The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-06-09 00:00:00

THE OPIUM TRADE.

IRELAND IN LONDON.

The Irish Exhibition at Olympia, Kensington, was,
In point of completeness, far ahead of the usual state
of things on Monday, the opening day, although the
road down from the building to the Subway was
still deep in sand; the Subway itself was unfinished ;
the Grotto, which, with its massive stones, will sur-
pass in its air of reality anything of the sort hitherto
attempted, has made progress, but the whole area of
the open ground is a wilderness, around which the
unfinished staging of the seats the Irish Castle,
Blarney Tower, the Village, and the American Switch-
back Railway—which seems ridiculously out of place
—form a background. In a few days, however, the
Village and the Market will be complete, and will be
really picturesque and full of interest. The houses
are for the most part thatched, but need furniture
and occupants to give them life; three or four
women, however, have already taken their places at
the doors, and are at work at embroidery, lace-
making, and spinning. Inside this building a number
of women are also engaged at their delicate work,
and these were on the opening day surrounded by
spectators, who seemed eager to discover the secret
by which such beautiful work was produced.
The ceremonial of the opening of the Exhibition on
Monday was by no means an imposing one. The
visitors began to arrive as soon as the doors were
opened at half-past eleven, and by twelve o'clock the
Concert Hall, in which the ceremonial was to take
place, was filled from end to end. Upon the platform
were Lord Lathom, Lord and Lady A. Hill, the
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Mr. Burdett-Coutts, M P.,
the Countess of Aberdeen, the Lord and Lady Mayoress,
and the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Mr. Justin McCarthy,
M.P., and the Mayors of Waterford, Chorley, and
Wilton were among those present. Mr. Parnell, M.P.,
arrived just as the ceremony was concluded.
The proceedings were commenced by Lord A. Hill,
the honorary secretary of the Committee, reading
addresses to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin.
The Committee expressed its confident belief that the
Irish Exhibition would not only be of great benefit to
the manufactures of that country, but that the result
would be to bring the peoples of the two countries
more closely together. The Lord Mayor, in reply,
took nearly the same tone as that of the address, and
adverted to the fact that the work that they in-
augurated that day was entirely outside the scope of
political or party strife, and that here men of all
parties had combined their efforts with the sole aim
and desire of benefiting Ireland. The Lord Mayor was
much cheered, but the greeting to Mr. Sexton, Ml'., Lord
Mayor of Dublin, was very much warmer, and showed
that if party feeling was unrepresented in the work
of preparation, it was by no means absent in the
gathering in the concert-room. The Lord Mayor of
Dublin went over the same ground as the other
speakers, but at a very much greater length. He
raised a laugh by the statement that he had taken
part in various other public demonstrations in London,
but in none where the feeling of those present was so
unanimous, in none where he felt such unmixed satis-
faction in his work. He expatiated at length upon
the benefit that this recognition of Irish manufactures
and arts would confer upon the people of Ireland, and
upon the advantages that would arise from the more
intimate knowledge of each other that would be
gained by the two peoples. Turning to the work
done by the committee, he eulogised the efforts
that all—especially the hon. secietary, Lord A. Hill
—had bestowed upon their task. The concert that
had prevailed among the executive had been
perfect; and, animated by their example, all con-
cerned had acted in a similar spirit, content to ignore
all other considerations, and to join heartily to ensure
the success of the one grand object. The result had
been that the work had been carried through with
extraordinary speed, and that the preparations had
occup-ld less than one-fourth of the time generally
spent in the getting up of other exhibitions. If not
quite ready in all its departments, at least wonders
had been done, and if there were still imperfections,
these existed simply because impossibilities could not
be accomplished. Mr. Ernest Hart then entered at
some length upon the objects and scope of the exhi-
bition, after which the two Lord Mayors declared the
building open to the public, a short speech by Canon
Bagot concluding this part of the ceremony. ,