Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-06-23
FAIR ODDITIES.
TRAVESTIES ON BEAUTY AT THE
GREAT EXPOSITION.
Liberty Enlightening the World With
Salt Crystals--A Cow Made Of
the Same Material-In-
dustry's Freaks.

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If man has discovered n
new method of pulling teeth he seems
to think the world will never know 1T
unless he illustrates it bya painting or
n statue. Not all efforts in this direc-
ton are failures. An excellent por-
trait of Emperor J osepb-resembling
m oil painting at little distance
that has simply been woven with cot
ton and silk on power-loom, hangs IN
the Austrian section of manufactures
building.
Because one exhibitor can make a
creditable portrait out of thread an
other thinks he can make statue of
liberty or COW out OF salt. The
thought is father to the act and the
visiting public is amazed at the pro-
duct shown near the center of mines
and mining building. Some persons
in England who fancy they possess the
salt of the earth-in other words, salt
that is salt--haye undertaken to show
how it behaves under the chisel, rs if
that had anything to Go with butter
making. So there stands on z pedestal
in the center of their space the most
ridiculous copy of Bartholdi's beautiful
statue MS seen in New York harbor that
was ever made. Visitors passing 1t at
first said to each other when they had
found out what the material was;
''That's Lots wife" No woman ever
looked back at it, ndmonished by the
example of the poor victim and dread
ing such fate. The exhibitors found
it necessary to put up this inscription;
"Statue of Liberty Enlightening the
World. Carved in Salt.
This extraordinary production WAS
carved in pieces from blocks OF hard
ened salt and cemented together on
their arrival at the fair. The blocks
were originally about two feet square
and nearly as thick. The salt was
evaporated from brine pumped up out
of a natural reservoir in the interior of
the earth at the company's works and
kiln dried in blocks ns described. The
blocks are not as hard rs marble nor
as soft as butter from which the cele-
brated butter-head of the Centennial
Exposition was made. But the sculp-
tor was a mechanic and his chisel ap
parently as cumbersome as his talent.
The pedestal is not badly done, but the
drapery is more depressing than q
shroud, the uplifted arm resembles a
picked bone from a dissecting room
and the face, with fiat nose and crooked
eves. turns toward heaven with such an
emptiness of expression that should
have saved Mrs Lot from the libelous
insinuations of observers. 1t is not
the likeness Of any person real or ideal
The head Is crowned with an effulgence
made out of pasteboard, and prepara-
tions are being made to place an cleo
trio torch in the extended hand. The
effect will be ghastly rs well as ludic-
rous.
The company shows also in its gal
lery of salt art lifesize COW Half of
her is seen in profile in panel on one
side of the exhibit and the other half
on the opposite side twelve or fifteen
feet away. The COW is next to the god
dess in point of interest. She suggests
a work of art by an ancient Egyptian,
but any subject of Rameses who might
have cut so untruthful a hieroglyphic
on the side of barn would have been
executed. The salt artist drew upon
his imagination in depicting the milk
producing qualifications of the COW,
presumably to emphasize the preserv-
ing effect of good salt upon butter, but
the poor animal Jared badly in the
matter of eyes, horns and legs. Each
half was given one weak eye and a
sickly horn, but two fore legs of differ
ent sizes and one hind leg In spite
of her six legs the animal seems to have
been poorly supported, and the visitor
wonders how she could give SO much
milk.
The local manager of the exhibit says
the art is not one of the things the COM
pany is Dragging about, but the salt.
He says it is really high class article
and that the best butter-makers in this
country send to England for it. Visi-
tors are not satisfied with the labels,
but insist on tasting it, and go away
with an expression of disgust when
they find after all it is nothing but
salt.
In the same building firm of Ger
man manufacturers has succeeded ad-
mirably in showing how cement can
be fashioned into blocks of stone and
ornamental pieces to be used in build
ing. The exhibit comes from Heidel-
berg and represents a grand portal
twenty-five feet high and more than
half as broad. 1t is built wholly of
blocks Of solid cement, as hard and as