The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-06-13
[Bayard Taylor's Cday 2o) Letter to Tribune. lsa
The Vienna Exposition.
A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE SHOW.

The fine weather continues, and new
spirit cores over the worlds show, and
everything connected with it. The arrange
ment of articles within the great building Is
now SO far advanced, that the com oletion of
the lacking departments can make but little
difference In the general effect. Having seen
all the memorable exhibitions of the kind.
since the first in HYDE park, in 1851, 1 VEN
ture to sketch the characteristic features ct
each, In the way OF comparison. As single
grand picture, nothing has since equaled the
worlds tair in Hyde park; the building,
1900 feet long, with all its treasures of art
and industry, was visible at one glance, and
from every part of it. In machinery and
crude products it was deficient. Eastern
Europe and the Orient were scantily repie.
sented; but all that was displayed SO filed
the great space that it produced an impress
sion of infinite richness and variety. The
first Paris exhibition of 1855. and the second
London of 1852 were crowded aud rather be-
wildering. The buildings were nigh, with
upper galleries for the lighter wares, the
architecture was pretentious and hot partic-
ulariy imposing. and there was scarcely space
enough in either for the visitorl to move
with comfort on a crowded day. only saw
the fair building in New York, at the end of
1858 afier most of the goods had been re-
moved III design, it was much superior to
tltucT vi Tue fOTuCI, dibuOuSu sO uluCu
smaller in dimensions For practical ar
rangement there has been nothing like the
Paris exposition of 1867. The general effect
was sacrificed to this feature, no doubt wise
ly. The coucentric ellipses, beginning with
machinery at the outside and ending with the
fine arts in the center, each country cutting
thro Ugh them like broader or narrower slice
ofpie. formed plan which was instantly
understood; and. knowing it, each visitor
could find exactly what he wanted to see.
There were no imposing vistas, no grand
combinations of form and color but thor
ougbly scientific order. 1t was a fuller repre-
sentation of the industry of all nations than
any of the exhibitions which preceded it.
Here the first characteristic which strikes
a visitor is the vast scale upon which the
show has been arranged. Yet. although the
ma building is nearly double the length OF
that in Hyde park, 1t produces nothing lik,
the effect. Owing to the comparative low
ness of the wings, and the great hight of the
show-frames and temples and pyramids
which fill them, the eye finds no vista. Your
aching feet tell you the distances YOU tray
erse, but your vision is constantly checked,
bewildered and deceived. Even the rotunda,
which gains by is vast span nearly all which
II loses by its squatty character, is deformed
by the strange, irregular, inharmonious piles
OF productions cumbering its floor. Scarcely
one of the transepts is visible from its juno
tion with the wing to its extremity. On the
other hand the space between the cases is so
ample that $4,000 persons might circulate
within the building without much jostlinc.
Machinery having its own hall, agriculture lis
dozen special pavilions, and art its detached
temple, the internal arrangement is greatly
simplifed, and will be found sufficiently prac-
tical. While America and western Europe
are at least as well represented as on former
occasions, oil Europe esst of line drawn
from the Rhine to the Mediterranean, with
Egypt, the Orient and Asia. make their best
and most varied display. This will be the
emf and all the former ''Worlt's Fairs" At
Paris, in 1867, the idea OF illustrating the ar
chitecture of different countries nv detached
buildings was, for the first time, carried into
effect. Here the attempt is repeated, and on
much larger scale, since the available space
is three or four times as great. The limits of
the champ de Mars, however, while they
crowded the edifices much nearer together,
rendered it possible to turf, the intervening
space into finished park. In the Pratsr
this cannot be done. Only the square of six
or eight acres tween the south portal and
the rotunda, and the sn aller garden-court
between the east portal aud the hall of art
are carefully laid out and set with shrubberv
and flowers. All the rest of the very extern
sive grounds is in a comparatively roupb
state. and must remain so. The soil ,s
loose, sandy deposit of the Danube. so Low
that it holds water like a sponge when II
rains, and turns into fine dust after two or
three days Of sun. Nevertheless, the TWO or
three hundred scattered buildings. when fin
lshed, will form BY far the most picturesque
and interesting feature of the exhibition to
most visitors.
within the building the work still goes on,
0ut ID many departments theie are signs OF