been financial failures, have gone broke, have not made running expenses. Considering the donated, non-returnable capital, few lines of business enterprise can show so dismal a record as the big fairs.

Take a reminiscent look at recent exposition history. Chicago, greatest of them all, did wonderfully well. The White City paid operating expenses and left enough to give the stockholders about $47,000 of the twenty millions they had donated. The State of New York had the honor of paying the deficit when the gates of Buffalo's exposition closed. St. Louis developed an early and lasting deficit; the federal government had to use the financial pulmotor at Jamestown. Seattle and Portland succeeded in breaking even. And Omaha, largely because its capital stock consisted of contributions totaling only $292,000, accomplished a miracle.

When its fair closed, the directors found enough money in the treasury to enable them to pay the stockholders 98 per cent of their donations. But the directors did not. Carried away by enthusiasm, they kept the exposition intact and reopened it the following spring. Still, wisdom had not entirely surrendered her throne. They kept the fair open the second season only until the first season's profit was all gone. Then they abruptly banged the gates.

An exposition has two sources of revenue, to wit: gate receipts and percentages on the takings of the concessionaires. This leaves out of consideration the cash bonus paid by many concessionaires for the exclusive privilege of selling a certain article on the grounds. It is in these cash bonuses that the hope which springs eternal in the human breast shows itself at its springiest. In that de

lirious period before an exposition opens, when everybody in the exposition city devises an infallible scheme to herd the visitors' dollars into his own corral, when the natives move to cheaper quarters to escape the rising rents, and wholesalers cannot fill the demand for cots and extra blankets, in this glorious period the prospective profit to be derived from the exclusive sale of peanuts, portraits, pennants, programs, or poodle pups, grows and increases like the Petrograd reports of the latest Russian victory. Men grow wild with the hope of sudden exposition wealth; they bid against one another, offer every penny their friends can spare for a golden monopoly. The peanut and ice cream concessions at the comparatively small San Diego Exposition, for

instance, brought a bonus of $10,000 cash plus a quarter of the concessionaire's gross receipts. The view book and post card concession at San Francisco is said to have been sold for $15,000 and a share of the revenue. The privilege of selling the "hot dogs" of street commerce at San Diego brought $5,000 plus a percentage.

Still, not every golden opportunity is recognized by the exposition treasure seekers. The San Diego Exposition is enlivened by large swarms of pigeons. Six months prior to the opening a man was hired to tame these pigeons, to induce them to alight on his shoulders and arms, to feed out of his hand. He succeeded, but the exposition found no one willing to sell pigeon feed on commission. The exposition today is itself selling pigeon feed, small quantities of grain at a nickel a bag, and the monthly profit has been averaging $300.

However, by no means do all of the concessionaires realize their dreams so fully. Most of them find the grass rather short and the pulling hard.

Having paid the cash bonus, having induced members of the numerous tribe whose birthrate is one a minute to supply the bulk of the capital to install the con

AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE OF INCOME FOR THE SAN DIEGO EXPOSITION

Little bags of grain from which to feed the pigeons are finding a ready sale.