It was an adaptation of a 1902 American play by Ramsay Morris that relocated the action to Australia.
[3] The original American play had been based on the hymn The Ninety and Nine] which had been, in its own turn, inspired by Luke 15:7.
The Sydney Morning Herald said "it was good, clean, wholesome melodrama; and if it lacked -the pistol play and slaughter ordinarily associated with these productions, it made ample amends by its fidelity to life, a strong love motif, and the self-sacrifice of a woman, which had its ultimate reward in the redemption of the prodigal.
[5] The Sunday Times said "The play shows no brilliancy of dialogue or particular ingenuity in the manner in which its situations are devised, several of these, in fact, beiag absolutely banal in their obvious striving for theatrical effect.
The chief excuse for its 'raison d'etre' appears to be the preaching of a rather tedious sermon, and the proving of the somewhat obvious axiom that the love of a bad woman debases, while that of a good woman elevates.