Fun at the Circus

"God knows," exploded a member of the London County Council, "why we ever took it on in the first place. The blasted thing's been a target ever since." The blasted thing was London's gleaming statue of Eros, God of Love. Time after time, on nights of revelry in Piccadilly Circus, while lovers ogled each other beneath Eros' outstretched wings, the fire brigade has had to remove hats from the god's wreathed head or frilly unmentionables from his poised limbs.

Last week, while 2,000 votaries shouted encouragement and police yelled threats from below, a plastered plumber named William Painter perched cheerily on Eros' neck and wings, twanged gaily on the god's bowstring, and provided one of the week's merriest, wackiest newspictures. After 40 minutes, London's firemen brought the miscreant down to earth. Next day both celebrants were resting quietly; the plumber in Brixton jail, the god in the hands of statue doctors. Damage to the god: $192. Damages to the plumber: three months in stir, and cost of the repairs.

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