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A mean old man lives next door to a poor but happy large family. The little girl next door tries to reach him, and eventually helps melt his heart on Christmas eve.

When a burglar dressed as Santa Claus steals a family's Christmas presents, amateur detective Octavius sets out to recover the loot.

A desperate man and two romantic rivals encounter one another at a Christmas party.

We show Lord Nelson leaving the admiralty room where he makes his famous speech and then introduce him with his captains giving the details of that wonderful plan of attack which was carried out to the letter at Trafalgar, the inspirations of the captains and their enthusiastic toast. We are then carried along to the day before the battle when the men are writing their last letters home. Here a beautiful scenic and photographic effect is introduced as the vision of the sweetheart of one of the lieutenants fades into view. This gives an opportunity to introduce that famous episode of the letter in which Lord Nelson called back the mail ship for a single message and which is endeared to the hearts of all those who sail the sea. We are then carried along to the morning of October twenty-first, Eighteen Hundred and Five, when the fleet of the enemy is sighted. The decks are cleared for action and the hoisting of the colors is portrayed with all the solemnity of the occasion before entering the battle. The correct incident of the hoisting of the famous signal "England expects every man to do his duty" is splendidly portrayed and carried out in every detail, and we note the pathetic touch in Nelson's life in bidding farewell to his captains having at the time a presentiment of his own death. We now get to the little human touch in his life and learn the true character of the man, for, in his last entry in his diary before the battle, he makes peace with his maker. And now we come to that wonderful spectacular picture of the real battle of Trafalgar. We see the ships in action, the firing of the guns, the ships caught on fire and then the camera switches to a close view of the deck of the Victory where human life is sacrificed by the hundreds, the fighting top of the Redoubtable, the fatal shot and Nelson's fall. We then see that wonderful character in his death, the solemnity, the beauty and the pathos of it all being carried out by the Edison players in all its grandeur; his farewell to Captain Hardy, the last kiss, the news of the victory and finally his death.

A young boy, opressed by his mother, goes on an outing in the country with a social welfare group where he dares to dream of a land where the cares of his ordinary life fade.

Jack tells two people, privately, on a blind date that each of them is hard of hearing and wacky hijinks ensue.

When Inez arrived in New York to pay a long-deferred visit to her old schoolmate, the two girls indulged in a fund of reminiscences but each discovered that a subtle change had taken place in the other's mental attitude since graduation day, and a certain feeling of restraint gradually came over them for which it was difficult to account. This feeling was added to when Rita met Jack Aldridge, whose personality so captivated her imagination that she soon lost sight of the loyalty due her friend. Aldridge was madly in love with Rita and took no pains to conceal it and this fact made Inez all the more determined to capture him for herself. She employed every means in her power to attract his attentions, but to her chagrin, her wiles seemed to have no effect upon the young man. Matters were at this stage when they all started for a cruise in the Willis' yacht. Then again Inez tried to capture Jack's attention but failing in this, her jealousy served to blind her to everything except the object of her infatuation and she decided upon desperate methods. Feigning illness, she slipped down into the cabin, her mind hardly made up to any distinct plan. Catching sight of a knife on the buffet she hid it in the folds of her dress and returned to the deck where she perceived Rita and Jack standing together on the rail. Walking up to where they stood, Inez climbed upon the rail and, prompted by her blind fit of jealousy, she reached up and cut the rope to which Rita was holding. With a scream Rita fell into the water and as Jack sprang after her, he accidentally brushed against Inez, and she, likewise fell screaming into the sea. The tide was strong and Jack had a struggle in saving his sweetheart, a sailor dived after Inez but before he could reach her, she was drowned and it was only a lifeless body which he brought back to the yacht. The knife and the freshly-cut rope showed only too plainly how the whole thing had occurred, and pity more than scorn filled the hearts of all present for the poor misguided girl who had wrecked her life in a moment of madness.

A wealthy young American, bred to class distinction and racial intolerance, enters First World War. In the course of his experiences in the trenches and being wounded, he comes to a recognition of the equality and brotherhood of men.

This cheese mine is situated in Schweiserkase country between Neufchatel and Bris. More cheese is mined here annually than in any other cheese mine in the world. The difficulties encountered in making the picture will be realized from the fact that owing to the peculiar properties of the cheese no ordinary person can approach within three miles of the mine without fatal results. Charmingly natural pictures of the everyday life of the cheese miners have been made. Despite the desperate hardships of their lives they remain carefree and joyous. It is said that one reason for their happiness is owing to the fact that no animal life is able to exist in the mine. Particularly interesting is old Gasper, the windlass turner. While Gasper is hoisting a miner up the thousand feet from the perilous depths below, he occasionally grows tired, or becomes interested in something or other, and drops the handle. Old Gasper takes a natural pride in his record, and puts a chalk mark on the door for each new victim. Leaving this gentle old soul, we plunge into the mine proper. Here the miners are equipped with the famous invention of Herr Von Buffengrunts, a clothespin clamped securely upon the nose, which by completely cutting off breath, guards the olfactory nerves from contact with the deadly fumes. After preliminary borings have been made, the cheese is blasted from its place by means of small charges of high-proof talcum powder. These large blocks of cheese are removed to the trimming yard, where they are reduced by means of chisel, saw and axe, to the proper market size. One of the most interesting features of the entire industry is the punching room, where artistic holes are made in the popular brands of Swiss cheese.

Charlotte Marlin was raised on a Connecticut farm in the shadow of Micah's apple tree, whose fruit, according to legend, changed from pale green to spotted red after a peddler was killed and buried at its base. Orphaned, Charlotte goes to live with her aunt and pretty cousin Margaret. She meets Neil Kennedy, a poor boy who is working his way through college, and they become friends. Margaret, who is engaged to wealthy Willis Hayland, teases Charlotte, who considers herself to be plain-looking. At high school graduation Charlotte's academic achievements are obscured by Margaret's leading role in the school play. Jealous of Margaret, Charlotte resolves to make everybody like her, to be famous, and to marry a millionaire. She learns that to make everybody like her, she must be friendly to everyone. To become famous, she becomes a golfer and wins the world's championship tournament. She nurses millionaire Perry Graham after hitting him in the head with a golf ball, supposedly an accident, but when Perry falls in love with her, Charlotte realizes that she loves Neil, who has become a promising physician.

In furtherance of the will of her father, Irene Bromley is allowed so much annually by the trustee, Sidney Villon, a lawyer of loose morals, but who enjoys a place well up in the list in society. Arthur Colby, a wholesome, straightforward young man, is in love with her, but she treats him indifferently at times. She goes to Villon's office for $10,000. He gives her a check, despite the fact that Holden, his secretary, tells him on the side that she has already overdrawn her allowance, and she goes out reminding him of the dance to be given at the Edgerton home. Rupert Hazard, a struggling inventor, who has been excluded from Villon's office shortly previous, pushes his way into the inner office and scathingly denounces Villon, whom, he claims, stole his invention worth a fortune. At the dance the following evening. Irene, flushed with dancing and in all her resplendent glory and beauty, is seated with Arthur. He proposes, but her chill manner, cleverly affected, freezes the blood in his veins. Later in the evening she gives Villon the same negative answer. Villon, determined to win her, tells her that one word from him and she will he plunged into poverty. His words are heard by Arthur, who happens in conveniently. When Villon leaves, Arthur tells Irene that he heard all, and she gives way to weeping. Arthur leaves, the old clock in the hallway showing the hour to be 12:05. Irene is startled the next morning to read an account of the murder of Villon in his apartment. Colby is arrested for the crime, having been found with a revolver near the prostrate form of Villon. When the jury seems satisfied conclusively that Arthur murdered Villon, Irene is called to the stand. It has been learned from Villon's valet that the watch in the latter's pocket, shattered by a bullet and stopped at exactly midnight, had been in good running order. Very dramatically, Irene tells of her visit to Villon's office the day after the murder, where she learns that Villon has an enemy, Hazard, the inventor. Irene and her lawyer go to Hazard's place at 12 o'clock midnight a day later at Hazard's request. The discouraged inventor tells them how he broke into Villon's apartment and shot the lawyer, later engaging in a scuffle with Colby, who entered a few minutes later. When he completes his story, Hazard is blown to death by a device he had set to go off at midnight. Irene then tells the jury that Colby was with her in her home at the time the watch was shattered in Villon's pocket. Colby is acquitted, after which Irene takes a different perspective of things and Colby's anxiety is brought to an end.

D'Artagan leaves home to seek his fortune. Armed with his father's sword and a letter to the Captain of the King's Musketeers, he rides forth boldly to face the world. At a wayside inn he arrives just in time to rescue a young woman from the clutches of several of the Cardinal's spies. He arrives in Paris shortly after and presents his letter to Captain de Treville of the Musketeers. Here he catches his first glimpse of the famous Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and decides to fight his way into the Musketeers. In leaving, he runs into Athos, who berates him for his stupidity. This is more than he can bear, even from a Musketeer, and a duel is arranged for one o'clock at the rear of the convent. Hastily turning from Athos he comes into violent contact with Porthos, tearing his cloak from his shoulder and disclosing his ragged jerkin beneath. D'Artagnan bursts into violent laughter at this unexpected disclosure and is challenged to a duel at two o'clock at the convent grounds. Upon reaching the street he spies Aramis chatting with two musketeers and decides to join them, when he discovers that Aramis' foot is resting upon a beautiful lace handkerchief. Wishing to ingratiate himself in the good will of Aramis, he calls his attention to the handkerchief. Aramis denies ownership, but D'Artagnan insists that he saw him drop it and, picking it up, hands it to him. D'Artagnan is again soundly berated for his stupidity; the result is another challenge at three o'clock at the convent. D'Artagnan has lost so much time quarreling that he finds it now time for his first duel. He hurries to the convent only to find all three musketeers waiting. Hardly has he crossed swords with Athos, however, when a company of the Cardinal's guards appear and attempt to take them into custody for dueling. D'Artagnan volunteers to fight on their side and is gladly welcomed. The fight proves a glorious victory for the musketeers, who gather up the swords of their fallen enemies and march triumphantly from the field, arm in arm with D'Artagnan, their sworn friend. They are all brought before the king, but when he hears of the odds against them he not only rewards them, but promises to make D'Artagnan a Musketeer.

In 1879, 80 British soldiers defend Rorke's Drift against 4,000 Zulus. Soldier Tommy Brandon saves the colors, seeks help, clears his name after taking blame for another's mistake. Grace recognizes his loyalty after her brother confesses.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Colonel Dabney is given command of a regiment of Georgia Infantry. He leaves his home and his two daughters. Virginia and Georgiana, in charge of his old majordomo, Uncle Wash, and starts for the front. A year later he is killed in action and his body brought home and buried in the little family burying ground. The action of the war sweeps southward, and Virginia and her young sister find themselves deserted by all their slaves and servants except faithful old Wash. A foraging party of Union soldiers, very much the worse for liquor, appear and demand entrance, Uncle Wash bravely resists them, but they brutally overpower him, and using him as a battering ram, burst in the door. Then ensues a scene of looting in which the soldiers appropriate everything of value. One of them starts to seize Virginia, and poor old Wash in trying to rescue his mistress is roughly thrown to the floor, but Georgiana, seeing Virginia's peril, shoots down her assailant. This enrages his comrades and they start for the girls, when they are interrupted by the entrance of Captain Percy and a squad of Union soldiers. Percy clears out the house and placing two guards at the door, assures Virginia that she will not be molested further. As he is about to leave he faints, the exertion having opened an old wound. Virginia has him put to bed and nurses him during a serious illness. Percy falls desperately in love with his lovely nurse, but she remains true to her colors and will not notice a mere "Yank." Virginia and her sister are busily engaged mending a Confederate flag, which was torn by the foraging party, when Georgiana drops the needle. Captain Percy enters the room and seeing them searching for the lost needle, offers his assistance, which is hastily declined. Percy is finally obliged to return to his regiment. Before leaving he declares his love to Virginia. To Uncle Wash, however, he manages to give money to care for her, and also a farewell note in which he promises to return for her after the war. When the war is over, true to his promise, Captain Percy does return, and this time he has little trouble in making her surrender to a "Yank."

Young Henry Clay Madison, a clerk, falls in love with Flossy Wilson, a prostitute from New York's East Side. Although she reforms under his influence, Flossy believes that she is unworthy of Madison and rejects his marriage proposal. Seventeen years later, Madison's nephew Bert, a social worker, falls in love with wanton Fifty-Fifty Mamie, reforms her and elicits her help in his work. Bert falls ill, and when Mamie tries to visit him, Madison, who now is concerned only with money, convinces her to give up the idea of marrying Bert. Mamie goes to work in Madison's canning factory to investigate conditions. In addition to employing children, Madison's factory has no fire escape and only one staircase, which catches fire, many children die and Mamie is seriously injured. Madison visits Mamie, who cries Bert's name in delirium. When Madison brings Bert, now recovered, Madison notices a photograph of Flossy, Mamie's mother and realizes that Mamie is his daughter. She dies in Bert's arms, and Madison resolves to toil for the welfare of workers and the end of child slavery.

The two daughters of an old lighthouse keeper fall in love with two young fishermen. The girls seek secluded spots to tell their lovers "sweet nothings," before they sail away on a long fishing voyage. One day a report comes to the old man that a ship has been dashed upon the shoals. The vessel happens to be the very one on which the young fishermen sailed. The little family searching amidst the rocks and angry waters for a survivor, suddenly see far out in the ocean a man seated upon a spar. He is recognized as one of the girl's lovers. The other is also seen struggling further out. The girls look to their brother to rescue their lovers. But he is only able to save one. Which one shall it be? It is better to see the film than to describe it, so we will leave the reader with these words.

Characters from various nursery rhymes sing together.

The first scene is Christmas Eve and there is a lovers' quarrel following which the young man hies himself to his club and proceeds to partake too freely of the flowing bowl. At the door of the club two little street waifs, a boy and a girl, beg from him, and be calls an officer to have them taken away. Instead of doing this the officer gives them a nickel and tells them to ride to their home. In the street car they fall asleep and when the car men find them there they decide to let them stay in out of the furious snowstorm which is blowing outside. And thus it happens that the clubman, coming home late, stumbles into the same car in the edge of the barn and finds the little waifs, but believes them a figment of his overheated brain. He soon falls asleep and dreams that the Santa Claus poster at the end of the car, advertising a toy store, comes to life, and summoning him the top of the car the advertisements of candy, clothes, shoes, etc., provides a Christmas for the two sleeping waifs. When the clubman wakes the morning after, he remembers his dream, and after filling the children's hands with money he awakens them and takes them to his own apartment. Arriving there, he sends his man out for a Christmas tree, presents, clothing, etc., and telephones the little sweetheart asking her and her mother to come and help make a Christmas celebration for these two little waifs. The little lady is reluctant, but comes to see what it is all about, at least, and of course there is a happy Christmas finish to the story.

There is not an American living who does not relish the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln, the martyr President, considered by the majority of writers and men nationally prominent as the greatest American. The sympathy and passions that are stirred up within us by reading of Lincoln are accentuated by the witnessing of the adaptation on the screen. Lincoln's every mannerism, trait and eccentricity are pictured and while looking at it anyone with a drop of American blood in his veins is carried along by the current of innate patriotism and swallowed up at the confluence of many emotions. From the scene in front of the log cabin to the assassination at Ford's Theatre in Washington, one is gripped. Lincoln's courtship culminated in his marriage with Mary Todd. He struggles along in abject poverty until he is nominated for United States Senator. He opposes Stephen Douglas, and it was in his debate that he proved himself not only a rhetorician but a man of wholesome and broad-minded ideas. He was defeated but in 1860 was elected President. What happened subsequently is familiar to all Americans. Lincoln's Gettysburg address, succinct but powerful, is considered one of the gems of oratory.

A monk tells a tale about a woman who can only surrender her heart to a man who can offer her jewels. A poor man falls in love with her and steals jewels off a statue of the Madonna to give to her.

Ruth Hoagland grows up on an island off the Massachusetts coast with no companion other than her father, a half-witted fisherman who spends most of his time hunting for buried treasure. Vacationing yachtsman Bob Winthrop and Ruth fall in love, but Winthrop returns to New York, and after a year, has forgotten Ruth. After finding two chests in a cave, Ruth locates her father unconscious from a fall. She goes to the mainland for help, but returns with the Reverend Josiah Arbuthnot and Dr. William Strong, to find her father dead. Strong, out of kindness, offers to marry her, but Ruth declines, sure that Winthrop will return. She offers to divide the chests with Strong and Arbuthnot, but after Strong discovers they are worthless, he withdraws his savings, and gives Ruth money to develop her voice in New York, saying that it came from selling the chests' contents. After Ruth learns of Winthrop's affair with a musical comedy star, she returns to the island to prepare for her Broadway debut, where she discovers Strong's sacrifice.

Fred Marshall and his pretty wife are happily married, though in moderate circumstances, but Fred has not learned that his little wife is his partner and he consequently denies her an allowance and anything but the smallest amount of spending money. One of her young married friends advises her to take money when she needs it from her husband's trouser pockets, and it so happens that a few nights after this he comes home with a collection made after office hours and carelessly leaves his coat with her for some repairs. Consequently she finds the big roll of money. Believing that it is his own and that he has refused to give her a share of it, she takes two bills, wraps up the remainder, and returns it to the pocket. Fred hands it in without looking at it at the office, and of course when he can make no explanation of the disappearance of the money he is invited to sever his connection with the firm. Returning to the house he finds his wife just coming back from having purchased a new hat with the two bills. The mutual explanations which follow make her realize her mistake and send her post-haste to the office to explain to Fred's employer what she had done. Her confession easily wins forgiveness from him and Fred's reinstatement, but when she returns to the house she learns that Fred has also learned his lesson and that hereafter the contents of the pay envelope will be divided equally between them.

Some very greedy and selfish relatives are all after the failing old Martin Chuzzlewit's money. He is surrounded by all these sycophantic relatives that he truly despises whilst ill, each one only interested in getting their hands on his estate.