"Writer: You think so; Moscow doesn't. It is all a matter of the point of view. When the acting is poor, an enthusiastic, roaring and thundering audience is necessary to keep up the spirits: but when the acting is absorbing applause is not needed, and if the actor won't come and bow, or the curtain rise after it has once fallen--well, then, applause becomes futile." "Reader: Whoever heard of such an idea?" "Writer: My dear Reader, it is not an idea, it is an established fact. Remove the reason for applause and you prevent the applause itself, and in doing so, prevent a vulgarity." "Reader: But it is the natural desire to want to applaud when you see something good." "Writer: Rather it is an unnatural habit. You do not applaud a thing, only a man or a woman. Applause is the flattery of the strong by the weak. "If the conductor and musicians of an orchestra were not seen we should never applaud music. We do not applaud architecture, painting, sculpture, or literature. We should not applaud hidden musicians." Concerning the last statement we have reason to doubt the accuracy of Mr. Craig's surmise in so far as it refers to American audiences. Every movie fan has heard audiences at some time or another break into wild applause for the shadows on the screen, and we were even more forcibly reminded of the strength of the personal illusion, no matter how inanimate the symbol, during the world's series. The players on the Scoreboard which we watched were no more than wooden disks with "Collins," "Jackson," "Cicotte" and the other names written upon them. When the Dutch Ruether disk was suddenly moved from the plate around to third base to indicate a triple, there were wild cheers from the crowd and they began to howl for a change in pitchers. "Take him out!" they cried, appealing to a manager who did not even have so much as a disk to represent him. There was some more mad scurrying around the bases by the red disks, and then suddenly a large hand, symbolizing Fate or God or Kid Gleason, we don't know which, was thrust through a hole in the scoreboard and fastened upon the little round Cicotte to bear him away from his fling of reality back into his accustomed wooden private life. We don't know how it went with the Cicotte who left the diamond in Cincinnati. Not very well, we suppose. But for the wooden disk in Times Square it was a moment of triumph. For a fleeting second he was a man and the direct object of popular scorn and hatred. The rooter behind me shook his fist at him. "You got what was coming to you, you big stiff!" he shouted. Everybody looked around, and the man seemed a little shamefaced at his exhibition of hostility to a wooden disk. He felt that he owed the crowd an explanation and he came through handsomely. "He was shining up the ball with emery," he said.