The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-06-28
SCIENTIFIC FIREWORKS.
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 scien
tific fireworks. Here China, and more
especially Japan, are masters whom We
can scarcely initiate, much less excel
In speaking of this superiority of hi
race, Isoto Yatzomo, Japanese mer
chant of this city, said:
"Our skill in making fireworks i.
| 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 q
rich brewer or retired merchant be.
comes lawyer or man of leisure, q
clergyman or doctor. In Japan it 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
for 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
aootooaheof Jhtii par uilOio anu llhc-
wise their successors The result
is always satisfactory from 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 it 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, s.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 q 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 great increase in &C.
centric and grotesque balloons. Next
Fourth of July it will be simple mat
ter for every patriot to send up a 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 its 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
can have, at a trifiing 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
in which bomb shot up
ward explodes in id-air, sending out
lines and figures in vari-colored smokes.
Our Japanese artists have worked for two
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 zigzags, 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. Tho
policy OF the Government Is to favor
the industry, both by exemption from
as we'll as by rewards and other
practical recognitions to manufacturers
and artists. We have no fear of compe-
ition, as the chief element in the work |
Is labor, and that costs 80 little in Japan |
~ to be inappreciable. A bright girl |
IAN be hired for few cents day with |
is, where a man at five dollars would |
bs required in New Yo rk."--N. Y. Star.
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DANIELS Wonps--'trhe Union nov
and forever, one and inseparablo.o