Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Some tanning/marking/wear due to age. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The coin-operated machine is basically a labour-saving device. It emerged towards the end of the industrial revolution and experienced its most rapid development in the United States where the cost of labour was perceptibly higher than elsewhere. It was also conceived as a means of bringing entertainment within reach of ‘the great unwashed’; the coin mechanism is a minia- ture box-office that harvests the millions of little coins of ordinary folk. These factors alone do not account for the dynamic growth of the ‘coin’ industry. There is a more elemental force at work which is suggested by this description of an unusual apparatus found in an ancient Eastern temple. ‘When the worshipper placed his offering on some portion of the image intended for its recep- tion the weight of the offering acted on a lever operating a valve in one of the cellars of the temple. This cellar contained a vessel filled with hot water and the action of the valve caused steam to ascend through bamboo tubes to the eyes of the image where it condensed and became trans- formed into tears… This construction must have required a team of maintenance engineers and in no way could be described as a labour-saving device. Nor do we have any reason to believe that it was patronised exclusively by poor worshippers; on the contrary. Shat impressed the believer most deeply was the Musion that he himself had caused the image to cry (with gratitude?) thus receiving a personal sign from the deities and to this extent it was a confidence trick.