Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-07-07

4 BfELIeAN MAN ON THE FOURTH.
 several hundred laundrymen work and live there. It is only about quarter of a mile from the capitol building, and is near Pennsylvania avenue. So, when all the Chinamen 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 Four-and-a-haf street just south of the avenue was filled from early dusk till midnight with an eager crowd, who waited and cheered each fresh outburst of lphurous enthusiasm from the laundrymen. It was manifest that while John Ghinaman is a very economical fellow he is a lavish Mel- ican man in celebration.
 Usually the 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 Qasen on the night of the Fourth of July, and the opium-smol1ing tea-drinl1ers were mad1y merry as they played with fire. The habit of setting off firecraczers one at a time is appar- ently an American idea; for the so- called Celestials seerned such little ex- plosions. They did not seem to think that even whole pack at a time was noisy enough, for they brought out whole baslxetfuls of frecracl1ers and set them off in the street all at once. Rattle, crackle, roar, zip, ping, bang, they exploded like volleys of musl1etry on battlefield. The laundrymen were wilder than children and acted like mob of dancing, grinning fre-fends capering about with both hands full of exploding crackers. Their red crack CTS 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 $ de- cided bang. When the explosion of basketful of crackers was finished, the ground for yards around would be cov- cred with the red paper wrappers al- most an inch deep. In the very midst of the fire and smoke these funny-look- ing fellows played. They laughed, shouted and acted like escaped luna- tics. You could scarcely realize that they were the same solemn-lool1ing, stolid fellows who aimlessly iron and wash and wash and iron, all day long, with never smile on their reflective faces.
 While whole baskets of crackers were exploding, the Chinamen 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 gauge shirts and wide trousers were in and out of the flames so quickly that none of them caught fire, although they seemed to be run 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 hissing and banging about their feet. Each string must have carried about two hundred crack CTS, and the noise was almost deafening half block away. How they escaped losing their eyes or being deafened is almost miraculous. Everything ap- peared to be done according to some system. Squads of them were dancers and wielders of the enormous strings of explosives, while others appeared to be expert with Roman candles.
 Then there were three or four little Chinamen who handled the Chinese rockets, funny-loolsing things over two feet long. They carried these fireworks into the middle of the street, lighted the fuses and held them until they be- gan to savagely spit fire; and then tossed them into the air so that they went sinuously far above the house. tops, all the While sending forth sparks of red, green and yellow hues until they exploded like mortars in the sky. Four or five of them exploding at once resulted in veritable rain of fire which could be seen from many parts of the city. The laundrymen who were not