JONES'S MUSEUM

Dunstan Times, Issue 2480, 10 May 1909, Page 3

JONES'S MUSEUM

[BY JONES HIMSELF.]

A museum is a place that isn’t open on Sundays. One of the best known museums In London is the British Museum, which is so popular that in the summer time several people have been known to go up and sit on the seats outside the entrance. The chief features of this museum are its antiquities—a number of the attendants there having been on duty for many years. It contains several mummies of dead-and-gone kings, who have been dead for three thousand years and are likely to remain so for some time. Then there are wonderful writings on stone. Thousands of years ago one of the children of Israel threw a brick and made a dent in the wall, and now the scientists are trying to translate the dent to see if it authorises restitution of conjugal rights and marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. I feel sure that it will interest you to learn that I once started a museum myself. (After I had done it I started for Fiji. It wasn’t so large as the British Museum, of course, because I had to come by all my relics honestly. I was a young man then, and wouldn’t listen to the advice of my friends. I had read in a book somewhere that a young man was pretty sure to accomplish his purpose if he had only energy, tact, and brains. I had all these, and a new pair of trousers besides, that had never been worn. Many of our great men began life entirely without capital, and I had already got that far along the road to success. I had an idea that I would open in a small way, with two or three freaks of nature and an elephant or so. As the scheme developed, however, I had to give up the last item. To begin with, there was no shop in our neighbourhood where I could get a conpla of elephants on trust till Saturday, or on easy terms of half-a-crown a month ; and then, if I had got them, I had nowhere to keep them out of business hours. Tha neighbours would have been pretty sure to object to my keeping elephants in the back garden, even if I erected a fowl-run for them. I accordingly confined my attention to the phenomena, there was a young man in the next street who stood six feet four in hia stockings, and I thought that, by brushing bis hair up straight and putting corks in hia boots, I could make him pass for the tallest giant of his size in the world. After that I set to work to collect some novelties of startling interest. I flattered myself that / •he sensation attending the opening of my museum would almost rival the great public rejoicing we had the day the police station was burnt down. Special attention waa paid to the humourous department, because I had read somewhere that the world owes a debt of gratitude to those who make it laugh. 1 hired an empty shop for one day, and gave a written agreement not to sell intoxicating liquor or perform Shakespeaxe on (he premises. Besides the giant I had a wonderful Spotted Baby—recovering, I understood, from a mild spring rash—and a Bearded Lady. A friend and I were the bearded lady by turns throughout the day. I also ; had some fresh air from Palestine in a glass ! bottle, hermetically sealed, a French penny said to have been touched by Napoleon Bonaparte, and the remains of a jujube in a glass box, attributed to Julius Caesar. I had a firm belief in the value of liberal advertising. the art of which I had thoroughly mastered. I inserted a couple of lines in the “ Wanted” column of our local paper to the effect that I wanted people to come and see my show, and I engaged a small boy to walk about the neighbourhood, with instructions that if anybody stopped him and asked who lie was he had to say that he came from tho new museum. It will b„e seen from this that I resorted to almost every cunning device numan ingetmKy could suggest. Then 5 e:;cted a barrier to keep out the rush. ,"tinted over the door, " See this Show and Die,” and opened shop. That was at 6 a.ra. Towards noon 1 received my first visitor. It was a policeman, who came to say the neighbours had complained of the Italian gentleman who was playing the barrel organ at the door. About 3 p.m. a brick was thrown in at the door, and that was the only other visitor we had till dusk. Then two'little girls came in to know if we sold tinned tacks. As the evening wore on the spotted baby wept with increasing frequency, and its mother decided to bye-bye. About the same time the giant went out to tea and forgot to come back. Half an hour afterwards, the check-taker passed in a family of nine, who came to see the giant and the spotted baby, and on being informed that the show was just closing, the parents cheevCnUy announced their intention i to go outside and break'some of the windows 1 have come to the conclusion that museums are a mistake. Virtue may bo k : own reward, but it certamly isn’t anybody else’s; and the man who endeavours by his owe enterprise to educate the public mind tc appreciate the wonders of nature will simply get left every time.

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