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THE GREAT EXHIBITION AND THE
LITTLE ONE.
IT was aeon by a few philosophers long since, that the abstract faculties of man could not be increased iu number, neither could they be enlarged and rsfiucd beyond a given extent; and it was therefore concluded that the advances of mankind in their practical social condition were limited to the ordinary characteristics of a high condition of civilisation. Thin belief was generally entertained down to a comparatively recent period. It ban been reserved, not merely for our modem thneo, but we may fairly any for our own day, to perceive the truth, and to announce a belief in the gradual advances of the bnun,m family to a condition very superior to anything conveyed by mere” ctviioation,” in the common acceptation of the word, and in the common characteristics which it dinplaya. In brief, we consider that our preaeut period recognises the progress of humanity, step by step, towards a aerial condition in which nobler feeiugo, thoughts, and actiom, in concert for the good of all, instead of in general antagonism, producing a more iv- fined and fixed condition of happiness, may be the common inhcriinnce of great and small communities, and of all those nations of the earth who recognise and aspire to fulfil thin low of human progression.
There may be—for u free will, and a perverse one, too, appear to be allowed by Providence to nations no well as individuals—there may be an odd, burbaroua, or eccentric nation, here and there, upon the face of the globe, who noay nec fit to exercise ito free will, in the negative form of will-not, and who may seclude itself from the rest of the world, rcoolvcd not to move on with it. For the rest of earth’s inhabitants, the shades, and steps, and gradations of the ascending scale will be various, and no doubt numerous but, that we are moving in a right direction towards some eoporior condition of nocicty—politically, morally, bidlcctnally, and religiously—that newly turned- up furrows of the earth arc being sown with larger, nobler, and more healthy need than the earth has ever yet received, we humbly yet proudly, and with heartfelt joy th0t par taken of solemnity, do fully recognise as a great fact—the greatest and grandest, by far, of all the facto tbat crowdingly display themselves at the present time, because it indicates the ultimate combination of all our noblest efforts.
Let un glance at a few of the n;,ecial signs and tokens of the struggle that is now going on in the world, and we shall clearly see that the period of revolutionary excitement has a great measure subsided into an industrial seen. Enormous blocks of coal, great masses
of atone, and timber, and marble, and mineral
and vegetable substances,
Consider the materials employed at the
great Teacup Works of Kiaug-tiht-Chin (sr
Tight-Chin) the “bedaubing powder, ready
mixed,” and this” bedaubing material “—pith
of stick, to make sine-paper; medicine-roots,
hemp-seed, vegetable paints, varnishes, dyes,
raw silk, ella, white and yellow arsenic,
saffrsn, camphor, green tea dyes, die. Con-
eider the greatness of the English results,
and the extraordinary littleness of the
Chinese. Go from the silk-weaving and
nstton-opiuuing of us outer barbarians, to the
labosionaly-earved ivory halls of tle flowery
Empire, ball within hail and circle within
circle, which hove made no advance and been
of no earthly use for thousands of years.
Well may the three Chinese divinities of the
Past, the Present, and the Fntnre he repre-
esuted with the same heavy face. Well may
the dull, immoveable, respectable triad sit so
amicably, aids by side, in a glory of yellow
jaundice, with a ntrong family likeneso amnng
them ; As the Past woe, ao the Present is,
and no the ynture shall be, saith the Enspersr.
And all ti’s Mandarin proutrate themselves,
and cry Auseu.
The railway engines, and agricultural
engines, and nsachioea ; the lonsn,otivea, in
all their variety; the farm-engines, such as
the compound plough, the barrow, the clod-
crusher, the revolving sub-aniler, (some of
them looking not a little alarming, like
instruments of torture for the Titans), the
draining-plough, the centrifugal pump, the
sowing-machine, ti,e reaping, the thrashing,
and the winnowing machines, the chaff
cutter, the barley-hummeller, the straw-
shaker, the combined thmehing, -shaking, and
blswieg maclose; the “machine ta sow and
hoe an acre of tarsipa in five minutes,”—how
can we possibly describe these, so as to be
understood 1 Then, there are sawing-machines
of great power ; machnnoo for plasing ; others
by which, a large hurdle tan be cot fran, the
solid timber, and put together in sine minutes,
and a fifty-six gallon beer-barrel made in
five minutes, As for the machinery of our
manufactures, will, all their complex powers,
wonderful strength, velocity, and minutely precise manipulations, one’s head
whizzes with the recollection of them. But
among all these wonders, nothing exeeedn,
and hot few approach, this printing machinery
of the “Illustrated London News.” which is
the saute as that used by this “Times.”
After contemplating thnu extraordinary
piece of mechanism, aud its ordinary practical
results, lake a walk across, sud islong, “hither
and thither,” Is the Little Exhibition, and
look at the means of printing snitch is there
exhibited,
“The operation is very quick,” says the
Chinese Catalogue, “and from two thousand
to three thousand may be taken off in a day by a single workman.” This rode cape-
dient has never been Improved from the hoar
of its first eonntrnetion. It is an illustration
of the true doctrine of Finality; the gospel
according to which wsuld hove taught us
(under heavy pains and penalties) ts print
for ever, as CAxrote prints upon the Royal
Academy walls, in Mr. Machoe’s wondorfsl
picture, and ts keep the attependons ma-
chinery which produces our daily newspapers
with the regularity of the ann, through nil
eternity, in the limbo of things waiting to he
born.
There are some stupondons anchors lying -
in the outer part of the Great Exhibition.
Their enormous size and weight siatsrally
suggest the present advanced stats of naval
architecture in England nnd America; we
may turn from sailing-ships to ths models
of snr steam-navy, and of ti’s magnificent
steamboats on the lakes and rivers of the
United States.
Compare these with the models at junks
and hoata in the Chinese Exhibition. Corn-
pare these with the Junk itself; lying in the
Thames hard by the Temple-stairs. As a
bambss palanquin is, beside a Railway-train,
so in an English or American ship, beside this
ridiculous abortion. Aboard of which, the
sailors deeli,,e to enter until “a comiderabis
amount of tin-foil, silvered paper, and joss
stick,” has been purchased for their worship.
Where they make offerings of tea, nweeb
cake, and park, to the compass, on the voyage,
to induce it to be true and faithful. Where
the best that seamanship can do for the ship
is to paint two immense eyes on her bows,
i, order that she may see her way, (do the
Chinese do this to their blind I) and to hang
ant bits of red rag in stormy weather to mollify
the wrath of the ocean. Where the crew live
in china closets, wearing crape petticoats and
woo,leu clogs. Where the cabin is fitted up
with, every sort of small scouted object that in
etterly in’ecouo’deahle with water or motion.
Where nobody thinks of going aloft, or
could possibly carry out his wild intentisn if
he did. Where the crew ought in be armed
with sticks of cinnamon, and the captain with
a lanthorn at the end of a poie. Where the
whole is under. the protection of an ornithstheIr
logical phenonsenon en the stern, who eiwwa
with all lila might and mais, “I was the
representation of a cock a thousand years
ago, and the man who nays I could possibly
be made more like nne, shall immediately ha
oasvn in half, according to law;
Retur,, In the Great Exhibition. In the
department (Class 7) of Civil Engineering,
architecture, and building contrivances, w5
find the rerslving, disptric, ned catadioptne
apparatus of lighathonees; mudelu of milwtsy’,
of iroi bridges, of solf-onpporting 000penalun-
bridges, of eubnsarise steam-propellers, of the
great tubular bridge, and uf the proposed
“grand ship canal through the Isthmus of
Suez.”
Step over to the Little Exhibition, and f
consider how the Chinese Lanthorna would
look en the North or South Forehand, or time
Long Ships, or the Eddystone, in heavy
weather, and what capital floating lights they
could make on the Goodwin Sands,
The Chinese nell-supporting bridges, houses,
pagodas, aod. little islands, on their parvelain, all standing upon nothing, are equally
enrieas with the models of their actual
structure,
In tine Great Exhibition, among the philosophical, musical, horological, and surgical instruments, we find, first, the great Electric Clock; and next we notice clocks that
will go for four hundred days with once
winding up watches that are on secure
from injury by damp, that they are exhibited
suspended in water, and performing with
regularity ; a money-calculating machine,
suited to the currency of all nations an
instrument for the solstion of difficult pro-
blemu in spherical trigonionietry (obviously a
great comfort) clocks ohewuig the days of
the month, months sf the year, motions ot the
ones and moon, and the stste of the tide at tine
nnrtncipal eva-ports of Great Britain, Ireland,
America, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
and Germany—and showing all this for a
whole year with ooly one winding up; oxy-
hydrogen microscopes ; daguerreotype and
mlotype apparatus; and, above all, the electric
In competition with these, the Little Exhibition presents us with “a very canaan
porcelain box in the form of a crab, with
moveable eyes and feet,” and with ns clock
watch at alL In the absence of public
clocks to strike the hours, a Chinese watch-
man hits a large bell with a mallet; firot
ascertaining the time by an Earopesm watch,
or from the burning of a candle, or the
of sand, or the descent of some
liquid in a vessel,
We ought not to omit the mention of a few
of the ingenious surgical inventions (nod
here our French exhibitors are most skilful)
such as the artificial leech; apparatus and tools
to meet the lose of the right hand ; the artificial leg, to enable those who have lost that
limb above the knee, to ride, walk, sit grace’
fully, or even dunes ; an illuminative instrument for inspecting the inside of the ear,
and another for tine eye; the guard razor,
which shaves off hair, and will not cut flesh ;
the ostracide (grand sod killing terum for
the easy oyster opener); the msatmcatiag knife
sad fork, for dyspeptic persons ; artificial
arms, bands, feet, legs, eyes ; the artificial
silver nose, warranted and sen sit,
Chinese philosophical iastrnmennin we bavc
neither seen, nor heard of, with very few
exceptions. A maritime compass-boa how-
over, is exhibited. annel is considered efficient,
notwithstanding that the needle points due
sooth. Thy Chinese say It always does—one
end of It. Of their surgical instruments we f know very little but, if we may judge of
them from their knives and razors, and.
carpenters’ tools, they must be sufficiently
piimitive and cosines.
In the arts of sculpture and modelling, the
progress made by all nations (we do not
inelode Italy, because she lion so losg been
fatuous for her excellence) to sufficiently np.
parent. With regard to English sculpture, we
have only to call the attention of tine visitor
of the Great Exhibition to Mr. MaeDo,eefl’a
model of 0 Eve,” to Mr. Louals’a ° Tita,nia,”
to Mr. Bell’s “Andromeda’ and “Eagle
Slayer,” to the two figures by Mr. Bailv, to
the group in bronze by Mr. Wyatt, anna to
the colossal groups by Meoors. Loogh and
MacPowell, to establiob the fact of sor howling
attained a high position in the art. The
models in plaster, clay, and terra-cotta, and
other works of plastic art, are abs very
numerous, and many of them display great
excellence.
In the Little Exhibition, we find the old
and never-to-be-surpassed ugly lion-monsters,
with the mouth stretched until the head is
half ofl and the eye-balls rolling out of their
sockets; we have figures of the same man)?ronce,
dorms and the same ladies, who have eat on
the same teapots and screens from time
immemorial; we have carved chessmen, and
caddies, and cabinets, and richly painted
lanthorns, sod teapots, and ten-cape, and soap telegraphs. stone josses, and other stout gentlemen, very
much in eilofiatille, and with an unpleasant
habit of putting out their tongues; we
have slim young ladies, standing askew1
with long-legged umbrellas, or some incomprehensible knick-knacks iu sne hand; we have
models of the common people, looking very
dirty and half-starved ; we have 000re teapots;
and a revolving lanthorn (not exactly meant
to rival our eatselioptric one) ; and dabsmnuing
rately insignificant designs carved oa mother-
sf-pearl and ivory; and mere teapots, and
ivory balls, with twenty other balls each a
size less than the other, insinle, and all move-
able, and no joints visible, if any exist; and
distinctive boxes carved from peach-stones;
and hand-screens made from the gelatins of
the heads of fish; and more laothorus ; and
the Goddess Chbs-Te ivith no end of arms;
and all oorts of horrible sld gristuers who are to
be devoutly worshipped ; and the God of War,
who is by far the finest fellow of the party,
for he really does mean something, annnl it no
by no nnseaus fighting. He is considering,
with a very canning face, “Now, let tue see,
What will he the best ovay ost of tIne?
Shall I arrange to pay en maniy sacks of
silver sod afterwards fill them with lean1, or
how, otherwise, shall t circumvent the Bar-
haria,no and restore peace to the donuainmms of
my htnmjneror, whose official maine is lteanou’u
Glory I
The construction of musical instruments
may always been a marked Olga of the progress
of nations, in refinement of taste and skill of hand. Frankly admitting that the great im-
proveinents (more partienlarly the cornopeano,
eax-horne, nphedidee, the snotenente, the
many-keyed fiutea, the come-muss, and ether
fine inventions) are nriginally derived from
Germany, we may yet claim credit for our
aenae and skill in adopting and manufacturing
thens; and this applies to one grand instrument, the grandest of all, wherein, we believe,
it may now be said that we have attained a an-
priority to all other nations. The great organ
in the gallery, by Willis, of London, may be
adduced in proof of this while the piano-
fortes, also, of liroadwood, and of Collard, are
without superiors in any part of the world,
We have made great efforts to arrive at the
highest excellence in all the nice and intricate
mechanism of musical instruments, and with
complete success, being now upon an equality
nearly all the finest productions of
Germany, Italy, and France,
Rot what has the Celestial Empire been
doing in this way during the last twenty
years, or the Rot fifty years, or the last five
hundred years, or the last thousand years 1
See the Chinese harp—the flute—the horn
—guitar, or mandoline. The only real instruments worthy of the name as “things
capable,” though not to be called “most
musical,” are the gong, and the brass pan
and kettle inventions, wherewith that Dragon
who attacks the Sun (when Barbarians sup-
pose there is an eclipse) is scared away-
The Celestial people have “a sort of a kind
of a” flute, guitar, fiddle, bagpipe, horn,
and drum. They have no idea of sounding
boards, strings of catgut, semitones, counterpoint, or parts in music. The very tree
of which their instruments are made, is such
a Chinese tree in the essential of always
doing the same thing, that the moment
it olieds a leaf; the autumn is sure to have
set in.
One of the indications of the progress of a
nation is “interchange,” including internal
communication and trade, and external communication and commerce, currency, and
wages. What the first and second of these
are, with respect to Europe generally, both in
extent and quality, the Great Exhibition fully
attests.
The internal communication of China is
chiefly an affah’ of official pigtalls—a series of
Mandarins of different sicea, buttons, and
feathers, sending letters to each other of
various tints, and varying fl-sm two feet to sia feet in length while the trade is limited
entirely to, articles of home produce: the
CelesOala disdaining all trade and commerce
testis “sntoale people, except at certain
sea-ports, which are so remote from the
Emperor and Ins capital that their doings
are scaa’cely knos’n, and are not recognised
no part and parcel of the transactions of the
empuc. ,,, ,
ike following dicioisns of Mr. Porters
work—public revenue and expenditure
consumption—and accumulation—by which last
he means the increase of notional works and
bniidingo,nf commercial and agricultural stock
and of articles that minister to the esmfor
and convenience of individuals—are weU iRis-
trated by the nnmernnn models of large pnbliu
edifices and works, projected, or already
existing, in the United Kingdom.
[n China, there are the Great Wall, and
the Imperial Palace at Pekin, and the pagodas with their turned-up corners and their
bells, and the temples and bridges, and the
various teapot works, with few additions,
if any, and probably none, all just as they
were centuries ago, suggesting the idea of
the same Emperor having oat upon the sante
enamelled porcelain throne during the whole
time, with the same thin-arched pair of
elevated eyebrows, admiring and wondering, with the same inanity, at the some
inanimate perfection of himself and all around
him.
To complete the contrast, it is worth while
to glance at the real Police associated with
the Great Exhibition, and the mimic police
in the Little One—to say nothing of the
sweltering robber in the tub, at the loiter
place, or the other culprit in the bamboo
cage. It is worth while to compare the work-
people in the Machinery Courts of the Great
Exhibition, with the models of the Chinese
workpeople at their various trades, it is
worth while to contemplate the Chinese Lady
with her lotus feet, two inches and a half in
length, and to consider how many other
things are crippled by conceited absolutism
and distrust. You ore quite surprised, in the
Little Exhibition, to find Chinese fish gsapiog
like other fish, or a Chinese frog without very
oval eyes, until you recollect that neither
species are the natural-born subjects of
Reason’s Gloo’, but that the happy privilege
is reserved for men and women,
Reader, in the comparison between the
Great and Little Exhibition, you have the
comparison between Stoppage and Progress,
between the exclusive principle and all other
principles, between the good old times and
the bad new times, between perfect Toryism
and impes’fect advancement. Who can doubt
that you will be led to conclusions, unhappily
a little at a discount in this degenerate age,
and that you will mentally inks suit and
service in the favored Chinese Empire, with
Reason’s Glory!