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ONE The Road To Wigan Pier   (Pt 1)  by George Orwell  (Eric Blair 1937, Victor Gollancz 1947, Secker & Warburg 1949, Penguin 1962)         The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her ― her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round, pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slu

Over the first third of the twentieth century, Australia's population doubled in size but remained essentially the same in terms of its mix. It was overwhelmingly sourced from the British Isles (England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland) with a small influence from the rest of Europe. This ethnic stability is illustrated by the first four Census results conducted after Federation in 1901 ― "(Exclusive of full-blood Aboriginals)" ! Numbers of Anglo-Celtic Australians increased over time from the 'natural increase' of a young and fertile 'settler population' derived from nineteenth century migration. Contributions from the rest of the world were relatively low and static. Australia's demographic uniformity did not alter until after the end of the Second World War. Only in the harsh post-war realism of a nation recovering from the shock of near-invasion by the Japanese did we re-consider our traditional ideas of 'racial stock'. The urgency in popular

  Disturbing images of Israeli ordinance pounding Gaza into fine grey dust present a serious moral problem for Western democracies.  It is difficult to reconcile the passive trainloads of Jewish victims in the Nazi Holocaust with the new reality of aggressive military vengeance in the Middle East.  Twentieth-century certainties of international justice look increasingly shabby.  This is a different people.  A transformation has taken place. Medieval Tradition has been abandoned in favour of a new wave of 'biblical' interpretation.       "The Midrashic and Talmudic literature grew and developed in the years following the failure of a series of Jewish revolts that broke out against Rome in the land of Israel and beyond its borders during the first and second centuries CE ...        The first uprising was the Great Revolt of 66-73 CE. This rebellion was viciously put down, leading to a great many deaths in battle and by starvation. The peak came with the destruction of the Se

The reputation of English King Henry I is negatively marked by his Purge of the Moneyers in 1124-25. The most vivid contemporary account is contained in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles  for those years. The background of continental war and agricultural dearth suggests other reasons were responsible for the loss of confidence in the currency. Scapegoating those who minted silver into pennies might have satisfied a political need but it did not really solve the fundamental problems of high taxation and poor harvests. ANGLO - SAXON  CHRONICLE AD 1124                All this year was the king in Normandy. That was for the great hostility that he had with the King Louis of France, and with the Earl of Anjou...         This same year were the seasons very unfavourable in England for corn and all fruits; so that between Christmas and Candlemas men sold the acre-seed of wheat, that bis two seedlips, for six shillings; and the barley, that is three seedlips, for six shillings also; and the acre-see

  'WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGE - Captain Thunderbolt (bushranger Frederick Ward), dead, 1870'   State Library New South Wales , Collection Item Call No. PXA362, (Vol. 6/109, 1870)  Photographer Andrew Cunningham, Uralla NSW, Cartes-de-viste  (postcard) June 1870 'Cadaver of Frederick Ward, the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, ca. May-June 1870' State Library New South Wales , Call Numbers P1/1900 (from P1/Ward BM July 2010) Photographer Andrew Cunningham, Uralla NSW, carte de visite (photographic print) Image on left side "Ward's body photographed with shirt open to show the autopsy scar" Image on right side "In this photograph he is wearing a hat" and "thunderbolt bushranger" in pencil on the reverse Both post mortem images show entry wound of fatal shot in the upper chest of the deceased Mr Buchanan, police magistrate, Inquiry "We have great pleasure in being able to state that the pest of the Northern districts for many years, Frederic

"Yesterday morning the city was startled by the intelligence that the celebrated Captain Melville had committed self-destruction in the Gaol. An inquest was held in the corridor of the Gaol before Dr. Youl, about midday. Dr. Maund deposed that he had made a post mortem  examination of the body...The Coroner then summed up the evidence, and the jury, after a brief deliberation, retuned a verdict of felo de se .  The following remarkable passage, evidently traced by the unfortunate deceased,. was found written on the walls of his cell in black lead pencil :―        'I am to suffer nothing. My name is not T. Smith, but ― Macullum. I intend to defeat their purpose, and to die in my bed, with a smile, by my own hand; and thus by my keenness to defeat their most secret intentions, and these steps are taken to give me an opportunity of doing so, as it is in my power to prove that I am not the man I am taken for.' " [The Melbourne Age, Thursday 13 August 1847, p 5, 'Suici