New Britain herald., 1924-11-01
TIE OBSER VER Makes Random Observations
 On the City and Its People

commerciSlizing football are with out n proper appreciation of what attracts a football crowd. Of tho thousands who attend games in the Yale Bowl, small percentage kno~s anything about football or wants to know anything about 1t.
 The actual game is the least im- portant part of 1t. in the opinion of great many spectators. Some go because they want thrill, others because they want to be able to say they attended, still others because they like the colorful assembly and the hurrah stuff that accompanies 1t.
 In every human being there is subconscious desire to let loose pent up emotions. Some get ria of 1t by watching prize fight, the high brow by attending grand opera and the low brow by beating his wife. It's in all of us and 1t must come out. So we troop off to the bowl, nerv- ously excited over the prospect of witnessing q combat between giants and soon after the game starts be- come frenzicd fanatics. shouting er- couragement or hoarse warnings of impending disaster and skipping opr neighbors on the back or punching them on the nose, depending on whether opinions jihe or clash.
 From time immcmoral human bipeds have sought valve through will be recalled that tho Romans uscd to assemble and watch gladia- tors make what we now call ham burg steak of each other. This is simply another example of that sub conscious search for the valve which must be opened occasionally If the race is 10 escape destruction by in- ternal combustion. Times change but men do not change. Football field or Roman amphi-theater-the spectators are the same, only a few centuries removed,
 The boothlacking business must be comfortably in the ditch. It's rather courageous to publicly pronounce a particular business as being on a low round Of prosperity. especially when a republican administration is in power; but we cannot come to any other conclusion after meeting with a horde Of youngsters anxious to provide a Shine for nickel' every time We wcnd our way across the well known center.
 It is quite useless to attempt to dodge them. They are there. and if the cryptic mo- is banded toward one of their numbers, it only means that the same word has to be ut tered fronsthree to six times later before the end of the green is reached.
 Naturally. it is difficult to con- cludc that the bootblacking business in the regular establishments which llT1lSu ktdlS, IlSllt li'tl anu iNN' ing matter while the shoe shine is being applied. can prosper as might fly while this sort of unchecked com- petition is in force. Ask any of the proprietors of such establishments and they will tell you that the city is terribly wrong in permitting mere boys to turn into such big competi- tors. They pay no rent and pay no taxes, one will be told, and worse than anything else, they cut prices 10 point that makes a shoe shine cost no more than it did before the 1 war.
 The youngsters side of the story is equally Illuminating. We asked one recently as to "how is business" which the intelkentsia will admit is one of the regulation modes Of salutation that every prosperous citizen has the privilege Of asking another prosperous citizen. But the shoe shining Rabbit didn't think much of business. The only possb Q way 10 improve buslress, me young stcr intimatcd. was to bring about a way 10 limit the number of boys In the business. "Too many of 'cm. and not enough nickels to go round, " this shoc-shining business boy opned; and we were inclined to agree with him on seeing the other two dozen sinners shining around. Between the army of shoeshiners and the nearly as numerous total of men who sit on the cold stone walls | surrounding the monument the cen- ter during nice weather always looks l as well populated as a sound beach In the good old summer time. The city furnishes no park benches for
 the little park, evidently fearing that 1 undesirable somchodies might mon-
 orolize them all day 10 the exclu-
 sion of more desirable occupancy: