When John Murphy is sentenced to six months hard labour in Perth Prison for fighting, his wife Annie is left to raise his children in poverty in the tenements of the crescent. She relies on a pittance from her jute mill wages and handouts from the Parish until her husband is released and tries to break the poverty trap by bare-knuckle fighting in the boxing booths and beer tents. His hard drinking, hard-man, bare knuckle fighting style is...