New Britain herald., 1924-05-02
SCORES FROM U. 5.
 ATTENDED BIG FAIR.
Many Americans Visit Leipzig
 Carnival

Washington. D. c. May 2.-scores
 Of American merchants recently at. tended the annual worlds fair" al Leipzig.
 Exceeded in commercial import ance and population in Germany only by Berlin. Hamburg and Munich
 Leipzig is a living memorial to the value of good roads, says bulletin from the National Geographic Society at Washington, D. c. "The world has
 made many paths to Leipzig's door but the Leipzig philosophy proclaims that good road-work on the paths keeps the world coming.
 .Even as herds of buffalo, deer and other anlnials came regularly to salt licks, primitive man found that prac- tically the only need which would take him out of his own valley was salt. Halle, also in Saxony, was source of salt and osme of the earliest Ger man merchants passed through the tiny Savic fishing village, Leigzig, on their way to Halle a few miles dis tant to get salt.
 Good Roads Brought Business.
 sAt . date too early to record. the sNotary' club of Leipzig decided that . good road between Leipzig and Halle would make more merchants go through Leipzig. Thus the little vil- lage in the broad flat plain, devoid of natural strategic aids. made itself . junction point and outstripped its neighbor villages. Descendants of that early Rotary club completed a union railroad station in Leipzig in 1913 that has a facade 1000 feet long.
 "Right now Leipzig is a discourag- cd town. This year 1t planned a great 'normalcy' fair. More than a7o,oo0 people attended the fair. but sAlss were weak. Prices too high,' rid merchants from America, Persia, England. China-merchants from everywhere. So the toymakers from Nuremberg and Thuringia, who stout ly maintain that the children of the world invariably prefer German toys. went sadly home with scant orders. The Leipzig fair to the commercial world is an event--to Germany a na- nonai crisis.
 Nevertheless, certain old reliable buyers appeared at the fair. this year for the first time since the war and this was the silver lining for Leipzig. Since 1918 most of the buyers have been sharpers trying to profit on the fluctuating mark. Next year. says Leipzig. that's the year. The United 0tsA loa S1 x.-ltl l, the Leipzig fair. Nearest it, probably is q great New York skyscraper where . buyer can outfit hotel completely from table silver to ham and bell boys uniforms.
 Fairs In the V. s. A.
 "Falrs in the United States ordin- arily mean blooded stock competi- tions. cooking and sewing competi- tons. horse races and bally-hooing on midway. The word originally referred to Roman religious festival and even now in Europe fair days frequently fall near the religious holidays: Lack ing communications, medieval mer- chants made their church duties serve their worldly welfare by transacting business while attending church fes- tivals. The need to see purchases diminished with the coming of print ing and the railroad. so modern times have seen the decline of the great Nizhni Novgoroo fair and the Beau caire fair. of France. Only the Leip- zig fair has stood its ground. It adapted itself by devoting it's fair to those products which 1t still is neces- sary to see before purchasing, notably toys. leather and furs.
 Leipzig. like Berlin. Vienna and | other European cities. has added va riety 10 the swords-into -ploughshares legend by raging its old battlements | Into boulevards. Its Ring-Strasse, built where where grim walls rose once, surrounds the old city in the | center of which is the fair market. | To the east is the fine Book Exchange building which annually attracts hum dreds of publishers. Leipzig is the publishing center of Germany, more than 500 periodicals emanating from this town. That it is also a publish Ing center for all Europe is seen in the fact that 11,000 publishers have in Leipzig.
 "on the edge of town, almost on The battle site where Nspoleon's de- feat in the Battle of Nations foreshad- owed Waterloo, is Leipzig University, ! leading German educational institu- Hon. Many Americans have studied medicine and other subjects in these