Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1902-10-21
coNEY ISLANDS TIP UP.


nation Of Ferris Wheel and reeter
Every year Coney Island offers to
the public something new IN the lins
of "a startling sensation, says the New
York Tribune. Year before last it
was the Zip flap" andlast yearit was
a different application Of tie same
principle, called loop The loop" Be-
fore that it was "shoot the chutes"
and yet further back in the past the
roller toboggan Still further back
there wasa grating merry-go-round,
called the "razzle dazzle" and away
back in the dim long ago the ele-
plant, while older even than this was
the elevator tower.
Coney Islands inventive genius is
nothing if it is not cumulative. A
good thing is kept going until it ut
terly ceases to draw a crowd. The
tower, the "razzle DAZZLE" the
"chutes," the Flip flap and the loop
have all survived the stage ofnovelty.
They have become Coney Island sta
pies. They win the ready shekels of
New Workers year out and year in,
whatever else comes. The elephant
never paid, and the conAagration in
which hcperished was godsend to the
owner. All hair-raising devices are
moneymakers. The more wildly, the
more delriously diabolical they are,
the better they pay Each new thing
that stands the public on its head
and makes it a worse kind Of speeta-
Gle is called in the expressive Ian
guage of the Coney Islanders, "the
sensation"
This years sensation has been the
"tip up" The machine is a combina-
ton of twin Ferris wheels with an
elaborate teeter. 1t acleverly con-
structed piece of mechanism, we'll
calculated to excite the admiration of
engineers, architects and structural
steel specialists, to scare the life out
of girls who delight to rely on a
strong arm in emergencies, and to
make babies crow in ecstasy. The
wheels, to which four cars are at
tached, Ferris fashion, are about 40
feet in diameter, and are pivoted at
the ends of the tecter board, which is
a steel truss over $50 feet long, swing
ing at the center on a steel tower so
feet high. One end of the enormous
beam tips up and its wheel goes
round, while the wheel at the oppo-
site end stops as it goes down. When
it reaches the stage at the bottom the
people in the lower car get out, if
business is good other people get in,
the wheel turns a quarter Of its cir
conference, and the same operation
is repeated for that car, and afterward
for each Of the two Others. All this
while the other wheel, about a hun
dred feet in the air, is slowly revolv-
ing, but when its mate is ready to go
'up it stops and accommodatingly
comes down. tits claimed that mix
ing the two kinds of horror makes a
blend that the most blase Coney Is
lander cannot resist. The oldest and
most inveterate shooter of the chutes
and looper Of the loops cannot be
tipped up.without a genuine sense Of
novelty and a conyulsive thrill of ex-
element. The machine is to beop-
Grated by electric power generated
on the premises, and the money will
be refunded to anybody who, at the
close of his life, can conscientiously
say that he regretted having taken
the ride
When the amount OF time in which
to think it over calmly and deliber-
ately is considered, the'generosity Of
the owners Of the Tip up" cannot fail
to be appreciated. Itshows that they
believe implicitly in the excellence
Of their new amusement.