'8 THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. 



5 The Crystal Palace. 



By all accounts this great achievement of art is doomed. Consi- 

 derable interest for its preservation has been manifested. British 

 Treasury letters have been written, and committees of inquiry ap- 

 pointed, and reports sent in. We know how indefinite are the con- 

 clusions of such committees, how wastefel of public time and patience 

 they are. However, some information has been obtained. Sir Jos. 

 Paxton has written a letter which we subjoin ; also the letter of the 

 contractor. Price to the government .as it now stands, ^65,834-, or 

 in round numbers, about $300,000. 



" Sir — I have read with surprise the report of the commission ap- 

 pointed by the Treasury to make inquiries on the cost and applica- 

 bility of the Crystal Palace. The whole bearing of my evidence was 

 in favor of the plan suggested by me, and admitted by the commis- 

 sion to be the best proposed — viz. to convert the Crystal Palace into 

 a winter garden; but the only portion of my evidence which has been 

 adverted to in the report is a detached sentence, the meaning of which 

 has been totally misunderstood. If the opportunity which f request- 

 ed, and which was afforded to others, of making verbal corrections in 

 my printed evidence had been given to me, I should have made this 

 sentence clearer; but as it stands now, the sense which has been at- 

 tributed to it arises from a strange misapprehension. I never would 

 have recommended the conversion of the Palace into a winter garden 

 if I had not felt convinced that it was for the public advantage, even 

 in an economical point of view. Though, in my opinion, the cost of 

 a new building on the same scale as the present might be somewhat 

 reduced and its plan considerably improved, the mere expense of ad- 

 opting what we have got to the purposes of a winter garden bears no 

 reasonable proportion to that of erecting and fitting up an edifice of 

 the kind and size de novo. The destruction of the building, when its 

 purchase has been so nearly completed, would, in my opinion, be a 

 wanton sacrifice of property; and the reference in ,the report to the 

 possibility of constructing a more suitable edifice at a less expense 

 than would be required for the necessary outlay on the Crystal Pa- 

 lace, is not only a misrepresentation of my evidence, but tends to 

 blind the eyes of the public to the foolish piece of modern Vandalism 

 which the report of the commission sanctions. — 1 have, &.c, Joseph 

 Paxton, Devonshire-house, March 23." 



"The Government and the Royal Commission have decided to al- 

 low the contract under which the Crystal Palace was constructed to 

 take its course. In accordance therewith, the building will shortly be 

 pulled down. We feel that a structure of the kind, novel in design, 

 and which has excited the unqualified admiration of the whole world, Q 



