The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-19
TOYS FOR THE CHILDREN.
Manufacturers Introducing New and Striking
P1aythings for the Fall and Winter.

RIayUnluSS IOr Lnc Ill aDO NsAnbeEs
Newark Mo News.
Along with the march of improvements no
one has managed to find a substitute for toys for
the little ones. To be sure, parents try their
utmost in these times to make an infant a man
before he should be out of the nursery, and
teach babies French before they learn to rum,
but they never wholly succeed. The peculiar
working of a ehild's mind demands something
objective to interest it. A baby cannot sit down
quietly to think; it is not until the adolescent
period is well advanced that this becomes a
physical possibility. The desire to see and eX-
amine-that is, the faculty of curiosity-first
takes possession of the child's mind, and it must
be satisfied, or there is music more forcible than
agreeable.
The more complicated the toy and the more
incomprehensible to the infant, the more charms
it possesses and the longer it will satisfy. Toy
manufacturers now understand this fact and as
a result the old style of simple toys are super
seded by most costly and complicated ones. For
illustrations: nothing will so please q baby as to
be allowed to play with your watch. The mys.
FERROUS ticking, the movement of the second
hand and the seemingly wonderful arrangement
of lids, springs, and the shining of the metal,
will set the youngster wild with delight and it
will never'grow tired of looking at it, whereas a
simple block is soon wearied Of and thrown away.
Then there is another phase to the subject. 1t IS
this: Some people punish children for tearing their
toys to pieces. Nothing could be more foolish.
The same curiosity thai leads a child to desire a
toy leads to an uncomfortable desire to investi-
gate its interior working, and it is generally this
and not o destructive tendency which
causes it to break them into pieces or to
tear them up. Besides, this habit of destroying
toys is not only of advantage to the child, but is
of service to the toy manufacturers The toys
of the present day are complicated, strong, and,
if possible, separable. This theory has caused
the numerous inventions Of automatic toys and
little machines, until now it is customary for
nurseries to contain playthings which initiate
the human form, with power of making gestures
and sounds.
Birds and fowls are so constructed that by the
winding of a spring they are set in motion, ana
give forth sounds so like whatever they initiate,
and move their limbs 50 naturally, that they are
interesting to children of a larger growth as well
as the little ones.
Tiny vehicles are fitted automatically with
springs, and even with steam, and require no
hands to propel them. An afternoon in a toy
shop now means an afternoon in a museum of
moving, -noise-making and quasianimate Great
ures.
Musical toys are in great demand; not the old
fashioned willow whistles or the nerve-twisting
tin horns. but genuine Instruments. Thus, a
little wooden vase contains a ballet-dancer, who
appears over the rim, dances to the music of a
concealed music-box, kisses her hand, and re-
tires without asking for applause.
Baby's chair is now a complicated piece of
mechanism. When the hopeful is placed upon
the cushion there is music, not from the baby,
but from the chair. The more the baby wrig-
gIeS Lle LOUDER Llo music, anu II DdDN R6GS u1-
easy and bowls, why, bless you, he or she learns
to cry becomingly, tremendously, as it were, to
the music. Rubber toys have increased to a
thousand different varieties of dolls, comic fig
ures, fancy heads, animals of every kind,
whistling balloons and balls.
The papier mache toys are of endless variety.
Comical fugres are thrown from boxes when the
lid is removed. They are noisy fellows that
play cymbals and turn somersaults. There are
acrobats who perform wonderful gymnaStic
faafc old oO14n1as vVhO d0Za in fhpir chairs only
to awake and wag their heads. The whistling
figures whistle vociferously either as birds, cat
tie or boys.
A novelty is an extensive array of skin-cov-
cred animals. Sheep. rats, goats, lambs and
horses are made and covered with the genuine
hair of those animals. They are likewise en-
dowed with remarkable automatic movements.
Engines and toy steamboats, run by steam are
with the rudiments of science of steam engineer
ing by a small expenditure of money. With his
mothers wash tub half filed with water he can
perform acts which Fulton worked years 20 ac-
complish, and Watts never saw after a life Of
effort entirely completed.
The engines in the steamboats, are of the sim
plest construction. Lamp-wicks fed with alcohol
furnish the heat, and they can be run by the
placing Of the tiller at an angle with The keel in
a circle around the tub or in a straight line.
A feature of the coming season will be an end
less variety of military goods for boys. Com
passes are now arranged as toys, and spy-glasses,
and kaleidoscopes are produced'in endless varie-
ty. Another new feature is a great variety of
magnetic toys. A boy may adopt any trade or
business and secure a toy outfit representative
of everything in the particular line in which he
proposes to engage. He may become a full
hedged grocer, circusman or expressman, milk
man, railway corporation, silversmith or proprie-
tor of haunted houses. He may own a complete
network of telegraph wires, with instrument and
real batteries, or he can own and manage a
Brooklyn bridge complete. He can convert him
self into a hunter and trapper in the Rocky
mountains, can become the superintendent Of
public schools, with school houses and all the
necessary apparatus, or run a theatre or an opera
house with a full set of famous actors and prime
dome. He can own an entire yacht club with
a fleet Of sail steam vessels.