Posted by Although it was more profitable to “strip” victims who had jobs and therefore better clothing, often it was just random poor struggling kids. Their relatively worthless garments and gear would then be sold on, often just for the price of another drink. This disgusting practice was sometimes combined with kidnapping, and connected to a wider underreported phenomenon of trafficking Irish children as far afield as the British Caribbean and Australian colonies. Child labour in 18th century Dublin was commonplace and, despite the often horrific and dangerous conditions, was preferable to starvation. But the phenomena of “stripping” by both family, friends and strangers alike simultaneously shows how desperate and cruel city life could be. Newspaper and court reports of the day show that most perpetrators were overwhelmingly female. Childhood didn’t exist, you were just a smaller adult. Considering crimes against the poorer kids were underreported, let’s take an example from the “Dublin Courier” newspaper of an employed boy victim. On 31st of January 1767, a young skinner from Watling Street (now Dublin 8) was found staggering near Gallows Hill. Skinners not only skinned animals but also tanned and dealt in pelts and furs. His livelihood was good but precarious. The boy was stripped of everything. To make matters worse the article ends by saying that the unlucky youth had already previously been stripped months before near Bully’s Acre. Although these unspeakable thefts and abuses seem almost unimaginable to modern sensibilities, they were hardly outlandish in their time. Remember the forces of “British justice” were using the same cruel and unusual punishments against vulnerable kids for stealing food or clothing or misbehaving. Dublin’s youth were “transported” for often minor misdemeanours in line with the Cromwellian policy, and the inauguration of registration procedures in London from the 1650’s. These poor kids, who often had never left the square mile of their neighbourhood, would suddenly find themselves alone on the far side of the world as “indentured servants”, effectively chattel slaves. Surely must take a heart of stone, or one irredeemably corrupted by vice and addiction, to exploit innocence this way. To victimise the already pathetically downtrodden and helpless. Researching this topic made the Time Machine a very sad place. Hug the little ones in your life a little tighter.
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Who Watches the Watchers? 