The Great Exhibition is a higher boon to labour than a general advance of wages. An increase of pay might have brought the working men a larger share of creature comforts, but high feeding, unfortunately, is not high thinking nor high feeling.
Anything which tends to elevate the automatic operation of the mere labourer to the dignity of an artistic process, tends to confer on the working classes the greatest possible benefit.
Such appears to be the probable issue of the Great Exhibition!
Nor can we conceive a nobler pride than that which must be felt by working men when they behold arranged all around them the several trophies and triumphs of labour over the elements of the whole material universe. The sight cannot fail to inspire them with a sense of their position in the State, and to increase their self-respect in the same ratio as it must tend to increase the respect of all others for their vocation.
London, for some time previous to the opening of the Great Exhibition, had been a curious sight even to Londoners. In all the main thoroughfares, especially those leading from the railways and the docks, heavy vans, piled high with unwieldy packing-cases, or laden with some cumbrous machine, and drawn by a long team of horses, crawled along, creaking, on their way towards the Crystal Palace. The greater part of the principal streets were being repaired, preparatory to the increased traffic; shops were being newly-painted and newspapers were announcing in huge placards that they proposed publishing supplements in several languages.
In almost every omnibus, some two or three foreigners were to be seen among the passengers,—either some light-haired Germans, or high-cheeked Americans, or sallow Turks, with their “fez-caps” of scarlet cloth. In the pit of the theatres, Chinamen, with their peculiar slanting eyes, and old-woman-like look and dress, might occasionally be perceived gaping with wonder at the scene; while from the number of gentlemen in beards, felt-hats, and full pantaloons, visible at the West-end, Regent-street had much the Anglo-Frenchified character of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
New amusements were daily springing into existence, or old ones being revived. The Chinese Collection had returned to the Metropolis, with a family from Pekin, and a lady with feet two inches and a half long, as a proof of the superior standing she had in society; Mr. Catlin had re-opened his Indian exhibition; Mr. Wyld had bought up the interior of Leicester Square, with the view of cramming into it—“yea, the great globe itself!” The geographical panoramas had rapidly increased, no less than three Jerusalems having been hatched, as it were, by steam—like eggs, by the patent incubator—within the last three weeks. “Australia” and “New Zealand,” like floating islands, had shifted their quarters from Miss Linwood’s Gallery to the Strand, while the cost of immigrating thither for half-an-hour was reduced from sixpence for each country, to “threepence all the way;” while those who felt indisposed for so long a journey, could make the “Grand Tour of Europe” for one shilling, or take the “Overland Route to India” for the same price, or be set down by the Waterloo omnibus at the entrance to the “Dardanelles,” and see all over “Constantinople” for less than a trip to Gravesend.
The road to the Crystal Palace had for a long time been an extraordinary scene. Extensive trains of waggons stretched far away, like an Eastern caravan, each waiting for its turn to be unloaded, monopolised one side of the carriage-way. Omnibuses, with their roofs crowded with people, went dashing by, while carts laden with building materials crept leisurely along.
At almost every one of the public-houses some huge flag was flying from the upper windows, and around the doors were groups of men and soldiers either about to enter or depart. Along the edge of the foot-path stood hawkers, shouting out the attractions of their wares—some had trays filled with bright silvery-looking medals of the Exhibition—others, pictures of it printed in gold on “gelatine cards”—while others had merely barrows of nuts, baskets of oranges or trucks of the omnipresent penny ginger-beer.