The Portland daily press., 1893-03-13
,T,s POSITIVELY BEWlLDERlNe.
Too Much of the Worlds Fair For One
Pair of Eyes or One Pair of Legs.
raracial Corresnnndence1

Too Much OF the World,s air HoF She
Pair of Eyes or One Pair of Legs.
Especial Correspondence
CHICAGO, March 9.-The nearer we
get to the 1st of May the stronger is
our conviction Of the utter inability OF
the human brain to grasp the magni-
tude of the World fair and its adjuncts,
and the more we write about it, the
more we talk about 1t, the more we in
terview about it, the more confused and
bewildered we get. AS for the men
who have the work to do, the chiefs OF
the entire enterprise and the directing
minds Of the hundred and one depart
ments, it is wonder that they have any
mind left at all. One Of them said the
other evening that his head felt as
though it was only network OF COB
webs, and hat when night came the do
ings of the lay seemed like dream.
During single hour OF the day IN
question no less than 40 cards had been
brought to him, Is important questions
relating to weighty matters, and which
required prompt consideration, reached
his desk through the circumlocution bu-
reau, while the boy in attendance at the
telephone kept plying him with queries
from people down town who were "hold-
ing the wire" so that they might be as
sured of an immediate answer. "That
in greater or lesser degree" said he,
sis the kind of experience some OF us
have to go through day in and day out,
and 10 hours a day at that" No wonder
he felt as though his brains had gone out
and cobwebs had come in.
And there will be cobwebs I'M the crani-
ums of many of our guests next year 1t
they try to do too much in the sightsee-
ing line. A few months ago we thought
we knew all about it. We spread out
upon our desk birdseye view of the
grounds, veritable work of art, by the
way, with its buildings in red and blue
and white and lavender, and its gold
mounted domes and its beautiful walks,
and, we figured out how easy it would be
to get from the Manufactures building
to the Administration building, and
thence over to the Woman's temple, and
thence to the rendezvous of the little
ones, and around the Electrical building
and over the bridge to Uncle Sans head
quarters, and so on until all the main
structures of the White, City had been
covered, and we could go over to our
own state building, which ever one it
happened to be, and take rest
It looked very simple on paper and
without any figures to start one thinking.
but it doesn't look so simple to the peo-
pie whose business now compels them to
make the rounds through snow up to
their ankles, nor will it look SO simple to
Millionaire Jones of New Y ork and Farm
or Brown of Kansas when they start in
on their sightseeing expedition next sum-
mer. It will behoove them, unless their
visiting be prolonged into weeks or
months, to make up their minds before
hand what they propose to see and then
to make sure that they see it.
. If they expect to take in anything and
everything, to start out at the farthest
end of the Midway plaisance and to
continue to the very extremity of the
fair grounds proper, making mental
picture of one attraction after another
and storing their minds with informa-
ton concerning the same, they will find
out before they get back home that they
have tried to do too much, and that,
like the old man in the fable who tried
to please everybody and succeeded in
pleasing nobody and losing his donkey,
in the bargain. their visit to the great
Worlds show has not been productive
of the good results that might have ac-
crued from more concentrated and sys-
tematic method of exploration among
its wonders.
Don't understand me as suggesting
that there is too much to the Worlds
fair. One cannot have too much of a
good thing, as the boy said when re-
monstrated with for filing himself up to
his very neck with mince pie. It was in
tended to be a big. thing. The master
minds that are responsible for the enter
prise as it stands today started out to
make it the biggest thing that the world
had ever seen, SO big that when, in days
to come, the next Worlds fair of the
North American continent is captured
by New York or Boston or Philadelphia
or San Francisco or some big place that
just now is only a barren plain. its pro-
jectors will find that they have all they
can do, and perhaps more than they can
do, to equal, to say nothing of eclipsing,
the record of the Windy City. And GER
rtainly they have succeeded.
There is something TINT will appeal in
a personal sense to every woman and
man that enters the grounds, whether
she or he be in search of amusement, OF
enlightenment or of instruction. Stu
dents of science or art or philosophy or
education OF medicine, of hundreds OF
other things, will find each department
in which they can linger for hours and
80 away feeling all the better for having
done it. But the individual that at
tempts to take it all in without any fixed
or definite motive beyond desire to
boast afterward that he has ''seen it ALL
will be the ono that in reality has seen
the least, and who will be the first to
complain that there is ''too much of it.
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