The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1912. PICTURE ENTERPRISE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 78, 25 November 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1912. PICTURE ENTERPRISE.

The wonders of the moving picture seein unending and the enterprise of the caterers for the picture theatre people grows greater every day. One London correspondent, writing on October 10th, stated that in one of those secret subterranean theatres where picture palace managers resort to see new films they were already showing war pictures belonging to one of the French firms, which sent off a man from Budapest as soon as the headlines began to appear in the papers. These pictures show the Balkan mobilising. Operators were then on the way to the scat of war from many of the great capitals,, and in London arrangements •were being completed for the despatch of at least half a dozen of these modern adventurers. One of then was expected to reach Constantinople that day, and the first set. of pictures in London music-halls and theatres within a fortnight. Taking war pictures, though that is a risky business, is not so great a difficulty as getting the films home when taken. Elaborate transport arrangements have to he made. The films go direct by sea from Constantinople. They may have to he taken across a hundred miles of the war area, running all the risk of confiscation and that of having light let into them by Customs officials. They are enclosed in bulky tin boxes. The men who went out have all seen foreign service in many lands. One of them was in Tripoli, and, the correspondent above referred to states, is perhaps the man who braved the perils of war by “taking a taxi for the firing line.” One of them is said to have been through live campaigns—before the time ol cinematographs. It is no wonder that there has been great trouble in getting them insured, and Lloyd’s asked 50 per cent, premium. Operators run into much greater danger than correspondents nr even newspaper camera men. They cannot use a long-focus lens, like the press photographer, and must go nearer into the firing line. Their cumbrous apparatus—it weighs altogether about a hundred pounds—makes them far more conspicuous. Their machines look like young Maxim guns and rouse suspicions, and they cannot do as the correspondents and photographers doput their despatches or plates in tlieiv boots nr send, them out of danger by •i servant or orderly. Each operator is burdened with 3500 feet of film, and large supplies are sent out every neck.

One of these picture men has clone wonders in following big game into dangerous places for pictures to make a Loudon holiday, and he rather reckoned to lintl a Balkan battlefield a more pleasant job than-that. The days ol adventure are not altogether past,. THE ART CF WRITING. Some remarks which recently appeared in the Christchurch “Press” regarding the decadence of hand-writing, have induced a Sydenham septuagenarian, Mr Thomas Purvey, to send to that journal a copybook completed by him in 1850, just before he left school, at the age of 15. It is not surprising that the veteran feels proud of it. It is difficult to distinguish the writing from “copper-plate,” and his name at the beginning, in ornamental printing, with the elaborate flourishes so dear to the heart of the writing-master in those days, is quite a triumph of artistic penmanship. Needless to say, the specimens of writing comprise the good old “copy-book maxims,” which seem inseparable from ornamental penmanship:—“Youth requires cultivation,” “Virtue procures contentment,” “Hesitate before you promise,” and so forth. It would be interesting to compare this production with the copybook of a New Zealand lad of fifteen in the present day.

“CONVERSATIONS.” The newspaper reader will doubtless have noticed (writes Sir H. W. Lucy in the Sydney Morning Herald) the curious adoption of a familiar word in connection with interviews taking place at Balmoral between Sir Edward Grey and M. Sazanoff, the Russian Foreign Minister. They are with particularity and pertinacity officially alluded to as “conversations.” A well known diplomatist, temporarily retired from- business, tells mo the word has in this connection a well defined and important significance. Communications passing between the' British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Ambassadors from foreign States fall under two categories. One is mutually understood to be informal ; the other is girt about with the solemnity and circumstances pertaining to treaty-making or approach to treaty-breaking. Under the former condition, known as “conversations,” the business of international displomacy is chiefly carried on. During the Parliamentary session Sir Edward Grey is “at home” at the Foreign Office in the afternoons of five days a week, prepared for friendly chat with any foreign Minister who, hoping he does not intrude, may diop in. In such' easy friendly circumstances conversation that may lead to consequences of European concern is conducted with an affability that does not deceive either party to it.