1862-05-01 Cassell's Illustrated Exhibitor

CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED EXHIBITOR, 1862.

Comissioners of 1851 purchased the Gore estate at South Kensington, and some adjoining lands. On this land the South Kensington Museum and the Horticultural Gardens now stand; and on an hitherto unappropriated portion of the same the International Building was erected.

The Paris Exhibition of 1855 was attended in six months by 3,626,934 visitors to the industrial department, and by 906,530 visitors to the fine arts department-in all 4,533,464, who paid for admission to each department the sum of £117,666. This display left a deficit larger than our surplus of 1851, and which had to be made good by a grant from the Imperial Government.

deficiency, and that the guarantors will not be called upon to pay even a per centage on the sums against which they placed their names. The contractors for the building, Messrs. Kelk and Lucas, are under- stood to have promised to bear a large portion of the sum by which the receipts are less than the expenditure.

The daily returns of money taken at the doors show a total received of nearly £315,000, excluding, of course, the admission by sauling day-tickets. The season tickets have, it is said, realised nearly £80,000, and the shilling tickets also a considerable sum. Altogether, the receipts from: every source, including refreshment and photo- graphic contracts, waiting-rooms, umbrella-stands, sales of catalogues,

large sums, as do also the charges for receiving goods, &c., in the building, the re-delivery of which outside the Exhibition will be aboutas much more.

The £200,000 was for the erection of the building, and the use of the materials, The contract was to the effect that, if the total receipts exceeded £400,000, the contractors were to receive an extra £100,000; while a further sum of £130,000 purchases the building, making the whole, as already stated, no less than £430,000. The £300,000 being paid, the Picture Galleries become the property of the Society of Arts, at a certain rental for the ground. The Exhibition building of 1851 occupied, in all, nineteen acres ;

and foremost, however, there is the immense cost of the building- £430,000 in 1862, against £150,000 in 1851. The grand and fatal mistake of the Commissioners lay in that tremendous estimate for an undeniably ugly and ill-contrived structure. Then follows the failure in the Commissioners' estimate of the numbers who would attend during the six months of the Exhibition. Instead of 70,000 daily visitors, as was anticipated, the average number was less than 40,000. This comparatively small number may be accounted for in many ways. The lamented death of the Prince Consort doubtless threw an unmis- takeable air of coldness over the entire speculation. Then the absence of the Court, the ungenial state of the weather during the London season,

EXTERIOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIHION, FROM THE HORTICULTURAL GARDENS.

The present Exhibition has been open to the public for six months and a fortnight. This fortnight is the twelve days of sales, when the attendance was estimated at 13,000. We may therefore say that the Exhibition of 1862 has had the advantage of 29 days' publicity over that of 1851. The total number of visitors (inclusive of the 13,000 to the Bazaar) is reckoned to have been 6,130,450; or 91,315 more than in 1851.

This is not an encouraging result. Instead of a large surplus, there will probably be a not inconsiderable deficit. The most sanguine of the friends of the Exhibition do not put it at less than £20,000. It has been stated, however that provision has been made for this

&c., have been, we are told, within a very small amount of £500,000 sterling, and are not unlikely to be £510,000 or even £520,000 before the final closing of accounts after the distribution of prizes by the " Prince of Wales. The expenses of constructing the building according to the original plan, have, it is stated, been within the £200,000 originally advanced by the Bank of England, though, of course, the Commissioners have incurred the usual supplementary estimate in the way of extras, such as the annexes, gilding, foundations for machinery, &c., which bring the total cost up to nearly £70,000 more. The office and staff expenses have been unusually, indeed almost parsimoniously low; but road-making and hire for police account for

and the unexampled distress in the manufacturing districts, all contributed to lessen the popularity of the Exhibition. The "great expectations" of the Commissioners were doomed to disappointment. Nor, when we remember the unsatisfactory management attending the whole affair, do we see how it could well have been otherwise. It must be admitted that a somewhat parsimonious and disagreeable tone accompanied the doings of the Royal Commissioners. Just to mention a few out of many acts of indictment brought against these gentle- men:-With some exceptions, to which we need not refer, the arrangements for the accommodation of exhibitors and for the The answer to this question cannot be given in a sentence. First display of their goods, were essentially poor and mean, the disposition that for the International Exhibition of 1862 covered a little over twenty-six. The flooring space in 1851 was 989,784 square feet. In the Kensington building there were 1,140,000 square feet; but as the machinery and agricultural implements were exhibited in wings. especially built for the purpose, the space at the disposal of the Commissioners was practically 450,000 feet of flooring more in 1862 than in 1851.

Well, now the question comes, after looking at all these details, apparently so much in favour of the International Exhibition-How is it that merely a comparative success has been attained?