Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1896 — FIREWORKS AMERICAN MADE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FIREWORKS AMERICAN MADE.

Staten Island la Knocking Ont China Better than Japan Did.

N the little town of Graniteville, on State n Island, more than 300 persons, mostly farmers’ d a u g h t e rs, work from one year to the next, making, colored fires and rockets and roman candles and those mysterious things known as “set pieces,” which go off.

ft is ftae. according to program, but which need u guide and a spokesman most times to tell what they are all about. And talk about Chinese labor! Well, these energetic Americans work so systematically for 357 days of the year, barring Bundays, that their employers are able to sell nearly 30.000 gross of fireworks at less than one-half a cent each, and are still able to make a profit of 25 per sent, on their output In this Graniteville, bound in With a fence over which even a baseball' crank cannot hope to look, is a succession of frame buildings, before each of which stands a bucket filled with water. The Buildings' are separated so that if the sontents of one of them go up to join the elements of air and fire, the water may be there to help out the insurance companies. As yet the factory does not attempt to

make the small Chinese crackers. There h not enough profit in them. But everything from them up to the eight-ounce tracker that goes off like a 6-inch gun are turned out. The pasteboard is made into Bttle cylinders and these are then taken to one of the little houses, where boys fix the American fuses, which give lots of warning before they ignite the cracker, •o thnt fingers may remain intact. These lads plug up' one end with bits of clay and then pour in the explosive, and then they •re ready for packing. These firecrackers don’t have Chinese characters on them. But on each, in plain New York dialect, b a warning bow to hold them and when to let go. You do anything else at your •wn risk. The roman candles are made’SUje same why 1 save that much more care M taken with them. They are packed wi% hydraulic presses, and the globes of vnnWisly colored fire which are sent over ypur lawn or into your neighbor's are little coues that resemble yellow and mine ♦lay, yet which are so sensitive to that the mere placing of them in tbt> pasteltoard cylinder sometimes fires them prematurely by friction. Most of the art pieces and the rockets are loaded at the outset as the roman candles are, the system being practically the same. One of the most interesting divisions of the work of preparing for the eagle’s •Cfeech is the torpedo factory. The giant torpedoes are made hand, for they are

the pieces of tissue paper the exact square, by machine, and then force the center of each square through the holes of a brass rack. Then a lad drops some of the fulminate in the bottom of the little, bag there formed, and another boy fills* the little paper up with gravel. Then the racks are handed to girls, who brush paste over the tops of the papers and twist them tight into little points so that the gravel cannot fall out. This done they are packed in sawdust, ten in a box, and are ready for you to awake your neighbors.

RACKING FIREWORKS FOR MARKET.

TAKES HER DEAD HUSBAND’S PLACE IN THE FIGHT.,