The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1911-05-20

Anywhere everywhere you find them. In the
United States you will have to hunt Town Oh
less than 1000 inhabitants II you wish to escape
the moving pictures
shows.
The exhibitors pay $1sooo,ooO year for their
films The public pays s57,500,000 year to see
them.
Mr. Edison has an average weekly royalty
therefrom of $4,000.
So IT is a pretty big business, pretty thor
oughly organized quite universal in its reach.
soap-bubbly in its universally.
The child of the poor with clay pipe and the
suds from the weekly wash. can have Just as
good time any rich young fellow with an I'M
ported meerschaum and the best CASTLE
So it is with the moving picture shows 1t re-
oures little capital to run them. A long room,
easily darkened nne-feet square patch or white
CLOTH some benches for the spectators an oper-
ator at ten dollars week. and a rented him, now
takes the place Of company OF actors, stage
scenery, properties lights and 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 will speak later 1t
is through the moral soap-bubbe that we can see
more clearly the moving pictures gossamer
tinsel
Fire however is the first and most vital dan
GER The Charity-Bazaar fire in Paris, in which
SO many women were trampled to death by cow
ardly men, was caused by the fall OF spark
upon some celuloid moving picture films which
had been dropped into a basket. In Canton GOO
men, Cinnamon, were burned to death In fre
in moving-picture show house In Quito, Ecua
dor, fifty men and women lost their lives In 9
similar calamity.
n II speaks well for the widespread and con
slant vigilance of the fire departments OF tho
United States that no great catastrophe has We
come to the movng-picture houses OF thi
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 sue
sested ways of crime to unbalanced youth tn
moving picture has come to make more read
and more potent appeal. The printed word
never SO ardent with an impressionable MIND
the acted word.
several ways have been thought Of to Jesse
these obvious evils. Charles Sprague Smith, LAT
chief of the Peoples Institute In New Yorl
thought he had solved the problem when he Il
duced the manufacturers of the moving picture
to agree to a national board OF censorship.
The manufacturers, good trade diplomat
, readily assented, and then saw to 1t that u
board of censorship should be advisory and NJ
antagonistic. The result Is that many pictur'
that create havoc among youthful minds wnS
, shown on the public screens get by the
tiona board of censorship.
No This bubble that Edison has loosed up'
us will play itself out just far as the instinc
:, of the whole people of this country will perm'
:. no farther, no sooner.
a One night I went to a prize fight. Only M
q were present The casual observer might ma
said they were all tough men, After the ng
canvas was erected in the ring and an 9
n nouncer said IAN exclusive film will now
! shown to the members of this club"
~ The picture proved to be Of French manuf
ture and portrayed vile situation In di
ID Instantly Kisses and storm OF execration pu
A. from the audience. The running of the hlm Y
10 stouped and the picture removed before 1t v
Mt all shown. Grim silence greeted the removal
Of the canvas.
The crowd that gloried In the action OF