Although not the first chase film, the popularity of this 10-shot chase produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (AM&B) and the remakes of it are often credited with instigating the cycle of chase comedies in early cinema. The genre, with characteristic linear progression and continuation of narrative across multiple shots and distant spaces, helped make fictional, narrative films containing multiple scenes and lasting upwards of a reel in length the dominant product in cinema; whereas, single shot-scene attractions, such as brief comic views, dances and actualities, were, for about the first decade of cinema, the most produced and exhibited type of movie.
There were single-shot chase comedies made earlier, such as Edison's "Chinese Laundry Scene" (1895) and G.A. Smith's "The Miller and the Sweep" (1897). James Williamson is the earliest I know of to have made a multi-shot chase film, that is "Stop Thief!" (1901), which, however, doesn't seem to have been meant as comedic and which disobeys modern rules of continuity editing (because they hadn't been invented yet). Then, there was a spew of crime pictures that included chases, such as "A Daring Daylight Robbery", "A Desperate Poaching Affray" and "The Great Train Robbery" (all 1903). AM&B's "The Escaped Lunatic" (1904) is generally acknowledged as the first multi-shot chase comedy, at least in the US. The company, soon after, made this film, "Personal". At least four companies quickly remade it, which attests to the original's success. Edison remade it with the overly-long title "How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns", Lubin as "Meet Me at the Fountain" (both 1904), in Spain as "Los guapos del parque" (or "L'Hereu de Ca'n Pruna"), and by Pathé in France as "Dix femmes pour un mari" (Ten Wives for One Husband) (both 1905). Edison's remake was even a matter of a lawsuit brought by AM&B, for which I describe more on in my comment/review of the Edison remake. Even Buster Keaton's 1925 feature "Seven Chances" contains a climax recycled from this 1904 short film.
The story features a French nobleman (who one assumes is broke) who placed an ad in a newspaper for a wife (one assumes for a rich American one who wants to buy the title of nobility through marriage). A viewer today will not see this exposition in the print of the film, but back in 1904, lecturers would provide audiences this additional information, and companies such as AM&B would provide descriptions of their films for this purpose. One of the few original additions to the Edison remake was a title card at the beginning providing the exposition. Just viewing "Personal" silently today without any aid, one may have no idea what the chase is about. Yet, the chase is essentially the same as in any other entry in the genre. A character commits a misdeed for which they are chased (this time, it's offering marriage to too many women). The pursued and pursuers face a series of obstacles (such as climbing a fence or scaling a hill slope, as in this film). Finally, at some point, the chase ends in the pursued character both being caught and punished (the typical punitive ending of comedies in early cinema) or getting away. In this one, he's forced to marry at gunpoint by one lucky lady. This one probably got more laughs from the pursuers all being women. At most, this film and those like it are mildly amusing today, but it's interesting and significant from a film history perspective.