Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-07-03
SCIENTIFIC FIREWORKS.
An industry in Which japan and China
Are without Competitors.

An Industry in Which Japan and China
Are without Competitors.
Although the West has long surpassed
the East in most of the features of civil
lied life, It has never yet approached
the latter in the manufacture Of sciet1-
tific fireworks. Here China, and more
especially Japan, are masters whom we
can scarcely initiate, much less excel.
In speaking of this superiority of his
race, tsoto Yatzoiio, japanese mer-
chant of this city, said:
''Our skill in making fireworks is
largely due to the fact that the business
remains in the hands of the same family
generation after generation. In the
United States and England the son of a
rich brewer or retired merchant be-
comes a lawyer or man of leisure, a
clergyman Or a doctor. In Japan 1t is
different. A boy is brought up to take
pride in his fathers vocation and to be-
come his successor upon the latter's death.
The largest pyroteChnic establishment
in Japan has been owned by one family
Tor at least two hundred years. 1t is the
same with the experts and artists
who are employed in the business.
They train their sons to be their
assistants, their partners and like
wise their successors. The result
is always satisfactory from a Pc
cuniary point of view. Every artist
during his career will invent or discover
something new, which he transmits to
his son as an heirloom, instead of pat
enting 1t and making it public prop
erty, as is done in America. In this
way an esprit de corps, something like
the guild spirit of old London, is. created,
which inures as much to the benefits of
the business as to the persons who make
livelihood out of it. just as you have
families here who are noted for their
commercial, intellectual or political
achievements, generations after genera
tions, so in Japan we have families who
have been famous for century or more
as manufacturers, inventors or design
ers of artistic fireworks.
There is nothing extraordinarily
new, but any number of small novelties,
in the pyrotechnic world. The coming
season will see a great increase in &C.
centric and grotesque balloons. Next
Fourth of July it will be a simple mat
ter for every patriot to send up men,
agerie almost as large as Noah's ark,
showing in the air all sorts of animals,
birds and fish. These balloons are
made of peculiar kind of paper, light
as tissue, as strong as the heaviest ma
nilla, and is perfectly air tight. The
secret of it's strength and texture is
owned by only few manufacturers. To
keep them in position they are weighted
with little pieces of metallic lead in
very much the same fashion as are la
dies riding habits. Americans as yet
do not appreciate these balloons or how
to use them. They seEd them off
without any regard to the weather,
whether calm or windy, wet or dry
They should be sent off only in calm,
dry weather, when they will remain
overhead in the heavens for hours Any
one cooperating with his friends and
neighbors can have, at a trifling cost,
the skies flied with humorous or grace
full figures, which are not alone pleas
ure to grown folks, but an educational
display to the little ones.
more remarkable and more Ingenious
much than these balloons are what you
call day fireworks. These are really
smoke-works, in which bomb shot up
ward exDlodes in mid-air, sending out
lines and figures in vari-colored smokes.
Our Japanese artists have worked for two
centuries upon this subject and can do
things that seem almost miraculous to
occidentals. They can produce snakes,
cobwebs, parallel lines, either vertical
or horizontal, waves and zigzsgs, cir
cles, ellipses, balls, squares, diamonds
and loops. A few have gone so far as
to produce figures that can be recognized
as human or animal shapes their makers
designed. These are exceptions. how
ever, and can not be relied upon. The
policy of the Government is to favor
the industry, both by exemption. from
taxation as we'll as By rewards and other
practical recognitions to Manufacturers
and artists We have no fear of compe-
tition, as the chief element in the work
is labor, and that costs so little in japan
as to be inappreciable. A bright girl
can be hired for few cents day ~ith
US, where man at five dollars would
be required in New Yo TN. Y. Star.
DANIELS WoRDs-"The Union aow
and forever, one sad ipseparables