Social Effect
It has strong appeal to individuals in their youth because it offers a display of strength. Young boys use the high striker to determine who among them is the strongest. More often than not, high strikers are used to impress other people.
In the 1930s, some High Striker operators preyed on young men and rigged (or fixed) the High Striker unit to prevent anyone, no matter how strong, from striking the bell. They usually picked a small man to demonstrate how easy it was to swing the mallet and impact the arm, ringing the bell. Then, when a stronger person (usually a young man in his late teens and early 20s) attempted, they failed. Players attempted the game repeatedly to avoid humiliation. Eventually, the operator would allow that player to ring the bell so as to not discourage others from attempting. Popular Mechanics in a 1935 article revealed this secret, and, since then, most High Striker operators have ceased fixing their units.
Read more about this topic: High Striker
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or effect:
“One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“We all have—to put it as nicely as I can—our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terrible power that sometimes destroys us; but they don’t talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before—truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)