A Friend to Children (1912)

An eccentric character passing by a residence in which an Amazon is beating the dust from the drawing-room furniture, assumes that some little child is being punished, and mounting the stairs, he bounds into the room, finds the woman with the beater in her hand, and a child uttering plaintive walls. A struggle ensues in which our friend comes off second best. Going into the street, he next befriends a man who has imbibed too well. A melee ensues, and eventually Smith finds himself hauled off to the police station, where he is fined $5 before he is a free man again. A woman who is doing her washing attracts his attention, and his well-meant interference brings upon his head a bucket of soap-suds. Outside, a circus in which a boxing contest is in progress, the sound of blows falls upon Smith's ears, and his further investigations once more have disastrous results. We now see him at home, a sorrowful sight. Yet even now his kindness is not exhausted, for seeing a howling mob of youngsters outside his window, he prepares a treat for them. The commissariat is exhausted, and when his friends turn upon him, he comes to the conclusion that ungratefulness is the world's compensation for charity.