This short tale of Lower East Side life captures the hustle and bustle of Rivington Street through the lens of legendary Hollywood director D.W. Griffith. After the death of her mother, Ruth struggles to support herself as a seamstress. As she delivers her bundle of shirts to the factory owner, the owner's son steals some money and Ruth is accused of the crime. She then flees the ghetto and hides in the country where a young farmer takes her in and they fall in love.

Source: The National Center for Jewis Film

Life in the New York East Side is most vividly portrayed in this Biograiph introduction. It tells the story of a young Jewish orphan girl who is falsely accused of theft, but is finally cleared of the injustice by a kindhearted and reasoning policeman, who reads her innocence in her honest face. In new environs she is made to forget her persecutions and her life becomes brighter. The scenes in the congested East Side are the most realistic ever attempted.

Source: The Film Index, June 11, 1910

The hand of Providence is ever ready to aid the helpless and afflicted; to stay the incitant of injustice — though conditions may appear contradictory. The longest way around is sometimes the surest, and as the sting of the whip urges the beast of burden, so the slings and arrows of fortune urge us to greater endeavor. The visitation of the Angel of Death in the little home taking off the poor widowed mother of little Ruth, the poor orphan realizes she must henceforth fight life's battle alone. From her squalid room in Hivington street. New York, she goes through the Ghetto looking for work. After a time she secures a bundle of work at a shirt factory to take home the finish. She completes the lot and starts back to receive the pittance with which her labor is to be rewarded. As she enters the office, the scapegrace son of the proprietor is imploring money of his father, wlio positively refuses to accede. The youth is desperate, and while the father is examining Ruth's work, he extracts several bills from his father’s wallet, which lays on the desk. The loss is discovered and the boy fearing detection, contrives to have Ruth blamed by slyly placeing the notes in her work bundle, where they are found in the search. Officer Quinn is sent for but before he arrives Ruth seizes upon a chance to escape, realizing her inability to prove her innocence in face of the convincing evidence, and make her way to her room, but as her name and addres are on the books and her face has been seen by the officer, he finds little difficulty in trailing her. She eluded him however, by going down the fire escape and boarding a trolley car bound for the suburbs. All trace of her is lost by the officer in the congestion of Rivington street, and when the car makes its last stop she is well out of reach of her pursuers. On .she trudges until she faints from exhaustion and is found later by a young farmer, who brings her to the house and puts her in the care of his mother. Here she in treated as one of the family, and her hitherto sorrow clouded existence changes to sunshine. Here she learns to smile. As time goes a strong attachment grows between the young farmer and herself until a betrothal is imminent. At this time Officer Quinn is accorded a vacation, and with a friend goes for a day’s fishing at the brook that borders the farm. Desiring some milk, he goes to the house to procure it. The young farmer and Ruth are standing at the well, he on the point of proposing, when Quinn appears. The farmer offers to get him some milk, and while awaiting his return the officer is struck by the seemingly familiar face of Ruth. After he returns to the water’s edge he still puzzles, until at last it dawns on him who she is, and he goes back with the intention of doing what he deems his duty, but the couple are now betrothed, and a glance in her honest face convinces him of her innocence, and instead of arresting her he wishes them luck. The subject is of a most interesting nature, while the scenes in the Ghetto are the most realistic ever attempted.

Source: The Film Index, June 11, 1910

Does fortune favor the innocent, as graphically pointed out in this instance? This film will set one thinking, considering the question on its merits. Perhaps the most one can reasonably say is that it sometimes favors, as is graphically shown here. It would not be wise to say anything further. Interest in the surroundings represented in this picture will be quite as strong, perhaps, as in the story. That Ruth finally escapes from unjust accusation and the law is pleasing to practically all who see the picture, but that the scapegrace who so nearly entrapped her likewise escaped punishment for his misdeeds seems like a miscarriage of justice. But Ruth finds a good home and triumphs over the most adverse conditions, and whether one is ready to say that the story is true to life or not it is a pleasant ending, and in that, at least, is a happy change from some others. The Ghetto pictures are as good as any ever put on the screen and will afford those who never saw the Ghetto a good idea of what it is really like.

Source: Review in

A destitute young woman is forced to do contract sewing in order to survive. The evil son of her employer accuses her of theft and calls the police. She flees to the country and a young farmer finds her exhausted on the road. He takes her home, where she regains her health and falls in love with him. Meanwhile one of her original police pursuers decides to go fishing, and while he is out in the country he finds the young woman. She pleads with him not to take her back to the city and not to disclose her past. He agrees not to tell anybody, and the young woman and the farmer are shown embracing in the last scene

Source: The U.S. Library of Congress catalog