Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/100

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from the time the theatre was opened?

How much of the blame is on the city building department?

How much blame attaches to the city council?

How about the architect and the owner of the theatre?

How many other Chicago theatres—picture theatres and theatres of various types—are as dangerous potentially as was the Pearl theatre?

Questions such as these will be met by the council committee on buildings, which tomorrow will take up an inquiry into the Pearl 5-cent theatre case. The roof of the Pearl, Western avenue and Downey street, caved in last Monday morning and a disaster was averted because no show was in progress at the time.


A type of lead that has some vogue has a very short first sentence that usually states the most significant fact in the story. This short statement may be followed by a longer explanatory one that contains the other essential details, or by a series of short sentences each of which contains an important detail. This kind of lead is in reality only the breaking up of the long one-sentence lead containing all the essentials, into two or more shorter sentences. Greater emphasis is thus gained for the particulars set off in the short sentences. Examples of these leads are:


(1)


Col. Roosevelt is back. He spoke tonight at Madison Square Garden to 15,000 people. They cheered him for forty-two minutes.

There was no indication throughout this storm of applause that it was anything but spontaneous. It was directed at Col. Roosevelt himself.


(2)


The "fatherless frog" is in Washington. He arrived here this morning. He has two big bulging green