The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-11-10

" porcelain plates. Inc WHOM STU"
gets you guessing, you know it is done by
mirrors, but where are the mirrors, and
you wonder what would have been the
fate Of the manager of this show had he
pitched his tent in Salem, Mass, in the
days of witchcraft.
Everybody is spending money and OF
course is in a good humor. Out at the
Fair grounds it is 5 per cent exhibits and
95 per cent side shows. or collateral enter
tainment. Long before you. reach the
grounds you hear the terrible blood
curdIing believing Of some new species
of wild beast. So i%ncessant, so vol
umnous, so ferocious is this roar
that when you are once inside the
grounds you are irresistibly drawn
toward the source ofSuch a hidcouS noise.
When you arrive you are by no means
treasured that the whole Fair grounds is
not in danger of being chewed up and
swallowed whole. What do you see? Why
several men with log hooks, cant hooks,
and similar weapons, brandishing them at
some monster the which you cannot see,
while another man is raising and lowering
an immense beef bone just over where the
monster is. Or course you will pay 5 cents
to see anything under the sun that can
make a noise like that, and so you enter.
The show proves to be well worth the
money. All that deafening, blood curdling
below comes from a bucket with a raw
hide bottom at one end and a blooming
boy at the other, who grins and cackles at
your being sold, in pure unauthorized
delight.
Further down the line is another show
making more noise than any n show Is
entitled to make, and out of curiosity you
again spend a dime. Mounting the steps
there comes in view an umbrella shaped
platform. The thing looks like a large
inverted doodle hole. 1t is made of oak
and is slick as glass. ALI around 1t is
another platform inclined upward from
the center. All aboard! You crawl out
on the thing gingerly and take a seat near
the center. Presently the big inverted
doodle hole on which you are seated be-
gins to revolve. Faster and faster it goes
and presently you feel that you are going
to slip off unless you can hold to m
thing, but nothing is there, so you try to
stick with your hands. A little faster and
you are slipping off! One foot and you
are sliding gently; two feet, and you are
going some; four feet, and you are flying;
eight feet and you go like a shot out OF a
gun. like q stone from a catapult, to land
you know not where. You set your
triggers to land in a dignified I'M
but you land spralling, feet UP and head
in the ditch and from the impetus you
received from the centrifugal force Of the
machine you wonder why you didn't land
several rods further Now, look who
comes, several girls have decided to take
a ride. On they go, and you restrain a
snigger with difficulty. The machine
starts, it gets faster, look at the girls try
ing to clutch the platform with their
hands, look, they are slipping, oh no, turn
your head away, don't look for PHYS sake
And so the merry round goes. The
Hoochi Coochi is there with its bombooz-
ling %tambourine and pipe song and its
spangled dancers.
The wild and woody West show shows
how the Indians robbed the stage coach,
how the men and women Of the West can
shoot, ride, and throw the ~lairiat, how the
horse thief is treated in Oklahoma ect.
Noor1xy oil Tho oofflo nnno ora full hnnC
sheep, COWS of all breeds are on exhibition.
Clemson College has a little pig on ex-
hibition that weighs 1926 pounds. This
little pigs actual value in meat is over
5000.
Barre rocks, Buff Orpingtons, Games,
Bantams, Leghorns. and many other
varieties Of chicken are on exhibition,
Orpingtons in the majority.
One OF the features of the fair is the
number and variety Of machinery run by
gasoline. Dozens Of engines are running.
Some pulling corn mills, some operating
saw mills, others running alone.
The Agricultural exhibit you have seen
many times before, but you catch your
self making the rounds again, gazing at
pumpkins large as a nail keg, turnips that
look like tree roots, beets big as a barrel,
and squashes over a yard long. There are
second growth watermelons, ripened in
sixty days, sugar cane by wholesale, pota-
toes, onions, cabbage, beans, peas, every
thing.
Thirteen guns boom out, Taft comes,
and you get in the push" He wears
that same smile you have seen in the
pictures of him.
1t is easy to see that he is bubbling over
with good nature and you are glad of that
much any way. He proceeds to fulfil the
bouquets. He tlingsa choice bunch to the
women across the way on the grand stand
from whom he S separated by some four
or five thousand men by saying that he
does not like to be so near to those who
think they rule and so far away from
those who actually rule. And so it is, one
bouquet after another. He couples E. D.
Smiths nam and Is cents cotton, says
that he himself is an urban product and
can claim none of the honor, and delegates
his share to Ed. !
Taft is a great man and a big man. He
is a whopper physically and a giant in
tellectually. During his stay in Columbia
he made three Or more speeches, one Of
them from the porch Of the home Of the
President, of the University. Some
young scion drew in chalk, tracks on the
brick walk that in size might have be-