In Washington the authorities have already taken a step in the right direction in forbidding the explosion of the so-called giant firecrackers, nor is it allowable to place torpedoes on the street railway tracks. I believe that the Fourth of July can be celebrated with as much patriotism and more sanity if the wanton use of gunpowder on that day is condemned. And now, before taking up the question of what might be suggested as a more reverent and appropriate mode of honoring our day of days, let us look back a hundred years or so, and see how our first national birthdays were kept. Here it is encouraging to learn that nothing resembling in the least our wild orgy of noise was dreamed of. Indeed, had such a suggestion been breathed to the sons and daughters of our Revolutionary heroes, they would probably have felt that the plan savored more of China, the land of noise and the home of the firecracker, than of their own country, and have been profoundly shocked at the mere idea that such an anniversary could receive so murderous a recognition. A glance over the time-yellowed pages of the _Evening Post_, printed more than a century ago, or those of the _New York Packet_, which was old when the _Post_ was young, shows how differently the Fourth was observed by those who had seen burst into full flower that glorious patriotism which had given it birth. The proclamations, announcements, poems, and advertisements which appeared in those July days of long ago are touching in their patriotic, though grandiloquent, fervor. Here, for instance, is a bit from an announcement of the Tammany Association which appeared in the “Season of Fruit, Year of the Discovery, 310” (July 1): Brothers. This Day, like the Sun which illuminates it, sheds a bright and diffusive luster, and welcomes all to partake of its radiance. Once it witnessed the blood-stained field, the plundered town, the ravaged coast, the sinking warrior, the defenseless town, the despondency of our Guardian Genius. But the Great Spirit watched over the western clime, and now its approach is hailed with the incense of Peace; and the veteran rejoices in his scars, the hoary chief and his patriot sons assemble with congratulations where once the noise of battle was heard, and the Eagle towers aloft majestic and unawed.