The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-02 00:00:00

7 be
and gbk.
:711t

OW.
LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1851

Of all the appointments which have recently taken
place none has given such universal satisfaction as
that of Colonel REID to the governorship of the
island of Malta. The public has hailed that appoint-
ment not only as a well-deserved reward bestowed
on a meritorious officer for his successful exertions in
connexion with the organization of the Great Exhi-
bition, but as the earnest of an intention on the part
of her MAJEiTY's Government not to suffer to pass
unnoticed or unrewarded the men to whose zeal, assi-
duity, unflagging energy, and untiring exertions, the
great success of the Exhibition is to be mainly attri-
buted. To Prince ALBERT is due the honour of
having been the original propounder of the magni-
ficent, the sublime idea, of collecting under one roof
the industrial products of every region of the world,
of enabling men from every nation under heaven to
inspect aed study the works of the industry of every
other nation, and by such inspection to compare their
own products with those of other countries, and thus
to correct, to improve, and to modify their modes of
manufacture, so as to attain much nearer to perfection
in the products of their own industry, than but for
such an opportunity it would have been possible for
them to have attained. But the victories of peace,
resembling in this respect at least the victories of
war, cannot be won by the general alone, he
roust have the assistance of a staff of able
and zealous officers, and of an army of well-drilled
and well-disciplieed assistants, who not only tho-
roughly understand his plans, but are able and will-
ing to completely carry them out, or his finest ideas
can never be realized, and his best laid plans will prove
abortive. But for the assistance of an admirable staff,
and of able snot energetic assistants, the Great Exhi-
bition of the Industry of all Nations would never have
achieved the perfect success which it has achieved, a
success unparalleled in tha history of any similar at-
tempt—a success unmarred by even the shadow of a
failure in any even the smallest of its details. And
this success has been achieved solely by the energy
and perseverance of the men who undertook its orga-
nization in overcoming obstacles which to persons of
less talent, of less zeal, of less faith in themselves, of
less decision, would have been insuperable. Scarcely
had the site been proposed, when the managers of the
Exhibition were assailed by a storm of Parliamentary
opposition that would have daunted any men of less
firmness than themselves. Then arose pecuniary
difficulties of no ordinary character. These were at
once overcome by the liberality of some individuals
among the Royal Commissioners, whose spirit of
self-devotion on the occasion will not be soon
forgotten by the public, nor, we trust, be
suffered to pass unacknowledged. We pass
over the difficulties which at one time threat-
ened to arise out of the choice between the
various plans offered for the erection of the building,
because from the moment that Mr. PAXTON'S pro-
posal for the erection of a Crystal Palace of Art was
propounded it was universally accepted by public
acclamation; on this point the Commissioners had in
reality no choice left to them but to ratify the unani-
mous decision of the public. We cannot, however,
but remember the prophecies of the croakers. A
building of glass—it will never stand, it must break
down beneath the weight of the articles placed on the
floors of the galleries--it cannot be made water-tight,
all the goods in it will be spoiled by the wet—it,will
never be finished in time ;—such were a few of the
vaticinations of those who were

" Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike."
Nevertheless, as time wore on these prophets found
that the building of glass was finished in time, that
it did not break down beneath the weight of the
articles placed on its floors, that it was as water-tight
as any ordinary building, and that the goods depo-
sited in it were not epoiled by wet. Then we were
told that it would be impossible to be ready to open
the Exhibition by the Ist of May, and we believe that
some even of the Commissioners themselves had
serious doubts on this point, and would not unwillingly
have consented to a postpenement of the day of open-
ing. Had such postponement taken place it would have
been on every account greatly regretted, the first act
of the play would have been confessedly a failure, the
prestige of the Exhibition would have been gone, and
no after success could have compensated for such a
misfortune. Thenks, however, to the almost super-
human exertions of Mr. Turmas BELSHAW, and the
other gentlemen to whom the internal arrangements
of the Eelaibitionvvas confided, the morning of the Ist
of May found everything prepared, the pledge which
the Commissioners had given, not only to their own
SOVEREIGN but to the inhabitants of the world at
large, was fully redeemed, and on the lst of May, 1851,
the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations was
opened by the Batmen of the British Empire. Since
that period the career of the Exhibition has been one
of uninterrupted success. Every day from 50,000 to
70,000 persons, and upwards, have been congregated
together within the wells of the Crystal Palace ; men
from all nations of the world have been here gathered
together, men whose Sovereigns tell us that in their
own country the mullet, the bayonet, the dungeon,
the rack, the gallows, are necessary to keep them in
order, whilst here a few policemen, " with bits of
stick in their hands" (which bits of stick,
be it remembered, they have never once
had occasion to use), have ben found
amply sufficient for the preservation of the peace ;
not a soldier has been seen within the precincts of
the Crystal Palace, save as a visitor. The pilferings
which have taken place have been as nothing, and in
every instance the pilferer has been promptly taken
into custody, and as promptly punished ; whilst, not-
withstanding the temptation held out to thieves by
the exposure of valuable articles in
the Cry
8 1 aple oPpal lace, and and by the influx of strangers into the metropolis
I eb enrile
the calendars of our criminal courts have never
so light. That great credit is due to the
themselves for these most gratifying results we glory
in admitting, and we shall, whenever the
libelled and called ugly names as an excuse for ex-
cluding them from our public and national build.
ings and gardens, take care to remind their libellers
of their conduct during the Great Exhibition; but
great credit is also due to those who organized such
an admirable system for the protection of the pro-
perty of the exhibitors, end for securing the comfort
of the visitors as to render it unprofitable,
if not impossible, for the professional thief
teolectpaurosfue the hisC
tvlirasiet,ertwheasrenreft,vcetr
otnreceed.i
Crystal Palace,
alace, whilst, at the same
within the pre-
,
nnlezofferacedtioslnithot
inthtehehlo2ntes_stt.
ITo all who were engaged in planning or carry-
ing out this admirable organization, from the
he
si gp
he
ceisatl ltjo thuae . lowest,
o ;set:
the gretitude of the country is
d
in common with the public ge-
nerally,l's. in the appointment of Colonel RBID the
earnest of a desire on the part of the Government
to acknowledge and reword by a judicious use of their
up patronage
unprecedented
merits
thd
success n
offththosies to whose exertions the
be mainly attributed, whilst great experiment is to
1 We trust, the Commis-