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Louisville alone is enough to show that another decade will produce the same difference in other quarters. The elements at work cannot be resisted. They operate by a variety of agencies; chiefly by railroads, schools, emigration, personal liberty, and free opinions freely spoken and published. Men live, die, and are forgotten. The best pass away, to be followed by others equally good. Passions perish, and only principles prevail and survive. And he who writes from Sanderson's Hotel twenty years hence, from Capitol Hill, will find our population nearly doubled, and will describe yet nobler improvements and a degree of happiness found nowhere else on earth. Before that time, and I fancy before the close of the century, the conflict between the races in the South will cease through wise and liberal legislation, complete amnesty, increasing immigration, manufactures, and education, and, above all, by that universal intercourse between the sections which must come from constant social and commercial intercourse.

XXXIX.

THE FRENCH EXPOSITION OF 1867.-REFLECTIONS ON THE CENTENNIAL OF 1876.

WHAT a crowd of famous characters, including much of the royalty and nobility of Europe, the rich men of America, artists and inventors from all parts of the earth, clustered and crowded into Paris in June and July of 1867 to witness the Universal Exposition, then in full operation under the auspices of Napoleon III.! Four years after the centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, some reference to the men and the manners and the curiosities of that period may not be inappropriate, and especially in view of the fact that the Empire has passed away, and the French Republic

is a fixed fact; that Louis Napoleon is gathered to his fathers, his son dead, and his queen a wanderer, and many of those who served at his side and upheld his glittering reign have themselves been retired to private life, where they are vainly hoping for another change in the fortunes of France. On the evening of the 7th of June, 1867, the Prefect of the Seine (the Mayor of Paris) gave a great ball at the Hôtel de Ville to the regal visitors. There were about six thousand guests present. At 11 30 P. M. Louis Napoleon and his retinue made a tour of the brilliant rooms. First came the Emperor of Russia with the Empress Eugénie; he, with the stately figure and Tartar look, admirably portrayed in the splendid portrait which he presented to Governor Curtin, displayed for a number of months at Earle's picture-gallery in Philadelphia, and she, quiet, yet faded, with her graceful manner and costly dress. Following came the King of Prussia, looking already the prophetic conqueror of 1870. Then came Louis Napoleon with the Princess Mathilde, wife of his cousin, Prince Napoleon. The Princess of Russia came next, followed by the commanding and dominating presence of Bismarck, in white uniform. The ball at the Tuileries, on the evening of the 6th of June, was, perhaps, more gorgeous than that which followed it, and did not cost less than a quarter of a million dollars.

On the 1st of July, 1867, I was present at the Palace of Industry in the Champs Élysées, on the occasion of the distribution of the prizes to the successful competitors at the Universal Exposition, and there saw several of the characters above referred to, and, in addition, the Prince Imperial, who had just passed his eleventh year, and whose olive complexion, Italian face, black hair and black eyes, and graceful movements made him a very interesting boy. Prince Napoleon (Plon-plon) was a startling likeness of his great uncle; and as he stood directly before me I thought I had never seen a more impressive figure. Then we had the Turkish Sultan dressed in a blue frock-coat,

richly embroidered with gold. There, in this magnificent presence, in a vast hall with arched roof or canopy of glass, springing, in its marvellous tracery, from four sides, and hanging like a mighty balloon, as if suspended by invisible hands in midair, with its twenty-five thousand spectators, with Rossini (since dead), in the seventy-fifth year of his age, leading the wonderful orchestra and chorus composed of twelve hundred persons in this magnificent presence the French monarch distributed the medals to the various candidates as they approached the crimson throne, the saloon resounding with cheers as each retired, proud of his decoration. It was, indeed, an historic spectacle; but that which impressed me most were not the stars and jewels and costly robes, but the fact that art and labor were signally recognized and crowned. How much better such an exhibition than the shining insignia and bloody facts of war! All was peace, order, and gayety. No one then supposed that the great conflict between the two leading powers of the Continent was so near.

To an American the most interesting feature was the large number of prize medals and honors awarded to the American exhibitors. Turning to the exhaustive and careful report of Mr. Beckwith, the United States Commissioner-general at the Paris Exposition (afterwards appointed by Governor Dix on the commission for the Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia), I find many facts that may not improperly be revived. They prove not only the generosity and discrimination of the French Government, but constitute an irresistible argument in favor of the completest and boldest exposition in America; for inasmuch as many of these exhibitors are still living, and recall with gratitude the manner in which their genius and enterprise were noticed in that dazzling brotherhood of art and science and industry, so will they appreciate the necessity of recip rocal demonstrations which, while inviting honorable rivalry from the Old World, will present yet more striking proofs

Mr.

of the vitality and variety of the resources of the New. Beckwith, to prove his fitness for the great work in his own. country, published an elaborate description of the plan of the Paris buildings and park, and closed his report to the Government, dated January 17, 1868, with an elaborate statement of the character and condition of the United States section, and a careful catalogue of the various American exhibitors, together with a list of awards of the International juries. Ninetyeight thousand one hundred and thirty-seven square feet were allotted to the United States section. The total number of exhibitors was five hundred and thirty-six. There were five grand prizes, one artist's medal, eighteen gold medals, seventysix silver medals, ninety-eight bronze medals, and ninety-three honorable mentions. C. H. McCormick, of Chicago, Illinois; Walter A. Wood, Hoosac Falls, New York; C. F. Chickering, New York; and Elias Howe, Jr., were created Chevaliers of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honor-the first for his reaping and mowing machine; the second for his mowing and reaping machine; the third for the best piano; and the fourth for his sewing-machine. Church, of New York, carried off the art medal, with five hundred francs in gold. Gold medals were awarded to the Corliss Steam-engine Company, Providence, Rhode Island, for the Corliss Machine; to the Grant Locomotive Works, Paterson, New Jersey; to Victor Meyer, of Louisiana, for short-staple cotton; to William Sellers & Co., Philadelphia, for machine tools; to Aaron Wilson, of New York, for sewing and button-hole machines; to Samuel S. White, Philadelphia, for artificial teeth and dentists' instruments and furniture; to J. P. Whitney, of Boston, for silver ores from Colorado.

Silver medals were awarded to citizens of various other of the States and Territories, including Surgeon-general J. K. Barnes for surgical instruments and hospital apparatus ; Bement & Dougherty, Philadelphia, for machine tools; the

State of California for cereals; Chicago Board of Public Works for the new tunnel; Deplit & Co., New Orleans, for snuff; Fairbanks & Co. for scales; Isaac Gregg, of Philadelphia, for his brick-making machine; State of Nevada for silver and copper ores. Numerous bronze medals were awarded to the different States and Territories, and honorable mentions in still greater proportion. The variety of products included eighty-two works of art, five of sculpture, die-sinking, and cameo engravings, many fine specimens of printing and books, photography, musical instruments, medical and surgical instruments, furniture, cutlery, gold and silver plate, clocks and clock-works, clothing, jewelry, woollen fabrics, silk and tissues of silk, mining and metallurgy, various kinds of woods, chemical apparatus, leather, ploughs, fire-arms, agricultural machinery, machine tools, methods of weaving, harness, railroads and cars; navigation, including life-boats, yachts, and pleasureboats; food, bread, pastry, meat, and fish; school-houses and school-books, examples of American dwellings, etc. Mr. Beckwith states that the percentage of awards to exhibitors from the United States was 52.79, the percentage to exhibitors from France 55.57, and from Great Britain and her colonies 26.10. Next after France the United States stood highest upon the list; and he closes as follows:

"The high position conceded by the verdict of the juries to American industrial products is not due, in general, to graceful design, fertile combinations of pleasing colors, elegant forms, elaborate finish, or any of the artistic qualities which cultivate the taste and refine the feelings by awakening in the mind a higher sense of beauty, but it is still owing to their skilful, direct, and admirable adaptation to the great wants they are intended to supply, and to the originality and fertility of invention which convert the elements and natural forces to the commonest uses, multiplying results and diminishing toil.

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