MERRY-GO-ROUNDS FOR HE TROPICS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2766, 9 May 1916, Page 6

MERRY-GO-ROUNDS FOR HE TROPICS

. Cannibals and other duslty pleasure" seeikcrs of the Tropics have a particular liking for roundabouts, peep-shows, an cl similar 13anl; Holiday amusements. Be iforc, these were supplied to Equate rial inhabitants almost exclusively by Germany. Now certain far-seeing British manufacturers/ arc making a ' bold hid. to capture tlie trade.

The director of the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade the other day issued an interesting list of applications which have been received from a large number of firms •"hvlio wish to get into communication Kith United Kingdom manufacturers tor producers of various classes oF ■ ijoods previously .obtained from Ger'iinany . and Austria-Hungary." Those include accordions (almost exclusively a .'Hun product) and merry-go-rounds for ■export to the. Tropics. ' A. widely travelled member" of the ' 'Showman's League—known to the "profession" as "The Travellers" —informed a "Daily Mail" representative that the : merry-go-round wherever it goes in the •'Tropics is always a sure and certain ) "draw." "It is the most effective in , liot climates of nil our circus shows," i ho. said. "One of our regretted mem■hers, 1 Tom Hoarne, took a small conjuring and roundabout show out to West Africa in 1896. and made a snug ; little fortune before lie died. The natives could not have enough of the merry-go-rounds. The gallopers were ■turned by hand, and a great chief supplied all the motive power himself—and ho was very proud of it. There being no coin in that part of the world, Tom charged cold-dust and ostrich feathers for his rides, and was well on his way to becoming a millionaire when a brilliant. (but disastrous") idea struck liim. Ho set up a coconut-shy, and the natives, incensed at his incursion into what they rightly declared to be one of (their own home industries, cookcd him. I From what. I remember of Tome, ho ; must have made a tough meal!"