Boys will be Boys!

Taken from the Bicester Advertiser, 28th September 1900:

On Saturday afternoon a boy named George Bowden (son of Mr G. Bowden, New Buildings), had an unpleasant experience through meddling with gun powder.
He purchased a small quantity at a shop, under the pretext that it was for use in cleaning a flue. Then he repaired to the Banbury Road with a boy companion, whom he despatched home for a match. The sinews of war being thus prepared the match was ignited and applied to the powder, with the result that it blazed up in the boy’s face, taking off his eye-brows and eye-lashes, singeing his hair, and blackening his face, which was more or less burnt.
The adventurer then returned home, and may congratulate himself that the result of playing with such a dangerous toy was not far more serious.
In the same quarter of the town another accident happened early this week, the victim being a boy named Charles Clifton, son of Mr C. Clifton, grocer. Whilst playing with other children he fell over a rope with which they were amusing themselves and broke his leg. He was subsequently taken to the Nursing Home.