LITTLE “STUNTS ” IN U.S.A.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1920, Page 1

LITTLE “STUNTS ” IN U.S.A.

In the United States you ''come into daily contact with all kinds of little “stunts”—to use the music-hall word put into circulation by the Prime Min-ister-clever devices, and curious conveniences which seem marvellous and amazing to a, man from Europe, though they are everyday commonplaces to an American.

A motorist, for intancc, runs short of petrol in a small town, and pulls up outside the garage. There, fixed on the “sidewalk,” is a scarlet-painted “gasoline stand,” about the size of a pillar-box, with a pumping arrangement attached.

A mechanic unscrews the cap of the petrol tank in tho car and fills it in a minute by means of a long rubber tube. Meanwhile another mechanic is blowing out a rathfer flat tyre with the compressed air, which is usually laid on outside each garage and is applied by means of a jointed metal pipe with an automatic connection for the valve of the tyre. Walk down the main street of the little town and you will notice, outside a bootshop, let into the iiavement, a series of brass plates representing bare footmarks entering tile shop. There is a corresponding series of brass shoeprints leaving it—as clever a “mental suggestion” advertisement as could be devised.

Enter one of the glittering “soda grills” or “candy kitchens” to have a “chocolate soda,” or a “banana split,” and beside your table you will sec a small metal box with a slot in the top. You insert a coin, and at once a mechanical violin and piano burst nito noisy activity n't the extreme end of the room.

Outside the store you will a “speak your weight” machine. You stand on the platform and place a nickel (2Jd) hi the slot. There is a whirring noise inside the machine, and a loud metallic voice says hurriedly, “Hundred and twenty-two,” or “Hundred and seventy-five,” as your weight mnv lie.

In a telephone pay cabinet you put a nickel into the box, and if the delay is too long von can say to the girl, “Give mo hack my nickel,” and at once, as though she' herself had handed it to you. it falls hack into a tray at the bottom of the coin receptacle. It is rather uncanny. The girl is far away, yet she gives you the money, and she can do it angrily, too —click, clatter—if she is in a bad temper. Should you wish to' make a long-dis-tance telephone connection you arm yourself with huge silver dollars, and half dollars, dimes, and nickels. When the girl at Chicago, 800 miles away, says, “Chicago speaking . • • ” an " other voice says, “Two dollars seventyfive cents, please” (11s.). You drop the dollars in the dollar slot, and as they fall they ring a loud musical note. Ping, Ping. In goes the half-dollar (25.). Pong, sounds a different note. Tho quarter (Is.) says Pung, deep and low; and the operator, knowing hv the sounds that you have paid the right sum, ho puts you to the required number, and clear and loud you hear your friend speaking in Chicago. Hour by hour you meet extraordinary little “stunts” like these, . which make you realise that America is very 'much the New World.