Do melt away in an eternal rest.
NEW ORLEANS WORLD’S EXPOSITION.
BY BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU, D.D.
London and Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia and New Orleans share the honor of having been selected as sites for the grandest displays of which modern civilization is capable. This far-away city of the Southeast was selected in view of the fact that it is the great metropolis of a vast and rapidly developing portion of the Union, and to emphasize the fact that the time has come when the past, with its mistakes and antagonisms should be left behind, and also to encourage the rising industries of the entire South. The general government did well when it extended most generous financial aid to the enterprise. And should further need of such assistance be developed, it is to be hoped that enough will be supplied to make the Exposition a complete success.
The formal opening took place on December 16, 1884, by the President of the United States. True, he was not present, and yet the touch of his fingers set in motion the engine that drives a thousand whirling gears and pulleys. Fifty years ago it would have taken President Jackson a month to travel from Washington to New Orleans, but now, quicker than the revolving planet turns upon its axis, the President, standing in his office in Washington, executes his will in a city a thousand miles away. This world used to be twenty-four thousand miles in circumference, and it took six months to make a voyage around it. Now it has become so small there are no distant lands; we are all neighbors, and crowded at that, and thought, which is a part of man and the best part, travels round the world in the twinkling of an eye. It is a great thing to live on so small a world in such an age as this. Nowhere do such thoughts more forcibly impress themselves upon the observer than in a World’s Exposition, for here, side by side in friendly rivalry, are the people and productions of almost all the nations of the earth. The Chinaman is here with his hideous gods and all sorts of queer things, from ivory chopsticks to the most elaborate porcelains. The men of Japan are found wherever there is an honest dollar to be made. They bring things to show and to sell. With their thin lips and sharp pointed noses, and keen, bright eyes, they remind one of the shrewdest types of Yankee peddlers. Nobody expects to get the better of one of these Yankees from the land of the rising sun. Their ingenuity is surprising, and their powers of imitation are nearly equal to those of the Chinese. With the inspiration which comes with Christianity, it is safe to predict that a future of great promise is the portion of this nation. The ubiquitous Turk is here with the same articles, or their duplicates, that he has had in every exposition, and which he is gradually introducing into state fairs. These institutions of the present age must greatly stimulate the small industries of the Turkish Empire, though some people have thought the Turks at Philadelphia were, for the most part, born in Ireland, and these of New Orleans are supposed to be native Creoles, but still they sell olive wood paper weights, paper cutters, work boxes and trinkets of various sorts, said olive wood having the reputation of coming from Jerusalem, and, to support the reputation, being inscribed with divers Hebrew letters which the sellers are unable to decipher. Of course the European nations are represented, but not to so great an extent as at Philadelphia, and not so fully as will be the case a month later. The foreign countries best represented are our next door neighbors. Here is Jamaica, true to its past and present, with an exhibition of all sorts of rum, from thirty years old and less, in bottles and barrels of all shapes. It is put up with a nicety and even elegance which would be worthy of something better. Then she sends sugar and molasses, dye woods, coffee, cocoa, and skins dressed and undressed, with samples of varied workmanship in several departments. Mexico sends the military band of the Eighth Regiment of cavalry, more than fifty pieces, and it does credit to that Republic. There is an air of Spain about all the productions of Mexico, whether it be the crude ore from her mines of gold and silver, or the richly caparisoned saddles, which in beauty and comfort are unsurpassed. Honduras, both Spanish and British, Guatemala, and Central America, add largely to the extent and attractiveness of the display. No one can carefully study the exhibits of these four last named countries without being profoundly impressed with the idea that they must possess a wealth of undeveloped resources which will, in the near future, attract the attention of the civilized world. It is manifest that they have a soil of exuberant fertility, and a climate that is free from the cold rigors of the north and even from all dangers of frost, and that all circumstances offer the promise of the maximum of results for the minimum of toil and capital. It seems as if a good many of the physical conditions of the Garden of Eden were still retained by these favored countries.
Nearly, if not quite all the states of our Union are represented, though it is to be regretted that some of them, especially Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, are deserving of severe criticism for the very meager displays which they offer. The people of Massachusetts will have more cause for shame than pride when they visit the spot where their activities and achievements should be fairly and fully set forth. There is no excuse for such a failure. Even little Rhode Island does better than her proud neighbor. It is a Rhode Island Harris-Corliss engine that drives the machinery, and the same State sends one of the grandest locomotives that ever ran on rails. Connecticut, the land of notions and wooden nutmegs, makes a fine show of her thread manufactures. The whole process, from preparing the raw cotton to selling the thread in spools, is displayed before the eyes of the admiring spectators. Not a few of the Southern people are led to ask, as they see the thread making and, close beside it, the weaving of cotton cloth, why should we send the cotton we raise to the North, especially to the most distant eastern corner of the North, and after the people there have made it into thread and cloth bring the same cotton back again? Why pay them for transporting it both ways and also for manufacturing it? It is well for them that they are asking such questions. When people begin to inquire it is a sure sign that they are getting ready to act. Soon we may expect to find them making their own cloth and thread where the cotton is grown.