THE MOTOR'S PART EMOBILISING A FAIR.
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How a Miscellany of Road Transport \relict( Five Hundred Slic d in the Demobilisation of the World's Fair. , ..ek Pastures New
FOR CLOSE UPON fifty years the shoWmen of ' England have regarded the Agricultural Hall as their winter quarters, remaining there for the duration—usually six weeks—of the famous World's Fair, inaugurated by the father of Mr. T. E. Read, the organizer of the great carnival.
Every year some five hundred of them respond to the magnetism of London's only annual fair. They arrive in small groups, for the great hall is available for their recefition a week before the opening of the fair, and they can arrive and settle down in a very leisurely manner.
Their departure, however, is a bustle, for they must all be off the premises two days after the end of the fair, which this year was Saturday, February 3rd They were all gone by Monday night. They did not, like the Arabs, fold up their tents and silently 'steal away, for the modern showman is a very modern man indeed and has adopted commercial motors for the transport of his goods and plant, which fact permits the world to know when the fair is on the move. ' : We saw the fair demobilise. Mr. Read, bound to hand over the hall by Tuesday, was a very busy master of the moving ceremonies and saw his nomadic multitude safely off the premises, most of them for different destinations.
In the fair world shove-men are called
travellers, as, indeed, they are. Nomads, in the actual gips y sense, they _ are not. Naturally, they perforce must spend 'much time ,on the road ; but all have their horrieS. It cannot be said that they are of no permanent address.
Hence, when we sa,w the show depart, many of the showmen told us they were going home--there to wait till other fairs, which are for ever being held all over the country, call them forth again.
The circus was first to leave, Mr.Swallow, whose establishment is at Wolverhampton, had a return_ ticket on the railway for his animals and equipment, and Suaday morning saw the whole of the famous cirrus embarked at Euston for the return journey by special train. The advance agent went off earlier by motor.
No transport was provided for the fat ladies, despite publicity paragraphs as to their arrival per motor lorry. These great ladies of the land did silently steal away, for when the show closed on Saturday night they gently went their way by motorbus.
The charming Mr. Goudin and his midget: family went off in a taxi to their lodgings, also without fusS. Show people arrange great Welcomes, but know that. there is no commercial value in the publicity of departure. It is a mere case of" So fare thee well " Mr. T. Drake, who for years has exhibited his private menagerie at the fair, departed, with his animals, two by two, in Noah's Ark fashion. His journey was brief—towards the Crystal Palace, and his wondrous collection of caged animals were able to be transported in relay fashion, per motor lorry, which slowly but surely trailed the cages thretigh the streets. When time presses and a long journey is before him, Mr. Drake hires a motor for each cage, and then the menagerie can travel at speed. The animals, he says, like the touring part of business. Mr. Drake himself has a most luxurious caravan, which is his home during the fair. A motor lorry hauls it steadily when en route. The biggest item of the great trek is the switchback roundabout, which weighs some 30 tons. Mr. Wilson, one of the great men of the showmen's world, owns this, and has brought the art of its transport to a perfection which is marvellous. Six hours are enough to enable the switchback to be taken to pieces and put on the road. The journey was short—to Peckham, Mr. Wilson's headquarters. Twenty men "belong " to the concern.
They " switchback." it when at fairs and do all the transport. Two Burrell steam 'tractors do the heavy haulage and a motor lorry carries miscellanies. Each Burrell has three trailers, and the journeying proceeds at five miles an hour.
At periods the switchback is taken long distances, but, with showmen, distance is no object. " I can get to Southampton from London in two days," said Mr. Wilson.
Modern mechanical transport has 'revolutionized the showman's life. As the weighty switchback convoy slowly twisted itself out of the Agricu!turat Hall, Mr. Wilson recalled the original roundabouts— very small affairs, because transport then forbade much elaboration and weight. A generation ago could not conceive the possibility of hauling a 30-ton switchback along the high roads.
The joy wheel departed in motor lorries, and nearly everyearavan had its own lorry to tow it away.
There was hardly a horse to be seen during the period of demobiliza tion, and it will not be long before the only animals associated with the fair will be those in the circus ringfine creatures, which would never be used for transport purposes.
The ease with which show people took to meehanical transport is surprising. Having long journeys to travel from fair to fair, and, as we have already indicated, having permanent homes of their own—often at such places as Bolton, Walsall, and Wolverhampton—they are not over keen on a life on the highway. The motor enabled them to do in one day what, with horses, was a three-day journey, and so they looked for cheap motors. Usually second-hand machines suited their purses and requirements.
They understand their motors and never fail to keep them an running order. Garages get no work out of the showmen—those most resourceful of men. The motor has been a vary business-like proposition in the show world. Even those who have no vehicle or tractor of their own see the wisdom of hiring one to convey their caravans and plant from town to town. Some of them, indeed, declare it to be more economical to rent transport in this way rather than to own their own vehicle, which, perforce, has to be idle for periods of shorter or greater length. Mechanical transport has, further, had the result of improving the mobile housing accommodation, for the development of the modern and commodious caravan would not have been possible if horses had not been supplanted by petrol. So, under modern transport conditions, the World's Fair departed from Islington with ease and speed, and without fuss or bother. It was, indeed, something of a transport achievement.