Cirrus@Austlit

Humorous account of Professor Huxley's moderate recommendations on smoking - and the dismay of the 'anti-tobacconists'. (PB)

A wet Christmas Eve on the Walhalla diggings near Mt Baw Baw - and diggers' kindness in providing amply for a sick and penniless widow and her children. Rough sentiment and piety. (PB)

Sentimental romantic tragedy. A dean marries his beautiful loving daughter against her wishes to an earl - separating her and the cousin she loves. The earl treats her cruelly, separating her from her daughter and making her travel around the Continent until she becomes very ill in Rome. She returns to her father's house after two years to die cared for by him and her cousin. She is happy; their grief continues - the father coping with his by playing the organ. She dies just before Christmas. (PB)

Of English actor Henry Irving, and a tale told by him of the generosity of a poor fellow actor, and a Christmas gift of underwear - wool and silk, scarlet. (PB)

Account of an English lord who had his feet amputated from cold rather than lose a bet with the author Perkins. (PB)

Contrasting Christmas experiences in the bush: a father and son lost on the overland journey to Adelaide are dying of hunger and thirst. A merry picnic party from Yaroopna Station - overseer, pretty girls, squatter and 'new chum' enjoying a ride, a magnificent lunch and a kangaroo hunt. As evening falls the overseer and one of the girls discover the still surviving boy beside his dead father's body. The child is subsequently adopted. A pleasant Australian tale that combines humour and tragedy. (PB)

Brief rhyming passage from the turkey indicating how it should be carved and shared for Christmas dinner. (PB)

Children's delight at Christmas time in putting out their stockings and finding them filled by Santa Claus while they sleep. (PB)

Folk tale narrated by a traveller. A watch for ghostly flames on Christmas Eve in a Devonshire Manor house, believed to be haunted by the squire, who burnt deeds entitling the community to a wood on his property. The watch becomes reality as the manor is burnt by local poachers determined to prove the legend of the hidden deeds to be true - and they do find a strongbox. The mystery is concealed in the flames. (PB)

Humorously embarrassing scene when a man accidentally locks the door to the dressing-room where he is sitting with his fiancee and she loses it in her clothing in an attempt to stop her bleeding nose. Parental suspicions nearly end in violence. (PB)

Rhyming instructions from the turkey to gobble it up for dinner. (PB)

A telegraphist's plots to ensnare a wealthy former suitor by changing a telegram from his current lady and sending the woman a photograph of herself and the suitor in Central Park. Her schemes are frustrated by his discovery of the telegram. The schemer discovers her loss by telegram too and she remains an unmarried worker. (PB)

An old house-keeper's account of his younger brother's strange behaviour in the narrator's absence from home is explained when the youth confesses to a murder and asks him to bear the blame and dispose of the body. Relief is at hand when he is awakened from a dream to discover his brother, an explanation of private theatricals, and a plan for a double wedding. (PB)

Sinclair enlists the aid of a drunken detective to find a missing will. The case becomes a murder case, but Sinclair arrests the wrong man, a terrified groom. The drunken detective, Bruff, follows the clues to a mad girl, feigning to be deaf and dumb, who stabbed the victim, a valet, in the mouth. Sinclair is bested by an alcoholic. Tale includes the widow - an ex-servant. (PB)

Christmas on the diggings and rivalry for a new barwoman at the diggings store results in the murder of cheerful, honest Charlie Hutton by dark Poker Jim. A curlew's call and Charlie's ghost reveal his body at the waterhole. Arkansas colonel Dan Dennifer nearly kills Poker Jim in vengeance but is persuaded by the narrator not to stain his hands with murder. (PB)