In steam-roads
they had no advantage and no inferiority. At each and all of these
cities the packing-box and the passenger were both confronted by the
vexatious interval between the station and the exposition
building--often the most trying part of the trip. Horsepower was the one
time-honored resource, in '73 as in '51, and in unnumbered years before.
Under the ancient divisions of horse and foot the world and its
_impedimenta_ moved upon Hyde Park, the Champ de Mars and the Prater,
the umbrella and the oil-cloth tilt their only shield against Jupiter
Pluvius, who seemed to take especial pleasure in demonstrating their
failure, nineteen centuries after the contemptuous erasure of him from
the calendar, to escape his power. It was reserved for the Philadelphia
Commission to bring his reign (not the slightest intention of a pun) to
a close. The most delicate silk or gem, and the most delicate wearer of
the same, were enabled to pass under roof from San Francisco into the
Main Building in Fairmount Park, and with a trifling break of twenty
steps at the wharf might do so from the dock at Bremen, Havre or
Liverpool. The hospitable shelter of the great pavilion was thus
extended over the continent and either ocean. The drip of its eaves
pattered into China, the Cape of Good Hope, Germany and Australia. Their
spread became almost that of the welkin.
Let us look somewhat more into the detail of this unique feature of the
American fair.
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