In the film under review we are treated to a very melodramatic story, very skilfully worked out, which we think will be popular with all classes of audience. The picture is full of excitement from start to finish. The story is handled clearly and explicitly throughout. It is told against a number of well-chosen scenes and the excitement rises to its greatest height on the deck of the steamer, where the body of the unconscious victim is to be thrown overboard. The drugging in the cab is also an exciting moment. Indeed the play is highly dramatic throughout. The photographs are well executed and the acting all that is required in a piece of this kind. Melodrama such as "Cab Number 519" does not call for much subtlety of dramatic interpretation; it all has to be plain, decisive and incisive. That is what we get in this story. The film is of the best of its kind. Holmes works on very slender materials; he also works rationally and naturally. There is no straining after effect, and so the impression on the minds of the audience is that of a logical series of incidents leading up to the conventional defeat of villainy and triumph of virtue. And when a story worked out on these lines holds the interest of its audience from end to end, then be sure it will receive the stamp of popular approval. - The Moving Picture World, June 5, 1909
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