72. Pearls beyond Price:—A golden oyster opens and emits in order the coats of arms of the thirteen original States.
84. A good Puff:—A mammoth cigar, which, shedding its outer wrapper, will reveal the form and features of General Grant in blue blazes.
GETTING
HOME.At 5.15 o’clock, Professor Jackson thanked the Lord that all his preparations were completed; at 5.20 the Lord responded with the heaviest shower of rain witnessed since the deluge. It exceeded Mr. Jackson’s usual showers, in the same proportion as this spectacular effort was to have exceeded his former pyrotechnic exhibitions. The fire-works were turned to water-works, and the crowd sadly and slowly worked its passage home.
CHAPTER X.
“THE SMOKE.” ... How it went up.
Sere and yellow grows the leaf in these closing pages of our volume, and in now recording the last doings in connection with the Exposition, we would have such a splendid opportunity for enlarging upon the mutability of mundane affairs, that we regret having neither the space nor contract for moralizing. We feel that we could say something striking, something original, something to be remembered on the reader’s deathbed, as a balm and consolation—but alas, prosaic publishers forbid; they will not allow us to inscribe words which might make death appear desirable.
On the tenth day of September the charge for admission to the Exposition was reduced one-half for the time of its continuance. This action occasioned a great influx of European nobility and gentry, parties who had been waiting for the reduction, and the extreme capacity of the various steamship lines was taxed for their accommodation. Baron Rothschild, Baroness Burdett Coutts, and the Marquis of Lorne were among those who gave a new spurt of brilliancy to the affair. The poor Greeks came too, during these months, and their eminent countryman A. T. Stewart also made his first appearance upon the grounds.
By this time most of the potentates had departed. We had become so used to affecting farewells, that the tears started voluntarily to our eyes whenever we chanced to hear a steamboat bell or a locomotive whistle. Only one of the potentates left without paying his hotel bill, a most gratifying fact. We refrain from mentioning his name out of consideration for his family.
Things in general, out upon the grounds and in the buildings, began to look seedy, and the combined action of the Chinese and Japanese Commissioners, in summarily shutting up their portion of the show and going home, was productive of a general feeling of listlessness, a sort of forewarning of the end. We are sure that everything was done that could be done to please these pigtailed and pig-headed Celestials, but the fact is, the old boy himself couldn’t satisfy them. We have no desire to record anything harsh, but we deem it our plain duty to state clearly, for the vindication of our beloved country in the eyes of posterity, what really occasioned this sudden move.
Every candid reader will admit that it could by no possibility prove an easy task to supply, for the many varieties of visitors of such different tastes and habits, a full and liberal allowance of palatable food, such as that to which they had been accustomed. After the episode of the Sandwich Island Commission which we have noted, the gentlemen of this delegation were given free run of the anatomical departments of Jefferson Medical College and the University, and the Executive Committee congratulated itself that they, at least, were provided for. And so they were. No more waiters were missed during the entire time of their stay. But suddenly, there was a revolution at the “Globe Hotel” and a mutiny at the “Transcontinental.”