News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-08-17
THE TOY PISTOL.
A Dangerous Plaything In the
Hands of the Boys.


The alarming number of deaths which
have occurred among children from
locked jaw, as the result of wounds in
ficted by the toy pistol, has led to a
widespread demand on the part of the
press that the sale of this apparently
harmless, but really death-dealing in
strument, be prohibited by law. 1t is
impossible to give any accurate esti-
mate of the number of deaths which
have been occasioned by the toy pistol,
but there must certainly have been sew
eral hundred since the beginning OF
July, when the 'sseason for the pistol
came in with the advent of the Fourth,
Since then hardly day has passed but
reports have come from some quarter
of the fatal work of the toy pistol, and
the number of cases thus recorded con-
stitute but small proportion of the
number which have actually occurred.
An idea of the fatality can be formed
from the weekly mortality report OF
Massachusetts, which shows that of 400
deaths for the week ending July Is, in
thirty-eight cities and towns with 9
population of 1 1854, 387, fourteen were
from tetanus, and most of these cases
are attributable to the toy pistol.
The victims are exceptionally numer-
GUS at this season of the year for ex-
oept during the ebullition of the fervor
of youthful patriotism on the Fourth
and few days before and after the toy
pistol is generally laid away. It is while
it is out of use, however, and when the
injury it has inflicted is fresh in the
mind, that public sentiment should be
aroused to the point of its total sup.
preston. This can be done in no Other
way so effectively as by bringing home tc
parents the fact that they are doing 6
foolish thing and recklessly subiectine
their children to great danger when
they indulgently place toy pistols in
their hands. In one respect these toy
pistols are much more dangerous than
the revolver. The latter is recognized
as deadly weapon, and is handled with
care; while the toy pistol is assumed
to be harmless and is therefore USED
imprudently, and the wounds it inficts
being apparently trivial, are neglected
and result in lockjaw.
A Boston physician explains in the
Globe of that city how it is that there
are so many fatal cases. When the full
inmate in the pistol explodse, it's force
may be transmitted in any direction
and, consequently the thumb, forefnge1
and sometimes the palm of the hanG
suffer injury. The wound thus caused
is one of the very best to serve as a pre-
disposing agent to lockjaw, for it is .
lacerated and very often, as a part o
the wafer SHELLS thrown into the wound
punctured and poisonous wound no
uncombined with burn. The wounC
is not very great or very horrible, o.
particularly painful, and does not attrac
much attention after the momentar,
pain is over, and wet rag or skis
to make it well' is about all the treat
ment it receives; but later there come
a sudden change in temperature, or tn
lad runs about, gets heated, goes il
swimming, or in some other way cole
comes as the exciting cause, and the1
comes in succession the series of tetani
symptoms, leading to fatal result.
The moral of this is that parent
should break up the toy pistols the boy
now have, and not buy any more. Tn
boys themselves will not give their pis
tolls up of their own motion. In fact
the danger attendant upon them would
in the view of the average boy, give
added spice to their use.