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suddenly abandoned and a great opportunity lost — killed by ridicule.
It is often urged against Englishmen that their great failing is lack of imagination, and my experience over this abandoned Cabinet film leads me regretfully to the fear that there is something in this. I recall how the newspapers, which admittedly reflect public sentiment, only a few short years ago were laughing at the possibility of flying machines ; and then a little later were weeping tears of sorrow over the risks which men ran in going up in these gimcrack affairs for the amusement of spectators and the getting in of gate-money. And now these same flying machines are winning the war! There was the same outcry against motorcars, well within my own memory, and I can hear the echo of the indignation which was expressed at the mere thought of a Cabinet Minister imperilling his dignity by riding in one of these 'stink machines' as they then called them. I believe there was the same outcry against railway trains when they were first invented, and I can imagine the horror with which the equivalent of a Cabinet Minister in Caxton's day would have regarded the idea of his well-rounded speeches and noble thoughts being recorded upon artificial papyrus in a greasy ink.
How the people of a few years hence will laugh at a dignity which was afraid of being sullied by contact with the kinematograph, the greatest and most powerful vehicle for the conveyance of thought which the world has ever produced!
The 'Vivaphone' petered out in the end as it was bound to do, for the novelty wore off, and the frequent failures because the boy was careless about putting the gramophone needle in the proper place on the record brought all these devices into ill-repute after the lack of synchronism ceased to be amusing.
But before I leave the subject I must record one incident which was rather significant. At the first little picture-hall in Walton which I described some time back, an early ' Vivaphone ' picture was introduced. It was received with such intense enthusiasm that an encore was vociferously demanded and could not be refused, although it meant delay while the film was rewound and the gramophone reset. Then the people refused to allow the programme to be resumed until they had had a second encore and even a third. So much for this little foretaste of 'talking pictures.'
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