The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-07 00:00:00

[Stamped,

THE INTERNATIONAL

Our somewhat dreary teak of recording the pro-
gress of the building is nearly finished. Two
months after the date fixed for the completion of
the new temple of industry the contractors have
almost swept up their rubbish, and completed their
work. The refreshment rooms are not yet ready,
and the eastern annexe, with its approaches', is not
quite free from builders, but enough has been done
to enable us to take leave of Messrs. Kelk and
Lucas (except as contractors for fittings), and to
turn our attention td more pressing business.
The great shell being substantially completed,
the wooden filling in is a mere trifle—hardly worth
mentioning. The great eschews tinder the eastern
dome could be built in 48 hours, if necessary, and
when built (which it will be in about a week) it
will almost destroy the effect of the two eastern
transepts. The colonial 'display oh one side, and
the great hardware trophies on the other, will then
be half beried in two hotel.; and much as great
musical performances will doubtless add to the
attractions of the Exhibition, there will be a set-off
in the ices of space, effect,
.and thoroughfare which*
we shall suffer -while this structure remains
'standing. •
Now that the dories can be seen inside free hem
OW, spa** of they kek nothing like
the height which the. silionmss have paid for.
The vast glaring mead glom has the same effect
upon the eye as a snow,covered mountain,, and the
elevation almost seems to end where the springing
begins, or not much more than two-thirds of the
way up.
Since our last report the foreign deliveries have
slightly gained upon the English, and altogether'
between 11,000 and 12,000 eases have been
received at the Custom-house in the building. The
British eases and fittings received up to Friday
night numbered at least seventeen thousand, bat .
the foreign cases received on Wednesday, Thum
day, and Friday were four thousand five hundred,
and the English cases, during the same days, only
four thousand. In 1851, on the British side, about,
twenty thousand package, were received from Feb:
13 to August 21; and up to April 5 (a period WIWI
corresponds with the date we have now arrived at)
the English deliveries had reached only eleven thou-
sand five hundred packages. On the foreign and
colonial side the total deliveries in 1861, from Feb.
12 to Oct. 10, reached about twelve thousand pack-
apa, and the deliveries up to April 5,1861, reached
about seven thousand packages. The balance of
activity, therefore, is considerably in favour of
1862; but notwithstanding this no time is to be lost,
as the exhibitors on the foreign side far outnumber
the exhibitors in 1851. Not only do many colonies
and countries exhibit now for the first turns, but the
number of exhibitors is vastly increased in nearly
all the states that made a display at the former
International Exhibition. In 1851 we had a
grand total under the bead of foreign exhibitors of
about six thousand five hundred ; and the exhibitors
of the United Kingdom were a little over this
number. The number of exhibitors from the co-
lonies (as at the present Rthibition)oonld not be
reliably stated, as most of the pomanions showed
in a lump through a' central authority. In 1862,
as regards the British exhibitors, we hod a falling
off hi the number, having only between five and six
thouand in the industrial department, while the
colonies have increased their show tenfold, and the
foreign exhibitors have more than doubled their
numbers.
The three great foreign states, or collections of I
states, now exhibiting are of course France, the I
Zollverein (or German Free-trade Union) which
inehalee•Prasaia and Austria. The French courts
will probably be flu by betweee-lksee and
four thetremed exhibitors, and the afiastrisa
display will probably be furnished by an equal
number of hrms and individuals. Part of
the Austrian goods have been at last delivered, and
the catalogue has been sent in to the proper °thane
The Zollverein display is furnished by about 2,500
exhibitors, of whom Prussia can claim about
1400., Russia shows through about 400 exhibitors,
Holland through about 350, Spain through about
1,150, Portugal through 1,000, Norway through
about 200, Sweden through 500, and Belgium
through about 900. Here, without reckoning Italy,
Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Egypt, and a few
small States, we have at least 13,000 foreign ex-
hibitors is the industrial part of the exhibition, and
when the list is made complete they will reach three
times the number of the British exhibitors. The
only part of the above list in which no very re-
markable increase can be noted is the Zollverein,
as the exhibitors; from these States in 1851 num-
bered 2,300. The other States, without an excep-
tion, show a wonderful increase of exhibitors, and
largely as France was represented at the first Ex-
hibition, her exhibitors now will be nearly doubled.
At the first glance it may seem unimportant how
many exhibitors we have as long an the building is
filled with goods. The Crystal Palace of 1851 was
full ; the brick, iron, and glans palace of 1862 can
only be full. The present building is one-fifth
larger than its predecessor, and so corresponds with
the iDefellbe of population in England, and the
forthcoming exhibition will be one-fifth larger than
the former display. This is one way of looking at
it, but not the only way. The enormous increase
of foreign exhibitors shows a spirit of competition,
a self-reliance, and a faith in industrial exhibitions
which speak well for foreign enterprise. In many
cases, no doubt, this great self-reliance will have
led its possessors into mistakes, and they will have
exhibited things that are far from being models of
perfection ; but the mere energy that packs up a
huge piece of machinery and carries it over sea and
land a thousand miles is worthy of respect, apart
from the importance of the article exhibited. The
value of these exhibitions is found in the fact that
they draw distant nations out of their holes, and
the present display has had three times the attrac-
tive power over foreigu producers shown by the
former exhibition.

The falling off of home exhibitors is not such •
hopeful sign, as it shows either apathy or self-
conceit on the part of our manufacturers, or bad
management in the distribution of space by the
local committees. It is far better that the repre-
sentation of a particular industry should be in a
thousand instead of tire hundred hands, and in this
respect the foreign division of apace is superior to
the English. Great exhibitions are not started to
advertise a few large established houses, but to give
young struggling manufacturers an opportunity of
stepping into notice. There are some trading
names that we are positively sick of hearing,
although their owners are highly respectable, and
manufacture things that are without Main and
without .reproach. We want the narrow trading
area widened, and do not want to be
tied down for life to • particular pianoforte maker,
a particular earthenware producer, or a particular
furniture maker. Capital and enterprise are *aryl
good things in their way, but they do not always run
band in hand with au artistic spirit ; and it is just
possible that a thousand small produces* have been
shut out of the exhibition doors because of their
want of influence whose work would have been far
superior to anything that will be exhibited.
With our present knowledge it is impossible to
say what cause has chiefly operated to keep down
the English exhibitors at their present low numerical
level. They show a decrease (as we have before
said) of full twenty per cent. compared with 1861,
when the exhibiting space has been increased twenty
per cent, to receive them. They will fill this spas ;
but with less variety, or with a narrower view of
English industry ; while the foreign States will
have increased their industrial representatives three-
fold in almost every department.
The work in the various foreign courts is being
pushed on with more or less privacy and activity.
The Yreka have placed barriers at all the en-
trances of their great industrial area? and they
allow nein but a few privileged visitors to pass

' [TWOPEITCE

them. Their building arrangements have not ad-
vanced so rapidly, to all appearanoe, during the
last week or two as they did in the early part of
March. Some of their goods are being uncovered
and placed,' and they make a display of large cast-
ings of various animals, which promisee to outdo
anything of the kind in the building:
Many of the smaller countries, such as Norway,
have shut themselves up in little boxes on the
French model ; having a private door with a lock
and key ; and at 2 o'clock, when the managers
think they would like a little refreshment, the
country is locked up for an hour, and any mes-
sages, letters, or parcels, have to be left with a
oommissionaus. The idles of Masse!, packing-
cases and boxes waiting to be opened in different
pouts of the building seem to increase rather than
diminish ; and the entrance to the western annexe
is now blocked up with a barricade of machinery
packages. An extra staff of labourers sad riggers
is now pad on to unload thee unwieldy maims, and
it will require all the of the superintendents
and 'exhibitors to gel this p into good order by
the day °Sequin& When finished it will form
a perfect Won- in itself-one el the most
interesting an important sections of the general
Exhibition.

iii;:arTangemeet of the trophies is is a forward
state in the British half of the save, and in the
south-eastelett or Utterer& Ire:wept ; but the foreign
trophies In the nave, and the colonial trophies in the
north-east transept:, as yet chiefly exist upon paper.
The south-west and north-western transepts pro-
mise to be the moat ill-arranged and backward parts
of the Exhibition ; but the foreign display generally
will be in a very. satisfactory state by the Ist of
May. Familiarity with Mr. Willana's ship-
lighthouse (the first trophy erected in the British
half of the nave) hardly increases our love for
it as a thing of beauty. It smacks strongly of
Limehouse and Black will, will not harmonise with
the cathedral nave in which it stands, nor the rail-
way station gallery at its side, and is very sug-
gestive of the Nore—to many people not n very
=subject to think of. While statues and
are baaished to the Hortioultwal Gardena
for want of room, it is strauge that this nautical
eyesore eau keep its footing. We should do our
utmost," says Goethe, "to encourage the beau-
tiful, for the useful encourages itself," and we
therefore call upon Mr. Thompson and the com-
missioners to do their duty.
The government display of guns still trembles in
the balance, the authorities at Whitehall thinking
that nothing peculiar to Woolwich should be ex-
hibited anywhere else. There are many honest
people who think that the show of such imple-
ments of destruction in a collection supposed to re-
present the industry of all nations is a little out of
place ; and the government authorities seem to be
of the same opinion.
While Whitehall is doing its beet to lessen the
show, the houses of parliament are doing their beet
to increase it. The Soane Museum Bill, which
enables the trustees of that institution to lend part
of the collection to this, or any other exhibition,
has bedome law, and several valuable Hogarths
will be released for the British Picture Gallery.
The Foreign Picture Gallery is being very slowly
hungwith pictures, although the display coming, and
already half-delivered, invest and curious. Switzer-
land has begun its work in this department, though
it gets on very slowly.
Objects of vulgar interest but of very question-
able utillty trill of course be found in every part of
the building? and life-sue photographswill be nume-
rous. Foreign and English exhibitors are about
to compete in this branch of photography ;
and the French are going to show eques-
trian portraits the size of life. The Koh-i-noor
diamond, we heer, is promised forth, display by her
Majesty. Then is to be it leek nestle be the per-
mutation principle, which will have so many changes
that, the key-word once lost, one or two hundred
years will be consumed in opening it, supposing the
opener is able to preserve hie health and temper.
If not, perhaps, the lock may be opened ins minute.
Turkey has sent sit alarm lock, which contrasts
very advantageously with this piece of perverted
ingenuity, ss it only rings a bell when the key is
inserted. By way of lightening a mass of raw pro-
duce and small articles of manufacture laboriously
brought for hundreds of miles by camels across
parched deserts, Turkey has sent a popular
edition of its national Joe Miller—the jests
of Eddin Effendi. Effendi seems to have
been very much like our own Dick Tarleton,
or any other merry jester—a troublesome
and provoking person to deal with, whose
wit was much smaller than his impudence.
The title-page represents Effendi standing in a
pulpit about to preach. "Do you know what I
shall preach ?' asks Effendi. " No. " " Then I
shall not preach to know-nothings, " says Effendi.
The next time he put the question they answered,
" Yea" " Then I need not preach," said Effendi.
On another day when asked the same question,
they answered, " Some know anti some do not."
" Then those who know," said Effendi, " may tell
those who don't know," and again he went away
leaving the congregation unpreaehed to.
There may be national peculiarities in raw pro-
duce, arta, manufactures, and commerce—but such
jokes as these are common to all the world. Cow-
per is made to say in an inscription iu the building :
—" Each climate needs what other climes pro-
duce> •"—except their jesters, we may add by way
of finish.
•