HE manufacture of fireworks has really become a fine art, and to spend a day at a factory throws considerable light as to how preparations are made in order to keep green the memory of a certain enterprising individual whose name is inseparable from the 5th of November. Imagine a great green field of fifty acres, with a hundred small outhouses dotted about here and there, and countless tram lines in miniature, over which firework trucks run—such is the first idea of Messrs. C. T. Brock & Co.'s factory at South Norwood, the largest in the world.
It will be as well to take shed by shed, and follow the making of the squib, cracker, Catherine-wheel, or set piece from start to finish. The paper is the first consideration. Here is the store. There are thirty tons inside now, and a season's manufacture involves the using of some 300 tons. It costs from £7 a ton for the brown to £50 a ton for the best white, and this little load helps to make twelve million farthing, halfpenny, and penny goods a year. The wet rolling shed is a square building with two great stoves in the centre, which are connected with huge racks above containing 50,000 cases. In the winter months the fires are lit, and the cases go through a process of drying. Just at the present moment some 10,000 rocket cases are suspended from the roof, intended for Trinity House work.
General view of Works.
It is interesting to watch the men at
