Born Today Horoscope

Feisty femmes skirted scandal

Another was a former suffragette, interned during World War II for supporting Nazi Germany and Japan. A few were bushrangers and highway robbers while others made fortunes as pimps. One made a much bigger fortune peddling "hope in a jar" after faking scientific expertise.

A couple masqueraded as English or Irish aristocrats rather than country Queenslanders and most were habitual liars and hypocrites. Even by today's standards, many were highly promiscuous.

Australian history, as author Kay Saunders says, is replete with rebels and villains, but the "plain bad girls" have not received the scrutiny they deserved.

Until now. Saunders, a former professor of history and senate member of the University of Queensland, has redressed the balance with a racy tome Notorious Australian Women (ABC Books/HarperCollins, $35).

The 18 women profiled provide stark contrast with worthy heroines such as the champion of women immigrants Caroline Chisholm, or the patient, long-suffering pioneering women depicted in poetry and fiction by Henry Lawson and others. Some of the new book's subjects were brave as well as bad, however, such as First Fleet convict and highway robber Mary Broad Bryant, who rowed from Sydney to Timor with her two young children.

Saunders, the great-granddaughter of two English suffragettes, has written on a wide range of Australian, feminist and race relations history. The fact that Notorious Australian Women was commissioned is a welcome sign of maturity in publishing and our society, she believes.

"We've often read about women as valiant pioneers battling snakes in the outback or as crusading campaigners for equality or as victims of men's misdeeds," Saunders says. "But in this book, the boot is often on the other foot."

Or, in the case of Sydney gangster Tilly Devine, the razor was in the other hand. In 1925, in an apparent revenge attack, Devine calmly walked into a barber's shop and slashed a customer. Devine owned 18 brothels in Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Woolloomooloo and Paddington, dabbled in drug dealing and sold goods shoplifted by her gangs from department stores Mark Foys and David Jones. She is one of the better known characters in the book.

Equally famous and feisty was Irish-born singer and dancer Lola Montez, who horsewhipped the editor of The Ballarat Times in a public bar in 1856 after his newspaper had printed a bad review of the show she performed for gold diggers. An avid gold digger herself, Montez, who had skipped bail on bigamy charges in England, had ruined her elderly lover, King Ludwig of Bavaria, with her extravagance.

Cancer's horoscope, Friday April 22 : Today horoscope 21

Hello friends, then you can read today's horoscope Friday 22 de April 2011 for all those born under the sign of Cancer. All those born under this constellation, between 21 June and 22 July, will know what probably will live in love , work , health , family life , and many more aspects of your life. To start reading your daily horoscope should only go to this link where you will find what the stars say for the sign of Cancer.

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