Meaning of barrow man | Babel Free

Definitions

Noun. [B2]

Examples

“As the term "barrow men" is all but incomprehensible to readers of the present⟳ day, it may be pertinent to explain⟳ they were convicts who were hired out to do paving and similar work⟳ on the city streets. The jail at that time was at the southeast corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets. The five "barrow men," it appears, while at work⟳ on Market Street near Thirteenth accidentally discovered a drover who had in his possession a large sum of money just received from a sale of live⟳ stock⟳.”

“In those days convicts from the prison at Sixth and Walnut streets were taken out to mend⟳ the highways, do grading, and other similar tasks. They were popularly known as barrow- men.”

“Essentially, the first reform⟳ took the "barrow men" off the streets and placed them within the prison walls, to labor there at the pleasure of the keeper/agent.”

“With late eighteenth-century prisons bursting at the seams, a new system had to be developed. 1787 saw⟳ the 'first fleet' arrive⟳ at the penal colony of Botany Bay, and transportation, the original use⟳ of lagging (today meaning any sentence), lasted for sixty years. Where lagging dues were concerned, the convicts- lags or barrow men (those awaiting their ship did hard labour- took a punning botanica ...”

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