John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
The Old Man is a 1914 film short
A dead child's broken doll reunites an estranged husband and wife.
Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.
A feud between the families of Gourd and Fork Ranches
A poor widow dies, leaving her two young children, Bob and Mabel, in the care of a poor neighbor, who later is forced by circumstances to give them to an asylum. Twenty years pass and Jack, who has been adopted by a good family, has now gone into business for himself and is a rising young broker. He has been searching the detective agencies for his sister, without success, for some years. Mabel ran away from the asylum and has been brought up by a poor family, is without education and is now employed as a servant, and on a certain day is hanging clothes on a roof nearby a large office building, in which Bob has his office, and a small boy is flying his kite from the same rooftop.
Harvy, the heavy, and Bella, the ingenue, of a cheap theatrical company are encumbered with an infant girl. The husband, a worthless, dissipated character, annoyed by the presence of the child and the care the wife is compelled to give it. deserts them both. The show then "busts" and the mother and the infant are left stranded in a small California town.
When a stack of valuable bonds go missing from the Grant household, suspicion falls on little Carmen Grant's playmate Georgie, whose father is a poor ex-convict trying to go straight.
A 1914 silent Western short
Stock broker Albert Lowden is in danger of losing his business if he can't soon pay his creditors.
Grinde is a junior partner of a pottery firm. An old chemist, Benjamin Lord, discovers a formula for glazing pottery that is designed to revolutionize the industry. The chemist's grandson, David, takes a sample of the new process to Grinde, who says he will give it consideration. He delegates his foreman, Mole, to steal the formula.
William Rock, assistant cashier in a business concern, has a sick daughter. The doctor urges that she be taken immediately to another climate, and Rock, unable to get an advance on his pay, is desperate. He has been in the habit of taking the deposits to the bank every Saturday, and then going direct from the bank home. He determines that week to steal the money. On Saturday Rock is followed on the street by a couple of crooks. He goes into a telephone booth to phone his daughter May and her fiancé, a young physician, that they can start south with the younger sister at once. Taking the money out of the bank satchel, he stuffs it in his inside vest pocket and leaves with the empty bag in his hand. He goes down an alleyway to get rid of the satchel, but is assaulted by the gunmen and the bag taken from him.
Belle Gordon, an orphan, finds an advertisement in the papers for a governess to apply to the Rev. Strong, at Cripple Creek, Col. She writes and has her fare advanced. Upon arriving there she finds the place consists of a crowd of disreputable miners and dance-hall girls. She learns that the advertisement was merely a trap to lure her out into the dance-hall of Martin Mason.
Kaintuck is a big mountaineer. He loves his sweetheart, Sue, with his whole simple, honest heart. One day an artist comes to sketch in their vicinity. He is immediately struck by Sue's beauty and asks permission to use her as his model. Kaintuck is not pleased with the idea, but the girl consents. When the artist secures board in Sue's home, Kaintuck's jealousy knows no bounds
Marie is a village girl, very religious. Her mother, fearing some man will make her unhappy (as she had been made by a man) made her promise on her deathbed that she would enter a nunnery. Marie considers that promise sacred and will allow nothing to interfere with her keeping that promise.
Jim Miller lives in a cheap tenement with his wife and his sister. They had been in a better position in other days, but Jim has developed into a morose half-drunken character, suspicious and high-tempered. The sister leaves her own husband and comes to live with Jim. However, she is jealous of her sister-in-law and goes out of her way to be mean to her, and to poison Jim's mind against the weak, pretty thing who is his wife. One day Jim gets out of a job and while he is out looking for work and the sister is away at her work in the factory, Mary, the wife, steals out determined to add to the common share, while her husband is in hard luck. She finds work painting clay figures, an art for which she shows some talent. But she is afraid of Jim's wildness and as soon as she collects money she secrets it for a rainy day. One day after she has worked hard and hoarded some money, the sister comes in unexpectedly upon her, and when Mary goes out of the room finds the money in an old vase.
English sleuths Grace Burton and Stephen Pryde are in love, but when Stephen inherits wealth and a title, he does not tell Grace, fearing that she will stop loving him. Grace provides support for her sister Stella Ford, whose husband is frequently away on business trips, so Stephen, hoping to alleviate Grace's financial burden, pays all of Stella's debts and provides her with an allowance. When Grace learns of the arrangement, she is hurt that he did not confide in her. Stella lives in a building occupied by a wild crowd. In the flat above her lives Netta, who has numerous boyfriends, including Jerome, an older man, and Bartlett, a young fop. One evening, the rivals mistakenly enter Stella's apartment and in an ensuing fight, Jerome kills Bartlett.
Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.
Bud Walton, the village blacksmith, is big and strong physically, but he has not the courage to put his strength to good purpose. All the boys take a slap at him whenever they choose, and Bud makes no attempt to retaliate. This causes his sweetheart, June, to despise him.
