EXHIBITION OF 1862. 
151 
This is the explanation of how this first great power came 
to be represented at all at that great gathering of the nations. 
The circumstances of our condition at home served as an ex¬ 
cuse with the rest of the world, but not so with ourselves. 
Had the Government been wise enough to have early placed a 
moderate sum of money in the hands of a small commission 
of competent men, fully alive to the importance of the enter¬ 
prise, and left them to carry it forward, an exhibition might 
have been made, which, by its extent, value and completeness, 
would at once have attracted attention and commanded the 
admiration of the whole world. 
But the result has shown that even with the broken and 
shattered fragment of an exhibition almost organized, that 
would have brought great honor and lasting advantage to our 
country, the few laborious, self-sacrificing men who served her 
cause so faithfully against all odds have again brought off 
from a sharply contested field fresh leaves for her laurel 
wreath. 
THE EXHIBITION BUILDING. 
The world-famed Crystal Palace of ’51, having been remov¬ 
ed to Sydenham, it became necessary to erect a new building 
for 1862. And inasmuch as the first great exhibition had 
awakened a universal interest among all nations, it was safe to 
presume that the second would be yet greater and require a 
palace of still vaster proportions. 
Under the inspiration of His Boyal Flighness Prince Albert 
and the efficient agency of the Society of Arts, of which he 
was the recognized head, the requisite subscription of some 
$2,000,000 was raised, the location made on Cromwell, Prince 
Albert and Exhibition roads, immediately south of Kensing¬ 
ton Gardens, and the designing of the palace and the superin¬ 
tendence of its construction entrusted, not to Sir Joseph Pax¬ 
ton, the architect of the Crystal Palace, as the world had a 
right to expect, but to Capt. Fowke, of the Koyal Engineers. 
As a result, the '"plan was inferior, as to external appearance, 
