NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14825, 31 October 1911, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE PICTURE SHOW BUSINESS. If, in proportion to population, London had as many picture shows as Milwaukee, there would be 700 of these places of entertainment, instead of 300, over the area covered by London and Greater London. That we aro at the beginning of things, so to epeak, in this matter of moving pictures is evident by the extraordinary growth of tho business during the past year or two. As far as can be ascertained there are at least 30.000 of these picture shows scattered over the civilised world. In the United States there are over 12,000, where 5,000,000 people, of whom one-fifth aro children, are present every day, spending yearly at lea-st 100,000,000 dollars in. seeing the pictures. Even in Russia there are 1200 picture palaces, which are crowded every night. That people will Hock to see | a really good picture show is proved by the fact that during the past three months 200,000 persons have been to tho Scala Theatre to see kinemacolor representations of great national events, and other features. Even Constantinople can boast of 10 picture theatres, while in Hongkong there are half a dozen large cinematograph establishments. There is scarcely a town in the world now, where the white man lives, where one cannot find a moving picture theatre. Fifteen years ago the moving picture was put down in England aa a passing craze: To-day the. business, with, all its ramifications, is one of the most firmly established in the world, employing nearly a-quarter of a million of people, and representing a capital of many million? of pounds. Clever actors and actresses, hay been drawn into the business, a new type of playwright has been evolved, the optical trade has received a great fillip, a new class of engineer has come into existence, and a dozen subsidiary businesses have sprung out of the great business of amusing and instructing the public with pictures.

INSURANCE IN GERMANY. An element of uneasiness has been introduced into the industrial life of Germany by tho revision of the insurance schemes which will come into force on the first day of next year. ' According to the latest diplomatic and consular report., the burden on German industry already amounts approximately to £40,000,000 a year. The new . scheme embraces other classes, and the additional cost' is calculated . at £6,750,000, so that the burden will in future amount to £150,000 each working day. Medical men in Germany are at one with their English brethren against the innovation. Tho profession has calculated that tho extended scheme of compulsory insurance will withdraw an additional 8,000,000 persons from its private practice : the present number already amounts approximately to 14,000,000. As, however, the voluntary insurance has also been extended (those who are compelled to insure can insure also wife, children, parents, etc.), the number-withdrawn from private practice may reach over 30,000,000, half the population of Germany. As from January 1, 1912, those doctors who until then aro bound to act at a fixed salary for the various branches of the fund intend to renounce the contracts which, by tho extended scheme, will have been modified without ' their consent. It is calculated that the total charge to the employer will average 3.78 of the wages paid, and that to the workman 3.07 per cent.

A NEW WAY WITH CONVICTS. It is in Oregon, reports the American World's Work, that a governor telephones to the prison superintendent, to ask a convict to get on a street car and come down to the State-house, so that he may inquire if he would not like leave of absence to go home to his farm and savo the crops. " Governor Oswald West believes that men in the penitentiary are, on the averago, about the same as the men you meet outside. They respond to confidence and kindness more quickly, because they are unfortunate. Therefore, he is putting tho Oregon penitentiary on the honour system. He began, by proposing to a number of selected prisoners to go out daily and work on tho farm and roads without a guard, coming back to sleep every night. They jumped at the chance. ' Of course, there's brush out there, and it would be easy to get away. Beside*?, it's summer, with plenty to eat out-of-doors, and it's easy to sleep out-of-doors. But this will bo an experiment on which the future of tho men who will come to this place will depend. They will be treated like slaves or like men, according to their behaviour. What do you say? I only want your word of honour, and don't give it if you can't keen it.' So all the summer something like 150 men have been out-of-doors in the country about Salem, mending roads, beautifying the grounds of the tuberculosis , hospital, raising crops and milking cows, digging wells, and building fences, and, without the suggestion of a guard, finding their way back to prison at nightfall. Only two have broken parole. One of them was caught, and is back in prison, without a friend .amonfi the men to 6peak to fc§b. .Tho

convict who went homo to work ...is farm during the summer is still there, but he is expected back at Salem in the earl}' fall. The crop was all that stood between his family and destitution, .and Governor West thought it first-rate economy to save that family from becoming a public burden, by the easy method of letting the convicted man serve out his sentence in two or three winter terms to eav nothing of the moral effect on the man himself of knowing that he was trusted."