Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/709

 Popular Science Monthly

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��Holding the Crowd Before Your Show Windows

SINCE it is next to impossible to get all the passers-by to come inside your store, the next best thing is to talk to them as they pass. The electric moving display sign shown in the illustration below is de- signed for this purpose. It has a mov- ing tape across its display surface, on which as much as five hundred feet of reading matter can be brought to the attention of the passing crowd. This tape is of cloth and moves con- tinuously in one direction as long as the current is turned on.

The motor which furnishes the power is concealed inside the cabi- net of the device, with the tape box. Either direct or alternating current may be used. The tape can be changed as often as desired. The advertisements are made as newsy as possible and are interspersed with appropriate witticisms. Sometimes prizes are offered for finding a misspelled word or a word purposely omitted.

In charge of an ingenious operator this device ought to keep a crowd in front of the store window all day long, and at night you could go home and leave it still talking convincingly to the passers-by, electric lights, shielded and hidden by a reflector, illuminating the reading matter.

Naturally, the people who stop to watch the sign will also take notice of the mer- chandise on display in the window.

��Dolls That Proclaim What the Fashions in Silk Shall Be

YOU would not think that serious- minded business men would have dolls made just for their especial benefit. But they do. However, these dolls are not for purposes of amusement. Since the war the fine silks from France have been diffi- cult to obtain. This has put the American silk manufacturers on their mettle and they have been producing some splendid silks which rival those made in the French mills.

Above all things a new silk must lend itself to the making of clothes. A silk manufac- turer hit upon the happy idea of dressing dolls in the new fabrics to get the effect which the silks would produce if made up into gowns. The silk is woven and dyed. If it has a pattern, a piece of it in plain color is used for the doll's dress. Then the large pattern is carefully drawn to scale and painted on the silk to be used for the doll's dress. In this manner the doll is made to represent a fashion- able lady clad in the newest silks. Although the doll is only twelve inches tall the pro- portions are so perfect that the silk can be studied and passed upon by the examiners exactly as though it were made up into a woman's garment.

���A silk manufacturer's doll. He does not play with her. She is gowned in the latest silks to try their effect

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