the figgers that
support the ruff; a woman won fairly in competition the right to
decorate the cornice. The interior decoration, much of it carved work,
is done by wimmen; panels wuz carved by wimmen all over the country and
brought here to decorate the walls.

And not only decorated, but in a good many rooms the woodwork wuz
finished by wimmen. California has a room walled and ceiled with redwood
by wimmen.

And wimmen of all the States, from Maine and Florida, have joined to
make the place beautiful. Even the Indian wimmen made richly embroidered
hangin's for the doors and windows.

The wimmen managers wuz the first wimmen that wuz ever officially
commissioned by Congress, and never have wimmen swung out so, or, to be
poetical, never have they cut so wide and broad a swath on the seedy old
fields of Time, as they do to this Fair. They can exhibit with the best
of the contestants, men or wimmen, and by act of Congress represent
their own sect on the Jury of Award.

Congress did the fair thing by wimmen in this matter. Let him step up
one step higher on the hill of justice, and gin 'em the right to set on
the jury of award or punishment when their own honor is at the stake.

It has let wimmen tell which is the best piece of woosted work, or
tattin'; now let her be judged by her peers when life or death is the
award meted out to 'em. But to resoom.

The Gallery of Honor is the centre hall of the buildin', and runs almost
the entire length, and openin' out of it is the display that shows that
wimmen wuz really the first inventors and producers of what wuz useful
as well as beautiful, and that men took up the work when money could be
made from it.

Here is the work of the first and rudest people, but all made by female
wimmen--the rough, hard buds of beauty and labor; and in the Central
hall, like these buds open in full bloom and beauty, is the fruit of the
most advanced thought and genius.

The interior glows with soft and harmonious colors, and chaste
ornamentation.

Mrs. Candace Wheeler, of New York, had charge of the decoration, which
is sayin' enough for its beauty, if you didn't say anything else, and
Illinois and the rest of the world wuz grand helpers in the work of
beauty.

The Gallery of Honor, the central hall of the buildin', runs almost the
entire length. The noble, harmonious beauty of this room strikes you as
you first enter, some as it would if you come up sudden out of the
woods, a-facin' a