Definition of "ticket-of-leave" []

• A permit once granted to convicts allowing them to leave prison under certain circumstances; used especially of convicts transported to the British colonies (noun)

Wiktionary.org : Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• "It is being improved by convicts in dull red kimonos printed with Chinese characters, who correspond with our ticket-of-leave men, as they are working for wages in the employment of contractors and farmers, and are under no other restriction than that of always wearing the prison dress."
• "The province of Victoria not only refused to admit them, but passed a law to prevent any ticket-of-leave men from other provinces from entering her territories."
• "And really it happened very often that, for a month or so, some ticket-of-leave client, under the strict surveillance of the"