There is nothing in the building in better taste in its line than the Tiffany gold and silver ware, and the carriages of Brewster are generally admired. Carriages are, however, such a matter of fashion that an exhibit of that kind cannot suit all nations, and what one considers graceful is to another strange and bizarre. There is no question of the fine quality, however: of course a nation with elm for hubs and ash for spokes wonders at American temerity in making wheels so light, and the casual observer thinks our roads must be better than the European to justify them. As one English builder has, however, contracted lately with an American firm for five hundred sets of wheels, they will have an opportunity soon of testing the quality of our woods.
The exhibition of fine locks and of house-furnishing hardware is justly considered as among our triumphs, the Yale, Wheeler-Mallory and Russell & Erwin manufacturing companies being notable in this line. The saws of Disston have no equals here: the axes of Collins & Douglas, the forks and spades and other agricultural tools of Ames, Batcheller and the Auburn Manufacturing Company are unapproached by the English and French. The wood-working machine of Fay & Co. and the machine-tools of Darling Browne & Sharpe challenge competition.
These are not a tithe of the objects in regard to which we are proud to have comparisons instituted; and in some of the less ponderous articles, such as Foley's gold pens and White's dental tools and dentures, we have the same reason for national gratulation. Such being the case, we feel reconciled to the comparative smallness of our space, which has precluded as much repetition in most lines of manufacture as we find in the exhibits of other nations.
Our agricultural machinery is well though not fully represented. Reapers and mowers, horse-rakes, grain-drills and ploughs are abundantly or sufficiently shown—harrows and rollers not at all; and if they had been, they would have added nothing to the English and French knowledge on the subject. Owing to the exigences of space, weighing-scales and pumps are included in the agricultural building, and the exhibition of Fairbanks & Co. deserves and receives cordial approval.
The problem of the day in agricultural machinery is the automatic binder, and eight efforts in that line are shown at the Exposition—six from America and two from England. The subject of machinery, however, is deferred for the present, but in speaking of general exhibits one cannot avoid a slight reference to that feature which is so prominent in the United States section.
Where there is so much that is beautiful and admirably arranged it seems ungenerous to cite failures, but the pavilion in the eastern corner of the Palais and the Salle de l'École Militaire connecting it with the pavilion of the Netherlands colonies are very disappointing. The French exhibit of sheet-metal work in the eastern corner is quite remarkable, but its merit in an industrial point of view scarcely authorizes the prominence that is given to it in one of the four grand positions for display which the building affords. Even the Galéries d'Iéna and de l'École Militaire across the ends of the building, although their ceilings are high and gorgeous with color, and their sides one mass of windows in blue and white panes, do not afford such striking positions as the four corner pavilions. One expected, very naturally, that so admirable a position would be made the most of by a people of fine artistic sense; and this has been done in two of the other similar situations by the Netherlands colonies' trophy and the Canadian pagoda. The Charlemagne statue, which occupies the fourth pavilion, has so much sheet-metal work around it that it is not worthy to be classed with these. In the sheet-metal pavilion we see admirable exploitation of sheet brass, copper and iron in the shape of telescope-tubes, worms for stills, bodies and coils for boilers, vacuum-pans, wort-refrigerators and various bent and contorted forms which evince the excellence of the material and of the methods. This is hardly enough, however, to justify the occupation of the position of vantage, and the trumpery collection of ropes, lines, nets, rods and hooks which is intended for a fishing exhibit only emphasizes the decision, acquiesced in by the public, which pays it no attention.
The same is true—in not quite so great a degree, however—of the Galérie de l'École Militaire, which is principally devoted to, and very inefficiently occupied by, a number of stands at which cheap jewelry, meerschaum pipes, glass-blown ships, ivory boxes and paper-knives, artificial flowers and stamped cards are made and sold as souvenirs of the Exposition. In addition to these, and several grades better, are a couple of Lahore shawlmakers, dusky Asiatics, engaged with native loom and needle in making the shawls for which India is celebrated. Then we have a jacquard loom worked by manual power, and the large embroidering-machine of Lemaire of Naude, and the diamond-workers of Amsterdam working in a glazed room which affords an excellent opportunity of seeing them without subjecting them to the annoyance of meddlesome visitors.
As if for contrast, the Galérie d'Iéna at the other end of the building is replete with the most gorgeous productions of India and France. One half of it is occupied by the Indian collection of the prince of Wales and the exhibits of the East and West Indian colonies of Great Britain, just described—the other half by a pavilion, the recesses of which show the Gobelin tapestries, while the richest productions of Sèvres are placed in profusion around it and occupy pedestals and niches wherever they could be properly placed. The combined effect of the individual richness of the things themselves and their lavish profusion constitutes this gallery the gem of the Exhibition. As if the thousands of gems on the gold and silver vessels and richly-mounted weapons and shields of the prince of Wales's collection were not rich enough, a kiosque has been erected in which the state jewels of France are displayed on velvet cushions, conspicuous among them being the "Pitt Diamond," the history of which is too well known to need repetition here.