The log cabin Democrat., 1916-09-20
WHY l LIKE THE MOVIES
Ry PEARL WHITE

From very early age I have had ! positive fondness for doing reck- less things, and the more danger there has been connected with them the more pleasure I have taken in them. 1 am not unique in this. I have met during my career a number of other persons who confessed to having the same strange tastes. Speaking for myself. a hum-drum existence would bore me to distraction. I think 1 would sooner die. For instance, when was child about five or six years old, despite tbe fact that received repeat ed warning from my father and moth- CT, used to delight in going out to . rattlesnake den which was not far from the house and teasing the rep dles until they made repeated jumps at me. My father caught me at this amusement one day, and decided that radical action was required. I will never forget the punishment that I got, but after that l let rattIesnakes alone.
 Later on while still a mere slip of . girl. joined a circus. The most dangerous end of the work seemed to be that of the trapeze performers, so begged until I was given a chance at 1t. l made good ct this from the start. My instructress, a lady who had been doing trap" work for years, told me that the reason for my suc- cess was because l lacked the ele- ment of fear She said that in this profession many were called, but few chosen, and those few persons were all like me, utterly indifferent to dan ger. l suppose this sounds rather conceited to the reader, but I certain ly don't mean to make 1t so, because l am telling facts. I can claim no credit for the daredevil spirit since 1t was born in me- I was with the circus several years, only leaving 1t because l was offered more money with theatrical troupe The com pany l joined was not well-known company; as matter of fact it's ap- pearances were more or less confined to what are known in the theatrical profession as tank towns" We play ed at popular prices. and did noth- Ing but one night stands. I found the life very tiresome. Hours of weary travel by railroad, then the same old journey by bus to an inferior hotel, the same hurried and poorly cooked dinner, the same old trip to the thea tre, which usually was of the kind known as the "Opera House." After the show, If we were lucky. we had few hours sleep in miserable beds before going on to the next town. If unlucky. we left town the same night, and picked up what slumber we could on the train.
 The nearest I came to encountering danger in these peregrinatiOns was when our train ran into another, and several persons were killed so I de- cided after several years of this to get into motion pictures, which then had just started to "boom," and se- cured an engagement with the Pathe company. This was over three years ago, and I have stuck to the work faithfully, not merely because 1 get a good salary, but because the life fascinates me.
 The first of the long line of thrill ers'' in which I have appeared was the "Perils of Pauline" which Pathe put out some two and half years ago. In this production for the first time I fell in love with my work. The various stunts" which my director called upon me to do offered to me the most sincere pleasure. A brief recital of some of the featS which 1 did in Pauline" may be of interest. The first was my experience with the rats. l mention it first, not be- cause 1t is the first in point of time, but because most women, however ] courageous, draw the lire when it comes to close contact with rats or mice. The villain, in order to encom-
 pass my death, was supposed to have shut me up in d cellar with the hero and then turn the water of canal into the cellar. As the house was | ,,rnnosad to ba fulI of rnts naturally