THE MANCHESTER SEASON.
MANCHESTER will become for the summer of 1857 the centre of England and of Europe, as London was in 1851, as Paris was in 1855. The Great Exhibition of Art Treasures will not be ex actly what it was originally described to be, nor can it have the precise effects which were proposed ; for it was to have been a collection of such works of art as would enlarge the ideas of the working man not able to travel to London or over the Continent of Europe, and would enrich the stock of intellectual experiences which he would apply to his labour. The exhibition of practical art is submerged in aa exhibition of art pictorial, cesthetiesl, antiquarian, and anything but practical ; while the season will be so crowded and bustling with holiday movement, that the working man of Manchester, startled and. hurried out of his seven senses, will have little leisure for storing up practical ideas and applying them to the design or the work of future years. He may collect experiences, but it will be the experiences that belong to the paroxysm of summer-visiting ; as if a concentrated essence of Paris, London, Brighton, and Cheltenham, were suddenly thrown upon the vast smoky town, possessing it with a brilliant dream, and leaving to it perchance memories, aspirations, longings for working waking hours in future, but not much of practical experience.
It will be rather a grand relaxation, both for the host, Manchester, and for the visitors, "all the world and his wife."
Multitudes will go there with the expectation of seeing the cotton capital in holiday garb ; but it will be Manchester in disguise. The smoke, that standing shower of blacks, will be abated, and the summer sun will reach Market Street. The factory lords will be on their good behaviour, and the full geniality of Lancashire will come out in its best aspect. The factory hands, not
quite so driven as they usually are, will be standing behind the groups of the chief performers like the chorus in an opera. Smiles will endow the face of the Lancashire witch with its brightest look—and that can be very bright indeed ; while the spirit of the hour will give to the Lancashire boy all the smartness upon which he piques himself. Working Manchester will be in its Sunday costume ; and will perhaps rather surprise the concourse of travellers with the janty air of Manchester manhood, with the really ladylike air of the womankind in that grimy centre.
But that which the congregating visitors will most go to see will be an exhibition totally unrivalled by anything that has been hitherto witnessed. It is a great picture-gallery of all ages, strangely brought together under the densest cloud of that smoke which is said to be so dangerous to the collection in London. Hotels which have subsisted on the commercial traveller will be open to counts and countesses, princes and princesses, besides the English nobility, gentry, and public in general—but not at commercial traveller's prices. The exhibition of pictures, of antiquarian curiosities, of artistic utilities, will in many respects differ from the Paris collection of 1855, and still more from the London collection of 1851. The very place will occasion a change for the congregated visitors: •the host of strangers will be brought much more together—will form, as at a watering-place, more of a society, only instead of being a watering-place it will be a smokingplace, for no railway regulations can enforce in Manchester the rule of "No smoking allowed." The converging of railwaytrains will be a perfect" novelty in a provincial town ; the British Association has never occasioned anything like it. Prince Albert's levees will resemble nothing that he has witnessed in the Scotch Highlands—or in Buckingham Palace. Altogether, it is a new invention, not quite anticipated by its authors, and mainly due perhaps to the facilities of our railway system, for the thing most aptly illustrated will be the power of the railway to throw together immense masses of the human race ; and, the most marvellous exhibition will be the company.
Already other provincial towns are filled with emulation, and Birmingham has taken the initiative in claiming to succeed Manchester with a local exhibition. But the new idea differs from that of the Art Treasures, and from the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1855: the proposal is, that Birmingham should exhibit itself— should collect specimens of all that it can do, and invite the world to come and see. The world is very ready for such invitations, and next year probably the rush upon Manchester will be succeeded by a rush upon Birmingham. Other towns of course will follow—Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bristol, each ciuito able to furnish out its own museum bazaar; nor need agricultural Lincoln and Wakefield abstain. But the towns would spoil the game if they did it all at once ; and who shall determine the order of succession ? A committee of the British Association ? Prince Albert and the Department of Practical Art? or a congress of towns, to ballot for their turn ?
FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE POST-OFFICE.
TIIE latest annual report of the Postmaster-General continues, like its predecessors, to be exceptional, showing to us an immense amount of work done by a public department, not in tardy compliance with public demands, but in anticipation of thorn. There is a constant succession of improvements, too numerous to particularize. The sorting of the country letters before they leave town ; the great acceleration of deliveries ; the facilities afforded to the public in the posting of their letters, in the stamping of them, the direction, &o. ; in the despatch of books and parcels ; the immense development of the Money Order Office ; the penetration of the system to secluded districts,—these are only some of the items which show the constantly increasing service performed by the Post-office for the community. The revenue has increased largely ; but it would be an excessive miscalculation to reckon the profit to the country exclusively by the amount of revenue—that would be a totally inadequate standard. While the state is drawing an actual revenue front the money received for the transmission of letters, journals, books, parcels, the community enjoys the performance of an important service at an excessively low cost, with a certainty unparalleled in any other part of the world, and with consequences social and commercial that cannot be measured by millions of pounds sterling. Lord Palmerston was justified when he persisted in retaining the head of so important a department among the Cabinet Ministers; although we may remark, that this striking development of the department, this remarkable instance of public efficiency, is due to a proper choke of men for the working places in the establishment, more than to the official head. A man has been placed in the department whose whole heart was thrown into the labour of making the Post-office do what a post-office was capable of accomplishing. The department has become the most perfect example of praotical government in this country, or in any other. it unites the greatest amount of efficiency, such as is assured by a highly centralized system of administration, with the honest and genuine service of the people. It is the servant of the commonwealth, the type of a public office. It not only fulfils the service, but it has a tangible influence in training the public to use its machinery. Thus, the community is gradually educated to employ the system of initials, which allows the district-distribution of letters in the metropolis to be greatly expedited. The painstaking in the issue of explanatory notices has taught the public to use the other facilities, of early deliveries, parcels. distribution, &c., with a right appreciation of the convenience obtained. Painstaking explanations embodied on the very text of the money-order have assisted the public in avoiding mistakes, saving to the individual great inconvenience, to the state much discredit. If the department is balked in any of these improvements, it is by a want of the same painstaking and efficiency in other departments. For instance, a host of mistakes arise trom the identity of names for the different streets in London ; a defect which couldhe cured with comparative facility if the Board of Public Works were really efficient, or if the Minister of Public Works were endowed with sufficient authority. But at present the Post-office remains almost alone as a type of truly complete government.
This is done without any sacrifice of interests for those who are engaged in the department. It would appear that the condition of all the servants is very generally improved. It is conspicuously so in two instances. Facilities have been afforded to the servants in the Post-office for insuring their lives ; and an address to the Postmaster-General, published in this report, shows that they appreciate an economical mode of providing for their families. The centralization of a large department renders it extremely easy to obtain the highest medical assistance ; and accordingly, a public officer gives medical advice and aid at the chief office, or when necessary at the home of the Post-office servant. The principle of efficient government therefore regulates the wellbeing of the department as a family. The public obtains a direct return in a singularly high degree of zeal among the officers ; and in acknowledging that spirit, the Postmaster-General gives an example of it which may stand among the stories of heroic deeds. When the Violet steamer was wrecked, and all hands on board were lost, Mr. Mortleman, the officer in charge of the mail-bags, seeing that the steamer could not be saved, so placed the bags "that when the vessel went down they might float ; a proceeding which ultimately led to the recovery of all the bags except one containing despatches, of which, from their nature, it was possible to obtain copies." Care for a service, for the good of others, at a time when life is hopeless and the zeal can only be requited by its motive, is the very essence of heroism.
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