Joseph Hazelton

Zara is a phony psychic in a Hungarian carnival who, under the guidance of a Svengali-like con man crashes—and proceeds to swindle—American high society.

18 episode Western adventure serial. 1. Bonds of Steel 2. In the Enemy's Hands 3. The Spy 4. The Sword of Grant and Lee 5. The Man of the Ages 6. Prisoners of the Sioux 7. Shackles of Fate 8. The Last Shot 9. From Tailor to President 10. Empire Builders 11. Perils of the Plains 12. The Hand of Justice 13. Trails of Peril 14. The Scarlet Doom 15. Men of Steel 16. The Brink of Eternity 17. A Race to the Finish 18. Driving the Golden Spike.

The poetic and sentimental theme of the old Southland song is the moving crux investing an interesting story of love and comedy daring the reconstruction period, south of Mason and Dixon's Line.

Muriel Ashley is engaged to Ferdie Walton. Ferdie's father opposes the marriage; Muriel's parents favor it. The couple are married by a strange parson who wanders into the Ashley home, then after they leave for the honeymoon, Ferdie's father discovers that the clergyman is a crook.

In 1840 Scotland, a young lass named Babbie revels in the country life and frolics with the locals, simple weavers whose livelihood is threatened by increasing industrialization. When Lord Rintoul attempts to rout the rebellious weavers, Babbie always manages to send word in time to prevent their being taken by surprise. Gavin, new minister to the town, falls in love with Babbie, and his relationship with the young gypsy almost costs him his position. But what Gavin and his parishioners do not know is that Babbie is actually Lady Babbie, ward of Lord Rintoul.

Granny Willard, seeing the end of her days approaching, begs to leave her bed and sit in her old armchair, the bumble throne about which three generations have assembled. Her favorite grandson, Tom Willard, has come in from the farm with his buxom wife to visit. So the strong arms of youth carry old age gently to the armchair in the sunlit room for a last meeting with all her kith and kin. There came the rural types known to that modest old cottage, and then that more sacred circle of grandsons with their wives and little ones.

An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.

The blight of Sylvia Steem's otherwise happy young life, is her husband's crave for drink.

Bill Grogan, a happy hobo, having successfully eluded all sorts of allurements to go to work and having discharged himself from several easy jobs after numerous attempts to get painlessly injured, frightens a chauffeur into believing that he had been injured by a baby carriage. Eventually he reaches the limit of his restful ambition by getting a cot in a hospital.

Minor member of a Boston law firm, Donald Joseph Blenhorn goes to Mexico to investigate Dorothy Charlton's fiancé, Hugh Hankins, who must meet approval of the firm representing her father's will. Blenhorn appears in Mexico disguised as rancher Don Jose, a Mexican aristocrat, and discovers that Hankins is a cad and coward.

Ne'er-do-well Homer Cavender ventures to the city from Mainsville in an effort to find fame and fortune. Both elude him, and after clerking for two years, Homer returns home for a vacation. Impressed by his flashy clothes, the townspeople assume that Homer has achieved success. Attempting to win Rachel Prouty from his rival, Arthur Machim, Homer continues the deception by announcing that his employer, Kort and Bailly, has dispatched him to enroll stockholders for a proposed new plant to be built in Mainsville. Machim discovers the sham and denounces Homer as a crook.

Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall for the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.

While many men think they can manage a hotel, a theater, or a newspaper, they are in the minority compared with those low-browed addle-pates who believe they could run the government.

Gold miner Jim Golden is in love with Miss Dot, the local postmistress, but he has a reputation for being somewhat lazy and shiftless. One day he finds a baby that had been abandoned by local Indians, adopts it, and begins to work his claim again. Parky, a local thief and swindler, finds out that Jim has finally struck gold, and schemes to trick Jim out of his claim and kidnap Miss Dot while he's at it.

Elton Gates, having served seven years for submitting to temptation with a bank's funds, is released. His uncle John sends him $500.00, with which to start life anew. He has hardly rested in a cheap lodging house when Detective Doolittle spies him and commences to make him an object of special scrutiny.

Shakespeare Clancy is a jailbird who walks out with a crowd of visitors about the time "Skeeter" Burns, the prison printer, is discharged. Learning that a legacy awaits them in Dodson, the pair depart for the small Western town. Discovering that the bequest consists of a failing county newspaper and a plot of barren land, they hatch a plan to fleece the townspeople by selling shares in a bogus oil well. Problems arise when Clancy falls in love with society editor Alice Whitney. Clancy is conflicted but then they do strike oil! Concluding that his destiny is to be an honest man, Clancy returns to jail to finish serving his term. Slipping into the crowd of visitors, he dons his prison clothes and resumes work as though nothing had happened.