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board,” the Sydney Post declared in July 1934.
    To fully appreciate the significance of Lynch’s reputation, it is important to understand how the travelling carnival began on this continent. The phenomenon of the rolling carnival has its origins in the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The mile-and-half-long midway at the Chicago World’s Fair was the first of its kind, offering rides (including the original Ferris Wheel), entertainment, games and sideshows which, although proving financially successful and attractive to fair-goers, was deemed on the lower end of social activities. It lacked sophistication and was considered generally immoral by many, which meant it was separated from the respectable parts of the fair that were of “high culture”. The whole aim of the fair was to educate and enlighten people with the world’s greatest technological and cultural advances, but the midway steered away from that, a lot of people felt. The term midway originated at the World’s Fair that year, when the rides and sideshows were sectioned off from the rest of the fair in an area known as the “Midway Plaisance”. To elevate its cultural significance, fair directors had labelled the Midway Plaisance an “anthropological” exhibition but near the end of the fair it was clear the midway was only erected to provide cheap entertainment and amuse the patrons. But it also proved to be one of the more lucrative exhibitions.
    The amount of money it brought in was a strong enough motive for a number of shady businessmen across the United States to enter the travelling carnival business, taking the vulgar display on the road. Even if it was immoral or obscene, people were itching to experience it and they would even fork over a lot of money for the temporary diversion.
    By the 1930s, the travelling carnival enterprise across North America was corrupt, run mostly by grifters and other men of dubious character and criminal backgrounds. The games were rigged, the ticket sellers skilled in the deceitful art of short-changing, and there were enough fast-talking fanatics to rope people into things they had no intention of doing before they set foot on the midway. But if The Halifax Herald editorial board was upset about the criminal presence on the midway in 1928, they would have to tolerate it if only because every show was criminal to some degree in those days. Many fair and exhibition boards across the continent regarded the travelling carnival as lacking sorely in respectability, but necessary in getting people out to their fairs. There is no conclusive evidence that Williams’ shows were crooked, but most carnival owners in those days hired independent contractors to provide concessions, so it stands to reason that transient and possibly disreputable workers would have hired on with him from out of the United States to fill some of the dates he had around the region playing local fairs.
    Lynch was determined to change the nature of the business that was quickly becoming his life. The reputation of the travelling carnival had already been established, however, and there was a general uneasiness in many communities throughout the region that carnivals were in town only for cash grabs and then out with whatever they were able to hustle off the locals, whether by legitimate means or not. A fairly good cross-section of Maritimers had been duped in the past and they would only tolerate that kind of abuse once.
    Lynch understood the public’s concern and made every effort to change the way his show was perceived. He hired mostly Maritimers to run his games and partnered with different service groups in every community to give something back. He made large donations to charities in every town his show played and always reserved time for underprivileged kids to come to his show free of charge. He also owned everything on the show and didn’t need to contract any of the rides or concessions out