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recent decree of the Ministry of Public Welfare. If there is a properly equipped hall in the place, the police almost invariably refuse to permit alterations.
While former regulations were more elastic, to-day one must be prepared to find a specially equipped hall, even for projections with a portable, type B apparatus. The reason is not clear, but it is a fact that if the proprietor of a hall invests in a cinema, he can make no other use of the prem ises. If an outlying spot is within a town radius even if it be thirty kilometres from the new centre of the city, all town regulations are immediately enforced : if the hall is fireproof the authorisation of the portable apparatus is withheld.
The authorities seem perfectly indifferent to the fact that such measures paralyze all effort in favour of public and juvenile education.
Specially equipped halls are doubtless the ideal which even country centres should try to realise, both on account of the greater safety duringperformances and the possibility of keeping the apparatus in its proper place.
It will then no longer be necessary to have supplementary lines on the floor of the hall, nor to request to the audience not to tread on the lines, an-d to watch their steps. It will be possible to dispense with the men who guard the entrance to the rows of chairs and stools under which the lines have been laid and keep unwary stumblers from uprooting the arc lamp (contingencies which the writer has actually witnessed).
There should be no tolerance — however well meaning, in this respect.
The Harbur Cinema accident of 1922, with 14 killed — was attributed to smoking in the audience.
The emergency illumination must be tested. It is not sufficient that it should exist : it must also function. A red railway light or carriage lamp is all that is needed as long as it works. But in halls accommodating more than 600 spectators, these are not sufficient, and an emergency electric lighting apparatus with special accumulators and generators, is indispensable. Gas or candles suffice for fewer than 600 spectators.
But one should not let oneself be tyrannised by the police. Regulations only prescribe that the emergencey lights must burn during work hours. Work hours begin only half an hour before the performance, or at least before the door-opening. It is advisable to enquire as to the habits of the local police in this matter. Officious superintendents have been known to demand emergency lighting at 10 in the morning, which was only necessary from 7, p. m. on.
The notices « Exit » <c No smoking », and other orders must be visiblv hung up. The « No smoking » order is particularly important, not only for the guests, but also in the general interest.
It is to be hoped that in permanent cinema halls the resistances boards will be placed so high that the generally so popular habit of placing films