sealed at the ends with wax. They were sometimes used to ignite the main propellant charge in a cannon. Squibs were once used in coal mining to break coal away from rock. In the 1870s, some versions of the device were patented and mass-produced as "Miners' Safety Squibs". The famous "Squib Case" Squibs are mentioned in the prominent tort case from eighteenth-century England, Scott v. Shepherd, 96 Eng. Rep. 525 (K.B. 1773). A lit squib was thrown into a crowded market by Shepherd and landed on the table of a gingerbread merchant. A bystander, to protect himself and the gingerbread, threw the squib across the market, where it landed in the goods of another merchant. The merchant grabbed the squib and tossed it away, accidentally hitting a man in the face, putting out one of his eyes. Squibs in films The first documented use of squibs to simulate bullet impacts in cinema was in the 1943 US war film Bataan. Other early films using squibs include the 1955 Polish film Pokolenie by Andrzej Wajda, where for the first time audiences were presented with a realistic representation of a bullet impacting on an on-camera human being, complete with blood spatter. The creator of the effect, Kazimierz Kutz, used a condom with fake blood and dynamite. However, the American western, River of No Return, filmed in 1953 and released in 1954, used a blood squib to simulate realistic bullet impact in the story's climax, when the story's antagonist is shot dead. As such, this film precedes Run of the Arrow (1957) – often credited with being the first to use blood squibs – by three years, and Pokolenie by one. Origin of the phrase "damp squib" While most modern squibs used by professionals are insulated from moisture, older uninsulated squibs needed to be kept dry in order to ignite, thus a "damp squib" was literally one that failed to perform because it got wet. Often misheard as "damp squid", the phrase "damp squib" has since come into general use to mean anything that fails to meet expectations. The word "squib" has come to take on a similar meaning even when used alone, as a diminutive comparison to a full explosive. See also Firecracker Bullet hit squib Dead-character costume Pyrotechnics References Explosives Pyrotechnics