MADAME TUSSAUD’S

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 22 January 1927, Page 11

MADAME TUSSAUD’S

FAMOUS SHOW TO REOEEISL

YU ILL N Madame Tussaud’s famous '' wa x works exhibition in London was burned.on the night of March 15, 1925, it. was predicted that such an old-fashioned form of entertainment would never be revived in the great metropolis. For over a hundred year? this exhibition -had been in existence, and in recent years it had to compete with new and more popular forms of entertainment. It reached the zenith of its popularity in the Victorian era. when entertainments i to which children could be taken were few. Cable messages from London state that Madame Tussaud’s is to be born again at a cost of £3OO 000. But as a concession to the spirit of the times, the .attractions at the exhibition are to in-

elude u large hall where iilins will be shown.

■Many of the 300 wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s appealed more to adults than to children, because they recalled to the elder generation memories of celebrities who are little more than names to the children of the present generation. In fact only an adult who was fairly well read and possessed a good memory could do justice to the historical side of this remarkable exhibition. On the other hand the exhibition was always kept up to diate, so that children. who worshipped the latest star in the- world of sport could see what their heroes actually looked like in the flesh. Susanne Lenglen. Jack Dempsey, and Jack Hobbs, and similar celebrities of the moment had their place in the exhibition. And no sooner had the perpetrator of the latest sensational murder been executed than he reappeared in wax in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s, beside such famous murderers as 'Charles Pearce, William Palmer, Neill Cream, and Henrv Wainwright. The central feature of the Chamber of Horros was a reproduction of the dock at Old Bailey crowded with figures of about 30 murderers who had achieved infamy. Lord Birkenhead’s elder daughter, the Hon. Eleanor Smith, conceived the idea of spending a night in the Chamber of Horrors in company with the wax figures and a girl friend. They hid themselves until the place was locked up for the night, but their search for a thrill from these murderers was vain. Nothing happened during the night, and they were glad when their monotonous vigil came, to an end.