NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15239, 28 February 1913, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AMBIGUOUS WARNINGS.

The subjoined comment •by a London paper, though primarily referring to traffic in London, has an equal bearing on local traffic: —" In his evidence before the traffic inquiry Dr. Waldo mentioned as a common cause of street accident the confusion of pedestrians. The driver of a vehicle gives warning when close on a person in the roadway; the pedestrian confused, and as often as not steps either backwards or forwards into the path of the vehicle. Far too little attention has been bestowed on this question of warnings; more thought should bo given to the variety and inefficiency of traffic signals. They are supposed to be warnings; they are more often shocks. If they gave forth one recognisable sound pedestrians would be prepared. As it is, one grunts, another squeaks, a third plays a kind of tune, and a fourth roars. When we hear them at our leisure they leave no doubt what they mean. But the hurried and startled pedestrian, thus called on to clear out of the way, finds that they do not translate themselves with sufficient quickness to his brain. Rather do they bewilder it. Sooner or later one form of warning will be fixed upon, and all motor vehicles will be required to adopt it. The education of the public in the art of crossing the road will then progress, and one frequent cause of accidents will be removed."

THE MOVING PICTURE BOOM. "More than £1,000,000 has been spent on building and equipping picture iheatres in the British Isles," says a -writer in the Daily Mail, ''and the public are paying something like £10,000,000 a year to see the pictures in some 6000 theatres. There is scarcely a town of any size in the •world that has not' at least ore picture theatre. In the coast towns of China, in the Philippines, in all parts of' South America and South Africa, in India, Turkey, Greece, and Russia, they flourish, and even Jerusalem can boast of its picture palace." An American writer says the American people are spending 500,000 dols. & day on moving-picture shows. There are at least 20,000 places in the United States that axe devoted to this form of popular amusement. Not far from 300,000' people, in New York City alone, daily -witness these performances. In the United States half a million people are engaged directly or indirectly in the mov hag-picture industries, and tho varied busi-

ness represents an investment of 200,000,000d015. In the United States alone not far from ono hundred new mov-ing-picture plays are put out every -week —some five thousand in the course of the year. In many cases the writers are well paid; perhaps fifty dollars a scenario is an average figure, but "big" people get higher prices, in some cases as much as. a thousand collars for a single film. But from the play's creation in the scenariomaker's mind to its projection is a long stride. We sit in the theatre see a thousand-foot reel, comprising «« ity or thirty scenes, run off ia fifteen n.-antes. We seldom realise that it takes a week, two -weeks, sometimes two months, to provide this quarter of an hour's entertainment.