Yet the rush to the moving pictures is steadily increasing, while the prices climb up.

The dime became a quarter, and in the last two seasons ambitious plays were given before audiences who paid the full theater rates.

The character of the audiences, too, suggests that inexpensiveness alone cannot be decisive.

Six years ago a keen sociological observer characterized the patrons of the picture palaces as "the lower middle class and the massive public, youths and shopgirls between adolescence and maturity, small dealers, pedlars, laborers, charwomen, besides the small quota of children." This would be hardly a correct description today.

This "lower middle class" has long been joined by the upper middle class.