EXHIBITION OF THE INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS.
Among the home incidents of the year none excited more general interest than “the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations,” which was opened on the 1st of May. During 1850 public expectation had been intensely directed to it. The patronage of the queen, and the active assistance as well as patronage of her consort, threw a halo of respectability and popularity around the undertaking. The design was to erect a large temporary building, into which might be brought, in an honourable and peaceful rivalry, specimens of the manufacture and art of all nations. The site selected for the building was Hyde Park, near the Prince’s Gate. Mr. Paxton (afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton), gardener to the Duke of Devonshire, devised a plan for erecting the building of glass—a bold and novel scheme, which resulted in a structure elegant and useful. Mr. Fox (afterwards Sir Charles) was the principal contractor. All concerned worked with zeal and skill, and their task was brought to a satisfactory termination. The building was a parallelogram, 1,848 feet long by 408 feet wide. The distribution of the articles sent for exhibition was upon the principle of giving to each country a separate compartment in the building, with the exception that all working machinery was placed together at the north-west end. It would require a volume to describe the wonderful variety and beauty of the productions of skill and labour brought together in this Crystal Palace of industry; nothing equal to it for curious and instructive interest had ever before been realized. On the 1st of May this fairy fabric was opened with all the circumstances of pomp which royalty and multitudes of persons gathered from many nations could present. There were arrivals from almost every nation; and from Europe and America the numbers were so great that the vast area of London seemed thronged day by day, and almost night by night, with crowds. The various national physiognomies and costumes gave a picturesque effect to the streets and parks, and especially to the interior and neighbourhood of the building for the Exhibition on the opening day. Everything connected with its inauguration was auspicious, and public order was preserved in a wonderful manner; all men from all nations and peoples seemed earnest to maintain the harmony and decorum of the happy occasion. Those classes of English society which made themselves notorious for their hostility to human progress, and especially to the increase of manufactures in England, had been opposed to the project of the Exhibition; and had it not been for the ardour with which the prince, the husband of her majesty, took up the enterprise, opposition from these classes would have been far more vigorous and virulent. All the fears of the objectors to the undertaking proved groundless, and all their vaticinations false; improvement to the national industry, and social enjoyment of England, and a happy intercourse with their brethren of many nations were the results. It was, however, a long time after the Exhibition had accomplished its good purposes, and the last fragment of its material was swept away from the site it had occupied, before the murmurs and objections of the anti-progress classes died away.