Christmas Crackers.

Manawatu Herald, 17 June 1893, Page 2

Christmas Crackers.

Most of us know the crackers supplied at parties, those prettily got up coloured paper parcels, which young men and maidens grasp either end of, and pull, oh 1 so hard, and then comes a crack, so startling, usually accompanied by a pretty little scream or ejaculation ; after which the placing of two heads close together simply, oh, yes, that is of course the only reason, to read the wonderful bit of poetry enclosed therein, or to examine the latest design in wearing apparel, made of thin paper, also enclosed therein. Though' most know so much, and, may be, a little more, few have any ideawhatthetra.de 13 like, or how large it has become. In one of the Home magazines a very interesting account is given of a visit to the factory of Tom Smith & Co. in London, where in one stack alone stood no fewer than 50,000 boxes in a line one hundred feet long and ten feet wide. This represented one month's work. One retail firm had sent in an order for crackers that would take sixteen of the largest delivery vans built to convey them, with 1200 boxes packed away in each van, in other words ~19?200 boxes of crackers. What a number of boxes are therefore needed, it being said that in a busy week, so we should think, 30,000 would be made and used. These boxes are all made by machinery the plant for which costs from £2000 to 45000. A good cracker hand, all women, can easily earn from 14s to 18s a week. The firm employs, directly and indirectly, close upon 1000 people. The cardboard alone used in the manufacture of empty boxes in which the crackers are packed exceeds a hundred tons in weight during a single season, and the tiny strips of card constituting the detonators over five tons! Twenty tons of glue and paste, between

0000 and 7000 reams of coloured and fancy papers are used, whilst the total weight of the thin transparent sheets of coloured gelatine, which adds so much to the brilliancy of a Christmas cracker, amounts to nearly six tons. Crackers are made all sizes to suit buyer's tastes, some are three feet long, containing a full -sized | coat, hat, collar, frill, whiskers, j umbrella, and eye-glass. The largest crackers up to date' were those made every night for Harry Payne, as clown to pull with the pantaloon in the pantomine at Drury Lane. They were seven feet long and contained costumes large enough for the oouple to put on, and a multitude of crackers which were thrown amongst the children in the audience.