The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-14 00:00:00

[STAMPED, id. ADDITIONAL.]

THE PARIS EXHIBITION OF 1867.

(nog oua frin:CILL cosanroxoerr.)
The French government have the very best rea-
sons for making the agricultural section of the
Exhibition of 1867 as rich and comprehensive as
possible. The backward condition of French agri-
culture when compared with that of England is a
weakness in this country which threatens to be an
exceedingly grave and dangerous one. The great
inquiry into the condition of agricultural France,
which is actually in progress, has been forced
upon the Imperial government. The time has
come when the a hole truth must be made known,
when the causes of the depopulation of the agricul-
tural districta must be set forth, and when it must
be explained how capital has been drained from
the land, and left the farmer with dear labour,
unable by reason of his poverty to avail himself of
the resources and profits of agricultural science.
The subdivision of the land does not account for
the agricultural decline of the country. It can
be shown that for years past the number
of French landowners has not increased,
and yet, year after year, the population of the
rural districts has decreased. The uses of an ex-
tensive International Agricultural Show in the
centre of a country agriculturally situated, as
trine. now undoubtedly is, are many saiLass
• . lagssved-agrienkural implements; and
the application of agricultural chemistry to the
soil, are most needful to the farmer who has to pay
high wages. The spread of the knowledge that
enables economic manufacturers, whether weavers
of cloth or growers of corn, to turn that which
they had ignorantly repelled as waste to profit,
is the gain to be kept steadily in view. The un-
likeliest materials suddenly become valuable fur a
human purpose. The bones of dead animals
become the chief ingredients in the preparation of
a lucifer match. We have only to turn to the
annals of the Exhibition of 1851 to find ample
illustration of the valuable knowledge the Billan-
court section of the Exhibition of 1867 will probably
yield to French farmers.
In 1851 M. Balard's process for the extraction
of potato from sea water was brought under the
consideration of English agriculturists. Of this
process a professional agriculturist of authority,
Mr. John Wilson, observed :—" In the ordinary
processes of life the various substances constituting ,
food are changed in their condition, and certain of
them in this changed state are, owing to our pecu-
liar habits, drained away and entirely lost. Of
these potassa is, perhaps, the most important, as
our sources of supply, so necessary to keep up the
fertility of the soil, are very limited indeed. The
minerals containing it are few, and both expensive
to obtain and difficult to work ; we have therefore
been obliged to rely upon the vegetation of other
countries to eliminate and prepare for us that
supply so essential to our own. We have long
known that soda, the animal alkali, is contained in
the sea in inexhaustible stores, and that a certain
proportion of potasaa existed there also. Thanks to an
enlightened chemist, we now have that knowledge
confirmed, and a process given by which it can be
extracted from a portion which heretofore has
been looked upon as the mere refuse of the manu-
facture." On the other hand, we introduced the
phosphatic nodules, which we had extensively used
for years past, to our foreign guests. Most English
readers will remember the sensation in the agricul-
tural world which was made in 1851 by Mr. M'Cor-
mack's reaping machine among others. Anxious
and learned investigations were made into the rela-
tive merits of agricultural steam-engines, ploughs,
turnip-cutters, chaff-cutters, and tile and pipe
making machines. At the conclusion of the official
report Mr. Pusey set forth the following instructive
deductions :—" 1. That the application of ma-
chinery to the main branches of farming labour,
taken together, has effected a saving on outgoings,
or an increase on incomings, of not lees than one-
half. 2. That new agricultural machines have,
with reference to the amount of saving produced
by them, the merit of very great cheapness. 3.
That machinery: has given to farming what it most
wanted, not absolute, indeed, but comparative cer-
tainty." These were the opinions of men of great
authority in 1851. They are opinions which form
the basis of the hopeful results the French govern-
ment anticipate from the Billancourt show
Travelling in Brittany last year, I found the
general complaint to be that the farmers could not
obtain labour, and were not rich enough to afford
machinery. I met an inspector of agriculture in
the train. His explanation of the superiority of
English over French agriculture was simple. He
said, take the quantities of guano bought by Eng-
land and by France, and the difference was ex-
plained completely. Capital having been drained
from the land and tempted from the land-
owners bank, the farmer's pouch, nay, even
the labourer's stocking by baits of sudden
fortune, of Bros lots, the land is impoverished, and
the yearly produce diminishes, or, at any rate,
does not increase. French agriculturists are
beginning to see how disadvantageous to
them have been the mighty loans and lot-
teries and departmental borrowings of the
Second Empire. That which you invest in bricks
and mortar will not return you a crop of corn.
Over invest in bricks and mortar, and you reduce
your reproductive power, until you may get a
noble homestead with an empty granary. Wien-
court will unfold to French agriculturists, as well
as to agriculturists of other nations, divers im-
provements in machinery and processes, and eco-
nomical reaping and sowing and garnering. But
can the show give them the means to buy ? It
may give them the desire; and this will be some
gain, since a strong desire begets earnestness in
aid of its realization. The British agricultural
shed will, it is to be hoped, be in every respect
worthy of the renown which British agriculture
enjoys in every community where the application
of science to the veil is justly appreciated. It is in
the interests of the greatest number that the pro-
moters of the success of the agricultural depart-
ment is desired. To spread scientific agriculture
over new fields is to increase the food-stock of the
human race, and therefore to bring comparative
comfort to those classes which suffer most when
food is scarce or dear.

We are now only beginning to take the improve-
menta of the dwellings of the labouring classes
seriously in hand. We have talked about it long
enough. In England and France model cottages
have been planned or built by the hundred ; and
indeed some slight progress has been made in
many localities. But the slowness of the pace is
extraordinary, when we consider the numbers of
eminent men, English and French, who have
sought to improve the dwellings of the poor. In
1861 there was much talk about Robert's
patent bonding bricks, made by one of Clayton's
machines. The official reporter, in recording his
opinion on the value of these patent bricks, said,
" In respect to the number of those whom it seeks
to benefit, and the extent to which their moral and
physical condition may be ameliorated, and the
amount of additional comfort and happiness to be
created by the simple means thus suggested of
improving the dwellings of the working-man, no
object in the Exhibition yields to it in value, or
suggests more mighty considerations for the phi-
lanthropist and the polit►cal economist. To place
within the reach of all a large proportion
of those comforts most conducive to health, to
habits of cleanliness and decency, which have
hitherto been enjoyed as luxuries only by a few ;
to remove that painful necessity under which the
poor man now labours, of submitting to privations
and inconveniences which are destructive of moral
habits, and utterly inconsistent with domestic com-
fort ; and to place at his command a certain degree
almost of luxury, which tends to refine the mind,
and substitutes a comfortable home for a miserable
and barely efficient shelter from the elements, is
the ambitious but wise and benevolent design of

[TWOPENCE

those who, with the example and under the leader-
ship of his Royal Highness Prince Albert, have of
late aetively promoted the improvement of the
dwellings of the working classes." ' In 1831, we
are told it was difficult to over-estimate the magni-
tude and importance of the electa to be got out of
the adoption of these bricks. " The saving is
brick-work by their use is estimated at from
twenty-five to thirty per cent., with a reduction
of twenty-five per cent. on the quantity of mortar
required, and an equal saving on labour when done
by practised workmen."
We seem to be on the very point of seeming
comfortable homes for all. Mr. John Wilson, in
his enthusiasm over this bonding brick, exclaimed.
" Let not this useful invention be confined merely

to the metropolis, or a few manufacturing citiei.
Let it be made known far and wide throughout the
land—let the country share in the advantages
which the city gratefully acknowledges. Let me
at once register a claim for it on behalf of that
least-cared-for and worst-lodged animal on the
farm—the poor labourer. None can doubt his in-
.

terest in it: it is far, too plainly seen in his pre-
sent neglected condition. The landlord. too, has
an interest in it scarcely less than his owit." We
are now at the beginning of 1867, and the model
labourers and artisans' dwellings which 1 see pro-
-
~s~sog day by. day in the neeek-evat section of
the Champ-de-Mars are of French origin. In
1851 it was the Prince Consort who set up a
model cottage outside the Hyde-park Glass Palace.
In 18437 it is Napoleon the Third who
deigns to be an exhibitor of some workmen's model
homes. We seem to have nothing to show in this
way ; albeit we have been the most persevering ex-
perimentalists in it, we have yet to see what the
jurors who are to decide on the beet plans which
have yet been devised for comfortable, cheap
abiding places, and for the establishment of pros-
perous and harmonious relations between empl,.yers
and employed, will have to say about the relative
value of our doings in these important matters. I
apprehend that they will find we have made much
smoke over very little fire, and that the poorer di.- •
tricta of London are not in that condition which is
foreshadowed in the report I have quoted. The
farm labourer is still, as a rule, the " worst lodged
animal on the farm." The @low progress made
even after all the talk and report-making which
accompany great exhibitions, proves the importance
of holding them as often as they will attract to one
spot the leading manufacturers, agriculturists,
artists, and economists of the world. Every man
who has an invention or a process to make known
reserves himself for the coming International Exhi-
bition. The inventive faculty is strongly stimulated.
The General Omnibus Company of Paris have an-
nounced that they will run 58 new conveyar ces spe-
cially for the service of the Exhibition, beginning on •
the lat of April ; and Paris has already-700 °mini mites
in use. Five hundred new cabs, moreover, are an-
nounced to be placed at the diepositiou of Exhibition
visitors. It is pleasing to hear that some provision
is being made for middle class, as well as for mil-
lionaire and working class travellers. A high:y re-
prehensible custom obtains in Paris. The railways
that serve the suburbs double their fares on Sun-
days and holidays. Not content with baying
crowds of travellers on these days, nor caring about
the modtety of their means, the directors coolly
make the poor pay double the price the rich, who
have no work-a-days, are in the habit of paying. .
Already some of the hotels—and these the e..rmal
prices of which are extortionate—have resolved to
develop • their sense of international hospita!ity by •
greeting their Exhibition travellers with an increase
of twenty or thirty, nay of fifty per cent. on their
ordinary tariff. They look upon the Exhibi-
tion much as the pickpocket locks tip, n a
fire. They forget that their extortions bare only
to be made known to reduce the number of tin-
! vellers from abroad more than enough to bring
them back to their normal prices. Take the ( ;rand
Hotel as an example. Its tariff is menstrously
extravagant, even now. I will ask any reader
who may have sojourned in it what lie would think
of even 20 per cent. added to the bill he pal l on
leaving ? Extravagant tariffs may give importance
to the lunrreaux ri,hes ; and he who streck ell yes-
terday may plant his feet on a burnished h•L in
the next chamber to a serene highness. Eu-. men
of substantial incomes, whose importance in their
own and in the world's mind is not regldated
exactly by the money they can show, clime over
extortionate hotel bills, and may choose leave an
Universal Exhibition unvisited, rather than s..iffer
front systematic plunder. Great was the philo-
sophy of the modern economic Scotchnian,
who visited the Exhibition of lst,.. lint he
was cast in a rare mould. Ile liv, I in
Liverpool. He left home at a quarter past e:even
o'clock one Monday night, and reached Leiden at
six o'clock on the morrow morning. Most
men would have been a little jaded be a right
in a railway train. But to the Seotchman
it was just necessary rest to prepare him
for a walk of ten miles about the resins. lid.
After this light exercise, he repaired to the Exhi-
bition, and took a four hours' journey thr,,r.,l: it
By this time it was a quarter-paat four in the
afternoon. Just three-quarters of an hour re-
mained for him to march to the Eliston.so,uare
station, where he caught tho tiro o'cl,ck • rain.
All he spent in London was one shilling, Leii,4 his
admission to the Exhibition. It is recorded that
three draughts of water constituted his only re-
freshment during the day. He got home at elc.ren
o'clock at night, quite satisfied that lie, at any
rate, had not been duped by greedy E:.l,ibition
caterers.

The freshest episode in the mighty fend among -
Paris photographers is this. The int.statis are
erecting model stables by the Ecole
will make a charming ornament to the ,mittilLra -
part of the park. The Russian coitm.i,Riort.:•, are
anxious that their designs should be Idlot..gt
They will, however, have nothing to do uit:i the
official photographer, M. Pierre Petit, but have
commissioned Mr. Bingham to do the work t is ing
upon themselves all the responsibility of ii.trac-
tion of M. Petit's monopoly. This looks like the

first blow of s very pretty -war ; where the war of
the lenses will end it is not easy at the moment to
predict, since meetings of Paris photographers are -
bewg
held, with the policeman, who is dr rigueur,
in attendance. I will not repeat the rumours;
which are current about the origin of the photo-

oraphic monopoly, since the photographers whose
interests arc injured by it are takirm mea....:r.s so'
that " justice shall inform herself" on the point.
- - - - • • - -• • • -•

The Fine Arta Section of the British division of
the Exhibition is to be covered with a snperior

kind of cocoa-nut matting, manufactured 1,3.

Tre-a—loar , -ofil;iicite7hin, to whom the execution of
the work has been entrusted.

Some surprise and amusement hare been created
here by the determination of the Engiis!i co:mnis-
sioners to erect a Mohammedan mosque for the re-
ception of British boilers. What will Mohammedan
visitors say to this. Grant that the mosque is ad-
mirably adapted, by the completeness of its venti-
lation or on any other grounds, to the engineers'
use, is it advisable at an international sh.Ae to
drive one's engine in a neighbour's church I

THE MARSION-ROI7BE COLLIERY ACCIDENT FIND. ,
—The following sums were received by the Lord Mayor ca
Saturday in aid of this fund :—The Counter* Grey. 101.
Messrs. Forman and Co., 20f.; benefit at the Theatre Royal,; •
Tunbridge Wells, 5L ; eponymous from Antwerp, 20/. ;
collection at Swindon Church, 20/. 3e. 3d. ; ditto at Houn-
plow Church, 101. ; collection placed in a box held by
the eMa of a miner in the Merket.place, Bath, 49/. tis. ;
collection in the Kilmarnock colliery district, 501. 18s. ;
the employ.... of Messrs. Collard and Collard, 21it.
readers .of the Ckrialian World, 201. ; T. J. Miller end
Sons, 101. 10s. ; Shire Oaks Colliery, 251. ; the offleials and
men employed at ditto, 141. 12s. ; collection at Hanley
Church, 191. 15e. Bd. ; ditto at St. Paul's, Canterbury,
91. lls. ; Mies Obeys, 101. ; and Mews. Mead and Powell.
101. 10e.