Mrs. Grundy. (Tracy City, Tenn.) 1903-1930, 1911-05-04

Anywhere everywhere you find them. In the
United States you will have to hunt town of
less than 1000 inhabitants IL you wish to escape
the moving pictures.
Five millions of Americans daily visit these
shows
The exhibitors pay $1SOOO,OOO a year for their
films The public pays $57,500,000 year to see
them.
Mr.. Edison has an average weekly royalty
therefrom OF IS 900
So it is pretty big business, pretty thor
oughly organized, quite universal In its reach,
soap-bubbly in It's universally
The child of the poor with clay pipe and the
suds from the weekly wash. have just as
good time any rich young fellow with an i'm
ported meerschaum and the best CASTLE
So 1t is with the movingpicture shows. It re-
quires little capital to them. long room
easily darkened, nine-feet square patch of white
cloth, some benches for the spectators an oper-
ator at ten dollars week, and a rented film now
takes the place Of a company Of actors, stage
scenery, properties, lights and a properly
equipped building. And the poor boy gets as
much value for his nickel as the rich boy can get
for any number of dollars.
Yet, they run into dangers that no soap-bubbles
can allure. Fire is of these the most patent
OF the moral dangers we will speak later 1t
is through the moral soap-bubble that we can see
HioAN SiSoiiy nlOtlu5 pictures SuSSdHleT
tinsel.
Fire. however is the first and most vital dan
ger The Charity Bazaar fire in Paris, in which
so many women trampIed to death by COW.
ardly men, caused by the fall of spark
upon some celluloid moving picture films which
had been dropped into basket In Canton 900
men, Cinnamon, were burned to death in fire
in a movingpicture show house In Quito Ecua
dor, fifty men and women lost their lives in
similar calamity
1t speaks well for the widespread and con
slant vigilance of the fire departments of the
United States that great catastrophe has yet
come to the. moving picture houses Of this
country.
Lives have not been lost in the moving picture
shows. Lives have been lost through the moving
picture shows
Where once the dime and nickel novels sug-
gested ways of crime to unbalanced youth the
moving picture has come to make more ready
and more potent appeal. The printed word is
ardent with impressionable mind
the acted word
Several ways have been thought of to lessen
these obvious evils. Charles Sprague Smith late
chief of the Peoples Institute in New York,
thought he had solved the problem when he in
duced the manufacturers OF the moving pictures
to agree to a national board Of censorship.
The manufacturers good trade diplomats
board of censorship should be advisory and not
antagonistic. The result is that many pictures
that create havoc among youthful minds when
shown on the public get by" the
tional board OF censorship.
No This bubble that Edison has loosed upon
us will play itself out just far the instincts
of the whole people of this country will permit;
no farther no sooner.
One night I went to prize fight Only men
war The casual 0hsarypr might have
said they were all tough men. After the fight
a canvas was erected in the ring and an
nouncer said, "An exclusive film will now be
shown to the members OF this club"
The picture proved to be of French manufac
ture and portrayed vile situation in dive.
Instantly Kisses and storm of execratlon burst
from the audience. The running of the film was
stopped and the picture removed before it was
all shown. Grim silence greeted the removal of
the canvas.
The crowd that gloried in the action of the