PYROTECHNICAL PAIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6184, 12 March 1888, Page 4

PYROTECHNICAL PAIN.

» [BY OUB SPECIAL REPORTER.] Mr James Fain, of London, Liverpool, New York, and Melbourne, is the foremost pyrotechnist of the age. Big posters everywhere tell us of the display his agent is about to make for. us on Lancaster Park. Fireworks on the grand scale with which Mr Fain is in the habit of delighting the million are quite a novelty in Christchurch. The displays, therefore, besides being interesting as those of one who may be said to do the entertaining of the world by wholesale, will possess the added interest' which is lent to everything by novelty. The following is the Bubstance of a chat -with Mr lUingworfch, his agent in New Zealand. Factories, &c. : Mr Pain at Home. Mr Pain's chief factory is.at Mitcham, in Surrey. It covers about eleven acres of ground, or about the area of your largest cricket field, and gives employment to eeven or eight hundred men. Naturally the quantity of explosives handled there is immense, and the utmost precautions have to ba taken to prevent catastrophes. Each department is separated from the other by strong -earth-banks, the men go about in list slipper 3, and are bound to wear coppernails in their boots, while the Government Inspector — Major Majendie, I fancy, is his name — carries out the most rigid system of inspection. This is the head establishment only in the United Kingdom. At Gravesend there is a floating magazine, and at [ Liverpool another. In London there are i several warehouses, and others at big | provincial centres, such as Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester. In America the chief factory is down at Beach, 22 miles from New \ York. There Mr Pain has a great ground, where displays are given twice a week in the season. Manhattan Beach is : the favourite sea-side resort of the New Yorker 3, and the people swarm down there in myriads. Our'grand stand holds some 10,000 people, but we get a crowd there of double the number sometimes, special trains being run for the purpose of conveying them. From that centre Sb Louis, Chicago and other great American cities are supplied, and our operations extend up into Canada. As you know, there is no country in the world given over to amusement to such an extent as Canada in winter-time. We, illuminate their great ice-palaces for them, and give displays of fireworks on the Sb Lawrence, and they tell me, for lam sorry to say that I hava never eeen it myself, that the scenes are of fairy-like beauty. In Melbourne, too, we have a factory, and it is from thence that I draw my supplies for this New Zealand tour. The staff I hava with me id quite capable of buying the raw material at a wholesale druggist's and working itup 5 but the authorities have prejudices in most places against that kind of work, and by importing we avoid unpleasantnesses. MR PAIN ABROAD. But England, and America, and Australia are not big enough for the first of fireworkers. His dockets, shells, lamps, set piecea, fire portraits, and all the rest of it, have caused roars of approbation in a dozen languages on the Continent — Paris, Berlin, Madrid — we have shown at all the capitals. Iv Lisbon, when the Crown Prince of Portugal was married, we used about 100,000 lamps aud lanterns, and illuminated about 16 miles of streets, and sent off 70 tons of fireworks. Ph-e-ew! I interject softly, in astonishment. "Oh, you think that a big order? As a matter of fact it is large, but not very large. On the Jubilee night the New South Wales Government gave us an order for the illumination of the harbour, which cost them .£2500. We used about 40 tons of fireworks on that night alone. But that was very small compared to the Centennial Festivities. Then Pain's people were all over the country, and we let off 80 or 100 tons. As a matter of fact, I have about 40 tons with me here in Chrisfcchurch. Is it safe ? Well, lam not afraid; are you, my dear?" and Mr Illing worth turns to his wife, who laughs a scornful little laugh, and says something to the eifectrtnat if we nail an explosion 16" would be the first ever heard of in the firm since she came into it. Suppressing the obvious, artless enquiry as to how we have managed to secure such an unprecedented record, I turn to Mr Illingworth once more, who is tellinpj of exbra insurances on the Lancaster Park property, "just for form's sake, you know," listen to his tale of WORK IN AUSTRALIA. In Melbourne, too, Pain has done some big things. There we havo had a scenic representation of the closing scenes in Lord Lyt ton's novel, the " Last Days of Pompeii," going on since October. We show twice a weak, as it is impossible to get the thing prepared quickly enough to do it oftener. It was ju3t managed at Cup time by dint of working night and day. There we employ about 300 hands, and there are over 200 people on the 6tage when the earthquake comeß on. Ifc is really a very beautiful peiformanee, and draws immense crowds. Wo opened to 26,000 people — 7000 in the grand stand. Of course we cannot expect such big crowds here. In the first place there is not the population, in the second there is not the climate. We live or die by the weather, and tho stifling still hot summer nights in Australia are our best friends. People simply will not go to be roasted in a theatre, but they will flock by thousands to an open-air show which costs them only a shilling. COMPARISONS AND LARRIKINS. In New Zealand the furious winds kill us, and the cool nights too, for they spoil our fireworks and keep our crowds a»vay; and as it is one of Mr Pain's principles to give exactly the same " show " whether £5 or .£SOO have been taken atffche gates, our losses are sometimes considerable. Wellington, for.instsnce, is a terrible place. I do not think Mr Pain's fireworks will ever appear there again. We lived there a month, and had one still night. The Basin Reserve, too, the only place available, is overlooked by Mount Cook. On the first night we had 8000 people. On the second the brilliant ones had discovered Mount Cook, and, like Mr Green, took their handkerchiefs up there — and sat upon them. A. prominent official in the world of Police and Defence had a tent pitched up there, nice and snug and comfortable, and invited his friends ' to come and Eec the fireworks and partake of light refreshments/ You can imagine what is my opinion of the capital of New Zealand." A public entertainer sees communities from quite a different point of view from other men, and it struck me to ask- Mr Illingworth's experience of the Colonial crowds and cities. "Here," was his reply, "you seem to me to havo a town far more like some big country town in the -Old Country than anything I know of in the Colonies. But I don't quite trust your crowd yet. I may be mistaken, for we have not yet shown, but from certain signs noted in my walks I take them to be much the same as others. As far as our experience goes, the Aucklanders are the most orderly crowd in New Zealand. There we left our material— -lamps, lanterns, &c— hanging all night, and never missed anything. My verdict would be that there tho larrikin element is simply non est. Very different from Dunedin . There they rushed the ground, broke the fences,fired two of our big got pieces, and stole 140 lamps and 40 lanterns. The police could do nothing. Apparently respectable people reached up and unhooked them with their umbrellas. When my wife tried to 'collar' a small boy wno was making off with a lantern, two big roughs seized her and shook him out of her clutches. " As' for the Australian cities, the Melbourne larrikin haß a bad name, "but there are good points about him compared to the larrikin of Sydney. He is the real old convict type: it is in the blood. They rushed our gates one night, climbed a tenfoot fence, fought the police, and nearly broke my arm at the ticket olSce. I havo never quite recovered the effects oi' that night. MAKING DEVICES, ETC. "Is the manufacturing hard to learn? There is nothing that a chemist cannot i understand and grasp with a little

patience. But the trade requires yeara of practice. Mr Pain himself is a.perfect enthusiast. He is a scientific as well as practical man, and has spent years in finding out how to compound the mixtures which produce the vivid, perfect colouring which puts his work before that of all other pyrotechnic artists. I believe he would give iIOOO this minute for the suspicion of a new tint. But that is how he has obtained his position — by energy, research, and spending money. You may think, perhaps, he draws all away . and gives you nothing ; but he spends .£3OO or i>4oo in every town we visit, in work and wages. My four Bkillod workmen come with me, it is true, but it takes some twenty men to do all our arrangements. We are always at work. I Bketch out the idea of devices — people or subjects interesting for the moment, or some brilliant idea that strikes me suddenly, and the pyrotechnist works the idea out. Yes, we keep up a good deal of trade altogether, having to transport such a bulk of material. I have thirteen cases on the way from Melbourne this moment. Have you heard of our shells? They are big things in their way. Tonite Sound Eockets they are called — fire them from a 13-inch mortar. The go up a third of a mile, and burst with a report that you can hear for seven or eight, and the reverberations for twice as many. That's our way_ of advertising in doubtful weather, to let people know that 'the show's about to commence/ "