The daily gazette., 1878-10-15
OUR PARIS LETTER.

| PARTISAN SENSATION.
(From our Regular Correspondent
| PARIS, October 3, 1873.
| AS one talks to holiday-makers now
returning home in shoals after making a
point OF seeing the Exhibition on their
way, one cannot well avoid calling to
mind the half forgotten fable. 1t is "Eyes
and no Eyes" over again; only on a lar
ger scale, and with greatly increased
variety of episode. 1t need scarcely be
said that allude to that class of general
sight-seers which so enormously prepon-
derates over the comparatively few visi-
tors who have been to the Exhibition for
some definite purpose of art or business,
or both combined, and who expect to
make tangible profit in one way or an
other out of their study of the latest
achievements of agricultural engineers,
OF potters, of upholsterers, and of build
efs. The general visitors have been. or
are going to Paris, partly because thew
like to see all Exhibitions of every kind.
partly because they fancy that they ought
to see this particular exhibition for the
sake of being as other men are, and of
partly because, if the truth be told, they
grasp eagerly at any excuse for holiday
In the recreation ground of Europe. The
impression left upon different members
OF this body by their inspection of the
Paris Exhibition are worth study by rea-
son of their variety and their singularly
contradictory nature. There are first of
all the good people who come home de-
lighted with all that they have seen, be-
cause they set out intending to be pleas
ed, and because they fear that if they
seemed dissatisfied their neighbors would
fancy they had blundered into failure.
and waste of money and time. At the
lopposite pole, though actuated by much
the same insincerity of motive, are the
unhappy people who are disappointed,
and because they believe that their dis
satisfaction proves their own superiority.
Leaving the genuine impressions of these
Isight-seers out of the question as beyond
the reach of anything save guess-work,
we come to the spectators who are chiefly
struck blythe magnitude of the thing to
be seen. They have been oppressed by
their self-imposed task Of pleasure, and
having no method in their holiday occu-
lpation, have contessedly derived from il
little but vague sense of its importance.
There has been SO much to see that they
have seen nothing. 1t would, they say.
and say truthtully, take weeks to 'do''
the exhibition thoroughly; so they have
not known how to spend few days there
with intelligent enjoyment. With them
it is not exactly a case of mo eyes," OF
of eyes wiliully blind they honestly de-
sire to see, but they do not know where
to begin to look. Others, still without
the charmed circle of those who have ac-
lquired the art of ''seeing," have failed
because they have limited too carefully
their horizon. Interested in the pictures,
they have forgotten the furniture; pay
ing attention to the characteristic produc-
tions of the favorite makers, they have
missed taking comprehensive view of
the still more characteristic structures in
which they are placed. Struck by the
merely curious, they have lost sight of
1.-THE beautiful, or, on the other hand, they
have looked only where they could adj
mire.
1t would be difficult to expand the
lcatalogue of eXhibition-goers to a length
as great as that of the moe familiar ex-
hibition catalogue. The ways of seeing
are as many as the sights to be seen. As
a rule, it may be said that he who takes
most into an exhibition takes most out of
it, just as he who brings most informa-
Ition to bear upon book derives most
from its pages. 1t is certain that the art
of profitable sightseeing is one well
worthy of cultivation, since the result of
proficiency in it is to increase indefinitely
the means and opportunity of education.
Not only are we enabled by its aid to eff
feet the oft-laughed-at combination of
business and pleasure; our very pleas
ures are elevated and intensified by the
mental advancement, which they are
. thus made to imply.
If the series ofeXhibitions inangurated
in 1851, and eliminating for the time
being in 1873, had done nothing else,
! they would have accomplished great
work in training the myriads who have
visited them TO make profitable use OF
those powers of general observation
which so often lie dormant, while Other
faculties are actively employed in the
lmontonous routine of life. That the
crowds who now throng the building op-
posite the Trocadero, and study its huge
mass of contents, are better fitted thar
ltheir predecessors of twenty-seven years
AGO to derive mental improvement from
their study, can scarcely be doubted
lThey have much to learn before they car
gain the full benefit from a gigantic OPP
,portunity such as this; but they have also
Learned much, and have done so in nc
small degree, by the aid of the move
ment set on foot in the various capitals
of Europe. To those who have been
Taught how to use an Exhibition proper
, llv, there will be new value i'll every
examination of the shop windows OF
foreign city; or, indeed, of their native
ltown. And, what is still more valuable,
/ they will never miss the possible interest
: of daily life because they employ "no
ewes" on the observation of the objects
which line their path.
A yery peculiar case is just now eX,
citing indignation against the Paris legal
institutions. The circumstances are as
follows. A young man called Maillard
left New York, where his family is set,
/. tied, to draw, in the conscrlptlon, and
having drawn good number, he went
Ito Havre and embarked. Just, how
ever, as the steamer was about to leave