The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1867-05-22
The Paris Exhibition.

The Imperial Commission has just insured
the Palace Of the Exhibition for the sum of
| $500, OOOf in the International Mutual As
surance Society. The lighting Of the building
by gas having proved successful, the Palace
will remain open every evening till | l o'clock,
at which hour train will start from the Rue
ST. Lazare.
1t is remarked of the Paris Exhibition build :
ing that it is constructed with a view to cir
culation, and all tine arrangements of galleries
and pathways tend to produce circulation
you 60 round and round the building in one
circle or another. If you are tired of one
circle, you 60 into the next, or, like the hyena
at the Geological Gardens, if you are tired of
making the circuit one way you turn about
and make it the other. No chance of seeing
man twice in this building If your friend
has passed you, he has passed like ship at
sea-you will never see him more. He has
gone off to gyrate in ceaseless circles of which
you have no conception. Alas for the fond
youth who in one of these encrcling galleries
may fall in love at first sight with some fair
face again. Away goes the damsel in her Or
bit The fond youth may follow her, but he
| will never meet her."
A correspondent says:
| have said that visit to the Exhibition
has become pleasure. The chief drawback
to this pleasure is that the Imperial Commis-
sion has not yet deemed it right to provide
visitors with seats. One has to trudge on
from case TO case without much chance of
rest, unless one goes outside the building to
one of the restaurants. | have seen ladies
toiling about, too much interested to go away
from the thousands of rare and beautiful OBJ
jects to be seen, and yet too weary to look at
them with the attention they deserve. In
their exhaustion, perhaps, one of them rests
her elbow for moment on the case or on the
pedestal where the objects are shown. UpI
comes an attendant and tells her that this is
forbidden" She looks wistfully round for a
seat, but in vain. She remembers, it may be,
that seats are usually to be found in picture
galleries. There are the great French picture
galleries, crowded with visitors-but they have
not single seat. The lady goes off in des-
pair to some benevolent exhibitor and asks for
leave to sit for a minute on an empty packing
case.
The great attraction in the British depart
ment is Mr.. Harry Emanuel's mechanical swan.
People rush and crush to see this swan, as in |
1862 they crushed to hear the pi ping bull
finch. When we approach the bird we see
him floating, as it were, in water, and resting
his head behind his wings. He is wound up,
and he begins to raise his head with all the
proper motions of the swan, he curves his
neck in pride, and espies some fish in the wa
ter before him, he lowers his head to seize one,
he holds it in his beak for an instant, he then
swallows it, and, last of all, returns gracefully
to rest. The action is very pretty and calls
forth loud applause. But it is not Mr.. Harry
Emanuel's invention. The bird is, indeed
very old, though his plumage may be new
Its mechanism was supposed to have been con-
structed by Mr.. Weekes, who lived in the
'eign of George III, but it was lately discov-
cred that it formed part of the museum of Mr.
Cox, jeweler who lived in the reign Of George
/, and whose collection must have been of
ome Importance, as he obtained an act of
Parliament to enable him to dispose of it by
ottery. Mr.. Harry Emanuel has put the
lockwork mechanism in order, and has given
he bird a new and beautiful silver plumage
tut this is all he has to do with the invention {
# the toy which proves SO attractive to the {
multitude, and which seems to eclipse all else
n its neghborhood.