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Animated Pictures 337 in conception or the application of established fea- tures. Great Britain and France became recognised as the two great centres for producing pictures for the new form of entertainment. America was out- stripped and left far behind. Indeed, the British and French films had a great vogue across the Atlantic. Enterprising Americans, who were sufficiently far- seeing to realise the coming of the boom which even then was looming, completed adequate preparations in advance to reap large fortunes. As time went on the Americans perceived that they could profit from the production of pictures, and a speculating craze ensued. The man steeped in stagecraft, and who had scored big triumphs in the legitimate theatre, took up the young art, and by means of his knowledge was able to achieve bigger and more sensational results, which appealed strongly to the public fancy. In Great Britain the infant was regarded some- what as a pariah and outcast, who was endeavouring to filch business from the legitimate theatres by giving pictorial mime productions at a low price, so as to tempt the masses. As a result the man with knowledge and experience held aloof. The producers who were then in business, foreseeing the revolutionary develop- ment which was destined to take place, and some of whom—especially Mr. Robert Paul—were attracted more by the mechanical side as represented by the manufacture of apparatus, abandoned picture-pro- ducing entirely. Thus the art became virtually ex- tinct in Britain, to the advantage of France and the United States, who have ever been spirited rivals, and it is only recently that a determined revival in w