The museum was deserted except for me and a group of ten year-olds from St Gregory's school so I loitered around them to listen in on what the curator had to say.
Predictably, she turned out to be the shock-jock of the museum world. It was all nits, whips, darkness and rats.
"Can anyone tell me what a convict is?"
"Someone who steals stuff. They committed a crime and came on the first fleet"
I expected at least one of them to lay claim to a convict great-great-great granfather but I was disappointed.
"Well they weren't treated very nicely. They got hit with this whip here, a cat of nine tails, sometimes for something small like swearing or wearing a dirty shirt to church. And the hospital surgeon took notes, things like "he screamed a lot", then they took them to the rum hospital nextdoor and rubbed salty water into the wounds to make sure it didn't get infected".
And this was my absolute favorite quote of the day.
Livestock!
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