New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-07-06
on CELEBRATIONS.

DwellerS in New-l Ork who were unable 10
leave the city the day before the Fourth, and to
stay away, had at least one comfort. Not every
street was turned into an inferno. If the small
boy did not moderate his transports until he
brought them to vanishing point, he was at
all events shade less offensive than he has
often been on the great summer holiday. But
from midnight on Thursday to midnight on
Friday the casualties resulting from the misuse
of fireworks or pistols, and reported by Police
Headquarters and the various hospitals in Man
haitian and The Bronx reached the grim total
Of 125. This record casts that Of July 4, 1901,
into the shade and, of course. many cases
never reach public knowledge, being treated by
private physicians. The list as it stands is
appalling enough in all conscience. We read or
one boy with the sight of his right eye de-
stroyed by frecracker; of six-year-old girl
receiving bullet in her head-quite by acct
dent, of cOurse-and of a young man of twenty
three who fires off toy cannon only TO have IL
explode and fracture his skull with one of its
fragments HE is at the emergency hospital
and will probably die" says the report concern
ing this last individual. Other cases might be
cited. But are not these enough TO show the
monstrous abnormality OF our Fourth of July
performances?
The sickening thing about 1t all is that these
horrors are as unnecessary as they are idiOtic.
On the ignorance, carelessness and even malice
of those who cause the tragedies OF the day we
need not pause What indeed, can one say of
the young fiend who deliberately launches a
lighted firecracker at passing horse, causing
him TO bolt and throw the occupant Of the car
riage he is drawing TO either death or manning,
and certainly to great nervous shock, on the
stones? What we are chiefly concerned to
notice is not this or that specific manifestation
of Fourth Of July madness, but the madness
itself Why must we put up with 1t? Is there
some supernatural and sacrosanct tie between
patriotic emotion and insane fury? Is it i'm
possible for a great nation to be at once proud
of itself and dignifed? In short, ought we not,
as intelligent people, to be ashamed of our
selves when we allow the abuses of the Fourth
of July to go on unchecked, year after year?
Consider the way of the French. 1t is the
fashion to call them 'mercuriai," volatile"
pleasure loving" and so They are never
theess, capable Of practising common sense and
restraint on occasions of public rejoicing with
thoroughness that ought to put to the blush an
American engaged in the pleasing art of max
Ing Rome howl" On the Fourteenth of July the
fall of the Bastille is annually commemorated
by tout Paris The city gives itself over to joy.
But it does not consider that in doing this 1t is
necessary to make Paris uninhabitable for quiet
loving people and place of menace TO life and
limb for twenty-fOur hours. During the day
there is a magnificent review of troops at Long
champs. Every one goes, and unless exposure
TO the sun upsets them all return intact On
the way home the Partisan dawdles for a while
in the Bois He and his family amuse them
selves innocentIy on the grass 1t occurs to no
one to make a hideous noise, to set off i'll
smelling and dangerous frecrackers, or to
handle deadly weapons Papa and mamma and
the youngsters are well and happy when they
sit down to their evening meal.
After dinner they swarm out upon the boule-
ward, which has been turned into fairy bower.
Flags foliage and innumerable little colored
lamps inclose what is practically a gigantic
ballroom, the traffic of all vehicles beneath the
decorations having been suspended, and to the
music of bands stationed at hundreds Of corners
the populace dances till it is tired 1t is tired,
but that is all. There is little IL any drunken
ness There are few quarrels. There are no
Casualties from fireworks, for the displays on
the Seine are in the hands of the authorities
and delight thousands without hurting a fly.
Is there not a lesson for us in this? Dancing in
the streets of New York is obviously impossible,
and it would not, in any case, appeal to Ameri-
can taste. But music in our public squares
would give infinite joy to the people, and elabo-
rate pyrotechnical displays could be organized
In some Of our pleasure grounds. Even If these
or other diversions are impracticable, however,
it is to be hoped that a more rational mode of
celebrating the Fourth may be developed, fer
our greater safety and comfort, and for the
preservation Of our standing as civilized ma
ton. Intelligent Londoners have recently be-
walled the excuses Of some of the coronation
crowds as they bewailed the orgies of ''AIafek-
ing Night" and Peace Night" Must we go on,
indefinitely bewailing the humiliations Of the
Fourth of July?