ng and sanguinary bill of theatrical fare could have drawn
into the Coliseum. Its length, by the way, was exactly equal to the
circumference of the Flavian amphitheatre--1848 feet.

A new home (of progress)! who'll follow? "I," quoth New York. The
British empire had taken three years in preparation: New York was
ready with less than two. Not quite ready, either, we are apt to
say now, but most creditably so for the time and the means of a few
enterprising private men bestowed upon it. And up to this time the
display of '53 under the Karnak-like shadow of the Croton Reservoir
has not been equaled on our soil.

Architecturally, the building was superior to that of London, and
showed itself less cramped by the peculiarities of the novel material.
The form was that of a Greek cross, with a central dome a hundred and
forty-eight feet high, and eight towers at the salients of seventy
feet. The space, including galleries, did not reach a third of that
afforded by its prototype, but proved equal to the demand.

Considering the absence of any formal public character in the movement
and the brief notice, foreign exhibitors came forward in tolerable
force. They could not expect to address through this display each
other's commercial constituencies, as very few visitors would traverse
the Atlantic: they could reach only the people of the United States.
This difficulty must interfere--though much less now than twenty years
ago, when the means of ocean-travel were but a fraction of what they
are at present--with the strictly international complexion of any
exposition in this country. If, however--as we are already assured
beyond peradventure will be the case with the Centennial--our
neighbors over the way send us a full representation of their
products, and a delegation of visitors from their most intelligent
classes, not inferior in numbers, for example, to the Germans who went
to London, and the English who repaired in '73 to Vienna, we shall
claim a cosmopolitan character for our exposition, and hold that it
well fills its place in the line of progress.

What Europe did send to New York sufficed to prove the superiority
of our own artisans in such labor-saving contrivances as suited the
conditions of the country. The foreign implements and machines were
more cumbrous in both complexity and weight of parts than ours. In
the finer departments of manufacture, the Gobelin tapestry, the French
glass, porcelain and silks, the broadc