The daily republic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1853-1853, 1853-07-16

the magician that SO skilfuly blew the cinders Of
his cigars in our eyes, making US weep and weep
again, and fall in love with such luxury Of
weeping. -,.ls.s.-..
bin The Great Exhibition. te Ys84
From the .Ns,D York Tribune
AS an epitome Of the experiences of a traveller
who should pass his time in examining the work
shops Of the world-as collection ofthe finest spe-
cinens of Industrial artas record ofthe progress
of human development in some of its most signif-
cant elements-as a tidernark of the height oil
perfection to which mechanical processes have
been carried-it cannot fail to be instructive.
| 1t must be particularly instructive to Ameri-
cans, because it will furnish them with evidences
of a skill in many branches Of creation beyond
their own, and of models of workmanship which
are superior, precisely in those points in which
their own are most deficient No one, we pre-
sume will push his national predictions SO far
as to deny that in the finer characteristics Of
manufacture and art we have yet vast deal to
lsarn. Stupendous us our advances have been in
railroads, steamboats,, canals, printing presses,
hotels, and agricultural implements rapidly as
we are growing in excellence in a thousand de-
partments of design and NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
us may be our achievements, under all the dith
culties of an adverse national policy in
genious, and energetic ais we have shown our
by the existing conditions of our society-we have
yet few fabrics equal to those of Manchester few
wares equal to those Of Birmingham and Shelf
field no silks like those Of Lyons, no jewelry like
that of Geneva, no shawls like those of the East,
no mosacs like those of Italy. But in our rapid
physical improvements growing as we are in
prosperity, in population, in wealth, in luxuries
Of all kinds--these the articles that we ought
to have, and must have, to give diversity to our
industry, to relieve us from dependence upon 9TH
or nations to refine our taste, and to enable the
ornamental and elegant appliances of our life to
keep pace with our external development. Mere
wealth, without the refinements Of wealth-bar-
barrie ostentation, prodigal display, extravagant
acknowledgements only corrupt morals and de-
grade character. But the cultivation of the finer
arts redeems society from it's grossness, spreads
an unconscious moderation and charm around it,
softens the asperities of human intercourse, ele-
Yates our ideals, and imparts sense of serene en-
ioylnent to all social relations. Our common
people -immeasurably superior to the common
people of other nations, in easy means Of subsist-
ence, in intelligence as in the sterling virtues
are yet almost as UNNECESSARILY behind them in
polished and gentle manners, and the love of mu-
sic, painting, statuary, and all the more refining
social pleasures - ~ \
These exhibitions, then, which make us ac
quainted with the superlative arts of other ma
tons, cannot but be highly useful to US. But
they have also another use--a moral, if not re-
lgous use, in that they teach us SO powerfully
the dependence of nations upon each other-their
mutual relations, and the absolute necessity OF
each to the comfortable existence of all the rest
There is hardly article in the Crystal Palace to
which the labor of all the world has not in some
sort contrbuted--hardly n machine which is not
an embodied record Of the industrial progress of
the world-hardly fabric which, if analysed,
does not carry us to the ends OF the earth, or
which does not connect us intimately with the
people of every clime-with the miners who tor
tured its raw material from the dark cave, or the
diver who brought it from the bottom of the sea
with the solitary mariner who shielded it from the
tempests-with the poor, toilworn mechanic who
gave it form or color, with the artist who inn-
parted to it its final finish. Thus, no man iyeth
to himself alone, even in his most ordinary occu-
pations; he is part and parcel of U.S. us we are of
| him. "A wonderful and touching unity pervades
the relations of the race; all men are useful to all
men; and we who fancy that, in some important
respects, we stand on the summit level of human
.|ity, have deep interest in the lnborers of the
vales--in the celebrity, the excellence, and the
success of what they do--and in the comfort ane
happiness of their general condition, AS Elmer
son has wisely sung, in that sweet poem of his: II
| faa 81 GAN are needed by each one; l
II Nothing is fair or good alone
There is also another thought suggested by our
topic which contains a world of meaning. We
are apt to speak, in our discussions, of the pro-
gToSS
wherein that progress consists, Is it in the greater
perfection to which, in modern times, we have
carried the works Of our hands' Look ut the
elegant tissues of Persia and India, at the exi-
Bile blades of Toledo and Damascus, and say in
how far we have surpassed these works OF semi
barbarous ages and people, with all our boasted
mechanical improvementa Can we imagine any
thing more splendid, more rich, and more delicate
than the clothes in which the Oriental princes
still array themselves as their forefathers used to
array themselves centuries agol Have we yet a
dye more brilliant than the Tyrian, sculpture
equal to that Of Greece, an architecture better
than that of the ssDark Ages, paintings ON glass
to compare with those In the old cathedrals,
workers in bronze to rival Ccllini' is it not tho
highest compliment that we pay to product OF
skill or genius to say of it that it is classical
that it is worthy of the models that have been
preserved for ages in our galleries and museums |?
What, then, do we mean when we speak of our
selves as more advanced than former nations;
what is that difference between us which autho-
rzes us to use the word progress and to look back
with comp1acent, Multiplying eye upon the at
tainments Of the generations that have passed
: away? .etH agno
It Is this that in our discoveries in science, by
our applications of those discoveries to practical
art by the enormous increase of mechanical pow
or consequent upon mechanical invention, we
have ,nipersalized all the beautiful and glorious
results of industry and skill, we have made them
a common possession of the people, and given. to
society at large, to almost the mennest member of
it, the enjoyments, the luxury, the elegance which
in former times were the exclusive privilege of
kings and mobiles. Formerly the labor Of the world
! fed and clothed and ornamented the prince and
his court, or the warrior and his chiettains--b'it
now it feeds and clothes and ornaments the pea
SAINT and his family. Then the ten Thousand poor
miserable wretchcs worked for the one, or the
few, but now the ten thousand work for the ten
thousand. Then the wealth Of provinces was
drained to heap up splendors for the lord of the
province, but now that wealth is multiplied and
diffused, to give. happiness to tho comnonnity.
All the concentrated capital of Lyons and Leeds
and Lowell, all our complicated machinery while
"A Ard Co hum