AustLit

A schoolmaster's atttempts to teach his class geography fail comically. (PB)

A flood in the Victorian bush washes away a railway bridge. Only the tenacity of a railway ganger in a valiant ride to the nearest station, the signalling of a stationmaster and the quick thinking of a country lad with a dray save the Melbourne express from disaster. (PB)

Tale of a wife's pleadings changing an officer's idea of honour so that he refuses to meet her husband in a duel and perhaps leave her a widow. Her husband when he learns of this agrees it is a false code of honour that duels for a slight insult. (PB)

Account of a white man's kindness to an indigent negro and the old man's generous blessing on his deathbed. Christian sentiment - some humour amidst patronage. (PB)

A solidly respectable childless English couple are troubled only by the husband's careful charity to children's hospitals. His wife decides to adopt a child but refuses to consider her dead sister's son - until, after a long and fruitless hunt, her husband brings home a handsome boy ... Solidly respectable tale with a touch of warmth. (PB)

Tale of love abandoned and lost. A poor young woman decides to marry for wealth in New England - but when her aged husband dies two years later discovers she has lost true love. (PB)

Humorous exchange between a minister and a scoffing town character in Selkirk, Scotland. (PB)

A folding crib, an active baby and a solicitous aunt panic Mr and Mrs Atkinson when they fear the baby is stolen. (PB)

A father's refusal to give his son money forces him to earn his own and become a good businessman. Work ethic, exemplary tale. (PB)

A married couple begin by congratulating each other on their lack of quarrelling and end by coming to blows over the date of their wedding. (PB)

Set around a lodging house. The murder of a rich and cantankerous woman, owner of a Murray station, and the theft of her jewels inplicate her niece and the husband she secretly married to avoid her aunt's disapproval. Sub-plot of romance between a retired officer staying in the house - the victim's suitor from years before who broke their engagement, and the kindly old maid Miss Pinkerton. A firm landlady; the victim's ghost and the confession of the real jewel thief complete the tale. (PB)

Romantic tragedy of a husband and wife estranged by misunderstanding. Unable and unwilling to show their love for each other, a husband and wife of seven years are separated finally by his death. And she learns too late that he did not marry her for her fortune but for love. (PB)

Tale of an attempted bank robbery foiled by a bank clerk's private telegraph line to his wife at home - or by her 'dream'. (PB)

A chance meeting in a railway carriage introduces an army deserter on his way home to visit a reportedly dying father, and a young woman recalled from her holidays. It results in Ermengarde witnessing his change of costume on the train and lending him her hat and some money - which he repays by mail. Another meeting on holiday at Folkestone accidentally reveals the now rehabilitated deserter has invoked her name to protect him from the matrimonial design of a Highland chieftainess. (PB)

Kindness to a sickly bootblack from his fellow boy workers. (PB)

A merchant ensures a reformed burglar cannot find or keep a job - and the burglar takes his revenge by stealing his money - a fate worse than death for the merchant. (PB)

A Munich doctor recounts a case of a wealthy and beautiful woman who spent three days in a death house in a fit of catalepsy. Only signals of life from 'the signalling instrument' and the narrator's attention to its causes saved her from burial. Germanic combination of reason and superstition. (PB)

A vagrant arrested in a great city refuses to give up the baby's shoe she has carried for 35 years. (PB)

A bank manager tracks down a defaulting customer and old acquaintance through a photographer's card. He obtains the money owing by attending the man's wedding and demanding its return in the vestry. (PB)

A fog delays the boat from Holland to Harwich and a watch smuggler whose specially constructed shirt won't allow him to sit down gives himself away. (PB)