Grave physicians tell us it is wholesome to rise from
table with an appetite. Still graver moralists love to descant on the wisdom of not draining the cup of pleasure..to the dregs. Physically and morally, therefore, it is matter of congratulation to our country- men that the attractions of the Great Industrial Exhibition have gone on increasing to the, moment of its olose. The doors are finally shut upon crowds, still eagerly desiring to gain admittance. The hecess of this bold experiment has indeed exceeded the most sanguine expectation. It were all too late to expatiate now on the exquisite and peculiar fitness of the building, or the gorgeous magnificence of some of its contents, the solid utility of others, the wondrous character of the whole spectacle. Millions have enjoyed a cheap pleasure of a stirring and, unprecedented kind. All the arrangements have been conducted in a liberal spirit, and the ma- nagers have in hand a surplus of receipts amounting to several hundred thousand pounds. The ever-moving crowds who from day to day have circled within the building for more than five months, have been, as it were, but the central dimple of a vortex, whose whirl was felt throughout the islands and far beyond their limits. For the last six moliths Hyde Park has been a kind of Mecca of manufactures, towards which pilgrims from every degree of latitude and longitude have been bending their steps. Not the least wonderful piece of good fortune that has attended the Exhibition is the almost total absence of fatal casualties. Within the building there have been no more than might have happened in any private house in town; the immense conflux of visitors in London has not occasioned the slightest tumult or sensibly increased the labours of the Police Magistrates ; and, most incredible of all, the average of railway accidents has not been augmented by all the close-packed excursion-trains rattling past each other, coming or returning. One narrow escape, it is true, we seem to have had, this last week, from an accident that would have dimmed all this gayety. The inauguration of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was, saddened by the sacrifice of Huskisson's life ; the closing of the Great Exhibition had almost been overcast by that of the Duke of Wellington. It would -have been an unbecoming termination to his glorious career, after escaping without wound from so many battles, to have been squeezed to death by the unreflecting love or curiosity of his admirers in the hour of amuse- ment. In good time the Exhibition closed. From the day when every avenue that led to it was choked with multitudes thron • to see it opened, till that on which its aisles were gorged with such crowds as never before had been collected under one roof, its attractions have not palled. The structure which has been the scene of this triumph will in a short time be resolved into its elements, and its treasures be scattered abroad; but its gay loveliness will ever remain vivid in the memories of those who have seen it, and its story will be the marvel of future generations.
