Bob Spaulding, a manly fellow, meets Dr. Rankin and his wife on the street while they are engaged in a violent tiff. The doctor is about to strike his wife when Bob interferes, incurring the resentment of the doctor. During the flurry Mrs. Rankin drops her card case. From a card inside he learns the address and goes there to return it. They meet, and it is a case of love at first sight; but she is a wife, and beyond his reach.
On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.
A smoker falls asleep, and two mischievious fairies play with his pipe. He discovers this, and imprisons them in a cigar box. He removes a flower from the box, which contains a fairy smoking a cigarette. Next, he leaves briefly while his smoking paraphenalia clears itself from the table and the flower reassembles itself into a cigar. He lights the cigar, then breaks a bottle containing the fairy, who interacts with him in various ways reeling from his cigar smoke, building a bonfire that he extinguishes, etc.
A pair of young ladies cause trouble at the cinema with their lavish hats.
A man rents an apartment and furnishes it in remarkable fashion.
A disfigured young woman with two beautiful sisters is courted by a blind man. Will he still love her when his sight is restored?
A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.
During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, Catholic worship is forbidden on pain of death. Three soldiers are arrested as Catholics and condemned to die. Cromwell decides to spare two of them and to determine which should die by chance. The guards bring the first child they meet. Whichever soldier she gives the 'death disc' to shall die. Cromwell is charmed by the girl and gives her his signet ring. By chance the child is the daughter of one of the soldiers and gives the death disc to her father, because she thinks it's pretty. The child is returned home to her mother, who learns of her husband's pending execution and of the power of the ring. She rushes to the place of execution and saves her husband by producing the ring.
As Poe's lover is slowly dying, he struggles to make money to care for her.
A mountain girl is seduced by a traveler from the valley. Her brother tracks the seducer down and kills him. In retaliation, the sheriff captures the brother and prepares to lynch him. Mother intervenes and, to save her son the disgrace of hanging, shoots him.
While caring for his sick daughter, a doctor is called away to the sickbed of a neighbor. He finds the neighbor gravely ill, and ignores his wife's pleas to come home and care for his own daughter, who has taken a turn for the worse.
William is drawn to Edward's wife, Helen. Sensing his feelings might lead him into an affair, he decides to go away. As he says goodbye to Helen, Edward spies from behind a curtain. Soon afterwards Edward shoots himself, believing Helen can be happier with William. When William returns to convince Helen to become his wife, she refuses, blaming herself for Edward's suicide.
In this hand-colored short, a magician and his assistant do a series of magic tricks, including making potted plants appear, among others. Melies played the magician, and the actor Manuel played his assistant.
Two lovers perform a fandango dance. A jealous quarrel follows and the heart-broken swain decides to end it all. He throws himself from the window of his room, but instead of falling to his death, the anchor of a passing balloon intercepts his flight and he is taken high into the clouds. Laughing at his plight, the moon arouses the anger of the desperate lover and a battle between the two ensues.
Documentary about making cheese in the Netherlands.
Jack Windom experiences a sensation of awe at the reception of the Hindoo dagger from his old chum, Tom, who was traveling in India. Hanging the dagger on the wall. Jack goes out. For some time Jack has discerned a coolness in his wife, and his jealous misgivings were verified when he returned and found her in company with a stranger. Seizing the dagger from the wall he chases the recreant lover from the house and then follows the wife to the bathroom, wither she has flown in terror. Mercilessly he plunges the dagger and flies the place. The lover in hiding sees him leave and returns, and calling aid succeeds in reviving the wife, who afterwards with careful treatment recovers and marries her paramour. However, either from the baneful influence of this diabolical dagger, or the woman's capricious nature, just one year later the second husband enacts the same scene, but with fatal results.
Mrs. Leffingwell runs after the last of her departing party guests to return a forgotten muff. While she's out a burglar enters the apartment and opens the safe. He can't make his getaway before she returns, and tries to bluff his way out by saying he entered the wrong apartment. She sees the open safe and secretly tells the butler to get the police.
George Peabody is a young man who has been giving free rein to his inclinations, the principal one being drink. One might have concluded he was lost, but there was the chance which the hand of Providence always bestows in the person of pretty little Ruth King, who had secretly loved George since their childhood days. She succeeds in persuading him from his reckless life, and he determines to cut off from his old loose companions by going out West and making a man of himself. Bidding Ruth and her mother good-bye, he realizes that he loves his little preserver and promises to return worthy of her love and confidence. They plight their troth with their first kiss and a heart shaped locket, which Ruth wears, she breaking it in two, giving George one side while she retains the other, which symbolized the reunion of their hearts with his return.
In an Indian tribe, a girl escapes from her father and suitor to be with the man she loves.
An anonymous donor drops a gold coin in the shoe of a homeless girl as she sleeps. A gambler with a 'sure thing' borrows the coin and wins a fortune, but he can't find her again to repay her.
