don't 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.800 have any records of her performing there, but I'm fairly 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:53.760 certain she arrives under her stage name in England. But somehow, 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.160 at some point, by nineteen oh four, she's back in 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.840 Australia and Mabel is in trouble. So Mabel has been 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.760 I don't know what she's been doing between nineteen hundreds 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.040 and nineteen oh four, but something goes terribly wrong and 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:10.480 there seems to be a rift between Mabel and her daughter. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.639 So by nineteen oh four, her daughter is now nearly sixteen, 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.040 and you know, I've got a sixteen year old girl home, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.320 so I know what they're like. And this young lady 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.000 has a mind of her own. She wants to play 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.000 on the stage, and she wants to be in the 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:30.200 circus with her uncle, Mabel's brother. And Mabel is really 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.680 starting to get into trouble with the law. She's living 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.760 in Melbourne, away from the circus from the family show. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.240 She starts to get into trouble for bad behavior and 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.760 living rough and for drinking in public. And soon in 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.320 nineteen oh five, she really things go really badly for 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.240 her and she gets a four year sentence for being 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.440 an accessory to larceny. So, yes, something has gone terribly 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.679 terribly wrong, and I don't know what it is, and 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.160 I will never stop looking to try and unpick this. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:01.880 I don't know exactly what happens. There's some kind of 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.960 family rift and she and her daughter part ways. Okay, 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.840 a Pentridge. So in the book there's the mug shots, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.280 which I think you've seen, And that was when I 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.440 found those. When I found those mug shots on the 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.000 Public Records Office of Victoria website, I think that was 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.800 twenty eighteen. I hadn't ever actually seen a picture of 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:24.680 Mabel until then. We didn't know what she looked like 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.200 when we did the gallery, and so the only images 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.120 I've ever had of her have been mugshots. Yeah, it 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.680 doesn't both as well, but you know, so she gets this, 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.160 she gets this sentence in nineteen oh five, and by 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.080 the time she comes back out again, she is aged 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.640 a decade and she's only been in prison for three years. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.080 And just for the benefit of our listeners, can you 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:51.360 describe the mugshots or what you draw from those mug shots? 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.280 Yeah, so the first one is done not long after 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.560 she's been sentenced. I'm assuming she's had her hair cut, 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.960 so her hair is very short. She obviously wouldn't be 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.320 a thing, wouldn't cause any issues now, but at the 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.760 time was very demeaning for women to have their haircut. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.800 It obviously was to do things like prevent life, but 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.160 yes had the extra added dimension of making them almost 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.080 unwomanly because women always had long hair at the time. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.760 So she has this short, very short haircut. Her face 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:21.720 is kind of round, and she has this almost kind 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.000 of deer in the headlights look. And so she's got 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.440 a face on face on and a side profile. And 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.440 then next to that are two photos in similar so 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.640 her face on a profile that were taken in nineteen 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.640 oh eight, just before she's released, and She's only thirty 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.240 six in that second set of pictures, but she looks 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:40.599 a decade older to me. 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.479 She actually actually looks to me like she's in her fifties. 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.440 But she does have like a hint of a smile 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.560 on her face, which I found quite intriguing. I was 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.839 wondering what was making her smile. Perhaps something the photographer said. 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.920 Well, I think she's had a really rough time while 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.440 she's been inside. You know, she hasn't seen her family 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.640 for over three years. All sorts of things have happened 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.000 in the background, and really I think she's at a 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.200 point where they can't really throw anything else at her. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.720 She has experienced the worst that she can experience. Also, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.280 she thinks at that point, and I think she discovers 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.200 this kind of grit inside her that has to get 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.479 her through this three year sentence. Yes, so she does 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.360 have this kind of knowing smile almost or she's really 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.640 kind of you know, eyeballing the photographer and saying, you 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.320 think you're in a position of power, but I've got 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.280 this structure that is holding me up inside. 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.240 Now, Karin, if you're happy to share the mugshots with me, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.080 I would love to add them to the story that 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.400 accompanies this podcast for our readers to see. So that's 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.960 the story that's in The Herald's son in print and 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.080 also online. Are you happy to do that, of course, 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.480 so that readers and listeners can see what we're talking 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:51.320 about as well. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:57.640 Yes, she's an interesting looking lady. She's certainly not beauty 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.719 by the standards of the day, but she has real 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.000 in her face and that was one of the things 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.080 I think that really kind of spurred me onwards. 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.599 Absolutely. And while we're talking about photos, there's a picture 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.240 on the front of your book, and it's not a 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.560 photo of her, but it's what you have imagined she 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.240 might have looked like during her circus career. So where 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.040 did you get the picture from? And can you describe 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:22.120 what that picture is like? 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.680 So it's a postcard from the National Library of an 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.760 unnamed French artist performing artist. So it's a black and 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.240 white picture that's been colorized by hand. So it's a 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:40.240 lady with a gorgeous pink kind of chiffon, almost Greek 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.719 goddess kind of costume, but very short in the leg. 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.000 You can just see a little kind of flash of 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.200 white tights underneath, and she's holding a set of diablos, 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.480 so juggling sticks with the string and the little kind 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.640 of yo yo thing that jumps on the string. And 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.960 so she is in this beautiful kind of classicals. She's 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.520 got ribbons in her hair, her lips have been painted. 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.200 It's just just as soon as I saw it, I said, 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.040 that is the cover of the book, and so it's 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.600 my own little piece of vaudeville and circus flim flam. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.720 It's not Mabel, but it certainly could have been someone 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.440 like Mabel, and it's very likely that she wore something 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.040 like that when she was performing. You know, the whole 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.400 the whole circus of vaudeville thing is about an actor 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.600 would be given a new costume and new makeup and 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.840 then passed off as a new person or four different 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.680 acts would actually be comprised of the same people, but 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.920 they've been you know, they've had changes to make them 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.200 look like different people. So there's there's all this kind 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.880 of sleight of hand that happens in these shows. You know, 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.680 a performer like Elna, who might have been seven or 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.920 eight or nine, would be would be billed as a 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.280 child of five Summers, you know, to make it seem 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.880 more exciting. That they're younger than they should than they 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.640 actually are, all of these things. So using that picture, yes, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.320 it's my own way of kind of getting into the 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.720 mindset of in vaudeville and theater truth, whatever you say 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.840 it is. So there we go. That's where that picture 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:04.480 comes from. 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:06.400 I look at that picture and I think, how far 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.200 has she come in her life from this destitute asylum 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.240 girl to this amazing world, This amazing world where she's 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.880 traveling around the world, this vaudeville life, traveling from continent 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.600 to continent on the stage. She came so far and 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.280 then she fell so far to end up in Penridge 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.000 for four years for the crime of larceny, you know, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:31.360 an incredible an incredible, colorful life, a tragic life. Do 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.439 we know any more about the crime that she ended 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:35.240 up in Penridge for? 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.880 So she's an accessory to larsony. So essentially what happens 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.840 is that she meets a gentleman called mister Pert on 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.560 the streets in Melbourne and she takes him back to 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:50.959 a hotel where her side man or whatever beats him up. 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.480 So it's a shakedown. The intimation is that she may 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.640 have been doing sex work, although she's not actually accused 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:02.640 of prostitution in her trial, actually recommends clemency, but the 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.240 judge is not having it, and he gives her this 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.040 four year sentence and she serves just under three years. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.760 So she's just at the really unfortunate end of some 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.800 new kind of legislation and the way of dealing with 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.120 particularly destitute women on the street. There was a lot 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.160 of anxiety in Melbourne in the late nineteenth early twentieth 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.680 century that street population was increasing and that it's you know, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.719 a place of immorality and bad behavior and sex and 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.360 money and all this kind of stuff. So she's really 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.760 unfortunate that she's kind of tired with this thrush because 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.240 up until then, the worst offense that she'd committed was 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.960 bad language. And she gets, you know, she gets a 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:40.880 fine for that. What she does five days in the 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.040 lock up if she can't pay the fine, that sort 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.120 of thing. So she's very much at the edges of 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.280 the criminal world at that point, and then she gets 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.800 this stinging sentence and when she comes out, really that 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.079 means that she is now considered part of the criminal 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:58.200 underclass and it all goes downhill from there. Essentially. Yeah, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.560 poor Mabel, it's like watching a car craft from one 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.800 hundred years distant, and every time I just wish, just once, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.560 just please once, can she not muck it up? You 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.120 want her to do well. She tries so hard in 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.240 some ways. In another way she doesn't try at all, 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.160 because that's mable for you. But you know, she has 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.679 this spirit and spark that I found completely irresistible. So 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.760 when things start to go wrong, she starts to slide 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.200 down the social scale and she ends up with a 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.360 series of sentences for being drunk and vagrant. So because 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.319 she's on house, she's homeless, and she's living rough and 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.880 you know, working and doing all this sort of stuff. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.160 And so she's in and out of Penridge, in and 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:43.199 out of Pentridge, in and out of Pentridge. She does 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.000 a couple of sessions with people like the Salvation Army, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.319 and there's St. Vincent de Paul's to do what we 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.920 would now think of as probably rehab because she's drinking 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.400 by this point. But nothing really sticks for her, and 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.720 so she just the next few decades are really moving 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.600 from place to place, trying to make her fresh start 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.840 and then unsuccessfully doing so. But she does have some 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.960 really big adventures along the way. So as she slides 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.480 down the social scale. She'd becomes stuck in this cycle 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.680 of she is living rough, she's drinking, she's getting into trouble. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.280 She does a few short sentences and then she's of 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.760 course more noticeable to the police because she's been in 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.559 the lock up recently, so she tries to make a 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:27.920 break for it. She actually comes back to South Australia 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:32.440 in nineteen twelve and she's trying to she's trying to 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.640 do the best she can. But within a few days 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.280 really of landing, she's back in prison for sleeping rough 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.520 on Hindley Street. She can't leave Hindley Street, you know, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.400 it's her home and her spiritual home. And so she 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.920 is given a chance and she's allowed to leave Adelaide 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:49.880 to make a new start in the country, and she 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.600 ends up in Port Lincoln and she very quickly shacks 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.280 up with a very unsuitable man called MacDonald. At this 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.520 point she's putting on a Scottish accent and pretending that 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:03.440 she's from Scotland. She's using this theatrical vent all the time, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:06.360 which is another reason why I'm so fond of her. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.000 She's just clearly very clever and thinks on her feet 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.640 but when she's in Port Lincoln, she does a couple 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.080 of short sentences for being drunk. By that time, she's 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:20.160 actually addicted to methylated spirits, so she's desperate for a drink. 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.240 And so when she's in Port Link and Jail, at 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.559 one point she just pushes a load of boxes against 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.800 a low fence in the cell yard and hooks it 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.800 over a ship. Yeah, she stated this wonderful one woman 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.960 prison break. She's picked up an hour later by the car. Oh, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.240 desperate for a drink. She says she feels like she's 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.000 dying because she has probably got the DTS, so she 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.240 probably really feels like she's dying. So, yes, it's not 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.440 a very successful prison break. But just the fact that 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.240 she sees this opportunity and decides to take it good 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.360 for her quite charming. Yes, you know, she just refuses 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:54.960 to be contained. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.280 So how old was she at this point? 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.920 So that's nineteen twelve or third, So she's forty at 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.439 that point. She's still young by any. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.640 Yeah, and she's still got plenty of years. 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.720 To live she has, Yes, she's got plenty of plenty 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:14.120 of spirit and spark. But you know, once she's caught 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.960 after having made this one woman prison break, she gets 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:18.840 sent to Adelaide jail and then it's all over. You know, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.319 she can't there's no more coffee over fences when you're 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.440 at Adelaide jail. And unfortunately she's also caught up in a 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.400 cycle of another piece of legislation that doesn't work in 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:33.120 her favor. So in nineteen thirteen, South Australia introduces the 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.280 Inebriates Act. It's a way of dealing with problem drinking. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.520 There's a lot of social concern about excessive alcohol consumption, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.840 of course, particularly by working class people, and women's drinking 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.920 in particular is seen as really problematic because there are 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.440 all sorts of implications for the you know, for the 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.720 future of Australia as a nation, and the sort of 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.800 people and children that women are producing if they're you know, 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.440 if they're a low character or low physical attribute because 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.080 they're drinking. So there's a lot of anxiety about this 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.679 sort of thing. So South Australia introduces this new legislation 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.400 which convicted inebriates. If you get if you get arrested 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.760 for being drunk more than three times in a twelve 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.599 month period, you're then given a compulsory sentence as a 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.440 convicted inebriate, and the first sentence is eighteen months, the 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.080 second sentence is two years, and the third sentence onwards 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:27.880 is at his at his majesty's pleasure. So really unfortunately, 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.040 whereas in Melbourne she might have got three months, four months, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:35.080 six months for being drunken disorderly, in Adelaide she's suddenly 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.760 doing these very very long sentences. 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:40.560 So the prisons must have just been full. 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.720 Well, see what happens is that Adelaide Jail and sorry 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.360 part of Adelaide Jail and Gladstone Jail are gazetted as 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.160 inebriates institutions, so they become this kind of place that 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.720 we would now think of potentially as rehab. You know, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.760 it's supposed to be an inebriates retreat, it's supposed to 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.040 be a place where they can dry out and you know, 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.280 get back on their feet, but essentially it's jail. They're 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.360 in jail being looked after by prison warden's doing exactly 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.240 the same backbreaking work that prisoners are doing, and in 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.720 fact they're in for longer sentences and then they're subject 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.400 to more stringent controls afterwards because they're released on license 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.359 and if they break their license again then they immediately 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:24.120 get the second longer sentence. So she does eighteen months 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.240 and she's only out for a month or two, breaks 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.400 her license and she has to go back in again 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.360 for two years, and she begs in begs in court, 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.040 you know, please don't send me back there. I've just 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:40.720 done nineteen months actually at Gladstone, and you know, she 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.640 comes down to Adelaide and she has some teeth out, 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.960 and she has some cocaine which is legally prescribed, but 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:47.960 then she decides to have a couple of glasses of 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.960 brandy on top and passes out in light square. Because 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.320 she's broken her parole, she is sent back for two years. 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.600 So it's a really quite tough system, and she is 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.200 right at the pointy end of it. She is Gladstone's 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.880 female and the Brittan number two and Adelaide Jail's female 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.720 neb Brittan number four, So she is right at the 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.800 beginning of this new system coming in and it doesn't 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.120 play out well for her. Over the next decade, between 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.640 nineteen thirteen and nineteen twenty three, she spends what years, 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:21.160 nearly seven or eight years in jail in total, and 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.520 she's only out for weeks sometimes months before she's back again, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.600 and it's really tough conditions as well. And then of 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.400 course the war comes and everything gets tougher, you know, 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.920 the rations get tougher in prison, and water is really 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.120 bad at Gladstone and they have to boil it all 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.240 and it's just a really, really unpleasant environment. 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.480 We'll be back shortly to hear more about Mabel's life, 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:53.040 so stay with us. And after that, did she get 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:54.680 out for good or was she still in and out 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:56.360 of prison for the rest of her life? 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.920 Oh, Mabel. She eventually goes back to Melbourne in nineteen 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.679 twenty three, so she you know, she has burnt all 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.960 her bridges, but the magistrate who picks her up gives 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.760 her a train pass and tells her to go. You know, 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.679 they'll hold off sending her back to prison if she 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:16.800 you know, for a day or two until she leaves. 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.040 And at this point she's still trying to get in 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.439 touch with her brother's circus. Her brother circus has been 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.760 to New Zealand for several years and then come back, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.440 and she says that she's going to meet them at 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.960 Langhorn Creek at one point, but then she MUCKs it 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.240 up again and she ends up in the Slammer when 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.240 they're going past and she misses them. She she marries 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.119 Big Musley in nineteen eighteen, so she marries her second 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.639 husband while her first husband is alive and well in 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.320 Western Australia, and her second husband is another one of these. 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.280 His name is Patrick Madden. He's a tall, quite good 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.040 looking Irishman who's also one of these people who drinks 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.280 in the west end of Finley Street, around Light Square 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.639 and all that lot. She comes out of prison just 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.000 after Armistice in nineteen eighteen, so the end of the 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.880 war in nineteen eighteen. She's only out for three days 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.919 before she marries Patrick Madden, so something must have been 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.119 going on there. They must have known each other beforehand, 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.480 or it was a really well wind romance. But it 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.800 doesn't last. He's back in the Slammer in weeks and 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.600 so is she, and there's no indication that they actually 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.720 reconcile in any way. So yeah, she's living this very 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.600 kind of hand to mouth life when she's not in prison, 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.000 but the bulk of her time she is in prison, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.040 which is why in nineteen twenty three she takes this 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.879 free pass to go back to Melbourne, and after that 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:34.920 she never comes back to South Australia, which is really 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.119 quite sad. So she's in Melbourne and she has all 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.000 these great ambitions that she's going to live a life 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:42.639 of the straightened arrow and she's going to be a 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.760 good girl. But that never really works out for Mabel. 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.600 She just can't help herself, and really, I mean she 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:54.760 becomes institutionalized. So she does again more sentences for being vagrant, 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.800 for being drunken, disorderly, for bad language, and really spends 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.760 the next ten years after she gets back to Melbourne 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.000 doing that. It's a pretty sad it's a pretty sad tale. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.080 But again has all the you know, has the occasional 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.840 light moment. She's arrested at one point for dancing in 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.480 the middle of Victoria Street in Melbourne's CBD in the 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.840 middle of the night, and you know it, goes off 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.840 to Pentridge to do a few weeks after doing that. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.600 So she has these wonderful little light moments, and you know, 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:26.560 she's she's lived a very vibrant life. She's very interested 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.600 in music and the stage, I think, and I think 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.280 there are lots of you know, live performance is still 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:34.080 a massive, massive thing at that point. So I think 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.800 she's trying to kind of move in this in this world, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.640 and you know, maybe she hangs around theater doors and 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.600 you know, tries to get in and see shows and 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:45.600 stuff all that kind of thing. I don't have a 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.320 lot of evidence about what her life outside of prison 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.840 is like, other than the fact that she is writing 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.600 letters to try and catch up with her brother's circus, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.320 and she's trying to you know, she does more time 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.720 with the Salvasian Army in Melbourne as well, having done 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.040 time with them in Adelaide. So she tries all these 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.920 different approaches, but nothing quite sticks for her. And then 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.680 towards the end of her life, it's the nineteen thirties, 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.560 the depression has come. Street life in Melbourne is really tough, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.040 you know. Nineteen thirty three, George Orwell releases his book 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.600 Down and Out in Paris and London, which tells you 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:23.920 a lot about what life on the street would have 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.560 been like at this period. And women are a very 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.400 small part of this world. You know, they might be 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.520 five to ten percent of the homeless population in Melbourne 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.400 at the time. You know, they are a tiny, reviled 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.560 subset of a subset of society that has already reviled 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.840 by the mainstream, and so it's a really tough existence, 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.040 you know. But you can see by her criminal record 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:49.159 that she is essentially living a living rough in a 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.760 patch of suburbs that moves around from Melbourne, North Melbourne, Carlton, Fitzroy. 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.960 She's kind of pacing these areas like almost like a 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:02.439 caged animals and the institutionalized. She doesn't want to be 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:04.359 in jail, but she also can't cope when she's not 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.320 in jail. It's a sad thing to have to watch 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.520 and to put myself in that mindset. I actually spent 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.560 a long weekend in Melbourne in the rain, walking around 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.120 those cobblestone streets in Fitzroy and Carton and North Melbourne, 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.359 trying to feel what that felt like. And it was 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.160