AustLit

Tale taken from English Admiralty records. An Irish captain kills four Frenchmen in a duel on the island of Mauritius and is court-martialled for this infraction of the law. He vowed to kill the officers if they dismissed him from the navy, and does - thus losing five good men from the naval forces. (PB)

Narrative of a haggard French convict's attempt to escape from this 'Botany Bay' of France in 1866; his reluctant return to imprisonment by the captain of the US steamship he swam to, and his execution the following morning. (PB)

Sketch of a nurse's trials from her spoilt charge on a railway to Jersey City - and the glee of the passengers when she follows her mistress' instructions and lets him grasp a wasp. (PB)

An English sailor is enlisted by a friend to help locate a treasure hidden beneath a statue of a white elephant near Lucknow, India. The sailor, Sulky, had learned of the treasure from a Rajah he had helped escape during the Sepoy Rebellion, and has finally returned to find it. A cobra ends his dream and the narrator turns the treasure over to its rightful owner. (PB)

A horrible murder involving the deposit of a severed head in a girl's bedroom at a Bourke Street hotel, causing her to lose her reason on waking to discover it there - kissing it and talking to the bloody lips. The narrator, a new chum when the story opens, becomes a policeman and through a lucky coincidence solves the case eight years later. (PB)

On the destruction wrought by the bringing up and discharge of a battery of guns. (PB)

Temperance tale. A drunkard's awakening in a church and his meeting with the stern clergyman who encourages him to find the will within himself to give up drinking and work to care for his wife and two children. Christianity and masculinity stirred. (PB)

A slight new school teacher in a country school out-boxes the local bully and runs the best school in the area thereafter. (PB)

Domestic discussion of the place of woman in the bible. Written in play script form. (PB)

Tale of robbery, murder and impersonation set in Autun, Bourgogne, Paris, and the French countryside. Two established criminals and a young gentlemanly embezzler join forces to rob an old miser at Autun, murdering him and his housekeeper in the process. The young man leaves them and through a stroke of chance takes on the identity of a rich young man returning to his aunts after 10 years in Ceylon. Recognition by his former confederates in Paris where he goes to spend his money, and their implication of him when they are arrested, leads to his exposure and arrest. (PB)

An actor and ventriloquist uses his skills to escape from a thief posing as a beggar who leads him home through the streets of London's slums to entrap him. (PB)

Humorous instructions on keeping a well-tempered husband. (PB)

Tale of robbery and murder. The narrator accidentally observes the burial of a trunk in the woods by two men through his telescope. When he learns of a robbery he goes to see the victim and together they dig up the spot where the trunk was buried. There they discover the body of the victim's brother - murdered by the rough gardener who assisted him to steal the jewels. (PB)

The sale of the model prison building at Port Arthur prompts a tour of the settlement, as it would have been when occupied by convicts. Includes explanation of the 'silent system'. (PB)

Mistaken identities of a gentleman and a housemaid at a marital asylum ball who presume each other insane. (PB)

A domestic misunderstanding and jealousy temporarily trouble a titled English marriage. Lady May Haworth's refusal to accompany her husband to an evening reception arouses his anger which turns to jealousy when he returns to find her meeting a dark handsome stranger in the garden. The stranger finally reveals himself to be a gentleman who assisted her in paying a gambling debt at Homburg two months previously ... Lesson for marriage: not to deceive and not to judge by appearances. (PB)

A child thanks a shop assistant rudely treated by a lady customer. (PB)

Dialogue between two Ohio river boatmen confused over temperature measurement. (PB)

A suitor promises to wait for his betrothed until her adopted father dies but through a series of mischances they lose each other. Thirteen years later repairs to a library fireplace, an old letter, and a series of newspaper advertisements - one of which reaches Paris - reunites them. (PB)

Mother's fears and love for her child when he comes home late from a forbidden visit to the river. Father's common sense punishment. (PB)