The Express.
London, England, 1867-07-25 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 25, 1a67.

THE PARIS EXHIBITION.

(nom oos sescuL coausrommaa.)

When will the bickering., the slanderous whisper-
ings, the written and spoken protests about tho
award of prizes, come to an end f The juries are
traduced. The owners of gold . and silver medals
are set down by tho possessors of bronze as only so
many accomplished gentlemen in the art of ear-
wigging. Indeed, according to the sturdy phalanx
of indefatigable grumblers, only the undeserving
have been rewarded, and onlythe sorriest trash has
won the gold medal. The number who have
received rewards however is enormous-21,000; and
the names till a thick octavo volume, which has just
been issued at the modest price of four francs. In
the elaboration of such a list mistakes were in-
evitable. The general complaint, however, is that
something of a graver complexion than mistakes
has in a hundred instances been conunitted. It
is undeniable that a vast amount of intriguing with
the juries went on while they were making their
rounds and framing their reports. Unscrupulous,
exhibitors whispered in jurymen's ears that their
rival was no manufacturer at all, but merely a
shopkeeper ; that the invention of which he pre-
tended to be the originatorwas merely hispurchase ;
that the fabric he exhibited as the production of
the power-loom was that of the hand-loom ; that
Brown, the exhibitor of glass, did not know what
were the component materials of metal ; that Jones
had no more polished his exhibited walnut-wood
than he had polished his manners ; that the jury
of Tomkins' class never saw the exhibit of Tomkins.
Brown was east into the wrong class. Hopkins,
now airing himself jauntily about with his gold
medal, had not a single object in his cases, to the
positive knowledge of Hobkins, his rival, when
the jury made their final round. The Ex-
hibition building, in short, has become a
chamber of torture. The courts and gal-
leries are thronged with scores of those social pests,
men with a grievance. The colonial commissioners
have carried theirs over to London, and have cast
themselves wailing at the feet of the Lord Presi-
dent. Their grievance is a strong one. The com-
munication which the English government thought
proper to address to the French government on the
subject of the Legion of Honour has had the effect
of depriving these gentlemen of their crosses. They
an royal commissioners, they are in the employ
of the crown, and therefore there is no excuse for
their exclusion from the honour which the French
government intended to confer upon them. The
advisability of excluding British exhibitors gene-
rally from a foreign order of merit is a
debateable question, but that of excluding
gentlemen who an in the service of the Queen,
and have well fulfilled their duties in con-
junction with Other foreign commissioners,
is inexcusable, since it leaves them in a most
invidious position. The impression will be
general that they who are unrewarded are unde-
serving. The refusal of the English government to
,sanction the bestowal of the Legion on deserving
British subjects has created, I must repeat, a very
bad effect here. The French are laughing at the
"free country" in which badges of dignity are so
strictly limited to the aristocracy that the most
illustrious citizen, if he be not of the privileged
class, cannot become a member of any order in his
own country, or even accept star or cross from any
foreign power that is more liberal towards genies.
It is said that the crown cannot prevent an Eng-
lishman from accepting and wearing a foreign
order ; but that which the government does is
equal in effect to this power, since foreign govern-
ments will not bestow honours which the English
crown refuses to recognise. This is a more unfor-
tunate business than at a cursory glance it appears
Ito be. The discontent is deep in the British sec-
tion, and among important men, who will carry
back to England a grudge they will endeavour to
pay sooner or later. Surely this was not the time
lin England to set up another class grievance.
On the line of the British gas exhibits a
flagrant injustice has been done. By far
the most remarkable exhibit is that of the
London Gas Meter Company. All their models are
new, and are most highly finished. The chairman
Mr. Croll, is the joint inventor of the diaphragm,
meters. This stall has been the admiration of all
the gas authorities who have surveyed it. It pre-
sents to the spectator the details of the mechanism
of dry and liquid meters in action. The mode of
testing the accuracy of gas meters is shown. The
self-pressure regulating apparatus is charmingly
ingenious and simple. The motive power meter,
which is worked by a spring or weight similar to
that used in a clock, is a most valuable improve-
ment. Its use is to increase the pressure of gas
to the consumer when the pressure in the mains of
the gas company is insufficient to give good light.
In effect, the meter, whilst re • • measurer
of quantity, becomes an exhauster. The construc-
tion of each meter is capable of easy explanation
by use of the articles exhibited round about them.
Another valuable meter in this exhibit is a skeleton
10-light dry gas meter,every part of which has been
put together without solder and by machinery, •
result obtained for the first time in the manufac-
ture of dry gas meters. The accuracy thus obtained
enables the Gas Meter Company to dispense with
all means that are commonly employed to adjust
the valve coven to their seats. With valve plates,
and other parts of dry gas meter made by hand,
adjustment is necessary to cover the imperfection
of hand labour. The liquid meter exhibited by
this company was manufactured by special ma-
chinery to ensure accuracy and uniformity of parts.
It is used for measuring the water supply to con-
sumers for water companies, and generally for
measuring liquids. This form of meter is recom-
mended by compactness and fewness of parts. It
will deliver water for use without reduction of
pressure, or giving shocks to service pipes. It
has no packed services, and few wearing
parts to impair its durability. It is the
invention of Mr. Walter Payton. The unvarying
water-line gas meter, the invention of Messrs.
Gilbert Sanders and Richard Donovan, ensures the
most accurate registration under all circumstances.
It is a simple but perfect compensator for lost
water. It is not neoessary to describe Messrs.
Croll and Richards's dry gas meter ' • the best proof
of its value lies in the fact that it has been in use
for twenty-three years. The unvarying water-line
gas meter is the novelty of the company!s exhibi-
tion, and its importance has been greatly enhanced
since the legislature pulled the Sales of Gas Act,
requiring accuracy in gas meters. Taken as •
whole, this is the most interesting gas exhibition
in the section. It is remarkable, as I have shown,
for its completeness, and it has the further merit
that everything has been expressly manufactured
Ifor the Exhibition, whereas other firms have been
content to re-exhibit their shows of 1862 ; yet, by
some unaccountable concurrence of circumstances,

this important exhibit has commanded only i
bronze medal. Mr. Thomas Glover has obtained a
silver medal for his dry gas meters.
Protests against the decisions of the juries have
takem some striking forms in the French section.
A French exhibitor in class 26 has placed a writ-
ten protest over his exhibit. The protest is
firm and pithy :—" I refuse the bronze medal
which the jury have awarded me ; and I appeal to
the workmen of my trade, the only competent
judges." In class 33, another written protest is
placarded by an offended exhibitor of tulle and
lace :—" I refuse the bronze medal which the jury
have awarded me ; and I appeal to my peers." So
general and acute is the dissatisfaction with the
labours of the juries, that many believe the entire
list will undergo a revision, and that an indepen-
dent body of eminent manufacturers and scientific
men will determine, finally, where flagrant acts
of injustice have been done, and will recommend
the Imperial Commissioners to remedy them.
Even the competitors in harmony have
fallen out. When the prizes were distri.

buted at the Paleis de l'lnduatrie, on Tuesday,
on the announcement that M. A. Sax's band
had won the first prize, the fact was received with
universal hissing. M. -Sax is accused of unfairness
and want of delicacy, in not having held himself
aloof from the contest. He has already won every
possible honour, and should have held himself hors
ce.ieoers. All these musical competitions have been
unfortunate. We have had bad March weather,
deluges of rain, and stormy gusts of wind through-
out. The rival performances of the fanfares and
bands in the Horticultural Gardens were carried on
under blinding showers. The competitors were
compelled to huddle themselves alternately in the
Kiosque in which the ordinary band plays, while
the jury took refuge in the little pavilion of the
Horticultural Library. I am afranw the reports
which will shortly appear under the editor-
ship of M. Michel Chevalier will not heal the
wounds which the juries have inflicted, in the
minds of so many exhibitors. No exhibitor's
name is to be mentioned in this elaborate work, to
which 249 pens are contributing. It is to be
a complete judgment on every class and section,
and its editor pretends to give the world an impar-
tial estimate of the progress which has been made
of late years in the arts and sciences of the world.
How this is to be done without mentioning, for in-
stance, the foremost inventors and improvers of
machines, or processes, or tools, I leave your
readers to imagine.
The latest interesting arrivals are the bands of
Swiss working watchmakers from Lode, Chaux-de-
Fond, and Val-Saint-Himyer. These sturdy self-
reliant fellows deserve to be honoured. They are
neither delegates nor the recipients of any em-
ployer's favour. They have travelled at their OWila
expense ; but they have done more than this The
object of their journey is to examine all the clock-
work in the Exhibition exhibited by other nations,
and to apply all that is new or valuable to the
clockmakmg trade of the canton of Neufchatel. In
order to do this well they have clubbed their avail-
able money together—not so much each but each
according to the capacity of his purse. In this way
the comparatively rich workman has helped his
poor neighbour on his journey.
A series of grand experiments are announced to
take place at the international laboratory on the
Champ de Mars, of the same nature, but on a
larger scale than those recently tried at the Eoole
Normale. But the public are getting impatient at
the repeated postponement of these scientific per-
formances, especially as a recently decorated pro-
fessor of the Boole Normale has been installed, and
charged with their immediate organisation.

The seventh party of visitors sent by the Paris
Exhibition Excursion Committee to the French capital
left London on Tuesday by the Brighton and the Chatham
and Dover routes. There were in all about 130 excur-
sionists, including more than 30 members of the Ber-
mondsey Working Men's Institute and some 20 members
of other mechanics' institutions slid teachers in misses
schools. The sumer of these artisan tripe Is now assured;
and there would be no difficulty, were there available beds
at the lodgments' erected by the Imperial Commission at
the committee's dlaposal, in, at the least, doubling the
numbers sent over week by week.