Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-07-25

several hundred laundrymen work and
live there. 1t is only about quarter
of a mile from the capitol building,
and is near Pennsylvania avenue. So,
when all the Cinnamon turned out at
night to set off fireworks, everybody
could see and enjoy their celebration.
They very seldom spend any money,
and it was remarkable to see them
wasting so much money in flame and
smoke. Not less than two hundred dol
lars were spent in Chinatown for fire.
crackers and Roman candles, and the
square at Eour-and-a-ha1f street just
south of the avenue was filed from
early dusk till midnight with an eager
r-owd, who waited and cheered each
fresh outburSt of SulphurouS enthusiasm
from the laundrymen. It was manifest
tnat while John Chinaman is a very
economical fellow he is n lavish Mel
lean man in a celebration.
Usually tne doors and windows of the
houses in the Chinese quarter are closed
to the world, or else darkness reigns
within, so that no one can see beyond
their portals, but all of their homes
were wide open on the night of the
Fourth of July, and the opium-smol1ing
tea-drinkers were madly merry as they
played with fire. The habit of setting
off firecrackers one at time is appar-
emily an American idea; for the So
called Celestials scorned such little ex-
plosions. They did not seem to think
that even whole pack at time was
noisy enough, for they brought out
whole baslzetfuls OF frecrackers and
set them off in the street all at once.
Rattle, craclSle, roar, zip, ping, bang,
Ill
on a battlefield. The laundrymen were
wilder than children and acted like a
mob of dancing, grinning firc-fends
capering about with both hands full of
exploding crackers. Their red crack
ers were very small, not more than
half the size of our crackers, but they
were twice as loud, and to the end of
each pack was attached a particularly
viciously sounding cracker of twice the
ordinary size, which emphasized the
close of each pack explosion with a de-
cided bang. When the explosion of
baslzetful of crackers was finished, the
ground for yards around would be COW
cred with the red paper wrappers al
most an inch deep. In the very midst
of the fire and smoke these funny-looll-
ing fellows played. They laughed,
shouted and acted like escaped luna
tics. Tou could scarcely realize that
they were the same solemn-looking,
stolid fellows who ainless1y iron and
wash. and wash and iron, all day long,
with never a smile on their reflective
faces.
While whole baskets OF crackers were
exploding, the Cinnamon with big Ro-
man candles in their hands would jump
into and over the fire, shooting off their
yellow fire balls in the air at the same
time. Their gauze shirts and wide
trousers were in and out of the flames
so quickly that none of them caught
fire, although they seemed to be rum
ming great risks There was peculiar
fire dance in which about forty partici-
pated. Each one of them swung out
string of crackers about five feet long,
and lighting one end they ran back and
forth swinging these exploding strings
over their heads, while the baskets OF
explosives Were kissing and banging
about their feet. Each string must
have carried about two hundred crack
ers, and the noise was almost deafening
half q block away. How they escaped
losing their eyes or being deafened Ia
almost miraculous.
Then there were three or four little
Cinnamon who handled the Chinese
rockets, funny-loolxing things over two
feet lone They carried these fireworks