CRACKERS AND BOMBS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81916, 12 January 1907, Page 2

CRACKERS AND BOMBS

THE SALE PRACTICALLY I'ltO--IUBITED. Tin.' small boy complains that very soon he won't he able to have any fun at all. The wave of building progress has robbed him of the vacant section 011 which lie has indulged in leap-frog, biitehe.v's bat, cricket and other lorms of juvenile sport, and as a matter of ; retaliation he now frequents the : street corner, and, in direct defiance J of the paternal and wen-meant legis- ■ lation to prohibit smoking among juveniles, smokes his "fag" or his pipe with the rest of them. Each sucees--1 sive Christmas, each recurring New f Year's live, arid every Guy Fawke's I Day that has come with the rolling ■ years, has been ushered iu or speeded ! 011 with the blast and blare of tin - trumpets the screech of inllated - squealers, the crackle and rattle ol r bombs and crackers, and the blaze of t rockets and other fireworks. The boy j or girl may still wander at large to deafen and annoy with his trumpet and squeaker, may still buy his little II toys and trinkets and sweets that go c to constitute a full and merry I'es- '' tive. hut crackers and fireworks are doomed. The eye of the laiy, in the ' shape of the policy will look with ilis pleasure 011 sliiy spph outbrust of en- ' joyment. The squib and the cracker L ' must no longer form part of the oele■v brations. „ Tho boy must 110 longer' 0 spend his savings, or his Christmas pennies in preparing for a miniature y fireworks display. Because these 11 crackers, squibs, and rockets come a unVlei' the definition of "e.vplosivds," d anil their sale to persons under the i- age of fifteen years is now absolutely 'd prohibited. Who cannot remember ie the cracker that seared the timid old it lady, to the immense enjoyment of a ,h party of urchins just round the cor[i- ner, or the fun tliey had by setting 1 Hie lo ;i whole packet of tlie-c Ji/./.llng, crackling little red cartridges in the pocket of some half-tipsy Christmas * r reveller? It was not manjy, perhaps, but not very wicked withal. It was merely the spirit of wickedness that seems to have characterised boydom ' from prehistoric times. What a l'e•j lief for Christmas shoppers to know that the only terrors of the streets, so J. far as the juvenile imps of mischief are concerned, will be confined to less objectionable things than the startling concoctions of cheap powder and rolled L paper. The Sale of Explosives Act of 1!K)8 provides that the sale of ,cxf;- plosives must bo registered iu a liQok m kept for the purposn, and purchasers li, unknown to the- vendor hoist Kigu :e their names in this book. Each par.o eel of explosives must be marked 011 » the outside, witli the word. ''Explosive," y and with the name and address of the ■d seller. One result of the legislation e, will be, so a ''News" reporter gleaned ie from a prominent dealer *iu these id wares 011 Friday, that the fancy goods ie and toy shops >yill not stuck or sell ill crackers and fireworkb, mid will thus Id avoid all the risk attached to the Balo,