Image TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage Tile
Image size: 6656x8704 Scale: 35% - PanoJS3
Page overview thumbnail

Article text

THE PARIS EXPOSITION.
France's Sheet Anchor of
Peace.
•Ilwas raining as, despite popular-belief^
,"5t' can rain in Paris ivlien it likes—tmii
.waste of water that made the orodigai
fountains of the Place de la Concorde eeem
economical tfficklets. writes C. E. Hands.
Is there any experience ip. life qnite so
(depressing as & rainy day in. Eaias? In
.London you take the weather -as a matter
o£ coarse, and cm be quite ^porf" 1 when
it is -wet, <»: even jovial when it is foggy^
But in Paris there seems t6 be nothing left
—±or the stranger, at all events—when fine
weather is absent. Ji is warm wdl as
wet, so YMtuiD jthait a greatcoat was a burdensome
discomfort, so wet that a greatcoat
buttoned about. Una ears was indis-
"So -wonder they haxe ns," £ eaid. to my
friend.'; "a day like this ia enough to make
chem hate t3u? whole world, themselves included.
3 ' _ Be laughed.
"Why,"' lie said, "ia a montli or two they
SWill have forgotten the word Iraie.' They
"will have their arms round everybody's
neck. They'll have their hands in his; pockets,
too: but that's a detail. Look!" He
pointed across the Place to the edge of the
Ghampe Elysees. I looked against the
' sombre background of the bare trees. A
•dome of gold was gleaming dimly tfcrou^L
tile rain.
' "What is that?" i askecL
"That," he said, "is a pretty fifctJe moneys
box, and in a little while a thousand people
in a minute will be dropping ftanes mtft
it." „ ,
"A thousand francs a minute, > saio,-,
"£40 a minute! But for how many minutes
? And what for?" "Say for cix
months," lie said, "and more than a "thousand
a minute. Say £2,500 an hour for
ten hours a day for six months' hand-run"
ning. Reckon" that out—four and a half
million pounds, say. And that's onljf at
the rate of a franc apiece in this one little
money-box. But there will be dozens of.
other money-boxes, and "it w21 be a good
deal more than a franc apiece. tEhis is tin*
gold dome of the main pay-sate to the Exposition
or 1900."
They are getting along very nicely with
she pay-gate. Through the surrounding
ooaze of scaffold poles you can Gee the sculptured
arches upon which the golden cupola
tests already blossoming with beauty. Yon
can eee a pay-box rising such, as poet-showman
never dreamed of, noUe ana splendid
m proportion and form, magnificcent in decoration
of gold and onaTtmij statuary and
painting. Gloriously superb in its mimiii-
•cent endowment of turnstiles and ticket
windows and other devices for talking in
money. "There ore to be," my friend said
impressively, "58 pay-windows in . the
Grande Porte—two rows of than with 28
guiehets in each—and they will all team ix>
oe busy all the time if Paris is going to
get her money back. There won't be any
kind of phobia, while those tumstztes hame
to be kept clicking."
Two tall minarets rise one on each side of
the arched gateway. Their grace of form is
already revealed, the rich Oriental beauty
of their decoration already indicates itself.
At-night they will glow with thousands of
coloured lights, and from the top of each a
great electric light will show the way to the
nay entrance. The Grande Porte would be
something to wonder at even if one were
going to pay only for the sight of it and
its fifty-eight guichete. But beyond it the
Exposition is building, and the gold-domed
structure is only to the Exposition what
the arch at Kuston is to the London and
SMolth-Western railway system. I am
bound to say in common fairness to the
commercial sense of the French nation that
there is no fear of the Show being open
before the public are provided with facilities
for paying to go in. The Exposition
already delights you with its well-advanced
beauty. The lixhibirion bewilders you
with' its stupendous magnitude and its stupendous
incompleteness.' It is lite thinking
in billions to try to realize the extent of
it. It is so big that you cannot think it.
More has already been accomplished in tie
building of it than one can realize; more remains
to be done than one can conceive. I
wandered about it for the best part of a,
day, drove miles, in cabs from one part of
, it "to another, waded ankle-deep in mud in
' the courts of marble palaces, stood on rubbish
heaps and looked at 1 groups of sculpture,
wandered through forests of scafihldpoles,
and stared in wonder and delight, at
bits of carving .inii modelling that were
among the myriad tiny details of a work
ifcnat is Titanic in its immensity. You
stand in front of a great gallery, the size
of -which almost frightens you. Sou look
away and find £hab -yon are ia a long, wide
aveniie of such galleries. You stare openmouthed
at a white stone palace with a facade
of exquisite tracery a couple of hundred
yards long; you look behind yon and
see another palace half as large again and
£wifc as elaborately magnificent. You turn,
a corner and come upon, another avenue
of naileries, another group of palaces. You
look across the wide river, and see stilt;
more palaces—another Exhibition. And'
then, says your guide complacently, "Of
v»urse, what you can see now is only the
beginning of what you will be able to-see
later on."
Six hundred thousand mien, i&ey eayr
are alt wkmk upon the TiTpnaHnogu
The industry of 600,000 men day account
Jfor iihe magnitude of the -work—tihe number
of the Molding and their eze. But
no- each, ifigjoxes con aeooraut for the exquisite
fceaafcy of the work tfjatb bus been
done. The magnificent new Alexander
JJOL Bridge,' wtecih carries ffiie Exhibi&m
across tie direr, yon admire for its widJ3i
and 4ihe fine sweep of its angle spam; but
the bridge itself baronies commonplace
when you BUxj>±o look at tlhe splendid scnlpxosed
groups wbich stand at either end. If
your mind onnot realize the meaning of
•die word '^million,'' your ear Decomes accustomed
to <&e soand. of it. "Those buildings."
says your conductor, pointing »o
one of iihe many croups of palaces that are
rising, "aae to cost twenty five million
francs—a million .pounds. TSiose galleries." -
lie says, hsdf a mole further ion, will cost
iten TtiTflwm foancs." Hhose pavilions aver
tiiey \e31 cost seven million fiance. - "
'Toe entire wrifey on thfi Exiibitioa—tihe
outlay wirieii wiE. {have to be recouped St.
the tennstdies—will be a tamfceF- maSion
francs, of which seventy millions are going
for boSdnffiB aiorae, and fiaoee are only the
official bmMings tof the Exposition proper,
-erichont conniang tjbe side sliows, which ace
private enterprises. And ihe side shown
appear to be endeavouring to make the
IjMiibiiaoit build'nga seem, toBignjficaait.
There as <a. iruge and beautiful building, in
Which ia to foe shown a panorama of the
voild. t. xeafly. toilet how modi I was
told it is to cost. By ihis time little ftetna
of miHions offeanes had ceaseil to impress
me. . T&ere is a picturesque "Old Paris'i
®de diDW—a solidly built np uowtl alongside
tiie river, wSikIi looks as thong!h a
shoasand Kafalfe®, sB waft unlimited
mpaiw had oonu>ined %o mafce it. The
Eiffel Tower is to be picked oat in gold
from bap to boittom at faibulcus cost. TJhe&e
are the offioal'pavilions of tie foreign nations*
eacfli of fhem represencatlve of wSiatever
is most picturesque and costly in the
national architecture. Truly a wonderful
peoytfe tins, "wflio can carry out an nnda>
taiine of subh magnitude, and carry it o^;
\vitb eaci esqinsite art its 'size does
not impireas yon more than its bean-ty. A
pmtie o£ wonderful artistic eeai^e, you
t'rdmi, as you come away.
$