The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-20 00:00:00

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even made attacks on the Enfrlish redoubts. Tiny
dug riflc-pits in such positions that they could not
bo driven from Them by assault witi.eut great loss
and it was necessary to proceed, as la-hen attaching
regularly fortified places, by undermining. The
fences of the palls are so constructed that cannon
bails make scarcely any impression on them, end on
most attempts to take them by assault the troops
have been worsted. It was not until General
Pratt conducted the war against the natives on a
regular sTstena, and with the aid of heavy guns and
shells, that a decided advantage had been gained
over the natives, who were at last driven from one
fortified psh after another, and were, in March
last, compelled to sue for peace. One of the objects
Uapt.Pasley had in view was to disprove the charges
of mismanagement that have been made in the con-
duct of the war, by showing that, owing to the great
skill and courage of the natives, with their superior
means of information, and the small number of
troops that could be spared from protecting the
settlements of the colonists, the difficulties to be
overcome were much greater than generally sup-
posed, and that many of the plans of operation
recommended by the local press would, if adopted,
have resulted in disaster. In answer to questions,
Captain PaAley stated that he estimated the whole
adult native male population at about 30,000, in-
cluding all the tribes, many of which are hostile
to each other, and that the greatest number at
any time acting together against the troops was
about 2,000. He considered the war was com-
pletely ended in March last year, when the natives
sued for peace, and laid down their arms.
The subject will be resumed by Captain Pasley
on:the 11th April, as there was not time on Monday
night for discussion.

THE IN7EBNATIOIV" 4L EXHIBITION.

If Captain Fowkes had not been blessed with a
very happy temper, the month of March might have
seen him driving headlong to a mad-house. He has
put together his great building to the best of his
ability; and as plain wood, iron, glass, and bricks
have refused to look like those delightful pictures
of the new palace painted by imaginative artists, he
has had to stand as a target for a thousand critical
arrows. His conception may or may not have been
the result of a distempered dream, in which a cathe-
dral had somehow got mixed up with a railway
station ; but one thing is certain—it was built upon
a clearly defined plan, and reached its climax of
beauty about the middle of February. Although re-
markably hollow and incomplete at that date, it was
lust possible to see through it and across it; bat since
that happy time—that day of joy for the unfortu-
nate architect—the whole buildinghas gone rapidly
backwards. The most energetic exertions are sup-
posed to be bent upon its completion by the Ist of
May ; a man is killed on one day, a boy is crippled
for life on another; a great contractor looks on
complacently at th© chaos of work, or touts,
through his servants, in several languages, for
orders for fittings ; clerks of works hurry about
with papers, dogged by foremen and labourers ;
groups of workmen stand in convivial groups, and
take hourly refreshment from overflowing beer
cans ; a dozen men congregate round a hole, or a
piece of timber, or balance themselves upon swing-
ing scaffold poles, and act as if six hundred years
were allowed them in which to complete the build-
ing ; hangers of pictures shut themselves up in the
galleries (by strict official orders) and do their work
in solitude and silence, as if it were a mystery of
Isis; sappers and miners seem to spend half their
lives in taking instructions from clerks about
canister stoves ; exhibitors look in to learn some-
thing from observation about their space, and
shake their heads when they see the rain dripping
through the glass from a thousand crevices ; autho-
rities, who have more respect for stone statues than
for the well-advertised reputation of Messrs. Kelk
and Lucas, decline to send in heavy works in this
order of art until the flooring of the picture gal-
leries is largely strengthened; clumsy carts come
rumbling slowly into the centre of the building
with overhanging loads, and the horses shake their
harness as they hear the thunder of the falling
timber under the eastern dome. All this may be
active work, and there may be a thousand, or there
may be two thousand working
men in the build-
ing; but every plank that is laid down or raised,
every nail that is driven in, certainly puts the
structure in a worse position. One half of the
southern courts—once pleasingly called the " open
or glass courts"—is now boarded off for the great
French arena, and in another week this great
slice of space will be as private as the inside of a
booth at a fair. According to the tradition which
we believe is popular in Paris, we thought it was
the Englishman who was inclined to fly from
society ; and we never recollect hearing it admitted
that the Frenchman was at heart an unamiable
recluse. International exhibitions, however, are
supposed to teach us many lessons in foreign
manners and customs; and we must not be asto-
nished at this revelation of French character.

The enclosure of the French industrial court is
high, complete, and perfect, and it even goes to the
length of having a grand private entrance built
between two of the columns at the western end of
the nave ; but there are other enclosures, which,
though smaller, are more hideous. The north-west
transept is now filled in along its centre with three
or four large squaro boxes, that look like gigantic
packing-cases. These may probably be intended
for other foreign courts (we really have not had the
heart to hunt out the proper official to inquire), or
they may be intended for snug
maye
obme
mcaisrsriioenderosn.
large orders may be taken away
lfirtotmle othffieceesr,owwdh,eorer
the
winittehronuattiotnhael tkbnimo
wb -g/Iced grieggi
o tn

Other structures of the same hideous kind seem to

be threatened in different parts, to judge by the
timber preparations, and even now the day has
passed when it was possible to get a good perspec-
tive view of the building.
There must be a weighty official reason for allow-
log these industrial pens to be erected, and pro-
bably the public would like to know it. If it is
true that the engineers in charge of the building
will not allow even a high.art door-mat to be hung
from the galleries—if it is true that those tolerably
graceful airways are built more for show than for
substantial use, then we can have nothing more to
say about this unseemly boarang. Vertical space
must be had in other places as well as against the
outer brick walls ; and if this necessity has not been
provided for by the architect and contractors, the
oversight only matches that carelessness which for-
got to make proper doorways to the building.
The painting is not yet finished in the western
dome, and therefore the huge scaffolding—a
forest
of timber—looking at a distance like fine lace-
work, is still standing. This wooden web is made
of about 40,000 cubic feet of timber, and is really
such a wonderful example of human labour and
ingenuity that it would not disgrace the commis-
sionersfthe exhibition.
The eastern annexe,
if it were to stand as part o
35,000 bquare
feet of open-air space is to
be left, is still in a very
was the last extension of
backward condition. It
where about
the building decided upon by the commissioners;
hut that is no reason why little or no exertions
should be made to finish it. Labour is plentiful
enough at fair market rates, and the building is large
work scattered enough,
enoug
h and the to employ
a much larger number of men than those now put
contractors. No bickeri-o• •
90 by the
-Jo with the com-
missioners, no complaints about official delays lead-
ing to extra cost and
uncertainty, will absolve the
contractors from their obvious duty to the exhibitors
and public. If they regarded the commissioners
more as masters and less as tenants-at- will, it might
perhaps lead to a happier and more business-like
state of progress in the building.
The arrivals of British goods have now reached
more than a hundred cases; and many fittings of
orious:fiegreeo of beauty and size have been