these objects are packed away with great
ingenuity in the bottom of the drum; and they
are so surrounded and connected by tubes,
and slow matches, and composition, and
fireworks, that they drop one by one out of the
open end of the drum, displaying their
beauties for a brief space, and then quietly
go out.

Whether it is Chin-chop-chew making
fireworks for the Celestials at Pekin, or
Chevalier Mortram making for the British
public, there is doubtless much similarity in
the workshop processes, the manufacturing
operations. The gunpowder has to be
pounded, and the sulphur and charcoal
pounded and purified. The metal filings
have to be brought to different degrees of
fineness, and the colouring materials prepared
and the various combinations mixed in due
proportions. The paper cases also must be
made. Strong cartridge or brown paper is
rolled round a mandril or rod into a tubular
form, the last lap being secured by paste.
These paper tubes, filled in various ways and
to different degrees, constitute the whizzing,
and bouncing, and cracking, and sparkling
fireworks. Then there are veins or arteries,
not necessary for visible display, but for
conveying the fiery impulse from one work to
another. These are called leaders. They
consist of paper tubes containing string which
has been dipped in certain solutions, varied to
act as slow-match or quick-match, according
to need.

On the fifth of November, when Muffincap
and his schoolfellows prepare a grand display
of fireworks, at their joint expense, they of
course take care not to omit the squibs; but
they know nothing of these two facts—that
every halfpenny squib undergoes no less than
thirteen distinct processes, and that the shop-
keeper gets more for selling it than the
pyrotechnist gets for making it. The cutting,
the rolling, the choking, the charging, the
knocking-out, the bouncing, the capping, the
tying are some, but not all, of the events
in the birth of a squib. First, strong brown
paper, weighing eighty pounds to the ream, is
cut into thirty-six pieces per sheet, each piece
to make a squib; the case is formed with this
stout paper, and is covered with much thinner
white paper; each little tube is choked with a
dent or depression near one end; it is partly
filled with composition through a funnel, and
rammed down with a rod; it is further filled
with loose powder; it is provided with a
nipple, and touch paper, and a blue cap and
a sealing of wax or glue—and thus it goes
forth into society at the cheap cost of half-a-
crown per gross.

A squib is a miniature representative of a
large number of fireworks; for the mixing of
the composition, the making of the tube, and
the filling, are the types of operation both on
the large and the small scale. To a rocket
there is a strong cylindrical cartridge case, to
contain the composition which is to produce
the projectile force by its explosion. Upon its
upper extremity is fixed a conical case, also of
paper, to contain the stars, or serpents, or
crackers, which are to astonish the natives by
their display when high up in the air. A
pound rocket is perhaps an inch-and-a-half in
diameter by fourteen and fifteen inches long.
The composition in the conical part differs
from that in the cylindrical part chiefly in
the addition of antimony or some metal which
shall aid in producing the grand flare-up when
the rocket has reached its greatest height.
The filling and securing of the cases are nice
operations, requiring much care; and when
these are completed, the rocket is attached to
a long wooden rod. This rod acts like the
tail of a kite, or the feather of an arrow; it
preserves the line of direction during the
rocket's flight.

All such operations as these—the preparing
of ingredients, the making of cases, the filling,
the sealing and touching—are carried on in
the workshops of our Chevalier and his
brother pyrotechnists; where are also made
the frames and wheels which are to support
the largest fireworks. At the public gardens
where such displays occur there is a subsidiary
workshop, in which the tubes, and leaders,
and fuzes, are adjusted to their proper places
on the frames or scaffolding. And here it is
interesting to observe how time becomes an
element in the work. All the leaders,
containing the match or fuze composition, are so
adjusted in length that they shall convey the
ignition to every spot at the exact instant
required; else the banging of the crackers
might commence before the beautiful star has
done its shining work, or the rotation of a
wheel might be so ill-timed as to burst the
cracker. The appearance of the frame itself,
with all the tubes and leaders tied to it in
various directions, would give a stranger very
little idea of the ultimate forms and
movements intended to be produced.

In his mysterious plot of ground, with his
frames, and rockets, and wheels, and maroons
placed conveniently at hand, the monarch of
the fiery region kindles the results of his
labours, one by one, and off they go—amidst
exclamations of the wildest delight bursting
from thousands of upturned countenances.
At length the National Anthem bursts forth,
the last star faints and expires; and there
is an end to the brilliant display of
fireworks.