The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-16
Diversions at Coney Island
BY FRANKLIN FYLEs.

draw near the bottOmless pit, you see
lurid glare ahead, and hear a con-
fused sound of means and outcries-
Then the night or hellisb portion OF
Might and Morning" ends suddenly in
the daybreak of heavenly morning. The
graveyard into which you have come
is transformed into a garden of pleas
ant music and prismatic fountains. OF
all the tOmbstones only one remains,
that of cross with a girl clinging 10
it, as in the familiar picture of The
Rock of. Ages" An angel descends with
a wreath to crown the girl, and that's
all This way out" cries a mortal
voice. and you find yourself in Coney
Island crowd again.
x X
Nothing st Coney Island strikes me
as stranger than the popular enjoy
ment of discomforts. 1t may be that
pleasurabla excitement from vicis-
STUDIES of transit in nimicry is as rea-
sonab bic as IL is in real travel, and so
it may be no wonder that the multi
tudes take TO the gravity railways, that
are graded this summer sleeper than
even before; to the boats that dash
into sea water from higher and longer
chutes; to the numerous variations OF
the caTrousel. up in air as well as on
the ground; and to all the trips over
mountains. under oceans and through
air that, in many cases, are ingenious
ly picturesque. Acre after acre is Oc-
cupied by these contrivances; they
range from the simplest merry-go-
round to the once amazing loOp-the-
loop. and are remarkable for their great
aggregation rather than separately, as
! they are now to be found in summer
! resorts throughout the country
| But what puzzles me is the readiness
of people TO be jolted and bumped for
| fun The distinct sections of the ISL
| and, Luna Park, Dreamland. Brighton
and Steeplechase park, as well as the
streets filled by Individual showmen,
offer new nerve-shakers and dignity
| destroyers among the hundreds of old
ones. The Separator is a variant of
last seasons Bumpty Bumps, in which
you slid down a lumpy surface and
was dumped at the bottom. You start
now hand in hand with your girl, and
/ you strike snag that separates you
! from your deary; and the rest of her
| glide being sleeper than yours, you are
thrown in a heap with another girl ct
the end. The MOllycOddle is an adap-
tation of the old maze of mirrors. in
/ which you met yourself singly. or in
| platOons, at every turn, and finally had
/ to be shown your way out. You are
put into a boat on a miniature lake
surrounded by mirrors set at different
angles, so that your craft gets involved
| in lot of duplicates. and you are fain
/ to call for a navigator who knows how
/ to steer you back to the landing.
/ The Human Roulette Wheel is a fiat
| table, spacious enough to hold a score
| of persons at once: and around the
| edges are numbered pockets. like those
of a roulette layout, but larger The
! table is set going slowly, and for a
I xx-,i Ia q a IN hpi
poise; but steadily the revolutions are
| accelerated until they are so rapid
| that one after another. the riders can't
stand. and are cast off by centrifugal
| force into the padded pockets Accord
| ing as these receptacles are umbered
or blank, the person gets, or doesnt t.
| some free goes at the game, This is
! thus far the most captivating of the
novelties; for it entertains the specta-
/ tors as we'll as the participants: but
it is a rough game, that has to be UNI
pired strictly, and some day there 5
going to be a football sort of a struggle
among the players with damages.
X X X
A summer marked-down cut-price.
bargain sale of assorted sensations is
on at one of the establishments on de-
partment store methods. Twenty-one
enlivening experiences are offered for
q
! got my dollars worth. not by taking
all that was coming TO me, but by
watching others do some of 1t. They
chuted and toboganned, they coasted
over the Alps and boated through Ven
| ice they had a choice of rides on a
pony, a camel a donkey or an ele-
plant; they went through hell ard
| heaven. they CiTcled in an aerial whrl-
i-gig and fioated in a Hellgate mael-
strOm; they went into such sideshows
as Ten Minutes of 'SalOme' and
The Great Train Robbery" i'm moving
pictures; they jOurneyed TO the north
pole and to the moon; they saw an
ocean ship wrecked by a waterspOut
cyclone; and / shall describe several Of
these things from the dollar bag OF
| tricks in next Sundays letter.
X X X
| But 7 will round up the subject of
devilments for diversion by telling
about the Wiggle- Woggle. a new piece
of foolery included in the dollar bunch.
Do you remember the planchette which
a dozen years ago. was put forth as an
instrument with which the living got
messages from the dead 1t was flat
triangle of wood, with a tOggle-j Ointed
| wheel at two cOrnG%~, and a pencil al
the third. 1t was operated by touching
| it with the tips of the fingers, and if
! you were a potent spiritualistic medi-
UNI, or q person Of sensitive fancy, or an
| arrant fraud the pencil wrote out