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plained that it had been a great damage to their town, so 

 many people had gone from there to see it ; that fifty 

 thousand dollars were spent by their people outside of the 

 toion. I need not take the trouble to argue the folly of 

 such a proposition. The simple contact with the people 

 of foreign countries was a great benefit to us. The Ex- 

 hibition was an industrial school for the whole people. 

 A party of men or women who could go through those 

 buildings without having their minds instructed would be 

 an anomaly and a wonder. 



What interested me most was the effect which this ex- 

 hibition was to have upon the standing of our country in 

 the estimation of the world. Our calicoes, for instance, 

 are preferred over those of England. We already have 

 begun to reap practical results in the effect upon our ex- 

 ports. Some of you have doubtless seen that speech of 

 the most noted of the Swiss watchmakers. He found a 

 case of Waltham watches at Philadelphia and borrowed 

 one of an inferior grade. Upon examination of it he 

 declares to the Swiss people that there is not in Switzer- 

 land a manufactory that could produce such a watch. I 

 have been informed by one firm that their exhibit at Phil- 

 adelphia has been of untold value to them in their busi- 

 ness. 



We had there also the evidence of the progress of art- 

 culture in America. Of the visitors, nine out of ten have 

 preferred devoting their time to the Art Gallery. When 

 the French artists made up their exhibit to send here, 

 they collected nothing but second and third-rate art pic- 

 tures. It so happened that in coming over some of these 

 pictures became somewhat mouldy. It was reported in 

 Paris that our people, when the pictures arrived, were so 

 in despair with envy that they bespattered them with mud. 



As an instance of the natural taste and judgment of 



