22 APRIL 1854, Page 10

THE NEW CRYSTAL PALACE.

The time is approaching rapidly when that gigantic undertaking, the mausoleum of old and repertory of new arts, whose figurative name of " Crystal Palace " has by habit and adoption become its business is to throw its treasures open. Rumour had bruited abroad that the in- augural ceremony was fixed for the Queen's birthday, and to be presided over by her Majesty's self. The latter statement is generally accepted as sure ; and, if the former may perhaps not be literally fulfilled, there yet seems no reason to doubt that, before May is over, the most extra- ordinary and various exhibition which England, probably which the world, has ever witnessed, will be a public fact. This week the tariff of admission-prices has been officially announced. The startling cheapness of a shilling admission is included in the pro- gramme ; although the report, outheroding Herod, that this sum was to include the journey to and fro proves incorrect. The two charges are throughout kept distinct ; but tickets will be obtainable at the London Bridge station, franking the visitor to the trains as well as the building, for 2s. 6d. by first-class, 2s. by second, and is. 6d. by third. A single season-ticket is to cost two guineas, or, including the railway-fare, four. Besides this, there will be the new feature of family season-tickets, ranging from SI. 16e. for two persons to 151. 15s. for ten ; charges which are about doubled in each instance in case the conveyance is to be included. Furthermore, the Saturdays will be crown days and the Fridays half- crown days ; the remaining four working days being for the shilling visitors. The building opens at nine o'clock on the Monday, at twelve on the Friday and Saturday, and at ten on the other three days. The Sunday remains a dies non. The last fact involves an extremely serious question. It leads to con- siderations very wide and very important indeed, on which we shall not enter now ; but one secondary consideration is, whether the enterprise is likely to pay without a Sunday admission. We reluctantly con- fess that that question is to our eyes a very problematic one. When it is credibly affirmed that one million of money has already been ex- pended on the undertaking, and that nearly half a million more is re- quired,—and the statement is far from exceeding what appears to us con- sistent with a reasonable estimate,—when, in addition to this immense first outlay, the heavy annual cost of maintenance is taken into account, —it must be manifest that, under the most favourable circumstances, re- imbursement is no light matter. From the larger rates of payment of the select class reimbursement strikes us as simply impossible : it is on Multitude, not on price, that the directors must rely. Their policy, their only policy, was to reduce the admission to the lowest practicable amount, and they have done it.

Let us remember that those "most favourable circumstances" which attended the projection of the new Crystal Palace do not attend its open- ing. We were at peace, and are at war. It may be hard to assign any good reason why people should care to see the masterpieces of art, or science, or selected nature, the less because other people are fighting in Scandinavian North or Moslem South ; but experience teaches us that it will be so—that the opening of the Palace will not be that supreme and all-engrossing event, the topic of the day for gossip and interest, which it would have been two years ago, or which the opening of its far inferior precursor was. We repeat our conviction that the directors must rely upon multitude for their success. How is that multitude to be courted ? The experience of the Great Exhibition offers but little analogy enough from which to draw a sanguine inference ; the liabilities of the concern, and the plan upon which the exhibited objects are collected, being so widely dissimilar. Then, the multitude which could day after day find itself at Hyde Park, cannot find itself in like manner at Sydenham, and perhaps would not if it could. The one trip might almost be called a stroll—the other is a holiday. Different notions are connected with the two proceedings ; and notions have much influence in such affairs. A slight diversity in dis- tance or accessibility affects to a serious extent one's disposition to enter- tain the idea of going to such or such a place. " If I cannot give a day to Sydenham, I will not give a couple of hours," may probably prove to be a feeling far from uncommon with those to whom it is a matter of grave difficulty to give the day required because they cannot get a holiday. That the crowds on Sundays would be immense and continuous, does not admit of a doubt ; that they will be immense about the opening of the Pekoe, may be confidently foreseen—we would hardly risk predicating that they will be continuous. Calculations and expectations may assuredly be defeated, as was often the case with the Great Exhibition of 1851. Heartily do we hope that no desponding surmises of our own may come true of an undertaking which we regard as of the highest interest and value. Yet, for the rea- sons advanced above, we cannot but think it, if not indispensable, at least most momentously important to the commercial success of the Crystal Palace, that it should be open to the public on Sundays. Of course, how- ever, we would not rest the decision of the question on its money-aspect the higher considerations to which we have at present done no more than allude must carry it one way or the other.