September 23 Monday – In Sydney, Australia the Clemens family were again guests of Admiral Cyprian A. Bridge and the officers of the H.M.S. Orlando. Livy and Clara stayed on the ship for the six o’clock dance with the band of the H.M.S. Oriana. They met the wife and daughters of Lt. Gov. Darley, Lt. Gov. Madden’s wife and daughter of Victoria Province; Mr. & Mrs. S. McCulloch and others. It was windy but without rain.

Sam left the Orlando to lecture. He gave the third performance of “Mark Twain at Home” (No. 3) at Protestant Hall, on Castlereagh St., advertised “With an Entirely New Programme.” Shillingsburg writes that the No. 3 program:

“…became the favorite on Twain’s tour throughout Australasia. An overcrowded house of sweltering listeners heart a ‘sort of continuation of the [lecture] preceding it’…Laying his spectacles, his watch, and a book on the table — apparently a new flourish — Twain began what would become known as the ‘Morals Lecture,’ with some off-handed comments about how the events of boyhood ‘crop up later on in the form of maxims to guide his future life’….This introduced the stolen green watermelon story followed by Adam’s diary in Eden, which Twain read from his book. Jim, Huck, and Tom contemplating a crusade to the Holy Land, ‘The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,’ which was ‘funnier still,’ and the blue jay story followed, and the reviewers from the morning papers — no doubt meeting a deadline — gave rather detailed reports of these” [At Home 44-5].

Reviews published on Sept. 24: Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph, the Australian Star, and the Sydney Evening News. This performance introduced the “Australian Poem”; the program is listed in Sam’s NB 35 [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 9].