The people of Philadelphia commenced on Thursday a three days'
festival, commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the acceptance of the Constitution. With considerable judgment and some audacity, they have resolved to make the festival illustrate chiefly their material progress, and each trade will exhibit its processes as they were and as they are. The builders, for example, display the old wood-cutting and brick- making methods in juxtaposition with wood-working and brick- making-machines ; the railways will show pack-mules as well as the newest locomotives ; and the shipbuilders will contrast the ancient tub-like boats with the newest thing in armour-plated cruisers. The exhibition covers all departments of industry, will be of enormous extent, and will, it is believed, attract a million of people to gaze. That is, in modern times, a grand success; but we wonder some one has not attempted to exhibit improvements in the people. Arapahoes and other wild Indians are, indeed, shown side-by-side with Indians from the training-schools ; but the effects of the century upon white Americans have apparently been overlooked. Could not the men of two Congresses be compared, or are the contrasts not striking enough to be perceptible P Perhaps, however, the managers fear lest the change from the Puritans of the 'Mayflower' to the anarchists of Chicago should suggest a doubt as to the true valae of so much material advance. The artisans of 1787 used no machines, but also they did not earn or deserve hanging. Great is comfort; but one sighs for an improvement on Washington as well as on his house, and sighs in vain.
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