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Page 53
The Temperance people made the next reformatory move. This meeting took
place in Exeter Hall, and was made up of delegates from the various
towns in the kingdom. They had come from the North, East, West, and
South. There was the quick-spoken son of the Emerald Isle, with his
pledge suspended from his neck; there, too, the Scot, speaking his broad
dialect; also the representatives from the provincial towns of England
and Wales, who seemed to speak anything but good English.
The day after the meeting had closed in Exeter Hall, the country
societies, together with those of the metropolis, assembled in Hyde
Park, and then walked to the Crystal Palace. Their number while going to
the Exhibition, was variously estimated at from 15,000 to 20,000, and
was said to have been the largest gathering of Teetotalers ever
assembled in London. They consisted chiefly of the working classes,
their wives and children--clean, well-dressed and apparently happy:
their looks indicating in every way those orderly habits which, beyond
question, distinguish the devotees of that cause above the common
labourers of this country. On arriving at the Exhibition, they soon
distributed themselves among the departments, to revel in its various
wonders, eating their own lunch, and drinking from the Crystal Fountain.
And now I am at the world's wonder, I will remain here until I finish
this sheet. I have spent fifteen days in the Exhibition, and have
conversed with those who have spent double that number amongst its
beauties, and the general opinion appears to be, that six months would
not be too long to remain within its walls to enable one to examine its
laden stalls. Many persons make the Crystal Palace their home, with the
exception of night. I have seen them come in the morning, visit the
dressing-room, then go to the refreshment room, and sit down to
breakfast as if they had been at their hotel. Dinner and tea would be
taken in turn.
The Crystal Fountain is the great place of meeting in the Exhibition.
There you may see husbands looking for lost wives, wives for stolen
husbands, mothers for their lost children, and towns-people for their
country friends; and unless you have an appointment at a certain place
at an hour, you might as well prowl through the streets of London to
find a friend, as in the Great Exhibition. There is great beauty in the
"Glass House." Here, in the transept, with the glorious sunlight coming
through that wonderful glass roof, may the taste be cultivated and
improved, the mind edified, and the feelings chastened. Here,
surrounded by noble creations in marble and bronze, and in the midst of
an admiring throng, one may gaze at statuary which might fitly decorate
the house of the proudest prince in Christendom.
He who takes his station in the gallery, at either end, and looks upon
that wondrous nave, or who surveys the matchless panorama around him
from the intersection of the nave and transept, may be said, without
presumption or exaggeration, to see all the kingdoms of this world and
the glory of them. He sees not only a greater collection of fine
articles, but also a greater as well as more various assemblage of the
human race, than ever before was gathered under one roof.
One of the beauties of this great international gathering is, that it is
not confined to rank or grade. The million toilers from mine, and
factory, and workshop, and loom, and office, and field, share with their
more wealthy neighbours the feast of reason and imagination spread out
in the Crystal Palace.
It is strange indeed to see so many nations assembled and represented
on one spot of British ground. In short, it is one great theatre, with
thousands of performers, each playing his own part. England is there,
with her mighty engines toiling and whirring, indefatigable in her
enterprises to shorten labour. India spreads her glitter and paint.
France, refined and fastidious, is there every day, giving the last
touch to her picturesque group; and the other countries, each in their
turn, doing what they can to show off. The distant hum of thousands of
good humoured people, with occasionally a national anthem from some
gigantic organ, together with the noise of the machinery, seems to send
life into every part of the Crystal Palace.
When you get tired of walking, you can sit down and write your
impressions, and there is the "post" to receive your letter, or if it be
Friday or Saturday, you may, if you choose, rest yourself by hearing a
lecture from Professor Anstead; and then before leaving take your last
look, and see something that you have not before seen. Every thing which
is old in cities, new in colonial life, splendid in courts, useful in
industry, beautiful in nature, or ingenious in invention, is there
represented. In one place we have the Bible translated into one hundred
and fifty languages; in another, we have saints and archbishops painted
on glass; in another, old palaces and the altars of a John Knox, a
Baxter, or some other divines of olden time. In the old Temple of
Delphi, we read that every state of the civilized world had its separate
treasury, where Herodotus, born two thousand years before his time, saw
and observed all kinds of prodigies in gold and silver, brass and iron,
and even in linen. The nations all met there on one common ground, and
the peace of the earth was not a little promoted by their common
interest in the sanctity and splendour of that shrine. As long as the
Exhibition lasts, and its memory endures, we hope and trust that it may
shed the same influence. With this hasty scrap, I take leave of the
Great Exhibition.
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