THE EXHIBITION

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 38

THE EXHIBITION

AS

I SEE IT.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE PARK. (By Josephine O’Neill). (Fob the Witi.-ss. In the dusty sunlight of a close afternoon, the buildings of the Amusement Park look as unreal, as garish, as electric light in the dawn. There is an air of false activity over the booths where small groups cluster, and the steam music plays valiantly. But I feel that the Park is waiting for the dusk to come down and the lights to go up, and the voice of the crowds to take upon it that excitement and roughness which is part of the night The stall-keepers blink in the white daylight. Tousled men in shirt-sleeves lounge against the counters, yawning, or lazily wander before their packed shelves, straightening a box here, flicking at a fly there. Indifferent to the hesitant groups inspecting them, girls are languidly dust ing the stretches of green baize. Their sleepy jokes together are more diverting than these solid, respectable families—mother in shiny black, children painfully clean. Little girls admire the dolls, con scious the whole time of their white frocks. Small boys in thick dark clothes wriggle uneasily on the gravel; and in their bored walking, kick up the dust on the laden air.

As the afternoon drags on, crowds ol people filter through, tilling the stalls, stuck like flies to the barriers. Lacklustre twos and threes munch ices. Hour after hour immovable, tightly packed sections of humanity are gathered staring in front of the Fun Factory, around the Helter-Skelter. The screams and roars of the Scenic Railway, ripping the thick air, are as music to them. Their most exquisite enjoyment is in the tangle of difficulties, when you may hear the ripping guffaw : and the subdued stir of waiting, bovine, for the next mouthful.

The heat of the day is abating. Family parties withdraw to the shelter of the Festival Hal! verandahs, where they picnic placidly, careless of inquisitive glances. A slight film of dust which hung in the stirred air is settling down. Shadows lengthen and the sunshine mel lows: so that, sounds gradually fade from the Park. Only a few red-faced laggards, who have left the Amusements for the climax of their afternoon, recoil before the five o’clock shutters, and walk sheepishly out of sight.

The last sunlight glints are fading when the Amusement Park stirs and awakens to a gradual crescendo of the evening tension. The gravel, bare and white in the thickening twilight, is be coming dotted, splashed, smeared with restless forms moving slowly and more slowly as the open spaces silt up. One by one the blurring outlines of the booths are outlined in a harsh glare. All life seems concentrated in this long alleyway, this square of pleasure, noisy and small, below the hills that blacken the gleaming sky. Under the “Three Castles” towers, a ridiculously solid gateway to the flimsy erections beyond, under the archway which echoes hollowly their shrieks, a few people are bending and crying with laughter before the distorting mirrors. As we pass on, one turns a streaming face to wards us, and vainly tries to smooth th« wrinkles into soberity. Under its conical roof, the Whip has begun its grinding roar, ringed by the same lines of passive spectators, and long queues turned expectantly to the jerking cars. Here a couple are helpless in laughter drowned and caught again as they whirl, there a girl has collapsed with bent head, being questioned anxiously by the man. But everything is lost in the shriek of metal against metal, so that we walk on in a dull fog of re-echoing sound, pierced only by the raucous stallholders.

In a long avenue of paint and glittering lights, their wooden booths extend, shilling interiors blocked by rows of craning heads Sharp against the glare, they adjure the drifting masses. “Pe-u-pui! Pe-u-pul! only one more wanted here! Come now. ’Udson’s! ’Udson’s! Ride a pony inside! (a mysterious phrase which sounds refreshing). While, hundreds of men, women, and children toil at throwing balls, pumping water, bursting balloons, winding handles ; an arm of energy is expended on a “boxerchocluts or a fluffy doll.” The gambling spirit is universal. I have seen old married women, whose hands, gnarled by a hundred washtubs, are clutching piles of rubbish they will never use, and I marvel at the pounds upon pounds they must have wasted. But look at their faces and you see the reason. The flush, the thrill of chase, conauest, the spring of being at one with tile gay young which seethes round them: why, it gives them romance.

The manner in which the prizes are taken varies. A man usually steps solidly up, tugs his hat, seizes the Box, shoves his hat hack, and disappears. Girls are apt to burst iuto exclamations and giggles,

which arouse the amusement of the crowd. The careless young things which have come out frem the Cabaret to do the Amusements ; and conspicuous in evening dress, look upon it as a huge joke, and generally lose their trophy somewhere. If a man has a girl with him, it is different again; and he thrusts the box into her arms with a grin There is always a glow on her face, as if she were burning with pride. A curious fancy took me as if these moderns were feeling emotions proper to mediaeval chivalry. I saw two such standing there in the bustle, their feet on rough gravel, their brains buffeted nnd wearv, but their siHy hearts dancing among the stars.