AustLit

An English sea captain agrees to run a cargo of goods, including arms and medicine, to New Orleans and the Confederate forces during the Civil War. Account of the purchase of the boat in Glasgow; loading, voyage to New Orleans including repainting the ship and smokeless coal; running the blockade, sale of cargo, escape by ruse from New Orleans and successful return to London with a cotton cargo. (PB)

A train passenger hears his neighbour's revenge plans on his wife for Christmas presents only she could use - and sees him the next day when he has to return the gifts he had bought for himself for her birthday. (PB)

Tale of a race between two competing trains from London to Aberdeen. Told by the guard, the story of bets made on the race and a clever ruse to slow down his company's train by crossing signal wires. The guard himself had given the information unawares to a visiting stranger for £25. Moral - don't tell strangers too much. (PB)

English tale of a tramp and criminal who is offered but refuses a steady job with a worthy squire. A few years later, after more spells in gaol, he saves the squire from being murdered by three louts - at the cost of his own life. Heroism of the outcast etc, return for kindess. (PB)

Exemplary business tale of a canny rich Scotsman who refuses to lend his nephew money until he has learnt its value through starting and losing a business in Scotland, marrying and making a career and fortune in the US. Happily married etc. Motto: 'Young Men, earn your own capital.' (PB)

Account of a countrywoman's valiant and successful victory over a city store which refused, from shop-girl to owner, to give her a farthing change but wished to give her pins instead. (PB)

A chance meeting in a railway carriage and a shared holiday lodging leads to love between a London clerk and an Irish girl - and it reveals that his holiday companion and fellow-clerk was responsible for ruining her brother's reputation by accusing him of spying for another company. The companionship based on dishonour fails, the brother is restored from South Africa to his former firm, and the hero and heroine are married. (PB)

A maiden aunt of French lineage plans a marriage between her unfashion-minded writer-niece and the rich son of an old school friend. Instead, the writer elopes with a dramatist - formerly her beautiful sister's suitor - leaving the rich gentleman to her sister who loves him anyway. (PB)

Two labourers comment on the cruelty to dogs of exercising behind bicycles - one citing the diminution of the lady's walking companion - a bloodhound - to her cycling follower - a Scotch terrier. (PB)

Domestic tale from England - light humour. Two men mix up their parcels - gloves for their wives - on the train. The wrong sizes nearly cause two divorces - but the ladies meet, become friends, and catch their husbands on the point of going to London at the railway station. (PB)

Racing tale. A dying jockey confesses winning a race for his employer through the use of a poisoned whip needle - killing the other jockey and causing the owner to suicide. (PB)

A nouveau riche butcher's wife gives a party at her new home on Mt Grand View - which sees a lovers' quarrel between pretty Lilian Grace of Prahan and assistant state school teacher Clarence Geoffrey. Letters are misdirected and the quarrel continues until Clarence follows Lilian's family to Lakes Entrance for the Christmas holidays, stumbles across Lilian in a very brief swimming costume which he enjoys until he realises it is her and he has been spying. The return of his letter quickly prompts another and marriage ensues. (PB)

A teetotalling Scottish family reveal their various private hoards of alcohol to a visiting cousin. (PB)

An American resident in Venice meets a railway workman visiting there with his daughter who was having voice training in Milan. Tale of the old man's love for his daughter for whom he was sacrificing an inheritance, of her ingratitude in eloping with a rich Frenchman, of the old workman's temporary job as a stoker on an Italian railroad and his death of a broken heart. (PB)

Lawyer is outfoxed by witness in cross-examination. (PB)

On the morals to be learned from the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill - youthful romance, trust and forethought. (PB)

A Melbourne girl left penniless by her father's death marries one of his Calcutta partners when he arrives to propose marriage as a solution. He loves her but they lead separate undemanding lives until he determines to return to Calcutta to set her free and she follows him aboard to ask him to learn to love her. Romance follows marriage of convenience. (PB)

Story partly narrated from notes by Sinclair's "wife of over 30 years" set in early 1880s East Melbourne. Jewellery disappears from a ladies' college and Sinclair sends his wife in the guise of a seamstress to help solve the mystery. A rich squatter's daughter meets her dissipated brother in the garden to try and help him - and eventually their father returns to claim them both. The headmistress' husband, a clergyman, is the thief. In a fit of madness he kills his wife and robs her safe for gambling money. A faithful old servant from the couple's English days tells their tale. (PB)

The Duke wins a race by riding himself in place of his jockey who 'speculators' had attempted to bribe. (PB)