The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-16 00:00:00

THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1862.

Every day now adds visibly to the growth of
the stupendous structure which is being bolted
together with such rapidity at South Kensington.
Of the thousands of columns, girders, brackets,
and railings of cast iron, nearly one-fourth are
already actually in their places. The remainder
are being rapidly forwarded, and all are to be
delivered on the ground before the 30th of Sep-
tember, at which time the delivery of the iron-
work for the Exhibition of 1851 was only just
commencing. In all about 4,000 tons of cast iron
will be required, and it reflects no slight credit
on Mr. Barrow, of Staveley, who has been in-
trusted with this portion of the works, that he
has been enabled to complete all these castings of
first-rate quality in such an exceedingly short'
time. The columns are of unusual size and strength.
There are 1,100 of them, and if laid end to eud
they would reach from South Kensington to the
Crystal Palace at Norwood. Early in October
the Picture Gallery will be all roofed in, so that
the walls will have ample time to dry before the
grand opening on Thursday, the Ist of May next.
By the 12th of February the building will be
completed and formally handed over to the Royal
Commissioners—a happy occasion, which, we hear
will be duly celebrated by the great contractors,
Messrs. Kelk and Lucas, with a kind of fete in
the centre nave. After the 30th of next month
no further applications for space will be received
by the Commissioners, no matter frona what
quarter they may come. On this point there
should be no misunderstanding, and we can assure
those who are in that peculiar state of mental
uncertainty known as "making up one's mind"
that if it is not made up before the 30th of Septem-
ber they may save themselves all further trouble,
for that is positively the last day of grace. As a
matter of course, England and the colonies alone have
demanded more than five times the space of the
entire building. The Commissioners, however,
naturally wish to know the worst before they begin
cutting down the exorbitant estimates, and there-
fore want to have all applications in as soon as pos-
sible. If a list could only be published of intend-
ing exhibitors and their demands it would make,
we think, as amusing a book as any ever laid before
the public. The deep, mysterious secrecy of some as
to the nature of the articles they intend to exhibit,
the utterly preposterous nature of other articles, and
the ;perpetual confounding of feet square with
square feet, would scarcely be believed if told. One
of the earliest applications for space was that of
an inventor, and, notwithstanding the numbers
that have since come in, this still remains one of
the most remarkable of all. This gentleman,
who does not specify the nature of the articles he
intends to exhibit, requires space in every class
of the industrial sections to the amount of 72,000
square feet! In the Exhibition of 1851 the classes of
exhibitors were arranged under the heads of animal,
mineral, and vegetable manufactures, &c. The
same rule was followed at Paris in '55, and led to
the most absurd derangements, to which we shall
have occasion to refer hereafter. To avoid these
mistakes for the future the classes of next year's
Exhibition are arranged under trades, irrespective
of the materials used in manufacture. But the
only people who won't be classified according to this
order are the inventors. Their genius refuses to be
fettered by the rules that govern mere manufac-
turers, and they will not have their " patent tomb-
stone," " invulnerable floating battery," "automatic
flute," and "indestructible boots" reduced to the
level of mere classes. The Commissioners must
take all or none, and if not exhibited together they
won't send any. It must be taken, we suppose, as
a proof of the versatility of genius' that we always
find the professions and trades of these intractable
inventors have not the remotest connexion with
their valuable mechanical, e.hymical, and warlike
discoveries. Thus a clergyman may send breech-
loaders and models of tremendously destructive
shells, while the nurseryman and market gardener
proffers improvements in surgical instruments, and
the doctor a contrivance for forwarding the ripen-
ing of fruit on walls. One grocer demands space
for the exhibition of a new axle applicable to
all carriages, a new projectile for ordnance, and a
new method of propelling ships. An M.A. and
F.R.G.S. has models of an invulnerable floating
battery, a breech-loading gun and carriage convert-
ing all guns of old pattern into breech-loaders,
a refuge buoy, a beacon, a cork poncho mattress, a
life, limb, and treasure preserver, an unfoulable
anchor, and some new screw propellers. An ac-
countant asks space for a model of a self-acting
water-closet, with water metre and apparatus
for regulating the flew of water all in one, the
model of an improved theodolite, and an omnitonic
flute, all to be shown together ! A bookseller
seems overflowing with invention. He has a
plan of interminable suspension applicable to
bridges, aqueducts, &c., of great span or length, and
by which means to do away with the costly sup-
ports hitherto used ; a target-shooting protector for
the safety of those employed to note the score ; a
new paddlewheel, by which to secure a greater
amount of power than is attainable by any other
arrangement ; a self-acting railway signal for day
and night, and bolts for gates at level crossings,
whereby to prevent the gates from being opened
while a train is within a quarter of a mile or any
convenient distance ; a safety spring mining cage to
secure the safe lodging or prevent the falling of
the cage in its ascent or descent, when conveying
men or goods up or down the mine shaft, should the
rope or chain break or become disarranged; a new
window-sash fastening and door-bolt, by which to
attain perfect security, from the impossibility of
unfastening them from the outside. A barrister
wishes to exhibit two architectural designs; a pair
of spring-heeled boots and a drawing of a man
equipped with ditto; diagrams of Coryton's sys-
tem of fairway lighting off the coasts of Great
Britain ; a type-composing machine and hand-
stamp ; models and drawings illustrative of Cory-
ton's vertical wave-line system of ship-construc-
tion ; Coryton's atmospheric guide propeller, and
Coryton's self-adjusting sails. An insurance-
broker has specimens of wines and other fluids
fined by a new and more effective process, and
model of the apparatus used ; 'electric telegraph
cables and conductors ; model of an improved ship
and of parts thereof; specimens of improved pave-
ment in carriage roads; specimens of improvements
an iron house, &c. ; specimens of building stone
preserved by a new material; model of a machine
for dressing stone; specimens of improved junc-
tions of iron pipes to prevent breakage; specimens
of a new description of embroidery ; ditto of paper
hangings; ditto of an improved floorcloth. These
likewise are all to be shown together.
This list might be extended indefinitely. Another
class of applicants appear to wish to exhibit, merely
to say that they have exhibited. _Thus, a private
secretary wishes to show specimens of grape,
gooseberry, and rhubarb wines, and another a
method of training vines. One gentleman pro-
poses to exhibit wines, a photgraphic view of an
organ front, designed by himself, and six large views
of his fig orchard. A great many intending exhi-
bitors, either from motives of secrecy or from not
comprehending the term, " Nature of the articles
to be exhibited," have either omitted description
altogether, or, what is worse, defined them very
badly. Thus, one declines to give any speciaott-

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f tion but the number of the class he wishes to ex-
hibit in. One can only be got to admit that his
inventions are Archimedian, whatever that may
mean ; another, that his " objects are geologi-
cal ;" while a third baffles the Commissioners
with the general answer that his articles " are
various." Ideas of space are, of course, of the
most indefinite kind. People will do anything
rather than adhere to the plain dimensions of
length, breadth, and height. An organ builder
after much correspondence, says he cannot tell
how much space he will want. Another requires
a horizontal epace of 200 ft. by 100 ft., or 20,000
square feet, for the exhibition of some photo-
graphs ; another wants 100 feet by 100, or 10,000
square feet for carriages. The agricultural imple-
ment makers, however, carry off the palm for exor-
bitance. They seem to think the building will be
rather larger than Salisbury Plain, for one eminent
maker demands a space of 1,500 feet by 1,500 feet,
or 2,250,000 square feet, nearly three times the
whole exhibition space in the building.
The applications for space under the head of the
Fine Arts must have given considerable amusement
to the Commissioners, though unfortunately some
of them also happened to be in the last degree em-
barrassing and troublesome. Every one in England
who considers himself the artist whom the world
has conspired to keep down and defraud of his right-
ful fame has now, or, at least, thinks he has, a chance
of displaying
his immortal works before
writes,
the eyes
of admiring Europe. " But for the Exhibition,"
he
"posterity might have lost the chance of
beholding," &c., and on goes a remorseless claim for
space for a grand historical cartoon of the Signing
of the Confederacy of the Scamander ; or the
Coronation of the thr.e Kings of Brentford. This,
however,
insist
ugh bad, is by no means the worst.
People will on space in the Fine Arts Gallery,
for what, to use the mildest term, are not, and never
were, Fine Art objects at all. What, for instance,
is to be done with a man who, in spite of Queen,
Lords, and Commons, claims a space in the pic-
ture gallery " for a model room for a working shoe-
maker, showing sanitary arrangements and eco-
nomical furniture, cooking apparatus, and bed ?"
Another offers " a masterpiece of plain and orna-
mental engraving," of his own, though he couples
the reception of this Art treasure with a condition
that space must be found among the Fine Arts for
specimens of Argentine plates, for marking linen,
silk, paper, &c. There is an enthusiast who will
not be denied admission among Fine Arts for " an
architectural model birdcage in ornamental wood
and shellwork highly finished in glass." Yet this
is in its way a lucid application compared with that
of a gentleman who demands space in the Picture
Gallery for the exhibition of a Poem! What num-
ber of feet square, or square feet, are requisite for
properly exhibiting his verses the applicant does
not say, and he likewise wisely declines to specify
the exact manner in which the poem is to be " ex-
hibited." If the Commissioners yield to this "fine
frenzy," and admit it to the gallery, we trust :they
will hang it high. For room for figures in costume
and Indian and other clay statuettes there is, of
course, a large demand, and there is a regular
twitter among picture-dealers who want space for
their " genuine" Rqynolds's and Gainsboroughs,
when it is well known that the originals are in
great collections elsewhere. The object of this is
that their pictures may come forth from the Exhi-
bition. with their putative authorship duly authen-
ticated. The desire to exhibit the Wardour-street
style of antiques under the class of Fine Arts has
been broadly evinced. One wants space in the
Picture Gallery for antique swords and casques,
another room for an ancient cabinet, while a
third wants a stand for a show of antique bricks.
In fact, Salisbury Plain would not be large
enough if half the demands now made for
exhibiting space were attended to or granted. It
is the nature of these exhibitions to develope them-
selves and progress in magnitude with each fresh
display, but the development and magnitude of the
forthcoming show would be something startling
indeed if all intending exhibitors had their claims
allowed. In making their arrangements for exhi-
bition under trade classes the Commissioners have
had compiled for them one of the most wonderful
trade lists that has ever been completed in this
country. It contains the names of upwards of
6:000 distinct trades and manufactures, hundreds
of which the general public never heard the names
of before, and many of which are so utterly un-
known even to the Commissioners themselves that
they actually dont't know in what class they ought
to be put. We have, however, already exceeded
the limits of a passing notice, and must defer to
another occasion our account of this most interesting
list and other matters still more important con-
nected with the progress of the great exhibition.-
7inies.