Petersburg Slums

Madame Vavin dies alone in a small French village without knowledge of her second marriage in England known to anyone. Consequentially her first husband James Fullerton and his tyrannical sister Cornelia take custody of her young daughter Dora. The puritanical pair take Dora to America but disapprove of her spirited nature especially when Dora decides upon a theatrical career. On stage, Dora meets and falls in love with playwright Willard Holcomb, but the fears implanted by Fullerton and his sister make Dora incapable of romantic commitment. As she despairs of her fate, Professor Vavin, who has spent years searching for Dora, discovers his daughter and explains there is nothing to fear from love. Her confidence thus restored, Dora can continue with her life.

After becoming a Supreme Court justice, Peter Graham is visited by Olive Martin, a singer from New Orleans, Louisiana, with whom he had an affair in his youth. Although Peter has been sending money to maintain Olive's silence and to support their son, she now sees an opportunity to join high society, and demands that Peter divorce his wife to marry her. Meanwhile, in Boston, Massachusetts, Olive's son, Harold, becomes engaged to Peter's daughter, Anita, but the young lovers are soon devastated by the news that they were both sired by the same man. Olive's dissolute brother-in-law, Thomas Donald, finds Peter on the brink of suicide and reveals that he is Harold's father. Thomas goes on to explain that Olive adopted the boy as a means to blackmail Peter. Harold and Anita marry, while Peter confesses to his wife and Olive leaves town.

Dr. Kramer, secretly married to cabaret dancer Vivian Collins, forces his wife to encourage the attentions of wealthy Tom Bradshaw in order to blackmail Tom's father, Judge Bradshaw. At a masked ball Kramer, costumed like Tom, robs Bradshaw's safe and kills the judge. Mrs. Bradshaw is jailed for the murder, but a suspicious Tom discovers the truth with the aid of Kramer's nurse, Gloria Thomas, with whom he falls in love.

Convent raised Doris Elliott moves to New York to live with her brother Richard not knowing that he is part of a drug trafficking ring controlled by unscrupulous ward boss Michael O'Leary. At first Doris remains ignorant of the pervasiveness of crime and corruption in the Lower East Side until her friend, Mamie Bronson, whose brother, "Dopey Benny," has fallen victim to drugs, confesses that O'Leary has raped her. When O'Leary breaks into their home and attempts to rape her as well, he is shot when Richard unexpectedly arrives. Finding O'Leary dead and Richard unconscious, the police arrest Doris, and she is tried for murder. Defense lawyer Thomas McDonald, who has been working to expose the politician, is losing his case when Dopey Benny testifies that he killed O'Leary to avenge his sister's assault. Acquitted Doris is now free to marry Thomas.

A nobleman wishes to help the woman he had seduced and abandoned years earlier when he learns that she is now on trial for murder.

Wilton, a hunchback, who was always scorned and ridiculed by women, returns from Java a rich man after having discovered a diamond mine. He romances Gina, who is on the rebound from a broken affair, and showers her with expensive gifts. After Gina reconciles with her boyfriend, she continues to see Wilton because of what he gives her. After he discovers her perfidy, Wilton develops a poison and mixes it into her lipstick, which will kill any man who kisses her.

A loose adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie. The daughter of a count witnesses her mother's increasing mental instability after being spurned by a lover.

The film depicts the failed 1809 uprising of Prussian soldiers led by Ferdinand von Schill against the occupying French during the Napoleonic War.

The rehabilitation of "Chicago Sal," a lady crook, is seemingly realized when probation officers send her to the country home of Steve MacLaren to work off money stolen from him by her partner. She falls in love with MacLaren and is accepted as a member of the household. Unable to resist the temptation, however, she leaves the farm with two former colleagues when they come to visit her. MacLaren follows her to the city. She commits a crime; he helps her escape but is himself arrested for vagrancy and sent to jail. Sal returns to the country and promises to wait for him.

Annette is in love with Sheriff André Porel, but her father Gaston, promises her to Paul Gerard, after Gerard witnesses Gaston kill Indian Charlie. Despondent, Annette considers suicide, but Gerard drinks the poison by mistake. Annette is convicted of murder and is being led to her execution by André when an avalanche buries the gallows and Gaston. The villagers take this as a sign of Annette's innocence; she is released and marries André.

A sorrowing mother, bereft of her infant, visits a foundling asylum and adopts a baby girl. The young window lavishes her love and care on the adopted infant and her environment is the finest. Father Time present the baby with an hour glass containing "The Sands of Time" which are all in the upper part of the glass.