The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-06 00:00:00

mony could not take place. The soil was soaked
with moisture, the avenues were blocked up with
packages, the interior possages were littered with

rubbish of every description, the hangings were not

unpacked, and hundreds of benches were piled up
in every gallery. Exhibitors had not even the as-

sistance of their workmen ; at the last moment a

kind of panic had seized them. Men of unconquer-
able will are alone fit for every emergency, and
many such showed that the meanest employment
was worth striving for, for that nothing could
degrade them so much as helplessness. There-
fore all threw off their coats, and the whitest

hands wielded the hammer, every nail was
driven in to some purpose, others too to clear-

iug the different outlets, and many lady exhibitors,
while busily laying out their stands, had the con-

,ents of wheelbarrows turned over on their trains.

Never could long robes have appeared to greater
disadvantage, and why cannot ladies adopt suitable
styles to suitable occasions? Why do some wear
short costumes when they have to stand on eleva-
tions, and flowing drapery when men have not
time, to get rolled up, and dragged about by sweep-
ing drapery ? But to return to the Exposition.
" Shoulder to shoulder" was the mighty principle
that actuated all ; the consequence was, that when
the Emperor and Empress arrived at two o'clock on
the following day their suprise was extreme. Pave-
ment had been laid down since their visit on the
preceding day, macadam was smooth, the most
splendid textures hung over bare walls, pennons and
flags floated in the April sun ; velvet covers were
drawn over reserved seats, military bands were
standing in readiness and began their symphonies
when the Emperor alighted,---every 'man, in one
word, was at his appointed station, and all the
members of the commission, bearing their different
orders, went forth in due rank to meet the imperial
cortege. Baron Haussmann was radiant ; content
sparkled on the faces of all. The Emperor and
Empress most studiously avoided what is understood
by state etiquette ; it was evident they simply came
to bid all welcome. The loud polyglot cheering was
boisterous on their passage ; every language was
mixed in one outpouring cry. Babel could scarcely
have been worse : the words " imperator," " hoch
lebe," " vivat," " throhe," and the sturdy British
" hurrah," with the American " hurrah for ever,"
created an almost 'painfully pleasurable sen-
sation. The Empress blushed three or four
times when the shouts were somewhat too
energetic. Other demonstrations were very
characteristic. The Chinese bowed low, but kept
their hats on ; the Turks stood with their hands on
their breasts in respectful silence ; the negroes
rolled the whites of their eyes very expressively ;
while our Parisian beauties gave their hearts indis-
criminately to all bronze-faced travellers covered
with gold and wearing big diamond studs.
Some of the toilets were very lovely. The
Empress wore a claret-coloured robe, and bonnet,
with a black lace veil drawn over her face and tied
on behind ; it did not prevent the sparkling of her
clear blue eye underneath. Princess Mathilde
followed, giving her arm to the Prince of Orange.
The Duke of Flanders came next, and then all the
Court. Baron James de Rothschild was followed
by a servant with a camp-stool. One of the ladies
present wore a rich blue poult de soie robe, trim-
med all round with a trellis work of cross-cut satin
and silk above a deep blue fringe ; a jacket to
match, with the longest Jewish sleeves worn this
season (for they touched. the ground), a white
crape bonnet trimmed with seed pearl fringe on a
fall of crape, and a large jewelled flower above the
left temple. Another wore a light grey satin, end-
ing round the bottom with a polisse festooned with
straw. The peplum to match was trimmed in the
lime way. The bonnet was made of white tulle,
with a diadem of leaves on the front all
shimmering like gold, over which hovered two green
enamelled dragon flies. The ear-rings were long
gold peacock feathers, ending with a gorgeous eye
in precious stones. The medieval sleeves to the
jacket were excessively long and pointed. Para-
soli are all richly ornamented with silk cord and
tassels on each quarter, or worked with initials on
one quarter only.

ROME, March 25.

It is difficult for one who has not pretty large
experience in Southern travel to reconcile himself to
the date of his owu letters. When the thick foliage,
the bright flowers, the clear skies, and the warm
sunlight, all indicate what we call June, in the
Northern States of the Great Republic, to write
March at the head of a page seems for the moment
a startling anachronism. It is delightful to live in
such an atmosphere, where all the discomforts of a
northern climate are escaped, and where almost
every moment from sunrise .to sunset can be plea-
santly spent in the open air.

Yet a person who has not, like a certain
celebrated character, " enough to do with-
out thinking," cannot avoid some melancholy
moments here. The contrast of magnificence
and misery is most oppressive. To visit some
splendid basilica, like that still unfinished, of
St. Paul, and walk amid a forest of massive columns
over a floor more than 200 feet from side to side of
polished marble, clear as a lake and bright as the
sunset, to look up along walls of stone from all parts
of the earth, every square of which is a study, by
rich windows of stained glass and costly mosaics, to
the wide expanse of roof gleaming with gold, to
examine the paintings and statues, elaborate, and
pleasing, if not great, which adorn transepts and
chapels, fills the mind with wonder at the power of
a system, which even in its present depression can
raise such a temple as this ; the more wonderful as
it satisfies no real need. In the city are churches
almost beyond count and quite beyond recollection,
and yet this is built without the walls, where few
choose to live at any time, and where, for a large
part of the year, scarce any one can live, to minister
to what might be called the very luxury of
devotion. But before crossing its threshold
your musings are dispelled. Haggard, wrinkled
old women, ragged and tottering old men,
children diseased and,' maimed, press across
your path with pitiful demands for a pitiful trifle
of money. All along the way, as you return,
around the Coliseum, under the broken triumphal
arches, and along the Corso, where splendid equi-
pages are crowding almost upon them, similar ob-
jects beg relief. You know there is much impos-
ture. You see through the flimsy device of that,
man who has tied a wooden leg under his knee, and
smile at the evidence of wear on the elevated shoe.
You have very serious doubts as to the necessity of
various slings and bandages. But what will you
say of that man whose right arm is lopped at the
elbow, of that poor, crawling creature who never has
walked and never can, of those crouching old
women, so evidently, even if we admit deservedly,
wretched ? What of the thousands of poor creatures
who prolong a squalid existence without begging ?
What of a civilisation which tempts the well and
strong to disfigure themselves in order to catch an
occasional paltry gift, amid a thousand scornful
rebuffs ?

It
seems impossible that such things should
always continue. I know it will be said that all
has been, substantially, as it is now for centuries
past. But this is itself an argument for its termi-
nation. The teaching of history seems to be that
ignorance and misery cannot be anywhere per-
petual, and the longer they have endured in any
region the more hope there would seem to be of a
speedy relief. When Government has ceased to
confer any benefit it has lost all power, except that
of inertia, founded on the tendency of mankind to
tolerate what exists.
But a state of wretchedness is a state of restless-
ness, and in such a condition the faintest hope of
relief becomes a mighty argument for revolution.
How long a change may be averted here, and
in what way it will come, may be difficult to foresee.
But it is not difficult to perceive that the changes
which have taken place all over the world, and par-
ticularly in Italy, are influencing the Romans.
An area so narrow cannot be kept in absolute
darkness, when the light is flashing along its whole
frontier. If liberal papers cannot be published
here they can be brought here, and they are
brought. Journals from France, Germany, and
the kingdom of Italy are to be found in the cafes,
telling of revolutions accomplished by argument and
by force, and glorying in their results. The very