Licence: In copyright
Credit: The fourth of July in America. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![The statistical section of this article may be completed by the following summary, taken from the same source, of the non-fatal injuries for the four years in question : 1903 1904 1905 1906 Loss of sight ..... 10 19 25 22 Loss of one eye ..... 75 61 106 72 Loss of leg, arm, or hand . 64 61 80 56 Loss of one or more fingers 174 208 221 227 Other injuries 3,670 3,637 4,562 4,931 Total injuries .... 3,983 3,986 4,994 5,308 There is reason for doubting whether even the most carefully compiled statistics of killed and wounded can give anything like an adequate idea of the suffering caused by the Fourth of July celebra- tions. For one thing, there can be no computation of the effect of the incessant uproar upon sick persons. Mention was made earlier in this article of the distress caused to patients in Chicago hospitals in 1902. Three years later, on a similar occasion, a dispatch from the same city reported that ‘ hundreds of patients in Chicago’s hospitals were subjected to nervous shocks that may eventually result seriously for the sufferers.’ Further, the statistics take into account only such accidents as occur on the Fourth of July itself or within a few days of that hohday. Actually, in the larger cities at any rate, the cele- bration practically begins weeks beforehand, and increases in volume and intensity until it reaches its chmax on Independence Day. This extension of the time-limit of the disturbance is periodically bewailed by the American press. The New York Times of the 28th of April, 1904, published a letter from a correspondent in the upper part of the city, who said that the noise of fire-crackers was already causing suffering. Scores of little shops all over this city [said the Brooklyn Eagle of the 15th of June, 1904], have been selling torpedoes of the most vicious sort, and fire-crackers of any size you like, to schoolboys for weeks and months past, and the pur- chasers of the merchandise have shot it off as freely on the sidewalks as they strew fruit skins. In various parts of the city the glorious Fourth begins to announce itself on about the 1st of April, and from that time forward there is a steady crescendo of noise, culminating in imiversal racket, stench, discomfort, danger and death on Independence Day itself. Here is an extract from the New York Tribune of the 26th of June of the same year : Thanks to the general laxity of the city authorities. New York is, as usual, undergoing its customary month of suffering, beside which the infrequent bombardments of Port Arthur pale into insignificance. Anticipating by nearly a month the old-time celebration of the Fourth of July, the necessary permission to sell fireworks was granted on the 10th of June, and since that date 385 dealers in explosives have been ministering to as many hundreds of roughs, corner](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22406931_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
