The movements of the custom-house
officials, and the arrangements of goods after the passing of that
ordeal, were less rapid, and there seemed some ground for anxiety when
it was found that in the last days of March scarce a tenth of the
catalogued exhibits were on the ground, and for the closing ten days of
the period fixed for the receipt of goods an average of one car-load per
minute of the working hours was the calculated draft on the resources of
the unloading sheds. Home exhibitors, by reason of the very completeness
of their facilities of transport, were the most dilatory. The United
States held back until her guests were served, confident in the abundant
efficiency of the preparations made for bringing the entertainers to
their side. Better thus than that foreigners should have been behind
time.
When the gates of the enclosure were at last shut upon the steam-horse,
a broader and more congenial field of duty opened before him. From the
role of dray-horse he passed to that of courser. Marvels from the ends
of the earth he had, with many a pant and heave, forward pull and
backward push, brought together and dumped in their allotted places. Now
it became his task to bear the fiery cross over hill and dale and
gather the clans, men, women and children. The London exhibition of
1851 had 6,170,000 visitors, and that of 1862 had 6,211,103. Paris in
1855 had 4,533,464, and in 1867, 10,200,000. Vienna's exhibition drew
7,254,867.
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