FORTUNES FROM ROLLER SKATING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3217, 15 June 1909, Page 3

FORTUNES FROM ROLLER SKATING.

ALL BOOMS BEATEN. In .September, Mr C. P. Crawford, the owner of a great roller skating rink at Coney Island. New York's famous playground, started a similar affair in Liverpool. The result was nothing short of wonderful. In thirty weeks the receipts were £8,955, or an average of nearly £3OO a week. This was the beginning of a boom which left all former roller skating booms tar behind. Rinka were opened in all parts ot thi country, and when the season begins again next October twenty-five more buildings, erected specially for "rolling," will he opened. The profits made last winter were enormous. Operating for an average of five months rinks in all parts of the country, in which £250,000 is in vested, paid dividjnd3 at the rate of 120 per cent, per annum. After the first successes there was a great demand for shares. The £IO,OOO capital required m each case to run rinks at Plymouth, Hull, Cardiff, and Bristol was subscribed some time before plans for the buildings were passed. At St. James' Hall. Manchester, where the season's takings averaged £6OO a week, the total expenses were only about £BO a week. In the case of other halls, the ratio of profit has been almost as great. At the London Olympia a twelve weeks' season resulted in the shareholders receiving all their capital back, plus a dividend of 20 per cent. At Southport, where the rink was open sixteen weeks, 50 per cent was paid on preference and 25 per ;ant on ordinary shares. A twenty-eight weeks season in Dublin brought to the holders of preference shares a dividend of 155 per cent, and of ordinary 105 per cent. In sixteen weeks the Birmingham rink paid a dividend of 25 per cent, and the-one at Belfast yielded in twentyone weeks 30 per cent. Dundee shareholders received 45 per cent on preference shares and 22£ per cent on ordinary after a twelve weeks' reason. Mr Crawford has made an immense fortu.ie out of roller skating. Apart from his American interests and his fees as a managing director of many companies, he has been drawing over £I,OOO a week in dividends on the shmres in h:Hs in English ritika.