"The Glorious Fourth."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 211, 10 September 1904, Page 4

"The Glorious Fourth."

The Glorious Fourth >has come and gone again. And still New Year stands, still there are people in the streets. There are two reasons for this. One is the efficiency of the New York Fire Brigade ; the other is that nearly everybody went out of t«wn over the Fourth, So {ar the ascertained number of victims througihiout the country is only 2,023, made up aa follows :—Dead 46, injured 1,977, the causes being—fireworks 648, cannons 180, firearms 285, gunpowder 480, toy pistols 287 runaways 61 ; and the cash value of fire losßes £35,560. Tetanus, however, takes anything from three days to a week to develop, and there is still time for the list to assume proportions worthy of tills, great and liberty-loving people. La«t year Fourth-of-July tetanus (or lockjaw) slew thirty-three in New York alone. Eight more perished in other ways, and the wounded numbered 481—'total caSualities, killed and wounded, 522. Taking the whole of the Unit-' ed States, the last jolly Fourth was celebrated at a c ° st of 466 lives and 3,983 injuries—total casualties for tho glorious day in killed and wounded, 4,449, Of these, lockjaw carried off 406, ten were blinded, seventyfive lost one eye, fifty-four arms and legs were carried away, and Bo less tham 174 fingers. It is painted out that the killed and wounded exceeded those of the Russians during the two days' heavy fighting at Haichengi. This sLuows how glad the Americans are to have escaped from British tyranny. It is exactly 128 years since that happened, but they are still glad. It is a fine thing to he at liberty to celebrate the day like this. Nobody seems to mind about the holocaust, with the creditable exception of the Committee on Public Safety of the Now York City Federation of Women's Clubs. The C.P.S.N.Y.C.F.W.C, acting with superb courage in the face of hostile public opinion, have published a manifesto counselling vigilance. To an impartial observer the attitude of the C.P.S.N.Y.C.F.W.C. appears' both humane iand statesman Hike. By some, however, these good women and thedr like are regarded as fanatics. Th'is we have a leading New York newspaper commenting upon the list of 406, killed and 3,983 wounded as follows :—" Considering the large fraction of our enormous population that is put or puts itself in more or less peril on that day, tho smaMness of the number s|K-aks very woU| for t/he intelligence and carefulness with which most of us handle the assorted explosives of which we are once a year/ so barbarously fond." This paper is notoriously hostile to alien immigration and the congestion caused thereby. Steering between extremes, we find a general readiness to admit the inconvenience to the victims, while at the same time regarding them as, in a sense sufferers in the cause of patriotism Thus it is with patriotic little John Carey, eight years, of 215 East Ninety-seventh street, who, having volunteered to ignite a short-fused giant cracker, now lies in Harlem Hospital, where it is thought his eyes may be saved. I gather that some shrewd fellows here have reason t« belaeve that King Edward is only watching his opportunity to pounce down upon the country, snap it up and again impose upon it his tyrannical yoke. Nothing but the open contempt of death manifested by all classes during the celebration of the glorious Fourth deters him from hifell design. However, it is 0 com _ monplace of modern warlare that a* the instruments of destruction increase m deadlines., so the advance of surgical science counterbalance their effects, an d ; in fact, enormously mluccs; thewlaetageof hun W Ijfe.l New \mk correspondent St. James's