a kaleidoscopic drama in four acts, eleven tableaux and a transformation, put together by the resourceful Daly. The scenery covered much territory from a villa on the Grand Drive or Boulevard, New York, to scenes in the Metropolitan Hotel, to Castle Garden, to the Grand Union Depot, thence to Simpson’s Bar (with a leaf from Mark Twain), to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The grand “transformation” included an Opium Smoker’s Dream.... This fourth production of Daly at the Grand Opera House ran but four weeks. Daly had not quite hit it off, as we say. (Odell, 9:285–86)

In its third act it reproduced a few traits and incidents from the source of its title—Mark Twain’s characteristic and clever “Roughing It.” ... Its story related the elopement of a rich man’s daughter with a poor noodle, and the father’s pursuit of these fugitives from the metropolis to Simpson’s Bar. A few of its situations were seen to be ingeniously constructed, and parts of its texts were heard to be smartly written. Its intention appeared to be, in the most extravagant sense, farcical. Its attainment was utter puerility. (“The Drama,” 22 Feb 73, 4)

It is not, as might be supposed from the title, a spectacular condensation of Mark Twain’s last book. Indeed there is very little of Mark about it, except his famous description of the Chinese quarters in San Francisco, which is admirably represented toward the close.... “Roughing It” is altogether a clever piece of spectacular dramatization and is destined to have a long run. (“Music and the Drama,” 1 Mar 73, 2)