 The play is an example of Daly's mixture of realism and melodrama, with authenticity of his depiction of real locations in New York in the play, and in his use of social commentary.Though the play introduced the now-clichéd device of the villain tying someone to railroad tracks, it was also a reversal of the usual roles because a male character (Snorkey, a comic sidekick) was tied up, and the heroine saves him.In the book "Vagrant Memories," critic William Winter recalls how Daly came up with the device