New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-03

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which is patronized by 10,000,o00
persons in the United States alone has an an
cestry which rivals that of many noble houses
Europe. In the days when the exiled House of
Stuart was plotting return to the English
throne pictures, under the name of raree-
shows We're recognized institution and fur
nished thrills for thousands
City and country, camp and court eagerly
greeted these peep shows" (another alias for
the embryo movies) and gasped at the crude
wonders portrayed. AS in modern days a rec
reation-seeking business man scans advertise
n1ents for the newest reels, so did the burgher
of rufffes and knee breeches, on entering his
lattice-windowed home, reach for the dinghy
printed News Letter to obtain advice on the
best raree-shows. Danes and daughters in
farthingales snoothed the powder out of many
a tired daddy's wig in their wheedlings to get
the needed pence to gaze upon the scenes in
the travelling showmans box.
Most persons are content to trace the germ
Of the cinema no further back than the tiny
moving pictures that used to be exhibited in
series of boxes where the spectator moved from
one to the other about the room, lingering at
the one which interested him most. New York
ers who are interested in novelties, and who
sought them in the show exhibited by the Bio
graph in empty stores in Fourteenth Street, do
not have to be Old to have these recolections
But they do not always realize that these
moving pictures-tiny figures of prizefghts,
horse races, etc.-were not created out of void,
but were what may be called step forward
from the forgotten peep show of the eighteenth
century. In the first half of that changeful
era one simple and innocent amusement to be
had in the great cities London and Paris was
imported to New York and had considerable
vogue here. What these raree-shows were is
only to be known by means of the pictures in
the possession of collectors of the rare and the
antique. A comprehensive collection of them
can be seen at the Public Library.
Curiosity in the eighteenth century was
whetted in a manner similar to that Of to-day,
ard accounts of these early pictures and of
the interest Of the people in them bear close
resemblance to present movie gossip After
all, the new development appeals to the same
instinct that existed in peep show days--the
universal interest in pictures of current events,
crimes and sports.
In ITO or whereabouts true pictures--that
is, pictures from life-were not required any
more than they are to-day in the MOVIES If
the pictures of the peep show man were plaus-
ible they had great success. The peep show
pictures of life in New York which arc dis
played in the library exhibition referred to,
are palpably false They are engraved in line
and highly colored, and the colors are no truer
to life than the lines are In the series of New
York views are "The Destruction of King
Georges Statue" "The Terrible Fire of 1776.s
The TriumphaI Entry of the Royal Troops
ard views of New York City. Two Of the lat.
ter have a notation on them that they 7"are
sold at Augsburg" which notation is in the
French language. These views of the city are
reversed and meant to be viewed as reflected
in mirror, being true peep show prints"
Other prints show views of various cities
and scenes in other parts of the world All are
highly colored, and contemporary writers speak
IT the "screechy colors" of these pictures made
for the common people. This criticism applied
particularly to the prints made in Paris for
e-..s Gptique, collection of "vues" taken
about the country by the "raree" man.
The Optique was an apparatus for viewing
the shows that came largely in vogue about
the year 1880. At once sprang up large
business of providing prints for it, and che
whole world had to be ransacked for Subjects,
just as it is being searched for interesting loca
tons for cinema pictures.
.'TheDprint makers" says Bonnardot in his
History Of Engraving in France, "set about