The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-19 00:00:00

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N ) S II 14_,
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P • ce Alberts connexion with the pract!eal Litt B'9l. ',..,--1 . fe:_gess,' es
this wise and noble, achievement is in danger o 41,4144eL,,,,Firj'` sego. C
forgotten in merely regarding his patronage to . 1,1 • -'Zeelz,teo!jei),..
cause he was the friend, disciple, cud admirer ,seitil -. e.'..-,g_::i.4lVST.,,!:
it has, from the first, been the endeavour of th irsitggedf‘-ee se 4"1
tectionists to depreciate it From Sibtherp u. ;& =a-, ,:g‘i f's
they have prophesied its fellure, and made the vvie .'-.-, - ..• - s',en' ../
father to the thought.. They endeavoured to stag*/ g: . -cisme:4Ni
subscription-list—they absented themselves from co
operating committees—they declined to attend public
meetings to further its progress. The Prince found
himself deserted by the nobility, and he threw himself
upon the commonalty. He met the mayors of our
cities and towns; he called around him mainly the prac-
tical working and mercantile intellect of the kingdom.
Prejudice, faction, ignorance, and envy, kept up the cry
of "stinking fish." The sordid, the selfish, the weak-
minded and illiberal cuckoced the call, "It is
naught ! It is naught!" John Bull was cheated
into hostility on his blind side of terror
of Germanism and quackery. The Herald prophesied
ruin to our manufacturing reputation from the exposure
of foreign superiority, and injury to our powers of
competion from betrayal of the secrets of our manipu-
lative processes. Tho Post confidently predicted cholera,
itch, and the plague, from the rites of hospitality, and
the numbers of our guests. When the sanitary panic grew
stale, we were threatened with provincial barricades and
metropolitan revolution. The minds of the London
tradesmen were poisoned with imaginary fears of the
foreign exhibitors carrying off their customers and orders;
while the solemn class of sagacious grumblers protested
against a project which was to stop the usefel industry
of the nation, and to tempt it to endless holiday-making
and the universal spending of money. Even the Iron
Duke was shaken into the adoption of quite unnecessary
precautions; and it is understood that he advised the
Queen to keep her present Ministers in their places,
solely from his dread of political confusion during
the currency of the influx of foreign visitors. The
Prince has answered nothing to all this. He has '
a lee his works praise him"—works which the
history of the world can scarcely
parallel. He
has had, indeed, the ablest assistants; but it is in the
choice of these that the power of an able mind is always
most conopicuously shown, and to him the credit of this
discrimination is eminently due. A work which may
fairly be said to be destined for, and worthy of, the
human race, has been begun and finished in as many
days as achievements, which hitherto have been re-
garded as famous, have taken years to accomplish. It
is the one vast project of which the execution is acknow-
ledged by the testimony of all nations to have far tran-
scended the expectation and conceptiotne
~It has been
completed and opened on the very hour fixed for its
accomplishment. Nut, one mistake, mishap, blunder, or
fault in judgment can be, or is, laid at its door. Every
contingency has been anticipated—every difficulty has
been provided for. There has been no need to correct
any detail. It has been amply considered before it has
been executed. Even experience of the actual working of
the leviathan undertaking has not been requisite to sug-
gest the necessary anticipation of difficulties and ob-
structions. Like Minerva, it has sprung perfect and in-
vulnerably armed from the heads which planned it.
The Crystal Palace has included all the tongues of
Babel, without any of its confusion. A mixture of every
human element has been there--but no chaos. There have
assembled unequalled multitudes, but not any crowd—all
peoples, but no mob. There has been a place for every-
thing, and every thing has been in its place. It is scarcely
possible to conceive of an improvement in
esniacoef and actual arrangements. Every nation had ample
a well considered position. The catalogues are a perfect
census of the earth's deeds and capabilities. No people
is dissatisfied, jealous, or envious. This is not a concen-
tration of the world's mind alone, but a gathering of the
harmonics of its hearts. The vigilance and foresight of
the Police arrangements have superseded the necessity
for their interference even in the shape of mere order.
Cabe, omnibuses, lodging-houses, taverns, all have been
so supervised, as to prevent imposition upon provincial
inexperience or foreign ignorance. The very charges of
the refreshment-reoms have been taxed and fixed. The
correspondence with every tribe, climate, and kingdom,
has been so complete as to leave no mistakes, and to lead
to no disappointments. Above all, the largest and
most beautitul building in the world, fitted with all the
world's wonders, and attended by representatives of
the whole human race, has been erected within little more
than seven months, not only with no loss to the public
exchequer, but with a positive profit to the community.
The building is now the property of the nation, and it
has cost the nation nothing. Money has been made of
everything, without meanness, extortion, or shabbiness.
Anybody for a shilling may see what all the shows,
theatres, exhibitions, museums, and galleries in the
world put together could not equal in variety, interest,
instruction, and wonder; for the very catalogue of the
world's fair, containing matter equal to halt a dozen
novels, is sold fur the price of that of an ordinary pic-
ture gallery. The stupendous work itself is scarcely
less wonderful than the system, arrangement, foresight,
and sagacity which have accompanied all its accessory
arrangements—and all the sneers, cavils, carpings, sa-
pient prognostications, and meanly envious detractions
of which it has been the subject, appear now no more
than the snarls of a village cur at the heels of an im-
rerturbable war-horse. This is Prince Albert's silent,
yet eloquent answer to all these suggestions of
" damned good-natured friends," and this it is to choose
real men of business for real work. When we contrast
this achievement with the doings of the Woods and
Forests, the Commission for erecting the New Houses
of Parliament, in fact, with everything undertaken
by Government with the nation's money for the
public, it is impossible to deny that the success of
the one is attributable to brains, and the uniform
failure of the other to the want of them. The Na-
tional Exposition proves what can be done ; the public
0 v.emmont worlr ci show what is done by hereditary
futility and titled ignoramuses and imbeciles. It would
be unjust to close cur observations without singling out
lir. Paxton to especial notice. Without his genius and
energy this wonderful undertaking could not have been
executed with the success which has crowned it. We
could only have wished that injudicious friends had not
prevailed upon him to stick his free and manly person
in all the print shops, like the smirking lay figures in
a wigmaker's window. Do not let him bo so benighted
as to consent to be knighted, but raise his soul to the
height of the significancy of this grand conception, and
draw inspiration from the motto chosen by Prince Al-
bert to describe its object, and which, of itself, could have
been selected by no common mind :
" The progress of the human race,
Resulting from the common labour of all men,
Ought to be the final object of the exertion of each individual.
In promoting this end,
We are carrying out the will of the Great and Blessed God.

HACKNEY-CARRIAGE FARES.
The system of extortion almost univert,ally practised
by cab-drivers, except from railway stations, has long
been a grievous evil. Although the punishment for as-
ccss of fare and insolence invariably follows complaint,
yet the ignorance of the vast majority of cab passen-
gers with respect to the distances travelled by them in
the vehicles they hire, and the loss of time theyolinence
suffer in prosecuting drivers for overchar,
—difficulties upon which the latter calculate—eroiPnesr
not one
such a degree that, we venture to states, that sto to
ever made the
case of overcharge in five hundred
subject of magisterial inquiry.
ioners of Police huvo
pleased to find that the Comm!ss a
way
that is likely
. We arei therefore much
tlicen the matter in hand, and ma
system of extortion
tete the metropolis.
which is an absolute disgrace'ive
hese observations in conse-
We are induced tom
receiveda a publication of a list of fares
check
quence of haviog
of hackne computed from the standings at
Exhibition standing, Princes-gate,
Whi;eh3ll,_ ando the places of public notoriety in the me-
tropolis--a work y
Hyde-pst" .- vir I 1 ich has been
cairrtihaaces
prepared under the
f the Chief Commissioner of Police, Mr.
dir6Ttinno(n)d will be issued to the police at these stand-
;nl,,as3-I'9lt is intended to publish simjar lists for other
'-'-inal standings, with as little delay as possible to
principal r
th . police in checking any imposition '
tacilitato c by the
driver'.
Tile fares and measured distances, in miles and yards,
arc noted from each place; and all places of public in-
terest, as docks, theatres, Government offices , charitable
institutions, noblemen's mansions, kr
•...0 - 1 • d under
~ aro c classed
their respective heads.

There will also be notices at the Great Exhibition to
the following effect, which will be copied in German sad
French, and placardcd on boards at each standing for
hackney carriages:—

" NOTICE.—FARES OF HACKNEY CARRIAGES, A"
OFFENCES BY THE DRIVERS.
" The police at the standings will give information as
to the proper fares.
" The driver of a hackney carriage refusing
b proper
any person desiring to hire his carriage for
the proper
fare, or exacting or demanding more t
fare, is liable to a penalty of 40s. : the street, unless
" A hackney ttoego with
carriage standingr'nhire; and the driver
actually hired, is deemed plying o_
for refusing to go,
is obliged to go with any person
end on hearing . complaintoof having been actually
the driver must produce evidefn
such evidence be not pro-
periontdesirous of hiring such
hdiureecld,at
403. th e time. Penalty i
nt difputea as to the rumba of
to convey, the number of "In order to prevent difPUtt as to the aumbar of
persons which the hirer of any hackney carriage is enti-
tled to require thed
by the hackney carriage is painted
per-
sons to be carried persons which
dhrirgr
if the driver refuse to carry such numberhe
thereon, and
13 aity of 40s.
is liable to P
a - °may refuse to admit more than the num-
ber The driver .
- don his carriage, more than
he do admit them he
her palate
i t entitled to demand more than the regular fare.
-5 a„°Ary driver who shall during his employment be
make use el
drunk or any abusive or insulting language,
or shall be guilty of any insulting gesture, or any mis-
behaviour, for every such offence is liable to a penalty of
31., or may be committed to priori for two montas with
hard labour.
.6 The licence of the driver may be revoked or sus-
pended on Qonvictim of any 01 ace.
661ticus.an MAINZ.
Commissioner of Police of tiro
111c:ropolis.
" W hitelias I- place, May 15, 1851."
V; by should not the cab-driver be obliged to furnish a
d ~0
ticket, bearing the number of his
bu of a 6 , and at the same
. his fare? This
.
time mark on such ticket the
Would effeotually ol:erato against overcharge, and facili-
tatu CtilviCtiOD. -...-----•_.--__ ----

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~..,
last an inquest was held at the Red
LECOVELY Or THE BODY or Na. TODD, THE
BA RIUSTE n.—On Friday
Dog, High Halston, before Mr. Hills, deputy coroner for
West lient, on view of the body of a person unknown to
the jurors, but I;liich proved to be that of Mr. Todd, a bar-
rister, who was accidentally .
drowned on Easter Sunday,
pry returned a.verdict that the &ceased
whilst cruising w.ith some friends in the Thames, below
Gravesend. vie
the
Sillornithofe
dr°Wnpcdleasure in announcing that his
uPcrhince Albert has contributed was accidentally
2Ralvliarale a ji•hjdi igovi f'entehsrues subscr i p t i o n intended as a provis
declitlipg Years of Mrs. -Ward, 41%110; of Lord Nelaou.