Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1900-07-20
18th OF july ALL
OYER The WORLD.
John Chinamln Sent a Large Supply
Of Fireworks to England
and America.

for American patriotism would be small
III the low hills OF the Paling Noun
tains, where the Roman candles are
made, and back in the Kiln Gan, where
the Sky rockets grow, there were brood
lngs of war, eliminating in occasional
riots; and i'll the cities along the coast
there We're disturbance and excitement.
What, then, was the surprise of the
merchants when the cargoes were
brought to the coast and when the big
ships were loaded with their wares from
Pekin, Tientsin. N;;l,kin, Su Chau and
Shanghai, to find that the cargoes were
precisely as large as USUAL, and that the
Chinese Workmen had found time, either
openly OF by stealth, to make the usual
amount of fire works which China sends
every year to the United States.
Few persons outside the trade have any
idea of the relation which the firecracker
industry bears to Chinese comfort. The
fireworl season is the prosperity season
in the interior of China, just as the busy
months in the mills are the months of
! comfort and prosperity in New England.
When the mills shut down, money stops
circulating; when the fireworks are gone,
industry is at standstill in China.
CHINESE WORKERS.
Outside the fireworks there are thous-
anas OF workers in China, men and
women, who support themselves upon the
artistic industries Of the land, the MAX
| ing of vases and the decoration of candle
sticks. But this is artistic work, and
| few can engage in it. But the making
| Of irecrackers is. something which every
hand can do, from the smallest to the
| largest, from the softest little fingers to
! the horniest old palm.
This year the orders that We're placed
| with the firms in China We're very large,
| for the United States has three and four
times rs many celebrations as it for
merly had and the topic Of Fourth of
July all over the world has become
one of absorbing interest to the, nation.
1t was formerly an easy matter to
supply Uncle Sans people with fire
| works. The people journeyed north
ward to Pekin with their wares, and
from Pekin they were shipped to the
coast and there We're placed in big store
houses waiting for the final packing.
Here the work Of the factory hands came
in, for hundreds We're employed in sort
ing the crackers in different sizes and in
braiding together the powder strings
! bunch
After they were knotted together the
whole had to be packed in layers and
finally folded i'll gay paper to be after
| wards stamped with the name of the
maker. The question of keeping them
waterproof throughout their long jour
ney was not an easy one, but it was
solved in good Chinese fashion by plac-
| i1,<r ont Of
ter which they were placed in packing
cases, finally to be sent to the docks for
loading into the merchant ships that ply
the Pacific.
And so they arrived in San Francisco
| by the thousands of tons, and We're
shipped to the different parts of the
I United States, and that was the end of
it. The wholesalers took them and re-
tailed them to the small dealers, who
afterwards sold them to small boy
at such little price that you wondered.
after all, where the profit came in, and
how much the patient worker on the
banks of the Yang Use Kiang received
| for his work.
FOR OTHER COUNTRIES.
But this year it is different. Fourth
| Of July is celebrated in all climes, and
the ships must transport the Chinese
| products to every port. It would have
amused you to see the steamer at Hong
Kong loading With a cargo of frecrack-
ers, destination Great Britain 1t might
have amazed you to see vessel off Fuh
! Chau taking On Ro:nan candles for use
in France. Great Eritain and France
both have American fireworks this year
and will Use them.
Strange, after one hundred years, that
England should purchase Americas sign
Ut freedom. When the Declaration of
Independence was only ten years old,
and the small boy exactly the same age,
| the first hrecrackers were sent off in this
country. y small consignment of the
! queer things were brought over from
! China by a roundabout route that took
| almost ten months. It was a mistake
| their being placed Il the ships cargo,
but once here they had to be used.
! An entcrprising dealer got hold of them
| and the newspapers of that day adver-
tised them in QUAINT language. They
| We're finally bough: up by a patriotic
| New Yorker, a man Of wealth, who sent
number to Philadelphia to be used by
friends there. On the Fourth of July,
ten years after George Washington and
| his friends got together over that great
national document which tells the world
| how and what we are, there rose a
swapping in the air. and the land re-
sounded with a popping and a sizzling
which told the people that the day had
come around again. Next year there
were more fireworks, and so the swapping
and the, sizzling has steadily increased in
volume until now it is as mighty roar
that, this year, will reach around the
| world.
Great Britain has generously forgot
ten that little episode. and has expressed
it all in the lines OF the poet laureate in
his gracious Hail, Kinsmen, Hailv
She is ready to celebrate with her lords
and ladies, her princes and her rulers
and to entertain aud be entertained on
that day. The American flag waves
and in front of the American Embassy
| there are rockets and candles, while the
little Britisher gathers round to see and
admire. Il. ~ r.. ~f@.~.
! CRACKERS IN PARIS.
The Paris Exposition will be the grand
l er this year because Of the American fire
cracker. There is a generous appropria
i ton for the buying Of fireworks to be. SCI