The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-05-13 00:00:00

THE INTEBNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

The Great Exhibition is still, and will continue to
be for months to COMO, the first and greatest topic of a
national character to which it is our duty to refer. The
metropolitan journals are crowded with comments on
the building, and on the articles of which the
Exhibition is composed, but respecting the
latter the comments are yet necessarily
meagre. The I'arin journals have also been
erticising the Exhibition and its opening, and the
strictures of severil of the gentlemen who have "done,"
the Exhibition for our Trench contemporaries me the
reverse of complimmitary in some respects to the
English people. The correspondent of the Debuts,
M. 3. Lemoine, %%WI much amused at the singular
uniforms used by different members in the grand pro-
cesrion. The "high authorities" be thought looked
very much as if they had "left the collection at the
Tower of London." As a matter of course the building
comes in for a share of the writer's satire. The domes
are compared to "wire gauze dish covers'—not an
original idea certainly, frr it has done good service in
this country for the last month or two, but it will
tickle the readers of the Debars mistily An piquantly
and appositely depreciative. The Exhibition itself is
acknowledged to be far superior to that of 1851, but as
for the English people, especially those of the sterner
sex, the Frenchmen who saw them eleven years ago
would scarcely recognise them again. In the interval
between •• then" and 'now" tLey appeared in the eyes
of M. Lemoinne, as if they had been put out to nurse
awl changed. In those eleven years beards and
mustachios have mimic their appearance on almost all
faces, cmiii time Englishmen of 1882 look like gorillas.
The lodies, the writer admits, have not changed. Re-
ferring to their presence at the opening he exclaims,
" There they were with flaming toilets at noon, always
elsesling in freshness and extravagant in colours—
dressed lides and roses at the Belle Jardiniere." The
correspondent of the Freese compliments us on being
the "beat combed people in ereation," and, than the
opening spectacle he declares be has never seen any-
thing more beautiful. Of course lie is quite certain
that the French industry will take the first rank,
" although the American war and treaty of commerce
have prevented French mauufacturers devoting much
time to the undertaking." He tells us that the latter
chess of persona, in addition to having bad little time to
prepare for the Exhibition, have very little will to come
to London. It is very costly and very slow, and lie
thinks that the present is the last international
gathering London will see. The exhibitors of all
nations, with the exception of the English, prefer Paris
to London. They are better treated in the former city,
and not overcharged." "At London thisisall reversed,"
says the writer in the Presse. "The English nation
has great qualities ; it is intelligent, brave, persevering,
intrepid, but it is not hospitable." The verdict of
foreigners, generally speaking, will be quite different
from this. The correspondent of the Siecle is more
liberal in his praise, but he has been somewhat mysti-
fied by a portion of what he saw, as he makes the
Bishop of London perform the Hallelujah chorus !
The number of visitors present at the opening is now
set down at 32,000, exclusive of those—the singers,
instrumentalists, and official personages—who took
part in the opening ceremony. The Koli-i-Noor has
been added since the opening day to the jewel
treasures of the Exhibition, and in its new forum it
presents a mueh better appearance than it did in 1851.
In addition to this "mountain of light" there is another
brilliant of immense size, named the " Star of the
South," and valued at a million sterling, so that the
admirers of jewels—and who does net like to see those
sparkling rarities—will have quite a feast at the
present Exhibition. The affections of the lady visitors
seem tube divided equally between the jewels and the

Armstrong guns. Tfie latter, it appears, 'are immensely
popular with the fair sex. A London contemporary
says :—" Sir William Armstrong's department was
never clear of the Taffies, who fondled the terrible
engines as if they were so many pet spaniels, and
tested the rifling, reckless of the consequences to the
most delicately tinted gloves."