THE OPENING OF THE CHICAGO EXHIBITION. .
TTONESTLY, we find some difficulty in explaining why''' so many Englishmen' ourselves included, regard a great Exhibition, whether in Chicago, or Paris, or London, with so much more annoyance than admiration. There is no moral harm in collecting all the best goods of all the best manufacturers, storing them in one place, and inviting all the world to see the display. Every shopkeeper does it as well as he can, and nobody dreams of blaming him ; and the mere scale of the shop cannot turn it into an evil place. There is a little boastfulness, perhaps, at the bottom of the idea ; but boastfulness is only a foible after all, to be ridiculed in most cases, rather than seriously reprehended. Nor would any experienced person question that a great Exhibition may advance the material civilisa- tion of the country in which it is held, and perhaps even occasionally improve its taste. If all the candles used by mankind are collected together for a great crowd to see, there is a probability, or at least a chance, that the best candle will be detected, and that its use will thence- forward become general, to the great solace, as well as benefit, of all who want to do anything by artificial light. The Great Exhibition of 1851 actually modified the popular English sense of colour, the improvements in the colour of the china, glass, and textile fabrics used by the people dating, in the main, from the impression produced by the articles shown them. Nor must the specialists be forgotten. They advance the material im- provement of the world very much, and for them, a great Exhibition is a great museum full of instructive models, experiments, and suggestions of new effort and new success. An electrician, for instance, may see the precise kind of axle to which his motive power can be best applied, and, seeing it, may overcome the mechanical difficulty which, it is said, now arrests more than any other obstacle the develop- ment of a new and incomparably useful motor. The possible gain, therefore, is not to be denied, and there is no reason whatever why the search for such gain should excite the moralists' indignation. The Exhibition from that point of view is only a mine ; and mines, mining, and miners are all alike wholly unobjectionable. The reason for annoyance cannot be sought in any evil or any inutility in the show, but rather in the enormous disproportion between the effort and its result, and between the advantage attained and the applause which is showered upon the effort to attain it. People are eager to condemn old " shows " as merely pageants, and to talk loudly of the waste they involved of public wealth ; but surely a Chicago Exhibition has in it something of the quality of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Part at least of its cost is merely for display, and the gratification of a vanity which, if it is no worse, is also no better than the vanity of the Middle-Age Sovereigns. At least half of all that is gathered together in the 'sixty buildings of the Chicago Show has been gathered together uselessly, and has been collected merely that the United States might be described in newspapers as having surpassed the world in the univer- sality of its collection. Earth has been ransacked, twenty millions have been spent—just the sum which enfranchised the West Indian slaves—and thousands of intellects have been employed merely to fill a big shop in which the millions may stare their fill, while a few men gain knowledge which could have been acquired more easily through a tenth of myriad homes where jocund joy is found," and on Science the expenditure of power. There was an incident which who leads the van, " the Providence of Man," and who, occurred at the opening on May 1st, which exactly illus- we should say, in producing the vast scene of confusion, trates our meaning :—" As President Cleveland concluded waste, and advertisement now prevailing at Chicago, is his speech, he pressed the button which started all the vast revealed a Demiurgus as incompetent as even theology machinery in the Exhibition. The button, which was of might expect.
that tend to make the attention which all are sum- moned to Pay of the slightest value for their future hours ., If the visitors enjoy it, well and good ; the INCOME-TAX SCHEMES. enjoyment is not vicious, though it is low ; but for - ivory, was on a gold telegraph-key of the Victor type. The It is the admiration of bigness, reduplication, concon- key rested on a pedestal upholstered in navy blue and tration, which these Exhibitions provoke, that is so golden-yellow plush, in which were woven in silver the annoying. Mr. Croffut, writing for the ceremonial, can- dates 1492-1893. As the President touched the button, not honour Science without deifying her ; and Mr. Cleve- there arose immediately from all sides a wild outburst of land, usually a hard-headed man, is so carried out of himself sound, the people and orchestra uniting in the triumphant by beholding it, that he cannot speak of the Exhibition strains of Handel's `Hallelujah Chorus,' while the wheels except as " a stupendous result of American enterprise and of the great Allis engine in the Machinery Hall began to activity," or of his " young nation" without exulting in revolve and the electric fountains in the lagoons to play. its " unparalleled advancement and wonderful accomplish- Torrents of water gushed from the great M'Monnies ments,' or of his popular Government without describing fountain, while the artillery thundered salutes, and the it as " a magnificent fabric," and one of " grand pro- chimes in the Factories Hall and Getman Building rang portions." The Republic is a remarkable " fabric," though merry peals, At the same moment the flags in front of it has more murders in it per annum than any European . the platform parted, revealing the gilded models of the country, and it may, for aught we know, hereafter in- Columbian caravels. The flags of all nations were simul- fluence ' beneficially " the welfare, dignity, and freedom taneously unfurled on all the buildings of the Exhibition. of mankind ;" but it is the bigness of the Republic, its The roof of she Factories Building became gorgeous with Government, its successes, and its future, of which the red gonfalons, while the Agricultural Building was dressed President is evidently thinking ; and that is a false in ensigns of orange and white. In short, it was a mag- standard to set up. Little Attica, hardly the size of an niflcent transformation scene, and amid all the cannon American township, did more for the " accomplishments" eantinued to boom and the .people to cheer, while the of mankind than all the United States with their vast band played the National Anthem." Just think for area, teeming millions, and mighty cities ' • and if the one moment of the marvellous organisation, the know- treasures collected in the Athens of Pericles could be ledge of science, the delicacy of manipulation, the ex- purchased now, the world would pay more for them even penditure of human labour which had been wasted to in actual coin than the fee-simple of Chicago is worth secure that momentary result which, after all, was nothing with the Exhibition in it. One book, one set of laws, one but an infernal din, no better than the din of Southey's doctrine, one idea has repeatedly done more for the world gong, " which seemed with its thunders dread to stun than the Chicago Exhibition will do even if its results sus- the living and waken the dead." A large proportion of pass the'svildest expectations. All this admiration for big- all the thought expended at Chicago will be as profitless as ness is based upon a falsity. There is no production in a the thought expended in producing the results of touching great Exhibition, nothing which can widen the mind of man, that button. The very vastness of the affair will diminish its or increase his mental resources, or strengthen his energies beneficial consequences. There are sixty separate buildings for the race which he is appointed to run, and will run all crowded with exhibits, and no one can study, or if the nations conspire to hold an Exhibition every year. even see with the vaguest comprehension, sixty museums If America had produced one book surpassing existing bursting with their contents. Yet of the millions literature in its influence, or one statue excelling the who are expected, and who will throng together from work of Athenian sculptors, or one code before which every corner of the States, perhaps as the season Roman law should seem incomplete, she would have advances from every corner of the world, scarcely 5 per done far more to add to the world's chances than she has cent.—more probably, a fraction per cent.—will be able to done in setting up this " stupendous " shop, the object of restrain themselves from dissipating their energy and their which, at best, is to facilitate the international interchange reservoir of attention by resolutely declining to see all but of goods. We have not the smallest wish to depreciate the one thing which they are likely to enjoy or understand, what has been done, and will concede at once that the The multiplication of objects will produce in them nothing English shop was poor, and the French shop small, in except the bewilderment which must have been the emotion comparison with that of Chicago ; that the latter is un- yielded by the mixture of the "Hallelujah Chorus" with rivalled in its goods, in its window-dressers, and in the the National Anthem, and the roar of cannon, and the multitude of its customers. What vexes us is not that, pealing of hells, and the whirring of innumerable machines, but the implicit assertion that it is more than a shop ; that and the shouts of a hundred thousand people all giving voice it will elevate the world, instead of distributing its goods ; to different national hurrahs, The Exhibition must be like and that all mankind ought to worship it instead of send- some scenery which, the scale being too vast for the human ing to it orders for pretty or useful things. We can see eye to follow, of itself destroys the impression of beauty, and no reason for looking at such a show through a magni- leaves nothing but a vague astonishment, as much mixed fying-glass, or for believing that those who attend it will With
Previous page
