Unused Reservoir Serves as Dance Hall.

The leading feature of a municipal picnic given by a city in Ohio was a dance in which the basin of an unused water reservoir was pressed into service as a dance hall. The concrete floor served admirably for the purpose and furnished all the space needed by the hundreds of dancers.

THE WAR’S INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN TOYS

Political conditions and social changes have for centuries reflected themselves in children’s toys and games, just as they have influenced the dress, art, and literature of nations. It is not surprising therefore that this year the American boy’s Christmas playthings bear conspicuously the stamp of Europe’s conflict. A greater variety of military and naval toys is now afforded than ever before, both because of the status of affairs abroad and the striking changes in modern warfare and its instruments of destruction.

There is hardly a new war tool of importance which has not to some degree furnished a pattern for a child’s bauble. A miniature battleship unequipped with wireless aerials or a complement of flying boats cannot be called modern. The air rifle which is without a blunted bayonet and a shoulder sling is obviously not designed for mimic hostilities. A cannon which fires only one wooden projectile at a time is at a disadvantage, for quick fire and machine guns are now used in bombarding pasteboard forts and combating pigmy soldiers. These individuals have also undergone a radical change. They have developed into animated dolls fully attired in field uniforms and fitted with haversacks, cartridge belts, and rifles. They walk about with military pomp and clatter, instead of remaining quietly in the places they are set.

Thus the toy makers of both the old world and of America, who are the ordnance manufacturers for the youngsters’ military forces, have kept astride with the Krupp, Schneider, and Bethlehem designers. Regardless of whether battles are fought from the bomb-proofed trenches in France, across a parlor floor, or in a bathtub, the exigencies of war are met with the latest implements. A few years ago a boy built his fort with block, inserted pencils in loopholes to serve as guns, and provided the “booms” with his own lungs. The contrast between the war equipments of that lad and the boy of today is just as great as that of the fighting tools used in the Rebellion and those employed now. There are elaborate papier-mache fortifications with disappearing guns that operate electronically and flash when they discharge. These may be fitted with toy radio plants and connected by electric railways over which troops and munitions can be transported from different parts of a room. If a boy’s soldiers are attacking a fort, they have artillery batteries to cover their advance and siege guns to batter the stronghold. — Searl Hendee, in December Popular Mechanic Magazine.