CHILDREN AND PICTURES.
AUSTRALIAN STATISTICS. MANY REFORMS ADVOCATED. Sydney, Dec. 21. /Remarkable statistics regarding the attendance of children at picture shows have been published by the Victorian Council of Education, which, in an official report, recommends many reforms in regard to moving pictures, including a regulation forbidding the registration of any film encouraging disloyalty.
Tn the report it was shown that there were 66,000,000 attendances at the 808 picture theatres in Australia in the year ended June 30, 1920. This was out of a total of 94,000,000 attendances at amusements. During the current year the records showed an attendance of 2.000,000 a week. Australia had a picture show to every 6250 of its population, the United States one for each 6000. and Great Britain one for each 5800. An examination of 14 Melbourne schools showed that the children who attended picture shows 20 per cent, reached home after the rest of the family had retired, 37 per cent, attended at night, 40 per cent, attended in the afternoon, and 23 per cent, both in the afternoon and evening. In the opinion of the committee no child under 15 years of age should be allowed to attend a moving picture show after 6.30 p.m. on any school day. . In Now South Wales even more drastic action has been proposed. At Parramatta Court this week, the magistrate, Mr. Peisley. while dealing with a number of youthful defendants who were charged with damaging property at the local public school, was asked by a prosecuting official of the (Education Department, an inspector of the State Children’s Relief Department, to make an order that for a time the young offenders should be kept away from picture shows. The suggestion of the official was that it should be made by the Bench a condition that if the defendants were released to their guardians on probation they should be forbidden by the Court to attend picture shows. Which, the inspector contended, had probably had a bad influence upon their minds and their morals. Benches elsewhere made orders of this kind the official stated. Mr- Peisley said the question raised was an interesting one, but he doubted whether it would -be the correct thing to accede to the application. He had °heard that picture shows had an unfavorable influence on the minds of some children, but there was a doubt whether it was the province of a magistrate in that Court to act as supervisor or virtually to - legislate” in the direction suggested. The Bench could only take of and exercise the statutory powers placed in their hands, or suggest a line of conduct.
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Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1921, Page 7
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436CHILDREN AND PICTURES. Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1921, Page 7
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