The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-03-31
JOKE INVENTOR
 SAYS MILLIONS
 AWAITS BIG IDEA
Some One With April 1 Sug gestion Bound to Make
 Fortune, He Says.

I
 always sends you a letter with a rub
 Der band or wire spring inside just
 to make you start and spill the coffee
 when at the breakfast table on April | 1, or who, failing to enlist the services 1 of the United States Mail, calls in per son and offers you a nice cigar-you know, the kind that blows up when you've smoked it half way-is doing his April fool shopping early this sea- son. He has visited Ann street and found it in high state of prepared ness. The Ann Street Novelty Shop, hard by Max's Busy Bee lunch place, is at his service with a, fine line of new April Fool tricks.
 At leastg that is what the sign says that hangs in the window. Just when novelty grows up and ceases to be novelty is something that scientists have yet to determine. It is a matter that doesn't concern Ann street. In that mart of trade a novelty is always 8 novelty so long as there are buyers, and there win always be a / fine new
 ine'' of April Fool tricks so long as the law permits sign painters to con, duet their art on say-what-you- please basis.
 If the truth-first to Iast-must be tolG, you may take from no less an au- thority than George Stivers, the man who made the @How Would You Like to Be the Ice Man novelty famous, and has since reigned as Ann streets leading novelty promoter, that there really isn't any. new stuff in the April Fool line this season. It's just awful, St1vers says, the way the war has stop ped the production of April Fool nov elites. Europe hasn't sent us a thing, and materials over here are so high that it doesn't pay to manufacture them at home. Besides. even if the materials could be got, there's little that Ann street could do with them because of a dearth of the inventive fnstipct-which may. OF may not be due to the war. The men of ideas the geniusess as Stivers calls them, are either all gone to the front or have retired on fortunes amassed from the nickeIs and dimes that the public Slav- ished upia their past triunphs.
 Genius remarked the inventor of the How-Would- u-Iike-to-Be-th IceMan? novelty-you remember, it was "a pair of miniature ice tongs clucth a piece of glass, to be worn in the buttonhoie of one's coat Genius; there never was time when we need edit as we do now. There's a fortune waiting for the man who gives Ann street a new idea. I'd do it myself on1y----'' '' And here the greatest genius of them all seemed to be re- vea1ing some deep. hidden sorrow HonIy, the big ideas don't come more than once or twice in a lifetime
 And there you have a first-hand confession of a man whose reputation and fortune were made within forty eight hours after the ice-rnan novelty rose up in his mind. Stivers says he must have been inspired to have thought the thing out all by himself like that. In a. flash his idea was being 4perpetuated in thousands of icez man novelties that sold like hot-cakes on the street at ten cents apiece, though they cost only two and one half cents to make.sA It was one of the fastest selling novelties on record4
 That forty-eight-ho triumph was cited by Stivers today,snot so@ much in a boastfuI spirit as in order. to show that there was still llstirne for some budl
 make a name-and a fortune-for; himself on April l.. All that is lack ing is the idea Ann street will do the rest
 Meanwhile, the Ann Street Novelty Shop pins it's faith to the sign in the window. The fine new line of April Fool tricks has been brushed off and placed attractively on the show-coun- ters, and if any one thinks that the war or the 1amentabIe lack of genius is going to spoil the day when all fools hold high carnival. one visit to the shop will convince him of his mistake. It is a well established fact that there's no fool like an old one,E and apparent- ly B. Feldman, proprietor-of the Ann Street Novelty Shop, believes in apply ing that principle to novelties, The old favorites are arrayed in all their glory
 There is the cigar butt with the realistic half-ineh imitation ash and the suggestion of fire within. This, I according to Feldman, is just ssfor a good joke on the wife, the idea being that the most devoted of husbands will enjoy aj hearty laugh when his helprneet mistakes the five-cent nov city for the real thing.
 tEHe should leave it lay on the table, v understand explained Feldman confidential1y. ESQ the wife should think it was burning a hole in the cloth. Get me ?''
 A similar source of rnerriment (price five cents) is to be had in the April Fool ink bottle, one of B. Fe1d- mans best sellers. With each bottle goes a shiny black disk of tin that fits into the neck and looks like spilled ink when the bottle is tipped over. It takes only husband, wife, and clean tab Iecloths to make this novelty successful, Feidnan says.
 The old reliable diamond ring that squirts a stream; of water at the per son who looks at it is again in great demand, while the number of finger bandages stained with red ink is said to be larger than ever. Imitation $1oO bills are also very popular. - For those who prefer to do their April merrymaking by mail the Ann Street Novelty, Shop has a special s1ine.' of stamped envelopes contain ing a sheet folded about a rubber band and a piece of wire. You open the 1 envelope, unfold the sheet! and the 1 wire untwists itself with a sudden, sharp rattle calculated to make you jump. Stung-that's one on you,'' reads the letter.
 'tJust for a comic joke,'' explained F'eldman. Som ething funny, y'under- i stand.'.
 Another novelty which Feldman in-