The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

0 f ^ c i e n c e 307 it may be stated that while "Chicot" was represented in the columns of New York's only five-cent daily, the criticisms were of that character which carries weight and not the least influence was exerted in the counting room. "Chicot's" years of service on the "Telegraph" antedated the advent of the horde of advertising solicitors that are now so conspicuous about theatrical, particularly vaudeville, booking offices. In all the years that I knew him (and I was in the vaudeville field throughout his "Telegraph" incumbency) Sargent never once approached me for an advertisement, and I never heard of any one else approached — artist, manager or agent. I can testify to the influence of this virile penman in the primitive period of continuous vaudeville when the performer v/as prodded persistently to augment and change his productivity and to eliminate vulgarity. There is no survival to-day of the "Chicot" style of criticism, which, though apparently severe and frank, was nevertheless of greater aid to the aspirant and the accepted artist alike than that of any reviewer of vaudeville performances in the history of the stage. It was this same "Chicot" who started the greencovered weekly, then, as now, called "Variety," but because of an uncompromising attitude toward the vaudeville artist and an insistent method of separating the counting-room from the editorial influence, "Chicot" and Sime J. Silverman disagreed, but not before "Variety" had become representative and all-powerful as a distinctively vaudeville newspaper. Such was the earlier career of the man who already in the 90's was an acknowledged motion-picture authority. If my memory serves me correctly, Sargent predicted as early as 1898 that photoplays or plays in