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Show i JUDGE LINDSEY FAVORS CHILDREN ON I THE STAGE. I The appearance of Judge Llndsey of the Juvenile Court of Denver on the stage at the Metropolitan Opera House to commend the purpose pur-pose of the benefit for stage children, at which ,, $15,000 was received tp fight the state laws classing child actors with factory workers, puts ! the puritanical agitators in this state on notice that those who know most about the social environment en-vironment of children do not sanction their efforts, ef-forts, says the New York Times. In Massachusetts, Illinois, and Louisiana the ' factory laws forbid the artistic training of chil dren for stage performances. The ostensible reason for this prohibition is that the children are made to "work" at night. Mr. Augustus Thomas and Mr. Francis Wilson, notably, have shown that the health of the stage children is hedged with every safeguard; their salaries, compared with the wages of factory children, are princely, and the few minutes required dn the evening for their speaking parts are most pleasurable to them and to their audiences. Mr. Wilson has presented lists of hundreds of actors practically all the famous actors of history ' and of the present time whose training for the , stage commenced before the so-called awkward age in children, and who grew up In the ennobling en-nobling atmosphere of the stage. Puritanic laws, like those which obtain in Massachusetts, are not needed. The law of this state places the children who appear in stage performance under the care of the Gerry society. Their moral and physical welfare is thus doubly safeguarded safe-guarded by the conditions that inhere in their employment and by the guardianship of this society. |