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There's what looks like a comma between 'spooling' and 'yarns'. I did wonder if 'spooling' was being used as a kind of generic, meaning miscellaneous items like reels or bobbins. I'm not sure yams were known in Victorian Britain, sprouting or otherwise, but an ingenious suggestion..

The documents I've been transcribing were certainly a bit dusty! I've been transcribing a lot of ledgers relating to the inmates of Saltley Reformatory, formerly in Birmingham, from 1848-c.1915. Several different series of information. I took several thousand photos of the pages and then slowly ploughed my way through them. It took a while...

Well thanks to the people who responded to this, Maiden Stone, Jen B, and arthurk. This is the last stages of a project I started 15 years ago, collecting and transcribing information from a number of sources, and over the last three years I have been collating all this stuff and creating 1300 pages of transcriptions. I wanted to clear my list of queries to finish the job, and with your help I have now done that. So a big thank you from me!

Thanks, Maiden Stone - embarrassingly, I spent a lot of time trying, and failing, to read that. 'Spooling' is an interesting idea for 2. That 4th letter looks more like a u, but spooling would fit with yarns.

And thank you, Jen B. I've never come across the word before, but now I know, The ledgers that I was transcribing used to ask if the person named was scrofulous, but they dropped that question as it was never answered by Yes.

It's wonderful the help you can get, if you ask in the right place!

Thanks, Gadget - I like to see the geographical context of these things, so very helpful.