Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — CENTENNIAL JOTTINGS. [ARTICLE]

CENTENNIAL JOTTINGS.

A newspaper man flgu es up that there will be 80,000 articles on exhibition. A case of electric eels from the Senegal and the Nile are in the Egyptian department For the uniform price of fifty cents passengers are carried in the Philadelphia hacks to any part of the city. The British department of the Exhibition is observed to be extremely rich in the ceramic ware and art ftirniture. In these classes of goods the department excels. It was circulated very widely soon after the opening of the great Exposition that there were 190,000 paying visitors on that occasion. But the New York papers of a later date say that when the money was counted it only footed up $38,060.50, showing that the paying visitors numbered just 70,133. They say, also, that there were over 10,000 dead heads. The official catalogue of the Exposition the correspondent of the New York Timee says “ cannot be commended. Paper and type are good, but all the rest is badvery bad. The coarse pasteboard covers warp without the least provocation, and the interleaving of advertising pages with the text is an imposture upon the leader, who has a right in buying the catalogue to an opportunity of looking it over with out being forced to read notices of Smith’s fertilizers and Brown’s ready-made clothing, while turning the pages for information about exhibits.” On the 10th of June the Women’s InterNational Christian Temperance Union will meet in Philadelphia. The session will continue for two days, and delegates interested in the cause will be present from every part of the civilized globe. The Worlds Temperance Congress, under the auspices of tlie Women’s Society, will meet on the 13th, and on the same day a fair under the auspices of the Women’s National Union will open in Horticultural Hall. Those who are interested in the Temperance cause will find the second and third weeks in June the most desirable time for visiting the great Centennial Exhibition. The names of the American Judges of the various groups have been announced. Group 4—Animal and vegetable products and the machinery for their preparation is constituted as follows: E. A. Horsford, of Massachusetts; L. B. Arnold, of New York; Col. J. F. Tobias, of Pennsylvania; Col. John Bradford, of Florida; Gen. H. M. Nagle, of California; Guido Marks, of Ohio; R. T. Brown, of Indiana; Walter J. Green, of Wisconsin; D. H. Miller, of Maryland; James M. Shaffer, of lowa. Group 23—Agricultural implements, and implements of horticulture and gardening—has for Judges: John P. Reynolds, of Illinois; S. L. Grinnell, of Washington; Geo. E. Woring, of Rhode Island; Jas. Bince, of Oregon. The foreign judges will receive SI,OOO and the American judges S6OO each for their services.

A New York Tribune reporter quotes as descriptive of the Philadelphia Exhibition the lines of a poet who wrote of the first Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, just a quarter of a century ago: “ There’s etavm ingynes That etanda in line*, Enormous and amazing. That squeal and snort Like whales m sport. Or Elephants a grazing. < “There’s carts and gigs, And pins for pigs. There’s dibblers and there’s harrows, Andplows like toys For little boys, And iilegant wheelbarrows.” And a world more of every sort of thing in every department of human industry and production. The display is so immense that it is impossible to attempt a description even of its salient features. A serious task lies before the man who thinks of ‘seeing the Exhibition.’ The plain truth is that if you wish really to ‘see’ the Fair, you must stay half the summer; if you only want to run through it, you must stay not less than a week.” The absurdity of refusing a dollar for two persons, or two dollars for four, is too evident and annoying to be long continued. On the opening day hundreds were turned baik from the gates, which they had gained by patient waiting in line, and obliged to fall in at the end of a longer one at the office for changing money, or submit to the extortion of the speculators in flfty-csnt notes. Everybody sees the reason why the gatekeepers cannot make change; but nobody understands why a dollar bill cannot be put in the box in payment for two admissions, as well as two half-dollars. All that is requisite is that the gatekeeper should have as much money in his box as the register on his turnstile calls for. On the third day a stalwart countryman offered a one-dollar bill for himself and wife, and was told, like thousands of other visitors, that he must bring two fifty-cent notes. He expostulated a little while, with no effect but to irritate the gatekeeper. Then he roared, in a voice of thunder : “ Take tlie money ahd let us in or I’ll knock you down.” The affrighted official broke the rule and allowed the couple to pass in.