The Express.
London, England, 1862-02-20 00:00:00

L'_VIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.

CANIBRIITGE, F►a 19.
A I`I4,I7NTMENT Or HULNLAN LE.1110:1t. —The Rev.
.Tobn Sint Howson. D.D., of 'frinity has thiaday
been uppoinuel Ilulawn (invent)) Lecturer fur the ensuing
academical Year.

DIsPeTATION.—It ie proposed to hold a public
disputation, on the Zoth Marell, the following question :
Was the bomleirdent of Copenhagen • violation of the
law of national" Gentlemen wishing to take part is the
same are requested to communicate with the Regina Pro.
(Tailor, or the Downing Professor of Law, some time before
the Ist Marcia.

BILL Scoot-tit:dm% —An election .d two scholars upon
this foundation will take platen on Fri.b4y, the 4th of April,
1562. The examination will commence on Monday, the
17th of March, at 9 o'clock in the forenoon, in the Senate.
house.

WALKING Mercy! for £lOO AND THE CHAMPION.
SHIP.—The long-peoding contest between James Masa, of
Reigate, and William Spooner, the champion, which has
been exciting much interest of late moneys the members
of the Victoria Turf Club, and the sporting public gene-
rally. ,s, ,a decided yesterday afternoon at Mr. Ro-
berta's enclosed pedestrian ground, Thistle-grovelane,
West lirunipten, in the preseece of a good muster
of spectators. The stake was 50/. a side, and
the distance 14 mike, to complete which the mu had to
make the circuit of the course fifty•sii times. The won-
derful speed of Spooner, the well-known fair style of Miles,
and the unusually long diatoms caused a oonsiderable deal
of excitement to be medalled by these preempt, many of
whom only wished to me whether the champion's speed
had become impaired daring hb long lea A goad deal of
betting took place on the reseld, at 7t04 on MUG'. Owen
Swift having been appolated referee, the men got off,
Spooner with the lied, which be maintained from the start
to the finish, welkin in a very qweetimeable style, wianing
by 100 yards. The whole distance was amompliehed ha
1 hunt 57 minutes 42. mooed&

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862.

While the Commissioners are busy at the office in 1,
sending out diagrams to the exhibitors' showing 1
the size, shape, and position of their several allot- i
menta of space, the sappers and miners at the
building, under careful direction, are engaged with
paintpots and brushes marking these figures on the
doors. As fast as the planks already laid down—
not yet covering one-half of the building—are
swept clear of brickdust, mortar, and shavings,
these irregular designs are drawn on them in red
outlines, and when the work is finised, we only
hope that the different pieces will fit into each
other with the harmony of • Chinese puzzle.
When some of the exhibitors gut out of the irri II
-
tating atmosphere of letters and official forms' and ,
are able to grasp something substantial for
their trouble, Mr. Sandford may probably
be relieved from his body guard. At present
much of the business transeoted at West
Strand is too much huddled up in corners
for want of room. Stupid inquirers produce fussy ,
officials, amid some of the money-making depart- 1
meats are withering for want of air and space. '
Mr. Cundall, the superintendent of the Illustrated
Catalogue, is boxed up in a pen, in size and appear-
ance very much like a compartment at the baths .
and washhouses. Here he has to find room foe
hundreds of wood-outs, thousands of letters, an
assistant, and two writing-tables, and to ate his
customers on business. if his catalogue should
produce a thousand pounds less towards the sur- 1
plus than the Commissioners expect, it will not be,
difficult to account for the deficiency.
On Saturday next these offices in the Strand will
be finally given up—so runs the official announce-
ment—and next Monday the whole staff will be
found at the Exhibition building. Opinions differ
as to the policy of removing such departments as
the Catalogues and the Finance to such a distant
spot, and some of the officials have even threatened
to strike ; but as the fiat has gone forth, the move-
ment will take place, very much to the profit of
the Brompton omnibuses. Unless any other ar-
rangements are made, the only Western Central
office where season tickets for the Exhibition can
be obtained on and after Monday next will be at
the house of the Society of Arta, John-street,
Adelphi. An elaborate calculation has been
Iworked out, showing that each three guinea ticket,
if fully used by its holder, will admit on occasions
when the separate payments for admission would
amount to nearly 211., and this may explain why
season tickets are so popular with the public.

The improved approaches question remains very
much in the same state as we left it last week.
There has been a little talkee-talkee on the matter
in the House of Commons ; several parishes hays
vigorously declined to pay for the proposed new
roads out of the rates, and the owner~_ of the South
Kensington property still keep their pockets but-
toned. The only fact to record un the other side
is, that the Chelsea Vestry, acting on the Metro-
politan Board of Works, has cleared the way for
widening the narrow gorge from Eaton-square to
Sloane-square. This is not much ; in fact, it is
very little ; but it seems, at present, to be all we
are likely to get. We have no doubt that the gene-
ral public, when the time arrives, will find their
way to and from the Exhibition without much difil-
oulty, and will not object to walk across the parks,
while those who have lust the use of their feet are
stuck fast in carriages.
Those visitors who see the Exhibition building
for the first time standing solidly before them, free
from all the enchantment of chrome-lithography,
or the fancy toucher of the artist, will doubtless be
much disappointed. The outside is neither beauti-
ful war impasse/ye, and the less merit that is claimed
for it on these beads the better. From many
points of view it looks like a Wolverton engine
factory, and the square, ordinary, mean glazing
adds to this appearance. The great domes are of
the earth earthy, light in material, but heavy in
design. Throughout the building the harmony of
proportion is sadly wanting, and this no after out-
lay can give, unless the building is largely recon-
structed. The Exhibition charter provides that
• 50,000 t. shall be spent in the architectural oomple-
, tion of the central portion of the building out of
contingent profits, but this will hardly remove the
depressing flatness of the open or glass courts, nor
make them lees like a large railway station. The
clerestory windows of the nave have a look of
patchwork meanness, arising from the ordinary
square glazing before Mikado! to ; and the spaces
under the galleries, especially those which divide
the nave from the open or glass courts, will be
I much darker than many of the managers will admit.
The decoration are being laid on very rapidly—too
I rapidly, perhaps, for the interests of art—but no
time is to be lust, and they can beasily be improved
I at the close of the Exhibition.

The shafts generally are painted a bronze green,
with edging* of buff down their angles, and
of bright red at their roots, their heads, and their
junctions with the galleries. The ornamental iron-
work along the front of the galleries is also painted
a bronze green, and it is to be backed with red
cloth. The roof of the nave is painted grey ; the
girders are painted alternately red and blue, re-
lieved on the edges with • broad buff line. Each
girder or spanner along the nave has the name of a
country painted on it. The columns, or shafts, are
painted the same breeze green, and their capitals
are alternately painted blue and red, with gilded
mouldings, which give them the appearance of spe-
cial constables' staves.
it is rather early yet to report about the refresh-
ment department, when the refreshment rooms are
not half built, and even the cellars where the beer
is to be stowed away are iu the same condition.
[ The price* at present fixed for food prove nothing,
no much depeuding upon the quantity and quality
of the eatables. The eightpeuny "snack," the
eighteenpenuy lunch, the half-crown dinner, and
1 the five-shilling feast (all without drink), may be
i ire!), good or very bad, according to the competitive
I spirit of the French and English contractors. The
, statistics put forward in the interest of these con-
I tractors only lead us to hope that every visitor
requiring refreshment will be provided with a plate,
• knife and fork, a tumbler, and the use of a salt-
cellar. The refreshment siren net apart by the
Commissioners cover about one hundred and sixteen
square feet, consisting of the upper dining-rooms,
the spaces on the gallery floor and upper mezzanine,
on the lower mezzanine, and the ground floor, and
in the two annexes. The aggregate space is about
equally divided between the two contractors, who
! are bound by many stringent rules and provisions
to give satisfaction to their landlords—theCounnis-
' &loners. One rule compels them to provide fresh
filtered water and iced water as long as the Commis-
sioners consider it necessary, for every person who
asks for it, free of charge.
The tint arrival of goods in the building was
• from Liberia—a Lower Thames-street looking cargo
1 of oil casks, greasy packing snare, and rough cut
timber. St. Helena has come in a close second
with some very Similar packages, and there are
piled up in the centre of the open or glass courts
near an office like a hone-box labelled " Her Ma-
jesty's Customs." Mistof the divisional managers
are now planted in this part of the building in 'epos-
! rate horse-boxes, some of them waiting until the
I northern and colonial courts are finished.
The Empress of the Seas, which was burnt off
Port Phillip, we now learn by later advices had no
Exhibition goods on board ; but the Orient, which
has been damaged by fire, has on board 85 pack-
ages of South Australian goods, including wine,
flour, barley, native woods, jams, copper and other
ores, malachite, slates, oil paintings, photographs
and shells. Other vessels are also on their way
. from the same settlement with mixed cargoes of
1 native produce for the exhibition, such as soap,
wool, and dried plants.
The province of Nelson, New Zealand, has shipped
a valuable collection of coal specimens, cloth, wool,

gold, timber, hops, photographic views, and sam-
ples of furniture made from native woods, the very
names of which would make the fortune of adver-
tising upholsterers. Red Manuka chairs, Totara
couches, and Ti-tree tables, to say nothing of many
other productions, ought really to create a new
sensation.

Tasmania is determined to be well represented
iu the forthouming display, and she has, therefore,
not only shipped some fine specimens of anthracite
coal and iron ores from her vast coal fields, with
topazes, polished marbles, furs, skins, fine fleeces
of wool, and models of native fruit, but she is going
to erect • trophy in the building—a column nearly
one hundred feet high, made of native woods,
capped with the flag of the colony, and surrounded
at the base with ornamental woods aworked up into
models of whale-boats and whaling apparatus.
This column will have • winding staircase inside,
and will doubtless be • leading feature of the
Exhibition. _ _ _

Queensland, a young Australian colony of scarcely
two years' growth, has shipped a full collection of
cotton, inane and wheat, coal and copper, wine,
wool, tallow, oil, and honey, models of ships,
stuffed animals, birds, and preserved insects, blocks
of marble, native woods, and photographs, with
dresses made from native cotton and wool, and a
number of aboriginal ornaments and implements.
From New South Wales we shall get a fine art
display, consisting of oil paintings, water-colour
drawings, photographs, works in the precious
metals, pottery, specimens of fancy bookbinding,
music publishing, . and cabinet and leather work.
The textile fabrics sent will include native cloths
and lace ; and the minerals, coal, copper ore, iron,
gold, and fossils. The settlement has also shipped
a quantity of agricultural produce, some valuable
native woods and wines, samples of sugar, wool,
tallow, hides, and Rreserved beef, and also some soap,
candles, and blacking. The Colonies evidently mean
business at the Exhibition, and will display the
usefel quite u much u the beautifuL