we stink, mate.

Australians are the world's worst polluters, according to a new 'name and shame' league table based on power station emissions.

100 dirtiest power stations in the UK 25 dirtiest power stations in the world Each Australian produces 11 tonnes of CO2 power sector emissions each year on a per capita basis. The United States comes second in the table on nine tonnes per person Britain is ranked 9th at 3.5 tonnes per person. Drax power station in Yorkshire was the UK's worst emitter of CO2 The findings are revealed in a huge survey of the CO2 emissions from 50,000 power plants worldwide by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) an independent think-tanked based in the US. The on-line Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) database shows where the worst power station culprits are, who owns them and how much of the greenhouse gas they are pumping into the atmosphere. It includes 4,000 power companies, and nearly 200,000 geographic regions in every country on earth. Visitors to the site can view carbon emissions data for the year 2000, the present, and future plans. Power stations are the planet's most concentrated source of greenhouse gases - one of the main factors in global arming - producing nearly 10 billion tons of CO 2 per year. The US, with over 8,000 power plants, accounts for about 25 per cent of the total or 2.8 billion tons. Although the developing nations are among the worst offenders they have a far lower per capita rate. The average Chinese citizen produces two tonnes of CO2 from power generation annually while Indians only about half of one tonne per person. Read on: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/eapower114.xml

1. 

John McCain's B.S. comes out of his mouth. Hot air comes out of the other end. The Portuguese says "the worst job in the world." McCain would not make the worst president in the world. That honor is reserved for George W. Bush.

kissing

INTERSPECIES COMMUNICATION Primatologist Jane Goodall kissing chimpanzee:(talking in sign language) "Let's try that other thing again. Me like Jane better than girl monkey. This time you give Cheetah six bananas for good time." *

Kissing might stem from animal behavior." Mrs Chang is interested in meeting you also."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtkNcCql0Es&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBqwPXyHbaQ It is an unhygeinic habit and causes many diseases. Why do we do it...even with animals?

Madonna and Britney Spears "You send me crazy Madonna. I'm sure to end up in an insane asylum."

This past first lady finds it hard to get her husband to kiss her. She is looking so so old and tired. "You've no idea how many arses I have had to kiss to get votes.

Obama goes even further."

• I'll kiss you once for every sura of the Koran. Mahomet be praised!

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Desert threat ... scientists fear that feral camels, such as these pictured near Alice Springs, are harming delicate ecosystems by overgrazing and fouling water holes. Click on the pic to view the next image. These emus are at Kinchega National Park in far west New South Wales. The park is close to the Outback town of Menindee and includes the Darling River and several lakes in the Menindee system. It is a haven for birdlife, especially waterbirds. Menindee is on the train line between Sydney and Adelaide. Previous picture | Next picture Photo courtesy of Tourism New South Wales

Wild camels are infesting the continent and in huge areas of the desert may outnumber red kangaroos by up to 100 to one.

******************************************red kangaroo An elegant medium sized dog, the fully grown Australian dingo is up to 60 cm tall and weighs between 13 and 19 kg. (A pure bred dingo will usually be lean and taught...) The color of a dingo reflects its surroundings. Most common is a reddish, golden yellow or sandy colored coat (desert dingoes).About 10% of the population show a dark or even black coat with tan.

http://www.imagesaustralia.com/botanybay.htm Aussie song and history. **********************************************************************************

Chinese Internet Police.

Virtual police patrol China web

Internet users will be reminded not to visit outlawed sites

Chinese authorities are to send two virtual police officers to patrol the internet, in a bid to combat "illicit activities", state media has reported.

The animated figures, a man and a woman, will appear on users' screens every 30 minutes "to remind them of internet security", China Daily said.

They will appear on news portals from Saturday and then on all Beijing sites and forums by the end of the year.

The Chinese government censors all internet and media content.

It blocks content it deems politically or morally threatening, but some users have found ways to circumvent government controls.

'Protect netizens'

The virtual officers will appear either on foot, on motorbikes or riding in a car.

They would "be on watch for websites that incite secession, promote superstition, gambling and fraud", the China Daily said, citing Beijing's Municipal Public Security Bureau.

"It is our duty to wipe out information that does public harm and disrupts social order," the newspaper quoted the bureau's deputy chief of Internet surveillance, Zhao Hongzhi, as saying.

He said the virtual police officers would protect "netizens" from harm.

Users will be able to click on the icons to connect to the bureau's Internet Surveillance Centre, where they can report illegal activities, Mr Zhao said.

China has experienced an internet boom in recent years. It is thought there are more than 120 million web surfers, a figure second only to the US.

The Chinese government has tens of thousands of real security officers monitoring the web and it regularly jails activists who have posted online messages criticising the government.

timeline from eureka council.

200AD - Origin of the name Australia, Matthew Flinders, Latin, australis, terra australis incognita, unknown southern land 1600 - British Empire, English Colonialism, The Americas, "informal empire", Asia, Pax Britannica, New Imperialism, white - settler colonies 1503 - Binot Paulmyer, French navigator who claimed to discover of Australia in 1505. 1605 - Willem Jansz, Dutch navigator, first European known to see Australia 1616 - Dirk Hartog, Holland, sea captain, explorer, second European arrival, Hartog plate, Western Australia, Willem de Vlamingh 1629 - The wreck of the Bativia, Dutch East India Company ship, wrecked off Geraldton, Western Australia. 1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman, Dutch explorer who Discovered Tasmania 1696 - Willem de Vlamingh, Flemish sea, captain, south, west coast, New Holland, Rottnest Island, Swan River, Dirk Hartog Island 1678 - Whig Movement, British politics, Whigs, Liberal Democrats, great noble houses, moneyed interest, religious dissent, Tories, Jacobitism, 1770 - Captain James Cook, English explorer, Mapped the east coast of Australia. 1770 - Sir Joseph Banks, English Naturalist, sailed with James Cook, advised Arthur Phillip. 1770 - Australian Freemasonry, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain Cook, Flinders, merino sheep, 1770 - First Fleet, United Grand Lodge of England 1688 - Dampier, British navigator, Naturalist, visited Western Australia. 1786 - English Background to Transportation 1786 - Irish Background to Transportation 1786 - Phillip's Mandate, New South Wales defined and the First Fleet authorized. 1786 - Pitt's Plan for Botany Bay, Disposing of Felons, Growing "New Zealand Hemp" 1787 - The First Fleet, Transportation, Penal Colony, Governor Phillip, Botany Bay, Convicts, Rebellion. 1787 - Rebellion on the voyage over, Women Convicts, First Fleet, Transportation, flogging 1787 - John Towers at Tenerife, First Fleet, Escape at Tenerife 1788 - First British Settlement established in New South Wales. 1788 - Phillip, Arthur, Updated, The first Governor of NSW. 1788 - Collins, David, First Fleet, HMS Sirius, First Judge Advocate of New South Wales, First Lieutenant Governor of Van Dieman’s Land 1877 - Bare Island Fort - Sydney - Sydney - New South Wales - La Perouse - Colonial Architect Mr James Barnet 1788 - Dodd, Henry Edward, First Fleet Farmer, free man, Farm Cove, Governor Phillip, Rose Hill 1788 - Henry Waterhouse, First Fleet, officer, Sirius, Norfolk Island, Port Jackson, Supply, John Hunter, Reliance 1788 - Nathaniel Lucas, Convict, Feloniously Stealing, Seven Years, First Fleet, Norfolk Island, Philip Gidley King 1788 - John Munday, private marine, 18th (Plymouth) Company, New South Wales, First Fleet, Port Jackson, Captain Shea, Norfolk Island 1788 - Richard Williams, Borrowdale, 2nd mate, First Fleet, aborigines 1788 - Thomas Lucas, First Fleet, Marine, Lady Juliana, Ann Howard, New South Wales corps, Daedalus, Norfolk Island, Governor Hunter 1788 - Peter Hibbs, Able Seaman, HMS Sirius, 25 March 1787 - Cascade Stream, Phillipsburg, Norfolk Island, Point Hibbs, HMS Porpoise 1788 - Watkin Tench, Royal Marine Corps, American War of Independence, First Fleet, captain - lieutenant, lieutenant - general 1788 - William Broughton, Charlotte, servant to Surgeon John White, storekeeper Parramatta, Norfolk Island acting deputy commissary 1788 - William Nash, Royal Marine, 58th (Plymouth) Company, 1st Fleeter, Prince of Wales, Port Jackson, Captain Shea, Maria Haynes 1788 - Trades of the First Fleet Convicts, Clog Maker, Button Stamper, Dressmaker, Embroiderer, Furrier, Glove - maker, Lace Maker 1788 - Welsh First Fleeters, A list of Welsh convicts and crew. 1788 - First Fleeters of Scottish Origin, A list of Scot in the First Fleet 1788 - Scott, James, Sergeant of Marines, First Fleet, Prince of Wales, Dixon Library, Sydney, 1788 - Nancy Yeats (Yates) - Female convict - Lady Penrhyn, David Collins, 1788 - James John Grant, Van Daemons land, Norfolk Island 1788 - Elizabeth Thackery, Manchester Assizes, stealing a silk handkerchief, convict, Friendship, Fighting Five, Charlotte, 1786 - Botany Bay 1788 - Convict Punishment, Flogging or scourging, The Iron Gang, Deep Transportation, Hanging. 1788 - Exploration of the Sydney Region, Arthur Phillip, Watkin Tench, John Wilson, John Shortland, George Caley 1788 - Anglo - Australians, English Imperial Authority, The Colonial ruling Class 1788 - Convict Flags of Origin, A register of the nationalities of the Convicts. 1788 - Australian flag reveals Australian history - 1788 - Women Convicts, Damned Whores, A Feminist View of the status of Women Convicts. 1788 - A Brief History of Australian Women, Significance of Sexual Imbalance., The Morality Debate, 1788 - La Perouse, French navigator, Botany Bay, Arthur Philip, First Fleet 1788 - James Ruse, Convict, Pioneer Farmer 1788 - Convict Release, Ticket of Leave, Pardon 1788 - John Nicol, Mariner, Second Fleet, Lady Julian, Captain Aitkin, Lieutenant Edgar, Sarah Whitlam 1788 - Penal Colony Fashion 1788 - Birth of Australian Painting - 1789 - The NSW Corps, Rum Corps, Botany Bay Rangers, Castle Hill Uprising, Rum Rebellion 1789 - Tent Hospital Parramatta NSW 1789 - Parramatta Hospital - Picture Study 1789 - A timeline in the lives of the First Fleeters, Marines, Sirius, Smallpox, Aboriginal people, Broken Bay, Hawkesbury River 1789 - John Caesar Black Caesar, First Fleet Convict, Our first Bushranger 1790 - General Return of Male Convicts, List of names and occupations 1790 - West Indies Convicts - servants, slaves, London, theft, Sydney - 1790 - Wreck of the Sirius, Ralph Clark, Hunter, Governor King, William Bradley 1791 - Irish Evictees, Irish "Assisted Immigrants" 1791 - Mary Bryant The Girl From Botany Bay 1791 - Chinese Travellers, Convict Rebellion and Escape 1791 - Convict Betrayal, The New Holland Morning Post, 18th October 1791 - Arthur Phillip, All convicts to suffer death in exile 1791 - Convict Origins of the Trade Union Movement, Luddites, Last Labourers' Revolt, Last Labourers' Revolt, Tolpuddle Martyrs 1791 - Labillardiere Jacques, French Naturalist, Australian flora 1793 - Thomas Muir, Convict, Jacobeans, Constitutional Reform 1794 - Brewing in Australia, John Boston, Rum currency, Thomas Rushton, John Tooth, Charles Newman, Kent Brewery, Cascade, John Warren 1795 - John Hunter, Second governor New South Wales 1795 - Land Grants, Ticket of leave Convicts, Disposable Human Spears 1795 - Emancipists, Freed Slaves seeking Civil Rights in Colonial Australia 1976 - Dr George Bass, English Naval Surgeon and Explorer 1796 - Matthew Flinders, Navigator who circumnavigated and named Australia 1796 - Brief History of Wollongong, City of Wollongong, Illawarra Region, Bass and Flinders, Charles Throsby, James Meehani, 1797 - Irish Republicans, Defenders and United Irishman 1800 - Philip Gidley King, Third Governor of New South Wales 1800 - Bentham George, British botanist, 'Flora Australiensis' 1801 - Nicolas Thomas Baudin , French explorer, 1801 1802 - Matthew Flinders, Navigator who circumnavigated and named Australia 1802 - Pike Rebellion, How the Reverend Samuel Marsden earned his name of the Flogging Parson 1802 - John Oxley, Surveyor - General of New South Wales, Naval Officer, Explorer 1803 - Chinese In Australian Commercial History, Furniture and cabinet making, Indentured Shepherds, Fishing, Fish Curing, Market Gardening 1804 - Hobart Town is established 1804 - Castle Hill Uprising, Birth of Australian Republicanism 1805 - John Adams, Convict Biography 1805 - William Bligh, 4th Governor of New South Wales deposed by the Rum Rebellion 1807 - Van Daemon's Land Bolters, Tasmanian Convicts turned Bushrangers 1808 - Lachlan Macquarie, 6th Governor of New South Wales 1808 - Rum Rebellion, William Bligh, Rum Corps, John Macarthur, mutiny 1811 - Luddites, Luddites, Convicts, Trade Unionism 1812 - Michael Howe, Michael Howe, convict, rebel commander, bushranger, first Native Australian land claim 1813 - Early Attempts to Cross the Blue Mountains, William Dawes, Henry Hacking, George Bass, Francis Barrallier, George Caley 1813 - Gregory Blaxland, Free Settle, pioneer, explorer, Blue Mountains 1813 - William Charles Wentworth, Convict' son, Explorer, Blue Mountains, Editor, the Australian newspaper, Australian Patriotic Association 1813 - William Lawson, Ensign, New South Wales Corps, explorer, Blue Mountains 1813 - Exploration of South Eastern Australia, George William Evans, Archibald Bell, John Oxley, Thomas Whyte, John Howe, John Blackman 1814 - Coach Travel, William Highland, Royal Mail, Peter Cunningham, James Atkinson 1814 - A road across the Blue Mountains, Lachlan Macquarie, George Evans, William Cox, Major Thomas Mitchell, David Lennox 1814 - Australian Boxing, The Early Days - Broughton's Rules, London Prize Ring Rules, James Kelly, Young Kable, Ned Chalker, Young Bailey 1815 - Richard Bankin, Convict Biography, burglary, Prudence Perkins, Many Ann, Susanna, Sarah 1818 - Colonial Hospital Parramatta, Governor Macquarie, Parramatta, John Watts, 1819 - Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney,Male convict Barracks, Female infirm, destitute asylum, Courts and Government Offices, Museum, 1819 - History of Australian Poetry, Barron Field, Australia, First Fruits of Australian Poetry, 1819, W. C. Wentworth, Charles Tompson, Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel, 1826, Charles Harpur, Henry Kendall, George Gordon McCrae, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Bush Ballads, The Bulletin, Henry Lawson, Andrew Barton Paterson (who wrote under the name Banjo Paterson), Joseph Furphy, Louis Becke, Price Warung, J. F. Archibald, 1890's, James Burton Stephens, George Essex Evans, Victor Daley (who used the pen name Creeve Roe), Bernard O'Dowd, Francis Adams, Dame Mary Gilmore, Hugh McCrae, Christopher Brennan, Shaw Neilson, C. J. Dennis 1819 - Commissioner Bigge, Inquiry, Convicts, Lachlan Macquarie, Wentworth, Macarthur, Rev. S. Marsden, Exclusivist 1820 - Currency Lads & Lasses, Convict children, Unique Australian Culture 1820 - Arthur Thistlewood, English Revolutionary, Cato Street Conspiracy, Spa Fields Riot 1820 - Matthew Bradey, Australia's Robin Hood, Convict Rebel Leader, Bushranger, Daemon's Land 1820 - Convict Assignment, State administered slave labour force 1820 - Squatters, Illegal occupation of land, Ticket-of-Leave Convicts, emancipists, pioneers 1820 - Pioneer History ofthe Macleay River, Kempsey, 1820 - John Oxley, timber, cedar logging 1822 - Elizabeth Hawkins, Crossing the Blue Mountains, The diary of first family of white free settlers to cross the Blue Mountains 1824 - John Knatchbull, Convict, The Tea Sweeteners, arsenic, Norfolk Island 1824 - Richmond Gaol, Tasmania, Convicts, Penal Colony Institution, military barracks 1824 - Richmond Gaol, the Guided Tour, Tasmania, Room by room 1824 - Moreton Bay penal colony established in Queensland 1825 - Botamy Bay, Just for fun. 1825 - Brisbane is established 1827 - Mitchell Sir Thomas L, Surveyor, General, Explorer, New South Wales, Darling River, Lachlan River, Murrumbidgee River, Murray Rivers 1828 - Exploration of Western NSW and Victoria, John Sturt, Hume, Angus McMillan, Paul Edmund de Strzelecki. 1828 - South African Convicts, Convicts, 1828 to 1838 - "the excitable classes", "South African blacks" 1829 - Establishment of Western Australia, Dirk Hartog, Willem de Vlamingh, William Dampier, Louis de Freycinet, British settlements 1829 - James Stirling, Western Australia, first Governor, British marine officer, Scotland, West Indies, Surrey, Mediterranean, 1830 - Scourging Statistics, New South Wales, Penal Colony, Convict punishment, cat - o' - nine tails 1830 - Captain Swing, Last Labourers' Revolt, Swing Riots, Swing letters, mechanisation, Corn Laws 1831 - Thomas Cook, Convict, Respectables, Incendiarists, The Exile's Lamentations. 1832 - Discovering Gold in New South Wales, 1832 - James Mc Brien, Fish River, 1851 - Bathurst, Edward Hargraves, W. B. Clarke 1833 - Port Arthur opens as a penal settlement in Tasmania. 1833 - Scourging, Expert Opinion, New South Wales, Penal Colony, Convict punishment, cat - o' - nine tails` 1833 - Norfolk Island Rebellion, Penal Colony, convict rebellion, Laurence Frayne, Commander Morisset, Captain Charles Sturt, Foster Fyans 1834 - William Delaforce, Convict biography, Port Macquarie 1834 - Tolpuddle Martyrs, English farm labourers, Transportation, Trade Union activities - George and James Loveless (or Lovelace), Convicts 1835 - Australian Patriotic Association, New South Wales, convicts, Emancipists, representative government, Constitution Act of 1842 1835 - Foundation of Melbourne, William Buckley, George Bass, James Grant, John Murray, Port Phillip, Charles Robbins, Charles Grimes, 1836 - South Austra

about witches and all that nonsense.

• *

  

  The June 10, 1692 hanging of Bridget Bishop
  • Teenage "witches" were hung, burnt at the stake, drawn and quartered.
  • American society has always been brutal and ignorant. There are more than three million people in prison in the U.S.A. mostly for marijuana and lesser drug charges that can get them ten- year sentences. Negroes were murdered by lynching or severe flogging. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians were murdered bombed, and mulilated by napalm.
  • Native Americans were hunted down and whole populations eliminated, not sparing children or infants.

  • x-Detainee Describes Gitmo Tortures

    May 21, 08 12:02 PM CDT A man arrested in Pakistan and held as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay was hung from the ceiling, beaten, and shocked with jolts of electricity, he testified to Congress yesterday. The German-born Turkish citizen told lawmakers that US interrogators also forced water down his throat. He was released without charge after nearly 5 years in custody. More »

  • Judge Orders CIA to Release 'Torture' Memo

    May 9, 08 6:30 AM CDT A federal judge has ordered the CIA to release a 2002 memo believed to outline interrogation methods that may amount to torture. The ACLU, which brought the suit sparking the order, claims that the memo details harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and calls it "one of the most important torture documents still being withheld by the Bush administration." The judge will decide whether to make the memo public on Monday, reports Reuters

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex Counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused who were not formally pursued by the authorities. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged. One man who refused to enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so. At least five more of the accused died in prison.*

A Harvard Witch Hunt: 50 Years Later, Files Show University Ousted Professor in Red-Baiting Move

In the red-baiting heydays of the early 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy called Harvard a “smelly mess” where students risked “indoctrination by Communist professors.”

Despite being generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover, as well as Salem Town, Massachusetts. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. All twenty-six who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Town, but also in Ipswich, Boston, and Charlestown, produced only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducted.*

Witches & Witchcraft Real Witches Witches Body Witch Becoming A Witch Witches Chant Witches Creed What Is A Witch? Different Types Witches Pyramid Witches Key The Hardest Lessons Witches Lessons Witches Lesson 2 Witches Lesson 3 Witches Lesson 4 Witches Lesson 5 Witches Lesson 6 Witches Lesson 7 Goddess To Witch Poem What Makes A Witch? A Witches Duty An Open Letter Becoming A Witch

Witches Standards 17 Rules Concerning Relationship Witchcraft Act Rights Of Witch Witches Rights Witches Bible - Page 1 Witches Bible - Page 2 Witches Bible - Page 3 Witch Potential? The Witches Runes From The Lips Of A Witch So You Want To Be A Witch? 13 Goals of a Witch 13 Plants of a Witch What If? The Wicked Witch Is Dead? Conversation With A Witch Open Letter To A Witch Bewitched Fairy Tale Witch Kitchen Witch or Cottage Witch Green Witch Kitchen Witchery Ins & Outs

Magickal Uses of Herbs Kitchen Herbs Food & Their Meaning Receipes Witch Bottle The Burning Times What Is Witchcraft? Information & Misconceptions Witchcraft Wicca & Witchcraft The Ancient Art Persecution Of Women War Against Witchcraft Warning Poppets Old and Ugly Odd Thoughts Did You Know? History of Magick The Great Rite Drawing Down The Moon Ritual Ritual Definition Witches & Witchcraft Index Continued

The interrogations and treatment and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay by the United States is in the same tradition as the Salem Witch Trials , the murder of the Rosenbergs and the anti communist witch-hunts of the fifties. America has not changed much in its medieval thinking.

waterboarding demonstration

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/waterboarding-torture-demonstration-at-justice-department-video-over-18-only/

Britain's bane, the poor and depraved, Australia's gain.

Lesbians were rife in the 18th century.

For those who failed, London was unforgiving, and they ended up in the impoverished ghettos to the east. Just a few minutes' walk away from what is now the busy shopping district of the modern West End was one of the vilest slums in London: St Giles. 'The houses at St Giles were called "rookeries" because that suggested people packed into nests,' says Professor Dabydeen. 'It was a place of the marginalised and destitute, of pickpockets, of murders, rapes, illegal gambling, cockfighting – any imaginable human depravity took place in St Giles.'

The vast gulf between rich and poor fuelled crime rates, and fear of crime obsessed the rich. Newspapers – another new phenomenon – were passed round coffee houses and regaled their readers with sensational stories about highwaymen, murderers and executions. And the focus for wealthy Londoners' anxieties about crime was St Giles. Paranoia about this wretched quarter reached fever pitch in the early 1700s, when the urban poor seized on a terrifying new vice – gin.

Gin

The gin of the 18th century bore no relation to the respectable expensive spirit of today. A Dutch import, Madam Geneva (as she was called) was cheap and lethal. 'This new drink from Holland suddenly arrived among a people who weren't used to drinking spirits,' says Patrick Dillon. 'The strongest thing they had drunk before was strong beer, and suddenly for a penny a dram they could get this fantastic new drug. Stronger than anything they'd tasted before, it would instantly get them drunk. There was a famous signboard over gin shops that said: "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, straw for nothing" – of course, you got the straw to crash out on once you had drunk too much.'

Numbers of Convicts (1788 - 1868)

More than 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia between 1788 and 1868.

About 80,000 convicts were sent to New South Wales (NSW), including a few to Port Phillip (future Melbourne) and Moreton Bay (future Brisbane) which were part of NSW until 1851.

Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) received 69,000. The last convicts to land in eastern Australia were in Tasmania in 1852.

However, Western Australia (WA) only started receiving convicts in 1850 and continued to 1868. 9,700 convicts were sent to WA to help its very small population to build public buildings. There were no female prisoners transported to Western Australia. No convicts were sent to South Australia (SA).

Some 1040 ships carried convicts from England and Ireland and other places to Australia. It is thought that about 165,000 departed from the ports of embarkation, and 3,000 died en route (some of the numbers were taken from Southern Cross Genealogy).

Image: Fremantle prison, built by convicts

The reasons for transportation to Australia

Life in 18th century England

In the eighteenth century (sometimes called the 1700s), the gap between rich and poor was huge. In England, King George III (cf. image on the left) lived in his palace on the rich side of London, while in the east of the city most people were poor and hungry.

People began their working lives at the age of six, labouring long hours in factories for small wages.

Men had to live close to their workplaces, so hundreds of families would be crowded into just a few streets near butcher’s shops and tanneries, where leather was made. The waste from these places, as well as sewerage from the houses, often ran openly in the street. Disease was very common in these slums. Nobody thought that life would get any better, so men and women tried to forget their troubles by getting drunk on cheap alcohol.

The old couple Maud and Walter went to bed. After a few minutes Maud said to Walter" Remember how you used to hold my hand?".... Walter dutifully held her hand. Maud said "Remember how you used to kiss my cheek?"..... Walter kissed her cheek. Maud said "Remember how you used to nibble my ear?" Walter jumped up out of bed. "Where are you going?" asked Maud. "I am going to get my teeth. I left them in a glass in the bathroom."