AKNUAL MEETING. 101 



some of the members of the Board said I could not sell five hun- 

 dred dollars' worth of privileges at the State Fair and collect the 

 money in advance. I did sell over three thousand dollars of privi- 

 leges, and since then they have concluded that these fellows have 

 the money and that we can get it before we let them in. The idea 

 with the privilege people is this: If they can get on your fair 

 ground and have until say Thursday to pay, and have good days 

 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and find on Thursday or Friday 

 mornings that it is likely to rain or be an unpleasant day, they 

 will get away without paying for the balance of the week. Last 

 fall before the fair closed I had applications for $1,200 of priv- 

 ileges, and these people were all willing to make twenty per cent, 

 of the payment in cash to reserve certain places. Take the score 

 card privilege. Every fair needs a score card. The people who 

 go to see the races can not take a proper interest unless they have 

 a score card. Suppose a man pays half the price for the privilege 

 in advance, and when fair time comes he says he has not got the 

 money for the balance, then it is too late to get anyone else to get 

 it out. That is one of the privileges for which I always get all 

 the money in advance. 



Mr. Blackstock : What is customary over the State ? Is it not 

 generally the rule that one-half the privilege money is paid in 

 advance 



Mr. Fitch: I have not had charge of the privileges in our 

 county, but I have examined the permit books, and I find that 

 most of them pay about 20 per cent, in advance and the balance 

 as they make it, probably by Wednesday night, and probably it is 

 not paid at all. In our circuit they usually start in rather mild, 

 and in the first county pay pretty well, but it gets worse all the 

 way through the circuit, until at the last we hardly get anything 

 out of them. We collected $324 out of $500 which should have 

 been collected. It was considered a wide-open fair. There is no 

 need of having a wide-open fair. The best fair is one where you 



