Our Show / A Humorous Account of the International Exposition in Honor of the Centennial Anniversary of American Independence, from Inception to Completion, Including Description of Buildings, Biographies of Managers, Receptions of Foreign Dignitaries, Opening Ceremonies, Poem, Oration, Amusing Survey of All Departments, Incidents, Etc., Etc.

Sere and yellow grows the leaf in these closing pages of our volume, and in now recording the last doings in connection with the Exposition, we would have such a splendid opportunity for enlarging upon the mutability of mundane affairs, that we regret having neither the space nor contract for moralizing. We feel that we could say something striking, something original, something to be remembered on the reader’s deathbed, as a balm and consolation—but alas, prosaic publishers forbid; they will not allow us to inscribe words which might make death appear desirable.

On the tenth day of September the charge for admission to the Exposition was reduced one-half for the time of its continuance. This action occasioned a great influx of European nobility and gentry, parties who had been waiting for the reduction, and the extreme capacity of the various steamship lines was taxed for their accommodation. Baron Rothschild, Baroness Burdett Coutts, and the Marquis of Lorne were among those who gave a new spurt of brilliancy to the affair. The poor Greeks came too, during these months, and their eminent countryman A. T. Stewart also made his first appearance upon the grounds.

By this time most of the potentates had departed. We had become so used to affecting farewells, that the tears started voluntarily to our eyes whenever we chanced to hear a steamboat bell or a locomotive whistle. Only one of the potentates left without paying his hotel bill, a most gratifying fact. We refrain from mentioning his name out of consideration for his family.

Things in general, out upon the grounds and in the buildings, began to look seedy, and the combined action of the Chinese and Japanese Commissioners, in summarily shutting up their portion of the show and going home, was productive of a general feeling of listlessness, a sort of forewarning of the end. We are sure that everything was done that could be done to please these pigtailed and pig-headed Celestials, but the fact is, the old boy himself couldn’t satisfy them. We have no desire to record anything harsh, but we deem it our plain duty to state clearly, for the vindication of our beloved country in the eyes of posterity, what really occasioned this sudden move.

Every candid reader will admit that it could by no possibility prove an easy task to supply, for the many varieties of visitors of such different tastes and habits, a full and liberal allowance of palatable food, such as that to which they had been accustomed. After the episode of the Sandwich Island Commission which we have noted, the gentlemen of this delegation were given free run of the anatomical departments of Jefferson Medical College and the University, and the Executive Committee congratulated itself that they, at least, were provided for. And so they were. No more waiters were missed during the entire time of their stay. But suddenly, there was a revolution at the “Globe Hotel” and a mutiny at the “Transcontinental.”

Day after day had the stewards of these hotels scoured the Callowhill Street, the Spring Garden Street, the Girard Avenue, and all the city markets with terrier dogs and shotguns, hunting ratsGIVE ’EM
RATS! to be served to the Celestials at their establishments. Traps, too, were placed under each stall; in short every luxury the markets afforded in this line was prepared for them, and the products of thousands of private traps were generously donated by patriotic citizens, and yet the supply was not equal to the demand. Our visitors found a peculiar fascinating flavor in the American rat, and it became absolutely impossible to satisfy them. Then, too, the candles at these hostelries disappeared in a rapid and mysterious manner. Mysterious until one fatal Wednesday evening, when a Mandarin of the first rank, who was entitled to wear six swords and able to swallow the half dozen at once, and who consequently ought to have known better, was discovered with a box of penny dips under his flowing robes, making his way stealthily up the cellar steps at the “Globe.” The very same evening a great commotion was raised at the “Transcontinental” by the discovery of Gail Hamilton’s lapdog, stewed in kerosene oil, in the private chamber of the Secretary of the Chinese delegation. As might be expected, the visitors joined cause, braved the thing out, and declared that they were being starved, and were forced to this action to sustain life. Then, packing up their goods, they left indignantly in a body.

Reunions and conclaves, however, and meetings of national and international, social, philanthropic, medical and scientific bodies, kept things tolerably lively, and the month of October was really brilliant. There was a horse show, a cattle show, a dog show, and a poultry show. There was to have been a baby show too. In fact, it was announced and arranged, but was broken up on the very day of opening by a terrible battle among the mothers.THE BATTLE OF
THE MOTHERS.

This battle was consequent upon the arrival of a

MRS. McDUFF,

with a red-headed and cross-eyed infant.

“Begurra, what are ye doin’ here? go home wid ye,” was her greeting to the fond mammas seated in the live-stock yard of the Pennsylvania R. R. Co. with their babies in their arms. “What’s the good o’ ye a sittin’ here, compating wid me Mickey?—arrah, luk at the child and tell me where’s his ekul—sure there’s nary one among ye has a baby fit to go ’longside o’ him, wid his beautiful awburn hair and the shwate smile atwixt his eyes—go home wid ye, go home!”

And, rolling up her sleeves she improvised a war dance.

After four buckets of gore had been spilled, the managers adjourned the exhibition, giving every survivor, without exception, a gold medal. Under the circumstances this was their wisest possible action.

Of all the live-stock exhibitions the dog show was the most successful. The International Exposition would have been sadly wanting in completeness if the faithful companion of man had been denied a place and recognition within its hallowed precincts. He had a place. The R. R. Drove Yards were arranged in tiers, after the style of La Scala at Milan, only, instead of accommodating but thirty-six hundred spectators, the drove yards accommodated, easily, as many thousands. We know of nothing to which this show can be likened save the dog pound in August. Wherever the lorgnette or opera glass was directed, spaniels, poodles, bloodhounds, terriers, pointers, setters, and bone-crunchers of every species, from the board yard mongrel who never earned an honest meal, to the noble St. Bernard who saves a life every morning before breakfast; from the lady’s pet with his golden collar, to the pugilist’s bull-dog with his iron chain, met the gaze and bewildered the senses. Every dog had his day with him, tied up in tissue paper, and it was a pleasing sight to notice—at a distance—the wistful eye with which many of the canines followed the forms of plump visitors, and the broad grin with which they greeted a well-developed thigh.

The International Regatta

was the last affair of prominence, save the distribution of prizes, directly connected with the Exposition.

During the entire Spring and Summer our local boat clubs had been in active training, sitting on the ornamental balconies of their houses, smoking good cigars and telling bad jokes; but they generously vied with one another in the attention bestowed upon visiting clubs, sustaining well the reputation for hospitality usually accorded to jolly watermen.

The 12th day of the month was the great day of the Regatta, the sports opening with a single scull race between the commodores of the leading American navies.

Early in the morning Commodore Ferguson, of the Schuylkill Navy, might have been seen cruising up and down the river, in his flag-ship, the old frigate “Constitution.” In one hand he held a long stick with a hook at the end, which he used for fishing old boots, hats, and other obstructions from the stream; in the other he held a pair of opera glasses. These he raised now and then to his weatherbeaten eye, inspecting ratline, spar, spike, mast, shroud, windlass, and jib-boom of the fleet under his command. The fish from the river had been removed temporarily to the aquaria in the Zoological Gardens, and the Turbine wheels were reversed to pump water into the river from the reservoir, so that the boats might not run aground too easily. Both sides of the river, along the entire course, from the Steamboat landing to Rockland, were actually lined with spectators. Ensigns, pennants, signal flags, and streamers were flying from every available point, and old Sol smiled down graciously from above, with his time honored face newly burnished for the occasion, and reflecting its own happiness in the splashing water-drops below.

First in position was James Gordon Bennett of New York, stripped to the waist, with only a scarf of Scotch plaid thrown negligently about his editorial form. This poor young man makes his living by rowing and walking matches, literally the sweat of his brow, and the sympathies of the crowd were with him. He was in a paper boat, made of old “Heralds” and weighing just nine pounds. On his left was Mr. Lorillard, in a skiff made of pressed tobacco leaves. Occasionally he leaned over to the edge of his boat and bit a piece out. Commodore Forbes of Boston, was seated in the identical boat used by Paul Revere when he rowed from Lexington to Boston to give that alarm Mr. Longfellow wrote about, and Commodore Kingsland had a silver boat. His colors were blue, and he looked his colors all over when he glanced towards Bennett. Commodore Dickinson of Brooklyn, was accompanied by his sister, Anna E., as coxswain; this being required of him on account of the family light weight; his colors were green.

At precisely half past ten, Commodore Ferguson fired a brick into the riverWHO FIRED
THAT BRICK?, which was the signal agreed upon, and the half score of contestants, after the usual salute, dipped their oars and made such a splendid start that it was vociferously encored.

Secretary Robeson took the lead, closely followed by Bennett, the latter being hotly pressed by Forbes of Boston. Then McGinnis of St. Louis, made a spurt, got alongside of the “Herald,” which was soaking up water like a sponge. The race was now bow to bow for a few seconds, when O’Brien of Chicago, got rapidly forward. Robeson would still have had a good lead if the boats had been on the return trip. Opposite the Girard Bridge Commodore O’Shaughnessy of Baltimore, fouled Commodore Riley of New Orleans, and the other contestants being in the rear, the race narrowed down to Bennett, Lorillard, Forbes, and McGinnis. Near the Columbia Bridge, McGinnis ran his penknife through Forbes of Boston’s tub, and though Lorillard promptly tendered a plug from his vessel to stop the leak, this delayed all but the irrepressible Bennett, who won the race in 23 minutes 33½ seconds. This, strangely enough, was the same result which had been published in the “N. Y. Herald” that same morning, five hours before the race began.

There remains now but little more to record. “Screw up your courage to the sticking point” (sticking things into the fire), for we shall soon part, mayhap to meet no more in print. We are happily permitted, however, before concluding, to add weight to the oft-repeated assertion that HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. Let sceptics reading what follows, change the current of their unbelieving thoughts.

Yes, reader, it seems almost beyond belief that the lion-hearted solicitor should have been forgotten. That the city managed to worry along for six months without his supervision, is one of those mysterious chances which may only be explained when the light of history and careful, unprejudiced investigation shall, in the far distant future, illuminate the cobwebbed darkness of ages long then past.

As Bardsley suggested, so was it done. A committee was appointed with power to act, and at high noon one clear, bright day, while special thanksgiving services were being chanted in all the churches, the General’s congealed form was hauled out of a wagon, with golden ice nippers, and landed safely on the flag pavement of Independence Hall. A gentle fire of rosewood shavings and sweet cacia wood was built around him, and he was gradually and tenderly thawed out. The coat of ice melted away; the stern features relaxed, the water dripped from all portions of the herculean frame, the fog, mist, and steam generated by the process cleared away, and

Charlie was himself again.

While he was still receiving the congratulations of his friends, the contractors who were required to remove the buildings approached, and publicly offered him one hundred thousand dollars to remain in his own dwelling until the close of the exhibition and then go out to the grounds and cause a final crash. This, of course, would save them immense time, labor, and expenditure. With the dignity of THE CÆSAR
OF THE AGE.Cæsar on the Lupercal, he drew his form to its full height, and casting one look of disdain upon the contractors, who instantaneously disappeared beneath the flagging to rise no more, he walked slowly up Chestnut Street, followed by the plaudits of an enthusiastic mob.

The Awards of the Judges,

though of immense importance, are of especial interest only to the exhibitors. Others desirous of posting themselves on this point, are referred to the musty, fusty rows of figures and statistics which will soon flood the American rag market. Two cents a pound is not an exorbitant price for information which is at all desirable. From the list of nine hundred and eight foreign and domestic judges, we will merely select the following familiar names:—Ludlow, Thayer, Biddle, Dwight, Paxson, Hackett, Cardoza, and Finletter; Dr. Mary Walker, Prof. Proctor, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Bret Harte, Lydia Thompson, Wm. Gladstone, Elwood Rowan, Gen. Garibaldi, Susan B. Anthony, and the Marquis of Lorne.

As the style of report was similar in all cases, an example will give a general idea of the plan adopted. The scriptural quotations were altered to suit each instance.

The only squabble among the judges was concerning the report on American fried oysters. Councilman Rowan and Premier Gladstone indulged in some marked personalities. They might have come to blows but for the prompt intervention of Miss Lydia Thompson and her little cowhide. She cornered the belligerents. Mr. Gladstone apologized to our distinguished councilman over a dish of the matter in dispute, and they compromised on two gold medals and an honorable mention.

And now—AN END TO
EVERYTHING.

When the hands of Nature began stripping the foliage from the trees, the hands of man began stripping the decorations from the gay palace-like structures which had been the theatre of the world’s interest for six memorable months. Like the possessions of that happy but mythical “family declining housekeeping,” the hope and mainstay of the cheerful, chirping auctioneer, little by little, piece by piece, the furniture and contents of the great buildings were going—going—gone!

The white beard of Winter covers our beautiful Park; he has laid his icy hand upon the quiet stream which dances happily in the Summer days between its green fringed banks; the tall trees stand bare, looking into the gray-faced sky, and the jingle of sleigh-bells dies away in the hollows, and rings out sharply o’er the frozen roads. The busy noise of Machinery Hall is hushed and forgotten; if you wish to hear the humming and the buzzing of a few weeks back, you must e’en apply to a humming-bird or a buzz-saw. The cries of the different animals from the vicinity of Agricultural Hall no longer reach the ear, no matter how long the ear may be, and the scent of a million flowers from Horticultural Hall no longer steals the senses. The stealing is all over; the visitors have all gone home.

Our country has had her holiday, and, donning her honest homespun suit, she goes quietly, surely, and confidently to work upon her second century. ’Tis but her babyhood which has passed into years gone, and yet—she has proved herself a man.

Let us not endeavor to lift the veil which marks the boundary of the present. Blessed are the eyes which have seen these glories past, for many anticipating eyes grew closed and dulled before the fire blazed. Dear reader, as its smoke is carried upward and beyond, reluctantly we say—FAREWELL.

“Farewell!”

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