BARE BACKS AT THE FAIR

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 22

BARE BACKS AT THE FAIR

[By Edtvaed Dunktul, in the ‘ Sunday Chronicle.’] In the old days one of the chief sideshows of the fair was the boxing booth. A burly bruiser used to stand outside and a "leather-lunged showman would bellow out, inviting the local lads to trv their luck against “ Iron Sam.” Inside the tent the yellow light from the flaring, smelly paraffin lamps flickered and danced on the faces of the spectators. In the sawdust-covered ring the brawny bruiser would put the strong and willing but unskilful rustics through their paces. And not infrequently Iron Sam himself used to go down before a sledge-hammer blow. Maybe it was a little brutal and not pretty to watch, bub it was healthy and wholesome. But wander round the fair ground now. There are hoop-la stalls and darts, climbing Felixes and rings, flying aeroplanes, where one may win a prize by pressing a button which has as much, control over the game as the man in the moon. A woman can join in any of the pastimes of the fair to-aay. The boxing booth is as dead as a skeleton. Its place has been taken by two or three other sideshows. Outside one of the tents stand three girls, heavily made-up, who will twist and turn their bodies like snakes while wearing the scantiest of clothing. A woman°screams the invitation, a woman takes the money, and the three English girls—young and bobbed and passably pretty—trip into the tent to entertain the threepenny spectators. Outside the nest tent are three strikingly handsome black girls—dancers brought to England by a native prmco (for so says the glaring poster). Their native costumes are cut low, and their brown backs are bare to the waist. Before the gaping crowd they stand. There is a faint smile of scorn on their intelligent faces. No wonder! A glance at the crowd would arouse scorn or despair; hi, £h&. Jnaiii of. ajojono with

eyes to see undorstandingly. There are pale-faced youths with sagging mouths; senseless, giggling girls; perky, morbidly interested schoolboys; older men with tired, lined faces, and when they gaze on the bare shoulders of the dancers there is a look in their eyes which is—unpleasant. The first twenty to pay their threepences arc schoolboys of twelve to fourteen. Then the youths of twenty or so shuffle in. One of them slyly puts out his hand and strokes the bare arm of one of the dancers. Like the kick of a mule, a brown, clenched fist shoots out, and a discomfited youth hurriedly disappears into the tent, nursing a prospective black eye. Gone is the stirring, hearty appeal of men’s rippling muscles and clashing, smashing fists; instead, half-naked girls luro and amuse our young men and boys. If a baek-to-the-land campaign will revive tho old spirit of pluck and muscle, if emigration will mould our youths into sturdy, self-reliant men, for goodness sake let us try them—quick!