Cirrus@Austlit

An adaptation of Dion Boucicault's The Poor of New York (1857). The localisations included references to a Melbourne institution's recent bankruptcy. 'Indeed,' writes the Argus' theatre critic, 'the first villain, a most pernicious one, is made to assume the name of John Carrier, a bank manager, who by a thousand references in the language of the play is understood to represent an official in connexion with the institution to which we have already alluded'. The review goes on to record : 'This individual's clerk is a clever rascal, who after abetting his employer in all his scoundrelism, and living on the profits, suddenly turns a sort of Queen's evidence, and reads his master a high moral lesson before committing him to the police' (8 September 1863, p5).

The film is based on a nineteenth-century stage melodrama by Dion Boucicault. Originally presented in the United States as The Poor of New York (1857), the play had been adapted to London as The Streets of London (1864); in the latter guise, it toured Australia in 1887.

While arguing with Gideon Bloodgood, from whose none-too-stable bank he is trying to recover his money, Captain Fairweather collapses and dies. This leaves Bloodgood, who retains Fairweather's money, vulnerable to the blackmailing activities of his clerk, Badger.