User:Pharmacy03/The Black Velvet Band

Synopsis[edit]
The narrator is bound apprentice in a town (which varies in different versions). He becomes romantically involved with a young woman. She steals a watch and places it in his pocket or in his hand. The apprentice does not try to stop this from happening, which is speculated to be out of his love for the girl. However the man does wish bad luck towards the woman, as seen in the line "Bad luck to the black velvet band". The apprentice appears in court the next day, and is sentenced to seven years penal servitude in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania); as at this point in time Australia was being used as a prison colony. In the broadside versions the young woman's motivation is more obvious - she has met a sailor and wants to get rid of her lover.

In the broadsides the action takes place in Ratcliffe Highway, a street in the East End of London, but in collected versions various locations are mentioned - London, Belfast, Tralee, a town in Bedfordshire, and in Dunmanway, Co. Cork.