TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 10

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Five years ago the doll T°e world was peopled chiefly Character by sweet-faced, mild Doll. nonentities, waiting for

tho imaginative child-pos-sessor to confer an individuality and a 1 name. But the Teddy Bear hod made a big hit, and "Billikin" had swept in triumph over whole countries. If a plaything such as Teddy, and a piece of grotesque statuary such as "Billikin," became first favourites, then, said the American inventor, something more than inane beauty was now required of toys. Character, personality, eithor winning or grotesque, was to bo the ruling attribute. He rose to the new demand, and produced the "character doll." A character study of real children by a real artist resulted in that early triumph called "Baby Bumps." Every doll has its day, and the small ooso of "Baby Bumps" has been put out of joint by many a successor, but tho memory of him lingers in considerably over a million homes in America still tho most favoured playground for the character doll. "MacClure's Magazine," recalling a procession of doll creatures, mentions next the "Campbell Kids." These dolls sprang into instantaneous popularity. "Thoy passed the million mark in a hurry, and still the people wanted more." Then the Candy Kid, Toodles, Miss Mischief, the Suck-a-thumb Baby. Serious Baby Bobbie, Laughing Baby Peterkin, and Little Sunshino—each in turn has justified tho toy-maker's modern appeal to the realists of the nursery. The competition for the best-selling doll is as keen as for the best-selling novel. "Each manufacturer has his own group of characters., like a company of actors and actresses on the stage. Every season these groups are changed by the addition or retirement of dolls. Thero is always a chance that a now character will sweep the country, make big money for its proprietors, and attain for itself a temporary place in this new and strange doll society." It is less agreeable to learn that the great sales are not always quite spontaneous—at least at the beginning of a run, for American toy-makerj have publicity ways all their own. flf you go to a vaudeville show and hear a catchy song about Miss Jumpity Jump, for instance, it may be that up in the studio of some character-doll manufacturer you could find the original sculptor's model of that ambitious doll, awaiting the psychological hour for her debut. Or if in a motion-picture show you see on the canvas a doll called Duckie Sweetheart, you may have grounds for supposing that Duckie Sweetheart knows a dollmaker." And with all commercial wiles to aid them, these doll persons still have powerful rivals in the angel-faced old-fashioned image, so sweetly ready to assume any garb or name her owner prefers. But there is no doubt that the old-fashioned toy-merchant would feel hopelessly lost if projected into the toy business to-day. "Hβ would find himself in a new world—a doll fairyland peopled by 6trange creatures of whom he never dreamed when he sold dolls."

Cable messages from time Kicks to time give glimpses of and the business that has Ha'pence, grown up round Association football, but probably it is not yet generally realised how large this business has become. A writer in the "London" presents a mass of facts and figures that should be studied by all interested in professionalism in sport. He mentions that whereas the attendance at the cup final in 1880 was only 4000, in April last it was 121,000. Figures from the last balance-sheet of the Chelsea Club, which handles more money in a season than any other, are equally eloquent. Last season 900,000 people paid for admission to the club's ground, and the receipts were £29,000. But as tho profit was less than £500, one naturally wonders whore the money went to. Over £6000 went in wages to players, and £6300 was spent in securing new playors, making a total of £12,000 as tbo transfer feo cost of the men at present on the club's books. Transfer fees have gone up enormously. Eight years ago Middlesborough, in danger of losing their place in the First Division of the League, bought a fine forward from Sunderland'for £1000, and tho football world gasped. But now £1000 is the usual price asked for "quite ordinary" players, and the price of "cracks" has gono up to £2000 and over. Tho forward lino of the Blackburn Rovers team has cost £6000 in transfer fees. It may be asked whether any players are worth such sums, considering the risks involved. Well, since this kind of football is a business, these prices would hardly bo paid if they were not. "The first time Jock Simpson turned out for Blackburn Rovers there was a jump in the average gate of over ten thousand, which, at only sixpence a head, moans £250—not a bad week's interest even on an expenditure of £1800. And as Simpson materially helped the sido to win the championship, it may bo said with truth that ho has already brought to the coffers of the club moro money than they paid for him." Attempts havo been made to put a limit on this bidding. A rule of 1908 said that £350 was to bo the limit, but astuto managers soon found a way to kick a football through it. When they wanted a player they offered his club say £750 for two men, tho good man they wanted, and a duffer, who could bo ''thrown in." The rulo soon disappeared, but the writer thinks that something else will have to be done soon.

The enormous disproportion Tamed between the number of ani-

and nials in the world, and ths Spoiled, number tamed by man, was

the subject of a highly interesting address by the secretary of the Royal Zoolcgical Society in London the other day. Dr. Chalmers Mitchell said that he had looked through tho rwsprds of living animals, ta> - i.*iad that on a fair computation some 140,000 genera of animals had been described. 01 the genus felis, for instance, there were the lion, tiger, jaguar, and about 90 or ICO other animals, and there were altogether well over a million species of living animals known to science. Of the ltj.ooo odd different kinds of mammals and 200,000 kinds of birds, only a few had been taken over by man to his own service, that is "tamed." These comprised few more than the dog, cat, fenet, rabbit, guinea-pig, horse, ox, ass, pig, sheep, goat, reindeer, camel, some fancy breeds of rats and mice, pigeon, peacock, swan, duck, goose,

and canary. There wore very few of th* domesticated animals, T>r Mitchell said, that had not been tamed by man's remotest ancestors. It eeeraed, however, tiat the act of domesticating animals had been lost to mankind. In olden times man and the animals had lived in a kind of freemasonry, but now man, partly by his development of memory, cunning, and eelf-coascious-neas, had lost his cense of oommumty with tho animal kingdom. "In past years, man has deliberately moulded ! all the animals to his own liking; and he has removed from them many of their natural qualities and preserved only those qualities which aro suitablo to himself." Dr. Mitchell instanced tho wild sheep, the brain of which, he said, was much larger in proportion to the animal's sine than tho'tame sheep's. The sheep had become, from being an attractive and intelligent animal, a byword for stupidity. The horse, ■again, had had ite sense of sight and hearing dulled by training, which taught it only to take cognisanco of tho spur, the whip, and tho bridle. Every domesticated animal had been spoiled". "Ono point to remember is tho undoubted fact that tho fear q{ man is an acquired characteristic in all nmmals. Animals that have no experience of man have no fear of man. Wo have it on every possible kind of authority that this is correct. Even "animals living in the most modem oommunittos quickly learn where they are free from persecution by man. Tho shyest of country birds have made themselves at homo in tlio London parks of recent years. Wood pigeons are very difficult to discover and shoot in tho country; in London they feed from the hand." Dr. Mitchell says that if wo would take sufficient trouble there is no animal or bird with which wo could not get on the closest terms of friendship, and so learn marvels , about it that aTo now lost to us.