Author Archive: Retro

Based loosely on the nursery rhyme: A fair is in progress, with refreshments, entertainment, and other activities. As the rest of the crowd is watching one of the acts, Tom steals a pig and runs off. He tries to hide, but he is chased by the crowd, and the pig also proves difficult to control. But Tom has some tricks up his sleeve that might give him a chance to escape.

In the south coast of England, a young woman, Margaret Catchpole (Lottie Lyell), is pursued by two men, the smuggler Will Laud (Raymond Longford) and the coastguard officer Lieutenant Barry (Augustus Neville). Laud is killed in a fight with coast guards and Margaret is sentenced to Botany Bay for horse stealing. She later marries Barry, who has since moved to Sydney, and becomes well-regarded for her hospital work.

Billy is on the bum. He sees a copper writing a ticket to a driver parked in front of a fire hydrant. The driver slips the cop some money to tear up the ticket. Billy acquires a fake fire plug and a policeman’s badge, and sets out to make some money.

A king exacts vengeance upon his faithless mistress and her lover.

A phlegmatic pickpocket is arrested and taken to his cell. As he is an unusually wily customer, he is bound by fetters and chained to the wall. Speedily putting these off, he is locked up by the enraged warders in a chest, but escapes and is finally thrown into the river tied up in a sack. Coming up from the water again, perfectly dry and safe, he makes a bicycle for himself and rides off furiously, springing ultimately onto a passing train which bars his passage. In this way he is carried along on his bicycle for some distance, but reaching the river again, he descends on his machine, performs a few revolutions in mid-air, the reflection of the bicycle showing up clearly on the face of the water, and then lands in a sumptuous room. The police follow, but are baffled by the continued disappearing tricks of the clever thief, who dissolves from view [...]