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THE FAKES AND FRAUDS IN MOTION PICTURES
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and-first reason, and the important one, that you will probably fail to guess.
But suppose that you are gullible enough to keep that date. You may wager your $2,000 that Mr. Ginger has thoughtfully notified the owner of the theater, and that things will look right prosperous on your arrival — big, multi-colored advertising posters out in front, a line of baby-carriages in the alley if you chance to arrive in the afternoon, and a stream of people constantly entering. You are surprised at the number of children in the audience; but Mr. Owner explains that they all pay the full admission price. He escorts you around, shows you the projection-machine, the ca.ie chairs, the piano, and the screen. He makes a lot of everything, and you leave, firmly determined to do your share in allowing this man, who is wearing himself out making so much money, to take the much-needed rest Mr. Ginger has told you he seeks, and which Mr. Owner, casually, has also given as his reason for wishing to sell out.
Possibly you are cautious and suspicious, and, businesslike, determine to watch the place, say for a week, keeping track of all who enter, to see if the broker and owner have told you the truth. You may even insist on sitting in the little cash booth, out in front, and selling the tickets yourself. Fine! Mr. Ginger and Mr. Owner want nothing better. They satisfy themselves, firstly, that you have the $2,000 you claim to have, and even insist upon a deposit of several hundred dollars, this deposit to be forfeited in case you should want to change your mind after they have proved that the theater in question is all they claim for it.
Mr. Ginger now notifies a slicklooking friend of his, who summons several other slick-looking friends, this collection of slick ones being known in the theater-selling game as ' ' boosters. ' ' Their business is to fill a theater with spectators and to keep it filled until the theater is sold. They repair at once to the theater neighbor
hood, get a number of rolls of tickets from Mr. Owner, the duplicates of those in the box-office, and start in. They give the tickets away by the hundred at every saloon, and the saloon crowd shoves its smiling and good-natured way into the theater. They give a ticket to every child within six blocks, and they go even further than that : they drop tickets in every mail-box; they leave a few thousand in the ice-cream parlors, and they catch people coming out of other picture-houses, and even force them
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on pedestrians along the sidewalk. People dont usually refuse anything gratis, and so the hundreds troop merrily into the theater, and you, who are standing in the shadow of the doorway across the street, have sore fingers from working your automatic counter.
Or, if you are to be in the ticketbooth, then no tickets are given out, but everybody is furnished with the necessary nickel or dime. That, however, has its drawbacks, as some people will accept the money, put it in their pockets, and walk away. So the owner resorts to still another subterfuge. When you step out for lunch even, or for some minor reason, Mr. Owner quite casually gives the roll of admission coupons a couple of strong pulls, tears off about four hundred