AMUSEMENT DEVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23599, 8 September 1938, Page 7

AMUSEMENT DEVICES

CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION TUBULAR STEEL CONSTRUCTION ENGLISH COMPANY’S OFFER (Special to Daxlt Times) WELLINGTON, Sept. 7. , Fifteen days after he left London Mr H. Seff, a director of the Tubular Steel Constructions, Ltd., England, arrived at Wellington to-day by the Maunganui. He flew out to Sydney in 10 days, and it took him the other five to cover the remaining 1200 miles, a$ he had to wait a day in Sydney for a steamer connection. Mr Sell he left Southampton by the airliner Corinthian on August 21, and was in Sydney on August 30, two minutes before the plane was officially due. , “It was disappointing having to take so long over the last part of the journey,” he said. “If rather took the edge off the thrill." Mr Seff said his company specialised in the tubular steel construction of- exhibition and fair amusements of the most modern type. He had come to submit to the Centennial Exhibition directors a proposal that his company should take-over the amusemeht,.park and erect the various devices to be installed there.

“ For £ 100,000, if they are prepared to ■spend that amount, we would be able to provide as fine a display as has. ever been seen any* where; in the world,” he said. Mr Self explained that his company had erected spectacular, and novel devices at the Qlasgow Exhibition and other./English fairs. He showed photographs of “ the cyclone ride,” a giant modern switchback with a track some 4000 met long, the “ crazy house” and other ingenious inventions for a large-scale provision of fun.. Previously all such devices had been erected in timber, mostly by continental experts, but it was claimed that steel construction had the advantage of speed of erection, strength, security and economy. In the event of the company’s proposals being accepted by the directors, , tubular steelwork,, amounting to some millions of feet, would be shipped out from England and assembled at Rongotai by local labour. Some of the devices which they had in mind to lay before the directors had not hitherto been seen anywhere in the world. “The Falcon Ride” was a recent invention which would be seen in London next Christmas. Another, called ‘‘Jack and Jill;” had a strong appeal to youth. People were taken to a height and tumbled down again as befell the couple of characters in the popular ■ jmrsery rhyme, but without the disastrous consequences which the . rhyme narrates. ■ ■Mr .Seff v emphasised that the scheme was •no more than a proposal to be laid before the Exhibition directors. He expected, it would be considered, in the immediate future, and upon its reception would depend his future movements. -If the scheme were accepted he would probably stay in New Zealand until, the time of the Exhibition to supervise the arrangements.