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its mission to direct its attention to this new invention, just as it had given its attention to printing from its first appearance. It cannot remain indifferent to anything that acts upon conscience. Catholics must, therefore, in so far as they are worthy of this name, turn their attention and their activities to the problem of the cinema, and at once.
So important is the part that the cinema already plays in our society that further delay in dealing with it would be fraught with serious consequences.
It is well-known with what enthusiastic infatuation large crowds all over the world attend the « pictures ». If France , Italy, Germany and the other countries of the old continent are far enough from knowing the meaning of the « cinema-fever » with the intensity which every week fills the picture-halls of the United States with a number of spectators, raging from ioo to 120 millions,, the fact remains that in the cities of Europe all the children and young people regularly frequent the cinema, that the attendance increases year by year and that the country has now been « captured ». I will only mention the fact that in hundreds and hundreds of French villages permanent cinema-halls have been opened during last spring and autumn.
This influence, which has already grown to vast proportions and is continually on the increase, cannot fail, such as it is, to arouse alarm amongst all those who have morals at heart. Mgr. F. Martin says in his above-mentioned Report : « What cannot be open to doubt is the influence of the Cinema upon child delinquency. A German neurologist has drawn up a statistical table which condemns most of the adventure films ; in 250 films examined by him, he found 97 murders, 50 adulteries, 19 scenes of seduction, 22 kidnappings and 45 suicides ; the leading roles in these films were divided as follows : 176 thieves, 25 prostitutes, 35 drunkards... The influence of the film is felt also in another direction. While public opinion does not appear to be inclined to allow in adult classes scientific discussion on biology, the film practically imparts instruction in public under conditions which cannot but over-excite the imagination of the young and arouse a natural curiosity which