Popular Science Montlily 



719 



tlic Icvcr "flops" tlic deposit siraijjlil\va\' 

 into llu- hank, a holo liukil\- lia\iiii,' been 

 rut in the front door at a cunxenienl 

 |)()int to permit this hurried entrance of 

 tile coin. No deposit slips are needed. 

 The b;\nk will as readily accept a trouser's 

 button or any other flat round object 

 as it will a coin. However, the con- 

 trivance has enough action to adequately 

 salisf\- all demands made by a \outhful 

 banker. The interior mechanism of the 

 bank is much the same as that of the dog 

 kennel. 



In a third toy 

 the loud report 

 from a gun actu- 

 ates the mech- 

 anism. The ma- 

 chinery is con- 

 tained within a 

 box from the side of 

 which projects a bent 

 piece of heavy wire 

 serving as a perch 

 for a small stuffed 

 bird about the size of 

 ;'. canary. The owner 

 of the toy plays 

 sharpshooter. By his 

 accurate marksman- 

 ship he causes the bird to depart this life. 

 The weapon with which he is equipped 

 is a deadly "pop-gun," which fires the 

 usual cork projectile, tethered to the gun- 

 1 >arrel with a string. Standing otT several 

 feet from his pre\-, the young sharp- 

 shooter takes careful aim. Bang! Off 

 falls the bird from his perch, theoretically 

 shot dead. It even matters not that the 

 cork could go no further than the yard 

 or two of limiting string; the bird is 

 "shot" just the same. Likewise (and 

 whisper it!) the marksman can even 

 point the gun at his own head instead of 

 at the prey; yet the bird on the other 



Whistle a tune 

 into the trans- 

 mitterandChar- 

 lie will dance 



BATTIRT 



side of the room falls off its perch pre- 

 cisely as before. The explanation is that 

 the sound from the gun has affected a 

 form of telephone transmitter as it did 

 in the other toys. here, howexer, result- 

 ing in a jiggling of the bird's perch, caus- 

 ing it to lose its equilibrium and to 

 fall off. 



In the fourth contrivance a dummy 

 figure is made to dance a jig in response 

 to a tune whistled or sung. Details of 

 the toy's workings are explained in the 

 drawing. Because whist led or vocal sounds 

 are more delicate than the 

 noise produced by clapping 

 hands or the 

 shooting of a 

 gun, it is neces- 

 sary' in this toy 

 to insert a relay 

 in the telephone 

 transmitter cir- 

 cuit. The trans- 

 mitter works the 

 relay and the re- 

 lay controls the 

 dancing. In the 

 other toys the 

 transmitter is 

 directly con- 

 trolled. The diimm>- produces a variety 

 of weird steps from a Charlie Chaplin 

 shufifle to an old-fashioned Negro "hoe- 

 down" dance. 



The application of the principle is only 

 limited by the imagination and ingenuity 

 of the inventors and manufacturers. It 

 will be a great relief to Santa Claus to 

 find that he is to recei\e this kind of help 

 in his tt)y-making; for the poor old fel- 

 low has been sadh- pcrpkxed during re- 

 cent years by the precocious brand of 

 twentieth century youngsters, who are 

 constantly demanding something differ- 

 ent and preferably something capable of 

 energetic and more or less spontaneous 

 action, as in the electromagnetic toys. 



The bird never fails 

 to fall off. It is the 

 "bang" and not the 

 shot that theoretically 

 kills him. For in- 

 stance, point the gun 

 at yourself and he will 

 fall off just the same 



