DAYLIGHT DRAGONS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XX, Issue 2064, 8 January 1925, Page 7

DAYLIGHT DRAGONS.

o FJ REWORKS IN CHIN A AND JAPAN. (By Bassett Digby, F.R.0.C., in Hie Daily Chromate.) While we were 1 woad-painted ancient Britons, some three (thousand years befoirc the unfortunate foiling of Mr Ciuido Fawkes’ sporting attempt, to blow up the House of Parliament, the Chinese and Japanese had already invented fireworks. Most of their best ideas we have adopted and improved, but, for some reason or itther- or none—we have not iminoted the jolly daylight iircworks of Japan, of which displays used to he given on the Mikado's birthday, and are still to be seen, now and then, on high occasions. The Flight of Herons firework surely would be much admired over here. Bang! goes the firework gun. In a few secdiults its shell hursts up aloft. A sort of kite tail of smoke appears, speedily assuming a,he shape of a long straggling flight of herons passing high overhead. The breeze deals a little differently with each bird, seeming to impart an individuality of flight. The Coloured Clouds, blue, green or red give a charmingly gay effect even in strong sunshine. Some are rainbow o/lotucls ; when the shell bursas, 500 feel up in the air, clouds of half a dozen colours suddenly appear, at some little distance from each other to prevent smudgy mixtures, and slowly drift across the heavens, keeping vivid and compact- for quitie a time. WONDERS IN THE SUNSHINE. A line fellow, even in the cold grey gut, of morning, is the Fairy Dragon, a groat dark grey serpentine monster of the air, from whose nostrils drifts fiery red breath. Sometimes a wayward breeze plays amusing pranks wlilh him,, swinging his tail round into his mouth, as though he were a whiting, or tying him up in most undignified knots. Wooden guns, about eight feet in length ,niade mainly of deftly reinforced bamboo, fire the long, slim shells thaul give birth up aloft to theso wonders. All sorts off unexpected, but immediately recognisable beasts and birds and human figures appear in theso dense, multi-coloured puffs of smoke. The most popular of all the daylight fireworks of Japan is the circle of Silver Balls. Bang! goes a bamboo gun. A fainter bang a few seconds la : ucr. Then, in a big ring, appear silver bubbles, each the same distance apa at from the next. For a moment they glitter in Hie sunshine. Then—they have disappeared. WAR ROCKETS. It was the (locora'Ove side of fireworks that appealed to Japan when she adopted them from her neighbour on the mainland. As far as I was able to ascertain when 1 was in Japan, fireworks have never formed part of the usual munitions of war as they do over in China. Indeed, the Chinese do not seem quite to have made up their mind as to just where the dividing line is to he drawn between fireing. The result is a curious blend of the ludicrous ami the dangerous. When we forced our way into Canton, about eighty years ago, there were used against us rockets that dropped promiscuously barbed iron arrows—rather unpleasant in those pre-tin hatdays, but owing to the scattered formation of the troops very litsfle damage was done. Their real menace was to mobs.