Carnival Owners Assured of True Welcome and Purses,
Ravished by Greedy Officials, Replenished by Free-Spending Crowds That Annually Throng the State's Fair Grounds

By Carleton Collins

No appeal of the Old Dominion has more lure than that of Virginia's county and district fairs for the carnival man and woman. No other State beckons in late summer and early fall with the assurance of certain profits that are offered on the midways of nearly 100 fairgrounds from the tidewaters to the mountains.

The fairs are over this year and those men and women who reigned a few short weeks ago on the "Pleasure Trails" of the State have gone on, deeper into the Southland, but all of them are looking forward to the coming year and the coming fair when once against they'll be back in Old Virginia.

A county, district or State fair without a midway would be as dull as a wedding without a bride. Sometimes the midway has not been all it should be. Just the same it always has been and always will be an integral part of every fair whether it be the county exhibit at Chesterfield Courthouse or the State Exposition at Richmond.

The midway is not only an essential part of the fair from an entertainment standpoint but a very important financial adjunct. Without the carnival's payment for the midway concession, many an exposition would have passed down the halls of time and many a fairgrounds would have been plowed under for a tobacco field.

As the carnivals grew in size and financial stability they also grew in bitter rivalry and as competition became keener prices of midways went higher. It is nothing uncommon these days for the midway at a very ordinary fair to bring from $3,000 to 10,000. The carnival buys space at several fairs but finds itself with an open week and to fill that week will resort to unreasonable bids to shut out his rival caught in a similar predicament.

So with two or more carnivals bidding for his fair, Secretary John Smith can not be blamed if he takes all the tariff will bear. Yet in doing so, he frequently lets the patrons of his fair in for a terrific lot of headaches and trimmings, because the carnival owner knows he has paid too much for the midway and must charge his concessions, as will be explained, more than their privilege is worth.

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Without thought of the necessary entertainment value of the midway, the high prices it brings gives the carnival an important position in the budget of any fair. No other department can be counted on as a sure source of revenue. The admission tickets and the sale of grandstand seats often fall far short of meeting the expenses of the fair--the advertising, the premiums, the salaries, the purses for the race track and the cost of the acts in front of the grandstand. Especially is this true if it rains several days of the week but the carnival pays through the nose, rain or shine, and its money more times than not is the difference between a deficit and a profit.

The carnival owner, paying more than the midway is worth, overcharges the concessions for he is not going to assume the deficit his over-bidding promises. The average carnival seldom operates its games and eating stands. Some of them, but not many, own their riding devices and some of their shows, but in most cases these also are individually owned and booked by the carnival on a percentage basis, usually at fairs, 50-50. The concession space is sold at fairs on a footage basis, varying in accordance with the type of amusement that is to be operated.

The concession operator, because of the overcharge, is faced with a severe handicap at the very start.

And the concession operator passes the buck right on to the old reliable John Q. Public in the form of "gyp" games and "gaffed" (controlled) concessions. So in the final analysis, the "grifter" is not always to blame for the crooked devices in operation on fairground midways.

That sage of the tented world--the late lamented P. T. Barnum--spoke wisdom when he said "A sucker is born every minute." And in quite a few of those moments the operator of the crooked concession came into being. It has long been a moot question with those on the inside of the carnival business just who is the biggest sucker--the guy behind the crooked concession or the yokel in front wagering his money on the outcome of another man's game. The crooked concessionaire robs that part of the public foolish enough to play his game but himself is robbed of all he steals by the carnival owner and greedy public officials.

By the time the fair season opens, on which all carnival people look for their season's profit and winter bankroll, the concession man has been robbed so often he is lean and hungry and his clothes hang in tatters from his gaunt frame. It is little wonder then that he looks with longing eyes toward the mountains and plains of Virginia and licks his lips in anticipation of the fried chicken and hot biscuits that await him to atone for all the meals he postponed during the lean summer days.

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The fair season in Virginia, on what I would call (from a number of years of experience) the best circuit of all, usually opens at Marlinton, W. Va., a most inaccessible spot but one well worth the agonies of jerkwater branch railroad lines to reach. Marlinton, county seat of Pocahontas County is a small town with a big fair.

Generally held in the third week of August, the fairgrounds are green and the surrounding hillsides are verdant and beautiful. The track is hard and fast and the midway stretches in a long double line from the grandstand to the main gate.

The fair opens on Tuesday and closes on Saturday and in between there are two big days and three not so good but all in all it is a profitable stand for the carnival provided Dr. Wallace, the genial secretary, was not paid too much for the midway space.

Ronceverte, W. Va., is next and there is a county fair that comes closer to a State exposition than any this writer has ever seen in a great many years of wandering in and out of fairground gates.

The fairgrounds are located on a wide and rolling plateau, straight up a mountainside from Ronceverte and midway between that railroad town and Lewisburg, county seat of Greenbriar County. The equipment, including grandstand, stables, exhibit halls and track, is modern and the fair in every department is operated on a big time basis under the guiding hand of Messrs. Talbott, Sydenstricker and Boone. Assisting them, unofficially, is the population of Ronceverte and Lewisburg, led by the Blake brothers, with Ed, editor of the West Virginia News, in the van.

Transportation for the carnival equipment is the problem but despite that it is a profitable engagement for all concerned if the price paid for the midway is not too high--the Brothers Talbott, Sydenstricker and Boone cut their eye teeth some years ago and are not overlooking any bets when it comes to doing business with the foxy carnival booking agent.

Unloading the wagons from the flat cars down in Ronceverte and hauling them up the mountain is out of the question. So the flat cars are hooked behind an electric motor and taken up the street line that connects Lewisburg and Ronceverte.

This places the carnival owner at the mercy of the electric line and if Harry G. Melville, owner of the Nat Reiss Shows, was living he would probably say those owners of the electrical line are not always merciful.

In fact, most of the gray hairs you see in the heads of carnival owners came there while his entire assets were being towed up the mountain behind the dinky motor. William Glick, a Virginian of Petersburg and Richmond, can tell you about the time his cookhouse wagon tumbled off a flat car and rolled several miles down the mountain side into some other county.

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Frank West of Norfolk can tell you about the time one of his flat cars, loaded with the wagons carrying the heavy "whip," none of which weighed less than 12 tons, cut loose from the motor and came down the mountain to go into the express business at the foot of the hill when it struck and completely demolished the Railway Express Agency's office building at the end of the railroad platform.

Numerous times have flat cars been derailed on the sharp curves of the mountain railroad, for the cars are 70 and 72 feet long and the track was laid for ordinary trolley cars, but, fortunately, there has never been a fatal accident.

Staunton follows with a grand fall exposition that opens on Labor Day and the carnival people are always assured of the hearty welcome and complete co-operation from Charles B. Ralston, secretary of the fair. The midway and the Staunton fair are held on concurrent dates but entirely apart otherwise. They are separated by an infield studded with growing flowers and green grass. In the center is an artifical lake that becomes amazingly beautiful at night when it reflects all the lights of the midway, on one side, and the grandstand and fair building on the other. Especially is it beautiful at the fire works displays when the rockets and star pieces are seen both in the air and in the waters of the lake.

Ralston gives his patrons all they could wish for in the way of a grandstand show, and in the races that are features, but he times his grandstand attractions so that the midway also gets a crack at the crowds and it is Profitable Week No. 3.

In the glorious days of Volsteadism, when liquor drinking was an art, showfolks looked forward to Staunton not only for the certain profits that awaited them there but for the most excellent brand of Shenandoah Valley applejack over which mortal man every smacked a lip.

Covington follows Staunton and, like Danville and Lexington, had no race track but excellent farm exhibits and free act programs. In fact the absence of the race track at Covington, Danville and Lexington is an asset to the carnival because there are no dull hours during time for the races when the crowds are watching the trotters and pacers do their stuff.

Danville is one of the best fairs in the State from the standpoint of spending crowds. Lexington also provides spending crowds but lucky is that carnival owner who gets through the week there without a taste of the "playfulness" of undergraduate Generals and Cadets.

Up the branch railroad from Danville is a Henry County Fair, at Martinsville, a small fair but one backed by considerable local pride. However, no Virginia fair surpasses Marion--Smyth County Fair--in point of local pride and interest. Like Ronceverte, every man, woman and child, every cat, dog and chicken, is behind the Marion Fair and it is, therefore, one of the best of the smaller fairs in the entire State.

Lynchburg and Roanoke are on a par, second to Richmond and ahead of Norfolk in attendance, interest and midway profit. Roanoke, in fact, will run Richmond a close second for midway honors. Colonel Frank Lovelock makes up for the smaller profit at Lynchburg by his geniality.

Naturally, not all Virginia fairs are hooked together in a circuit for several of them will be underway in the same week. For instance Marion, Norfolk and Staunton are usually held the first week in September. Galax and Covington have corresponding dates.

But getting back to the crooked concessions, which occasionally crop up at all these fairs, it is partly the fault of the fair association and the local law official that games are so frequently operated at which the player has no chance to win.

Virginia, so this writer has been told, has a State law permitting so-called "wheels of fortune" at bonafide fairs and expositions. However, local laws often conflict and are allowed to supercede the State statutes. Chiefs of police, and prosecutors, frequently make arbitrary rulings banning the wheels under the general designation that they are gambling devices.

Wheels of fortunes, so-called, are those concessions at which a wheel is turned to designate the prize winner, the prize going to the players of the number on which the wheel stops. Of course, it is gambling. So is it gambling to bet a broker that a certain stock will go up or down--and so-far no wheels of fortune have made a New Deal necessary. Though the wheel be gambling, it's fair gambling and without it fairs would indeed be dull. Substitutes never offer the appeal of the wheel with the result that fewer players are interested and fewer prizes are won.

A merchandise wheel, that is, a game that distributes as prizes blankets, dolls, novelties, groceries or any kind of merchandise, is nothing more or less than a sales device. The wheel is spaced to give the owner a percentage of profit and the more merchandise he gives away the greater is his revenue and therefore his profits are also greater. A blanket wheel, for example, is spaced to bring the operator about $3.50 for every blanket that goes out. The average cost of the blankets are about $3 wholesale.

In fact, operators of merchandise wheels prefer to lose. They are making a profit on each piece of merchandise that goes out as a prize and the more merchandise they hand over their counter the better advertised their game is and the more they take in. At such fairs as Ronceverte, Staunton, Lychburg, Martinsville, Marion, Galax and Danville one will see a crowded midway with almost every person carrying a piece of merchandise he or she has won at some wheel. That means the wheels are making a profit and everyone is satisfied.

But at Roanake and Richmond, where wheels are not permitted, one seldom sees merchandise in the hands of the midway visitors because the "science and skill" games forced on the midway by police officers more zealous than wise can not be out-guessed or out-lucked so easily as the merchandise wheels and offer, besides, a great temptation to the operator to "cheat" and there are but few of them that can not be controlled.

It might also be noted that the police of those cities permitting the operation of wheels have fewer complaints of swindling than those of the cities holding the midway to so-called "science and skill" and electric flashers.

The wheels are gambling but the other type of games are far from gambling, for in gambling it is conceded the player has a chance to win. In the "science and skill" games all element of chance has been carefully eliminated. But just the same Virginia, with all the handicaps of censorship, will still be the mecca to which all good followers of the tented caravan look forward to with hope and expectation and they are seldom disappointed.