The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-10

W. R. Irby Branch, The American TO- baccO Company, New Orleans, La. films, each requiring 15 minutes to ex- hibit. and three or four illustrated songs each costing from $15 to SIS a week. In the larger theatres the films are with drawn and new subjects substituted every second day. The films are rented to the proprietors of the shows for $50 a week. The moving picture machines now in use, with their lenses, powerful lights. and reels, are worth g, ,0oo000. They are sold at prices ranging from s175 to $225 each. with s20O as the average price.
 well equipped picture exhibition also requires the services of 10 people. By this is meant the working force of q
 store show" not theatre. The list in- cludes a piano player, a drummer. a man at the lantern and his assistant. and two ushers only. Their wages average about s2o0 a week. With 10000 such shows the payrolls would be g, 000, GOO for a force of 100 900 persons.
 Into the box offices of these moving picture shows at least s3,0o0, 900 is passed in dimes and nickels every week by American pleasure seekers.
 With one-half of the 5000 900 receipts representing nickel admissions and one AAaAl l4ChCAS tOSAAAl6 d dlAliCs lllC TGCClpNS would indicate that 45,00o, 900 persons vis- lted these shows every week. or nearly every other peSson in the United States. The business may be summarized thus: Value of picture machines in use. 200. 600 Capital invested. .... .... ....... $40 000. 900 Value of films made annually. 102, 600 Weekly wages drawn by em
 ployes.... ...... ... "a. .... .... 2,0o0, ,000 Receipts per week.. ... ..... . s,00O, 900 Number of picture shows in
 United States. ...... ........ 1o,OOo Number of employees at exhi-
 bitions..... ....... ........ ...... 100, 900 Persons attending shows every
 week. ......... .......... 45,O00, 900
 Moving picture shows began at the Worlds fair at Chicago when Thomas A. Edison displayed a kinetoscope, a nickel in-the-slot machine operated with electric batteries and having a light shining from above upon the front of a film of photo graphs 50 feet long, joined at the end and moving on spindles. Since then many minds have been busy with improvements until now we have the machine which talks and displays pictures at the same time.
 In these days when it is mostly the col lege graduate who is called to fill re- SPO4lSiplC pOSAliOiiSs " lS ttltOul aging lO young Americans to know that it is still possible for men who have not had the advantage of a college training to climb to the top. An example of this is found in the case of W. C. Brown, who is soon to be elected to the presidency of the New York Central railroad, an organza- tlon that employs 15O,OOO men. Mir. Brown began as section hand worked up to sec tion foreman and then, in order to better his station, took up telegraphy. It wasn't long before he was with the Illinois Cen tral as train dispatcher.
 He went from the Illinois Central to the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific and then to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, each time a train dispatcher. It was in the latter place that he first attracted the notice of the powers in the road
 It was in the late seventies. A great snowstorm fell on East Burlington and swamped it. Three or four hundred car loads of stock lay in the yards, and Jerry Hosford. the superintendent was at his wits end to know how to get them into safety before the cattle were frozen to death. At midnight, Brown, having fin- ished his trick, came over and offered his services. Hosford fairly fell upon him with joy, and they worked through the early morning hours saving the stock.
 When day came, T. J. Potter, then the head of the Burlington. arrived, badly worried and expecting to find the stock a loss. He was overjoyed when he found that it had been saved, and congratulated Hosford.
 "I couldn't have done it." said Hos ford bluntly, If it hadn't been for d young train dispatcher named Brown, who came over to help me when his trick was done. That fellow is such a hustler that he could have saved double the amount if we had had em to save
 The news that there was train dis patcher who, instead of going home when his work was done, actually volunteered to work outside of his particular line for a night, made an impression on MT. Pot ter q made a note of Brown then and there," he said afterward. But he never needed pushing. He furnished the motive power himself"
 So it came to pass that in January, 1sSO Brown was chief train dispatcher on the Burlington, and one year later was promoted to trainmaster. Three years more and he was assistant superintend- ent. From that time on promotions came with even greater rapidity until in 1901 he found himself vice president and gen. eral manager of the Lake Shore & Mich igan Southern, and six months later was vice president of the New York Central vice president of all the New York Cen history and now at a little past 50 he is to be president of the road.
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