And inside the Great Exhibition the scene is equally different from that of the first week or two. The nave is no longer filled with elegant and inert loungers—lolling on seats, and evidently come there to be seen rather than to see. Those who are now to be found there, however, have come to look at the Exhibition, and not to make an exhibition of themselves. There is no air of display about them—no social falsity—all is the plain unvarnished truth. The jewels and the tapestry, and the Lyons silks, are not now the sole objects of attraction. The shilling folk may be an “inferior” class of visitors, but at least they know something about the works of industry, and what they do not know, they have come to learn.
Here you see a railway guard, with the silver letters on his collar, and his japan pouch by his side, hurrying, with his family, towards the locomotive department. Next, you come to a carpenter, in his yellow fluffy flannel jacket, descanting on the beauties of a huge top, formed of one section of a mahogany tree. Then may be seen a hatless and yellow-legged Blue-coat boy mounting the steps of one of the huge prismatic lighthouses, to have a glance at the arrangements of the interior. Peeping into the model of the Italian Opera are several short-red-bodied and long-black-legged Life-Guardsmen; while, among the agricultural implements, saunter clusters of countrymen in smockfrocks. On the steps of the crimson-covered pedestals are seated small groups of tired women and children, some munching thick slices of bread and meat, the edges of which are yellow with the oozing mustard. Around the fountains are gathered other families, drinking out of small mugs, inscribed as “presents for Charles or Mary;” while all over the floor—walk where you will—are strewn the greasy papers of devoured sandwiches. The minute and extensive model of Liverpool, with its long strip of looking-glass sea and thousands of card-board vessels, is blocked round with wondering artisans, some, more familiar with the place, pointing out particular streets and houses. And as you pass by the elaborate representation, in plaster, of Underdown Cliff, you may hear a young sailor—the gloss upon whose jacket indicates that he has but recently returned from sea—tell how he went round the Needles last voyage in a gale of wind. Most of the young men have catalogues or small guide-books in their hands, and have evidently, from the earnest manner in which they now gaze at the object, and now refer to the book, come there to study the details of the whole building.
Some of the Drolleries of The Great Exhibition of 1851.
But if the other parts of the Great Exhibition are curious and instructive, the machinery, which has been from the first the grand focus of attraction, is, on the “shilling days,” the most peculiar sight of the whole. Here every other man you rub against is habited in a corduroy jacket, or a blouse, or leathern gaiters; and round every object more wonderful than the rest, the people press, two and three deep, with their heads stretched out, watching intently the operations of the moving mechanism. You see the farmers, their dusty hats telling of the distance they have come, with their mouths wide agape, leaning over the bars to see the self-acting mills at work, and smiling as they behold the frame spontaneously draw itself out, and then spontaneously run back again. Some, with great smockfrocks, were gazing at the girls in their long pinafores engaged at the doubling-machines.
But the chief centres of curiosity are the power-looms, and in front of these are gathered small groups of artisans, and labourers, and young men whose red coarse hands tell you they do something for their living, all eagerly listening to the attendant, as he explains the operations, after stopping the loom. Here, too, as you pass along, you meet, now a member of the National Guard, in his peculiar conical hat, with its little ball on top, and horizontal peak, and his red worsted epaulettes and full-plaited trowsers; then you come to a long, thin, and bilious-looking Quaker, with his tidy and clean-looking Quakeress by his side; and the next minute, may be, you encounter a school of charity-girls, in their large white collars and straw bonnets, with the mistress at their head, instructing the children as she goes. Round the electro-plating and the model diving-bell are crowds jostling one another for a foremost place. At the steam brewery, crowds of men and women are continually ascending and descending the stairs; youths are watching the model carriages moving along the new pneumatic railway; young girls are waiting to see the hemispherical lamp-shades made out of a flat sheet of paper; indeed, whether it be the noisy flax-crushing machine, or the splashing centrifugal pump, or the clatter of the Jacquard lace machine, or the bewildering whirling of the cylindrical steam-press,—round each and all these are anxious, intelligent, and simple-minded artisans, and farmers, and servants, and youths, and children clustered, endeavouring to solve the mystery of its complex operations.
For many days before the “shilling people” were admitted to the building, the great topic of conversation was the probable behaviour of the people. Would they come sober? will they destroy the things? will they want to cut their initials, or scratch their names on the panes of the glass lighthouses? But they have surpassed in decorum the hopes of their well-wishers. The fact is, the Great Exhibition is to them more of a school than a show. The working-man has often little book-learning, but of such knowledge as constitutes the education of life—viz., the understanding of human motives, and the acquisition of power over natural forces, so as to render them subservient to human happiness—of such knowledge as this, we repeat, the working-man has generally a greater share than those who are said to belong to the “superior classes.” Hence it is, that what was a matter of tedium, and became ultimately a mere lounge, for gentlefolks, is used as a place of instruction by the people.
We have been thus prolix on the classes attending the Great Exhibition, because it is the influence that this institution is likely to exercise upon labour which constitutes its most interesting and valuable feature. If we really desire the improvement of our social state, (and surely we are far from perfection yet,) we must address ourselves to the elevation of the people; and it is because the Great Exhibition is fitted to become a special instrument towards this end, that it forms one of the most remarkable and hopeful characteristics of our time.
Odds & Ends, in, out, & about, The Great Exhibition of 1851.
Pub. by D. Bogue 86 Fleet Street