scoop full, or as much as would cover a threepenny-piece.
You can look into another shed, where they are filling the shells, many of which have thirty different colours and effects in them. Turning away from the sheds and the workers therein, we return to a huge house where the set pieces are made. Those who have seen the great display at the Crystal Palace and other places of entertainment, cannot fail to be interested in knowing something of the process by which these immense set pieces are made. We hear some startling statistics as to the cost of a Crystal Palace display, which is about £10 a minute. Such a display as that given when the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi cost £3,000.
The furthest spot which Messrs. Brock & Co. have visited for the purpose of letting off fireworks was to India, in 1875, on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales, when hundreds of tons of fireworks accompanied him for the displays there.
No fewer than ten displays were given, at costs ranging from £1,000 to £2,300 each. During the recent Jubilee £230,000 was spent in fireworks, and it is estimated that the amount of money spent on fireworks every 5th of November falls little short of £100,000. To make a set piece depicting "The Battle of the Nile," which is over an eighth of a mile long, takes 400 gross of little coloured lights and 7 miles of quick-match, to say nothing of half a hundred-weight of pins to fasten the various parts together.
Living fireworks.
One learns, too, that the biggest Catherine wheel ever made was 100 ft. in diameter, and the biggest display of rockets at one time in this country was 5,000, though on the Continent they think nothing of providing a display of 10,000 as a bouquet of rockets. This is always considered the most important feature of a display.
Supposing one wanted to make a set piece—a portrait of the Queen, for instance. The first thing to do would be to make an outline drawing. This is then divided off into small squares to a set scale. A huge frame of laths is then needed, which is divided up into convenient squares, some 10 ft. by 5 ft., to work on. The whole thing is then laid down on a level floor. The worker takes the drawing and follows out over the frame the features, &c., in chalk, so as to ensure getting a true design. Then a small gang of lads come along with canes for curves and thin laths for the straight parts, whole of the head, with the crown of Her Majesty is now ready to be pegged—that is, little pegs are driven in at intervals of three inches along the design, and this having been done it is carried away to the place of exhibition. A body of men repair to the spot where Her Majesty is to be seen in fireworks, taking with them sufficient lances or coloured lights to illumine the head. These are put on, and at the right moment the whole thing is lit up.
Perhaps the greatest curiosity of recent years in the way of firework displays, has
