The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-24 00:00:00

EXHIBITION OF 1851.

" Her Majesty baying signified her royal plef,sure
that arrangements ,should be made to enable her Majesty
to gratify a wish very generally expressed on the part of
the pu,lic to be present at a ceremony by which her Ma-
j. sty should open the Exhibition of the Works of In-
dustry of all Nations on the Ist of May, her Majesty's
Commissioners hereby give notice that the programme
of this ceremony, and the regulations under which the
holders of season tickets will be admitted, are as
follow:

" Exhibitors' attendants who have been sanctioned by
the Executive Committee will be admitted between the
hours of eight and nine o'clock at doors speeitied on
their cards, and will immediately take their places
by the counters or objects exhibited by their employers.
" Holders of season tickets will be admitted at all
doors on the east, south, and west of the building between
the hours of nine and half-past eleven o'clock, and will
be allowed to take their places, subject to police regu-
lations, in the lower part of the building and in the
galleries, except the parts railed off in the nave and
.
transept
. . _ . .

" A platform will be raised to the north of the centre
of the transept, on which a chair of State will be placed.
" Her Majesty's Commissioners will assemble at half.
past eleven e'oluck in the transept, opposite the plat-
form, together with their Executive Committee and the
Foreign Acting Commissioners, in full dress, or in plain
evening dress.
" His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, her Ma-
jesty's Ministers, the great Officers of State, and the
foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, will take their
places on the platform to the right and left of the chair
of State, in full dress, also at half-past eleven o'clock.
" Her Majesty, proceeding in State, with the Royal
Family, foreign guests, &c., and her and their suites
from Buckingham Palace, up Constitution-hill, and
down Rotten-row, will enter the Exhibition building by
the north entrance precisely at twelve o'clock. She;;wili
ascend the platform and take her seat iu the chair of
State.

•• On her Majesty's arrival a choir will sing ' God
Save the Queen.'
•' On the Queen taking her seat his Royal Highness
Prince Albert will join the Royal Commissioners, and
when the music has ceased proceed at their head to the
platform, and read to her Majesty a short report or
proceedings of the Commission up to that time, which
ne will then deliver to her Maie.ty, together with the
catalogue or tne articles exhibited. Her Majesty will
return a gracious answer, handed to her by the Seare-
Lary of State; after which his Royal Highness Prince
Albert will take his place again by the side of her
Majesty.
" The Doyen of the Corps Diplomatique will read an
address to her Majesty on behalf of the foreign nations
who have contributed to the Exhibition, to which her
Majesty will return a gracious answer.
•• His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury will then
say a prayer, invoking God's blessing upon the under-
taking, followed by a short anthem sung by the choir.
"A Royal procession will then be formed, preceded by
the Commissioners, which will turn to the right, move
to the west end of the nave by its north side, return to
the east end of the nave by its south side. including the
south end of the transept, and come back to the centre
along the north aide of the nave; thus enabling all those
present, who will be expected to keep the places which
have been assigned to them, to see her Majesty and the
procession.
" During the procession the organs appointed will play
marches, taking the music up at the Queen's approach.
•• On her Majesty's return to the platform the Queen
will declare • the Exhibition opened;' which will be an-
nounced to the public by a flourish of trumpets and the
firing of a Royal salute on the north of the Serpentine;
whereupon the barriers, which had kept the nave clear,
will be thrown open, and the public will be allowed to
circulate. _ _ _

" Her Majesty will then return to Buckingham Palace
by the route by which she came.
"All the doors, which will have been closed at half-
past eleven o'clock, will, upon her Majesty's departure,
be opened again.
" By order of her Majesty's Commissioners,
" EDGAR, A. BOWRING, Acting Secretary.
" Exhibition Building, Hyde-park, April 22.
In making this announcement the occasion seems an
appropriate one for directing attention to the neglected
state of Hy de•park in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Crystal Palace. From Albert-gate to the eastern
end of the building there is as remarkable a collection of
nuisances on either side of the carriage way as that our
correspondent recently discovered in his ramble through
the streets of Copenhagen—on one side runs a deep open
ditch, filled with mud and filth, and ready, at the slight-
est false step to ingulph the unwary pedestrian; while a
clumsy wooden railing, rotted by exposure to the wea-
ther, innocent of paint for many a long year, covered
with a green coating of mould, and hardly able to stand
from decay, is all that has been deemed requisite to con-
fine within proper limits the immense passenger traffic
which is expected to pour along this approach. This
railing seems to have been designed from the sheep
hurdles used in the pasturage of the park, and which
are like nothing of the kind used in any other part of
England. The fuotways of the road, besides the dangers
from open ditches which they present, are in a most
disgraceful state of disrepair. Atter you pass Mr. Cu-
bitt's house—popularly called " Gibraltar," from the
belief that it can't be taken—you find on your left hand,
as you approach the Crystal Palace, a succession of ob-
jects which will not a little surprise foreigners accus-
tomed to well-arranged and neatly•kept parks. We say
nothing of the back view of Knightsbridge architecture,
hardly softened down by distance; nor do we speak of
a nearer view of inclosed areas, adorned with meat safes,
round which cats crawl stealthily on the copings. Even
the dismal facing of dead brick wall may be forgiven,
but there is no excuse for hoardings of timber so old and
rotten that they are of themselves falling to pieces; for
corners and angles which outrage decency; for strips of
ground belonging to the park filled with ail kinds of filth
and rubbish, among which dirty bits of newspaper, stale
orange peel, bones, rags, broken tiles, and other rubbish
are prominently visible; neither is it at all agreeable,
however fund one may be of horses, to nose all the
concentrated ammonia from the Knightsbridge barracks.
We have drawn no exaggerated picture of the state
of the park from Albert-gate to the east entrance of
the building. There is still time, if the Commis-
sioners of Woods and Forests choose to exert them-
selves a little, to put this approach in something
like decent order. It would cost a little money; but the
public would forgive the extravagance, and even give the
Commissioners credit for a share of that virtue which
the old say ing places second in the rank of moralities.
We fear, however, that they are too deliberative a body
to save their reputation now. They took four or five
months before they plucked up courage enough to allow
the axe to be laid to the root of Colonel Sibthorp's tree.
Two months more elapsed before, yielding to long con-
tinued entreaties, they consented to the telling of four
decayed pieces of timber that blocked up one end of the
transept. Even now their constitutional regard for the
Royal woods is about to receive another severe shyck.
Her Majesty's determination to enter the building in
State at the north side of the transept renders it neces-
sary to clear away some stumps that would otherwise ob-
struct the progress of the State procession. Under such
circumstances, and having failed in their comfortable at-
tempt to get the Royal Commission to do their work for
them, it is mote than probable that the ditches by the
wayside will still remain open—the footpaths impracti-
cable except in double-soled boots—the railings as mouldy
with damp as ever, and, for the special amusement of our
quick-witted visitors, glimpses afforded into our Crown
land management which must make us more and more
ashamed of it.--Timts, , .

EXECUTION OF THE NRMPNETT
MURDERERS.
TAUNTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23.—The execution
of John Wiles and John Smith, convicted at the last
assizes of the murder of au aged man named Wilkins, a
shopkeeper at Nempnett, under circumstances of great
atrocity, and in which, it will be remembered, his aged
wile was left fur dead by the murderers, but fortunately
recovered so as to be the means of bringing them• to
justice, took place this morning at nine o'clock, at the
north corner of the gaol. The execution was originally
fixed for eleven o'clock, but out of deference to the
wishes of the inhabitants of Taunton, who represented
the injury it would be to the busihess of the town, the
hour was changed to nine o'clock.
From the moment of their conviction the culprits
have manifested a becoming manner, and listened
patiently to the exhortations of the chaplain, the Rev.
Mr. Gatten, who was unremitting in his exertions, and
who has deelared that he believed their repentance
to be sincere. At the time of the trial there appeared
to be some doubt as to which of the two was the actual
murderer, but since their condemnation they both
freely confessed that they each participated in the
crime, and were both equally guilty, although they stated
that they had no intention of perpetrating a murder when
they went into the shop. Wiles was about 56 years
of age, a blacksmith by trade, and, at one period of his
life, in the service of the late Richard Bart Davis, M.l'.,
father of the present Chairman of the Board of Excise.
Smith was a much younger man, and evidently a person
of respectable connexions; indeed, he stated freely that
his name was not Smith, but objected to communicate to
any person who he really was, urging as his reason that
he did not wish his relations, who were most respectable,
to be marked out to the world as persons related to a
man who had suffered death as a murderer. At five
o'clock this morning the prisoners arose, and, after being
engaged iu prayer, partook of some tea and bread and
butter, and at eight o'clock they were taken to the
chapel, where Divine service was performed, and the sa-
crament administered to them. At nine o'clock the
prison bell began to toll, and the whole of the prisoners
in the gaol, who were under seqtence of transportation,
or who had been convicted of felony, were mustered in
the yard to witness the execution. The culprits having
been pinioned by Calcraft, the mournful procession
commenced, and in a few minutes, haying walked firmly
up the stairs of the gaol, they appeared upon the plat-
form; they then ascended the ladder with the same firth
step, and having prayed with the chaplain for several
minutes, and shaken hands with the reverend gentleman,
the bolt was drawn, and they were launched into eternity.
Smith struggled for a minute or so, but with Wiles
death appeared to be instantaneous. After hanging the
immediately
buried time, the bodies were cut down and
buried in their clothes as they were, in the yard of the
gaol. In a quarter of an hour afterwards the drop was
removed.

GRAY'S INN APRIL, 93.—At a Pension of the
Honourable Soci qty of Gray's Inn, holden this day,
Simons, Esq., and Henry Collingwood Selby, Esq., were
called to the degree of barrister-at-law.