We commenced with the attractions at the right hand side—and having passed the displays of the Diamond Match Company and the Workingmen's Home—the international Dress and Costume Exhibit, known as the Congress of Beauty, attracted our attention. Between forty and fifty pretty living representatives pertaining to the fair sex of different nationalities, races, and types were dressed in distinctive national or racial costumes.
The California Nursery and Citrus Tree Exhibit separated this Beauty Show from the Electric Scenic Theater, which may be regarded as a triumph of the modern progress in the electrical science. It depicted the changes of a beautiful Swiss Alpine scenery as such are gradually occurring from dawn till night—representing the magical and most wonderfully realistic effects ever produced by electric lamps.
Visiting the Libbey Glass Works, we obtained a very clear idea of the art of manufacturing glass—by following up the different processes of melting, blowing, cutting, spinning, weaving etc. all of which were in full operation in this exhibit.
In fact, the endeavor of this company to instruct the spectator in every detail of the work—was a complete success and exceedingly satisfactory. The ingenious construction of their magnificent building was especially adapted to enable the daily throngs—resorting to it—to have every opportunity for observation; and judging from what we saw, and the various comments we heard, we should be inclined to feel that the management had every reason to be satisfied with their splendid effort.
The artistic products manufactured solely by this company, and shown in the diverse departments—as well as those, decorating the Crystal Art Display Rooms—equal anything in the past and present, not excepting the celebrated Bohemian and Venetian manufactures of world-wide fame; and certainly the exhibition of cut glass made by the Libbey Company at this Exposition, has established the fact, that foreign manufactures can no longer claim to turn out the best artistic work; for truly, in that rich and unrivaled display, the summit of clear glass making and magical effects in cutting and polishing have been achieved.
Especially attractive were the tapestries and fabrics woven from spun glass. This was decidedly notable in the marvelous dress woven from one loom for the Spanish Princess Eulalia at a cost of $2,500. That these goods also serve as a canvas does for artistic work—was evidently proved by the sundry beautiful effects of this kind in the Crystal Art Room.—It would be impossible to enumerate the various articles produced in this wonderful and interesting display; but it is safe to say—the working exhibit of the Libbey Glass Company—in their palatial and costly structure was one of the chief features of the Midway Plaisance and the ever memorable Columbian Exposition.
A gateway—reminding us of mediaeval times—ushered the visitor into the Irish Village and Donegal Castle, a representative exhibit of Irish industry, art, and antiquity. The scenes there—were picturesque and uniquely Hibernian. In one of the cottages Irish lace-making could be noted; in another was shown by Hibernians the whole process of dyeing, carding, spinning and weaving home-spuns as well as various other branches of industrial developments in Ireland.
A few steps sufficed to transfer us from here—a representation of the extreme western portion of Europe to the most eastern country on the Eastern Hemisphere—Japan; which fact demonstrated the verity: Les extrêmes se touchent. Entering the Japanese bazaar, we observed Japanese ladies and gentlemen selling articles manufactured in—and imported from Nipon.
A highly interesting study of the natives of West Java (Dutch East Indies)—their occupations—and their bamboo huts—could be had in the Javanese Village exhibiting more than a hundred little men with bright and cheerful Malay faces, and thirty-six short women whose graceful movements were a source of attraction to thousands of visitors.
This scene of the tropical regions stood in striking contrast with a feature in immediate nearness—pertaining to a temperate clime—the German Village. Here, in the spacious concert-garden shaded by the dense foliage of numerous oak-trees, two German military bands, one of the infantry and one of the cavalry—seventy-four men in all—gave grand echt deutsche Militaerconcerte. The group of typical German peasant homes, the Black Forest House, the Westphalian Inn, the Upper Bavarian Home, and the Spreewald House, together with the Hessian Rural Town-hall, and the Castle were exact reproductions of mediaeval times. A portion of this stronghold from a remote date, was given up to the ethnographic museum; a collection chiefly of implements of war and of chase, illustrative of all periods beginning with the pre-historic and ending with the renaissance. An attractive group in wax constituted the figure of Germania, surrounded by German heroes from Arminius down to William I.