GODDEN MACKAY stamped 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' after Harriet Beecher Stowe's immensely popular novel (1852}, suggest that they also belonged to an international culture of romantic Christian sentimentalism. 41 Wilson has identified two other streams of popular interest and concern in the ceramic pipe assemblage: pipes which declare support for 'Reform', the English Reform Bill of 1832, which extended the franchise to all but the very poor; and a large number of pipes which assert the political and cultural allegiances of Irish people. The Reform pipes, manufactured in large numbers in Sydney by Samuel Elliot, are important because they may well express the user's identification with the classes of people who were given the vote, and, conversely, their clear disassociation with those who were excluded from the franchise. The Reform Bill widened the social and political gap between the very poor, and other ranks of working people. Those who were destitute and in workhouses were affected instead by the Anatomy Act of 1832, which gave over their bodies to the doctors for dissection, a fate widely feared among working people. But in other hands and mouths were sturdy, short-stemmed pipes which called for 'Repeal', the repeal of the English-Irish union, in effect a slogan and catch-cry for Irish independence. Others, bearing the Harp of Erin or words such as 'Cork' or 'Colleen' were less overtly political, yet still instantly recognisable as signs of Irish affiliation. The site database of occupants includes a large number of Irish names, and research reveals that many of the immigrants were from Ireland. In this the site is typical of the Rocks, which Mullens has shown had a higher than average number of Irish residents overall. It seems likely that commercially mass produced clay pipes demonstrated allegiance, or identification, or simply the unconscious habits brought from the old country. 42 Among the residents, too, were people with an interest in and knowledge of science, for while some used the natural beauty of shells as decorative objects, others painstakingly built up collections of shells which included examples of the different species. The curatorial impulse to arrange, identify, class the natural world, to render it knowable, and thus controllable, was not restricted to the genteel, leisured men and women of science; at least some tradespeople and labourers were hunters and collectors too. 43 Like their neighbours on the Lilyvale site further south, they also collected all sorts of curious things, simply for the pleasure of having them: a naturally formed hematite cube; whimsical backscratchers in the shape of a hand with a flounced cuff. A number of reed boxes were recovered, so it seems that people probably still gathered together to sing popular songs, accompanied by mouth organs or concertinas, or to listen to airs played on them. Although some of the older people, like the Hosemans and Margaret Doyle, were illiterate, the literacy of residents is documented in the pens, nibs, pencils (and a fancy Japanese pencil sharpener}, ink bottles, slate and slate pencils, and a hand- Karskens, Report 140