898 
PAEIS UNIVERSAL 
rapid improvement within the present decade than in any en¬ 
tire century of lime before. Ideas of equality, of natural 
rights and of justice are far more prevalent than at any other 
time. 
Just ideas of the brotherhood that should be established 
among all peoples are now widely diffused and must eventually 
bear fruit. As a harbinger of the good time coming, the col¬ 
lection of the current coins of all countries displayed in the 
pavilion that appropriately stood in the centre of the Central 
Garden embraced by the Palace of Exposition, as also, the 
International Congress of monies weights and measures, held 
at Paris during the period of the Exhibition, were highly sig¬ 
nificant facts. Not less so was the presence, in the Exposition, 
on terms of social and commercial equality, of the great na¬ 
tions of the East, which up to this time, since the beginning of 
history have stood aloof from the more progressive and Chris¬ 
tian nations of the Occident. Wars there may continue to 
be, while man is man, but when all people become neighbors, 
with daily interchange of products, thoughts, sentiments and 
kindly courtesies, and with at last, a community of institutions 
and of language, the world will certainly be much nearer the 
reign of Universal Peace. 
THE GRAND FETE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES. 
If any who hoped to witness a more brilliant and imposing 
pageant at the opening of the Exposition on the 1st of April, 
were a little disapointed, they were a thousand times compensat¬ 
ed by the unprecedented pomp and magnificence of the Grand 
Fete of the Distribution of Recompenses on the 1st of July, 
whose place on one of the brightest pages of history was not 
better assured by the presence of a more brilliant throno- 
the royal representatives of the nations of the world than were 
ever assembled under the same roof before, than by the occa¬ 
sion of their coming and the extraordinary nature and circum¬ 
stances of of some of the honors conferred. 
The place chosen for the fete was the grand nave of the 
Palais de V Industrie, the main portion of which great edifice 
