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 music teacher is in love with Helen, one of his students, but she rejects him. In his hurt he joins an anarchist group who plan to blow up a rich capitalist's house. When he realizes it's Helen's house, he tries to stop the plan.
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.
The Count sets out to make a private room for him and his Countess, built in such a way no one can see, hear, and most importantly, disturb them. But unbeknownst to the Count, his wife has set her eyes on the court minstrel. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado” and Honoré de Balzac's “La Grande Breteche”.
An Indian village is forced to leave its land by white settlers, and must make a long and weary journey to find a new home. The settlers make one young Indian woman stay behind. This woman is thus separated from her sweetheart, whose elderly father needs his help on the journey ahead
Roman emperor Nero is used to getting what he wants. He has grown tired of his wife Octavia, and has become infatuated with Poppea. He succeeds in making Poppea the new empress, but soon he faces opposition from an outraged populace. Informed of the danger of an imminent popular uprising, Nero orders to set fire to the city, which he watches from a terrace, rejoicing and playing his lyra.
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.
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.
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.
After three years at sea, Edward returns home to find his sweetheart forced into an engagement with a much older man.
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.
This story of the Black Hills consistently tells of the unrequited love of a Sioux brave for his chief's daughter, and how he premonished the awful results of her ominous marriage with a white cowboy. Clear Eyes, the daughter of Chief Thunder Cloud, is beloved by Comata, a Sioux brave, but having met and listened to the persuasion of Bud Watkins, a cowboy, leaves her mountain home to become his squaw. Poor little confiding Clear Eyes lives only for Bud, and he at first seems devoted to her, but at the end of two years, a little papoose arriving meanwhile to bless their union, he tires of her, and courts Miss Nellie Howe, a white girl, who thinks him single. Comata, however, has unremittingly watched his movements, and vows to avenge his lost one. Following him to the white girl's home, he sees enough to convince him of the whelp's villainy, so he goes and reveals the truth to Clear Eyes.
A son leaves to seek his fortune in the city. Many years later he returns and checks into his parents' inn. They don't recognize him, but noticing his fat wallet, plan to rob him.
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.
A society couple, neglect their young daughter in favor of their social life. When the girl becomes seriously ill, the father realizes the errors of his ways and stays home with her, demanding his wife do likewise. She sneaks out to a dance and the child takes a turn for the worse. By the time she returns home the child is dead. After her husband leaves her, the mother realizes her selfishness and begs forgiveness at her daughter's grave.
Surviving fragment of a longer film. A magician makes a butterfly woman appear, and a woman in a star. Exhausted, the magician falls asleep and the star woman turns into a spider, dragging the butterfly into her web.
As Poe's lover is slowly dying, he struggles to make money to care for her.
In an Indian tribe, a girl escapes from her father and suitor to be with the man she loves.
Rare stencil-coloured images of early 20th century Delhi during a Muslim festival.
