No tales of boys rifling their employers' cash-boxes and making off to foreign lands, or other such highly immoral fiction products".

[4] The paper initially focused on Boy's Own type adventure stories, set mainly around the British Empire and at sea.

The very first story was entitled "The Silver Arrow" and featured the many trials of the hero across mountains and jungles in Mexico to rescue his wife-to-be from red Indians.

In the 1920s an article in the centre appeared called "Tinker's Notebook" which contained assorted items of interest, mainly relating to crime and punishment from around the world, supposedly related by Sexton Blake's young assistant (in early issues the editorial contained a selection of interesting facts).

In 1904 the price was raised to 1d and the logo, until then variable, was changed to be the same for each issue, and featured a large image of a lion sitting on a Union Jack flag.

[11] The logo had, after the first world war, become variable again, but now settled down into a bold and simple "UNION JACK" title with rounded edges to the letters.

These magazines are mentioned as highly popular among Dublin schoolboys of the time, who are especially attracted to the Wild West stories published in them.

He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass.

His parents went to eight-o’clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house.

He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling: “Ya!