Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/594

 "Blind?" No, Said the Motion Picture

Its testimony proved that a "blind" man could see, and thus reversed the decision of the court

���At left:' The supposedly blind man accommodates the lady by hanging her furs on the clothes line

��At right: He lights a cigar from the flame of a match held in the motion- picture man's fingers

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��RE you the owner of this property ?

��asked a passer-by of Peter Zyla, who was busily engaged in his poultry yard on the outskirts of Chicago, negotiating a sale of pigeons to a teamster who seemed hard to suit in the matter of the color and markings of the birds. The stranger carried a camera, and while he waited for Zyla's attention he took a picture of the pigeons — and of the agile Zyla. When the birds had been delivered and the teamster had driven off, Zyla turned his attention to the man with the camera. By that time another visitor had appeared on the scene. She stood beside the man with the camera and gave Peter a smile which warmed the cockles of his bachelor heart. They wanted to take motion pictures with plenty of local color, they said. Of course Zyla consented. He was even obliging enough to take a part in the scene. He hung clothes on the line, noncha- lently lighted a cigar

����Shaking hands with the director after the "play" is over. The camera gets it all

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��Portions of the film exhibited in court. Zyla admitted posing but claimed that he did exactly as he was told, even in the "flirtation" parts

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��and registered just the proper amount of in- terest — and perhaps a trifle more — when the lady exposed the trim- mest of trim ankles in ascending and descend- ing a ladder.

But alas for the ro- mantic possibilities! The film was later pro- duced in court as "ex- hibit A" in a suit against Zyla brought by an accident and indemnity company to prove that Zyla had not been blinded, as he claimed, by the alternating heat and cold of the plant in which he worked. The in- demnity company had planned the entire scene, even the purchase of the pigeons in the first act.

The State Indus- trial Beard had de- cided that Zyla was entitled to damages under the Work- men's Compensation Act, but the indem- nity company ,which insured the plant against loss under the Act, decided to make some investi- gations on its own initiative before obeying the order of the Court. The case was finally de- cided in favor of the indemnity company.

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