A man lies on the ground in front of an unmoving street car. Police men walk around. A horse-drawn ambulance pulls up and two attendants take a stretcher and lift the injured man onto the ambulance, which pulls away even before he is settled.
It's a recreation, of course; the idea that Edison's cameramen were roaming the streets, came upon accident, set up in the perfect location and set the camera rolling a the exact moment, without the cops stopping them is absurd. Yet, in a program of mixed actualities -- parades and shots of fire engines thundering down the street, people leaving factories and trains arriving in stations -- and staged events -- battles fought in bath tubs and fields in New Jersey, dancers performing on stages with pantomime horses -- might the sheer variety have overwhelmed the audience with its chaos?