Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1893 — SOME FAIR STORIES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SOME FAIR STORIES.

HAUNTED WITH THE MEMORY OF THE CENTENNIAL. Wisdom In the Art Gallery—“ The Faries’ Wheel”— The Gondolas and Lagoons— Many Are the Amusing Incidents In the White City. At the ,Big Show. World’s Fair correspondence: Down on the lake front during the fireworks in the evening an oldish man, with a deep fringing rim of gray whiskers under his chin and up to his ears, gave me a chance to sit down on the end of the beucli where he was watching the disjllety,' “Every inch of room counts here. Set right down,” said he. “I found' Her a place back up yonder. I was glad She got a chance to set down. ” Having thus established his trustworthy status as the head of a household the good old fellow proceeded to “visit” with me, needing very few questions to unfold his history and interests while the rockets were being prepared. “We came yesterday,” he said, “so this is only our second day. She asked me did I think it came up to the Centennial. You see I went to Philadelphia in ’76 and saw it through; stayed a week. Well, I said the Centennial was the best. Well, of course, that needs some explanation. But I maintain,” and his fist came out heroically in a gesture, “I maintain that for artisticnessof taste, for magnificence of beauty, and for the wonderfulness of the thing to a certain extent, the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 went ahead of this. You see it was this wav. Of course the main building wa’n’t as big as this, but it ’peared better. They was twenty-three acres in that, and they's thirty-two in this, nine acres more. But when you come into that one, there you’d see letters of living light, shining right up there before you, and when you’d come up to 'em they'd be made of pistols. Yes, letters made of pistols, and looking like jewels. You don’t see that in this main

building, And when I think over things like that, I say the Centennial was the best. She says I just got the Centennial so fixed in my mind I can't seem to consider this.” “How about the buildings here?” “Well, as for buildings and right down up and down beauty to look at them, why, of course, these buildings go right off and leave Philadelphia sticking there. ” The gratuitous information people give each other in the White. City is exhaustless. For instance: “Who is this picture by?” asked one woman of another in the Art Gallery, and the answer came promptly, “By Gerome. He is an author, too. He wrote that book called ‘ Three Men in a Boat,’ to say nothing of the dog.” Two Great Men. Two men stood the other morning before the Bartholdi figures near the lagoon entrance of the Art Gallery. Their eyes were glistening with admiration, and one of them spoke to the other thus: “I should know it for Washington, though the comb-back of his hair ain’t real natural; the other is Dee Layfatte two great men together, greatest men ever lived in this country." His voice took on a splendid tone Of conception of historical relation, and he repeated: “Yes, sir, they were the greatest men ever lived in this country. Talk about Cleveland ! Talk about Harrison!” The lagoons still give Fair visitors a deal of trouble. At the illumination one evening iust after some sort of water procession had passed, a number of electric launches swung into line in the grand basin from the direction of the north lagoons. And a woman who had Deen trying to define the features of the float to her companions welcomed the appearance of the familiar launches

with a sigh of relief and the words, “Well, now here come the lagoons.” It was another well-meaning woman who advised a friend not to leave tho Fair without taking a gondola ride “on the galloons. ” “The Fairies’ wheel” is the astonishing name given to tho big swing by a young person who must have thought it named by the law of contraries, for how could Titania and her train claim the Ferris for the fairies’ wheel? The environments of the Fair have their irresistible attractions for everybody, and nobody comes from' a distance to Chicago without home Very definite intention concerning other sights besides those in Jackson Park. Here is a striking example. At the door of a famous preadher’s,church, on a recent Sunday, a great erdwd was struggling in vain for admittance, and numbers were being turned away. One man refused to go. “I’vo got to get in here,” he protested. “Plenty of others feel the same way, ” sajd a gopd-patured bystander. “Yes, but I’ve got to get in," said the man of determination, with the ring in his voice of a great and irresistible longing that must be appeased at any cost. ‘T’ve got to get in. I made up my rriind when I came to Chicago that after I had teen the Fair I couldn’t and wouldri’t leaVe town without seeing three othdr sights, Buffalo William, ‘America,’ and Dr. Gunsaulus.” He got in. Importune • of th > ] air. But, turning aside from the amusing features of the Fair, there is, as Harper’s Weekly says, one melancholy thought irrepressibly stealing over the beholder of all this magnificence—that it will be among us in its bodily existence only so short a time. Like a gorgeous dream of human genius it has arisen, and liko a vision it will pass away. It will live, however, as a glorious memory and long be spoken of by this and coming generations as one of the greatest marvels of the closing nineteeth century. Everyone who has seen it will cl ori.-h the remembrance of what h<3 saw as a precious treasure which no one wiil be willing to part with for any pr.ee, while those who now miss this great opportunity wi 1 never cease to doplore the irreparable loss caused by their

gross neglect when they hear others tell the wonderful story. Even people of small mcaus should not rec it from the expense of a journey, which in these hard limes they may consider an extravagance, anl they snould not fail to bestow upon their children the boon of the enligh’ening and ennobling impressions which this grand spectacle conveys, and which in all likelihood will be the only opportunity in their lives tp receive and enjoy.

ADMIRING THE STATUE OF THE REPUBLIC