Hi Listers, Penrith was mentioned in the first issue of 'The Colonial Observer" 7 Oct 1841. They didnt seem impressed with the entertainment. Penrith Nothing is talked of in Penrith but the approaching races. Some very fine horses have turned out, and the place is in the meantime very stirring and gay. We do not trouble ourselves much with such matters, but shall be happy to communicate the result to the public. We wish to create a higher taste - a desire for a more rational species of enjoyment, to which we will have greater pleasure in catering. Then in the Colonial Observer 10 June 1843. Penrith Total Abstinence Society. The prevailing dulness and monotony in the peaceful village of Penrith was again interrupted by a placard annoucing a second public meeting of the Windsor Total Abstinence Society, to be held in the Court HOuse on Wednesday (the 31st ultimo) ......... This took up almost 2 full columns of the paper on the talks by the president and secretary. Stirring stuff In the Parramatta Chronicle of 30 December 1843. Penrith - Mr Alexander Fraser, residing near Penrith, from whom a private still was seized, about the end of last month, was fined 100 pound by the Penrith bench on Friday (yesterday) week; and sentenced , in default of payment, to three months imprisonment. The evils of drink. In the same paper was this wonderful journalist poetry. William Mills, a discharged soldier, and veteran in the ranks of "the noble army of martyrs" in the cause of intemperance, who had been pouring copious libations on the shrine of his divinity, and was robbed of his watch, while so zealously sacrificing, was convicted, for the fifth time within the last twelve months of excessive devotion, and fined 20s with 1s costs, or 72 hours solitary confinement. I suppose it was better than saying he was drunk again. These old newspapers can be accessed on www.nla.gov.au/ferg/browselist.html I find it takes awhile to download at times. Kristine Wood