Lippincotts Magazine, May 1876 | Page 2

of
knowledge and intelligence in the two hundred men who determine the
awards, recognized also the advantage of providing for their
convenience. Their sessions here can be neither cramped nor disturbed.
So far as foresight can go, there is nothing to prevent their deciding
quietly, comfortably and soundly, after mute argument from the vast
array of objects submitted to their verdict, on the merits of each. The
main hall of this building, or high court as it may be termed, is sixty by
eighty feet, and forty-three feet high. In the rear of it is a smaller hall. A
number of other chambers and committee-rooms are appropriated to the
different branches as classified. Accommodation is afforded, besides, to
purposes of a less arid nature--fêtes, receptions, conventions,
international congresses and the like. This cosmopolitan forum might
fitly have been modeled after
the tower that builders vain, Presumptuous, piled on Shinar's plain.
Bricks from Birs Nimroud would have been a good material for the
walks. Perhaps, order being the great end, anything savoring of
confusion was thought out of place.
[Illustration: JUDGES' PAVILION.]
Fire is an invader of peace and property, defence against whose
destructive forays is one of the first and most constant cares of
American cities, old and new, great and small. Before the foundations
of the Main Building were laid the means of meeting the foe on the
threshold were planned. The Main Building alone contains seventy-five
fire-plugs, with pressure sufficient to throw water over its highest point.
Adjacent to it on the outside are thirty-three more. Seventy-six others
protect Machinery Hall, within which are the head-quarters of the fire
service. A large outfit of steam fire-engines, hose, trucks, ladders,

extinguishers and other appliances of the kind make up a force
powerful enough, one would think, to put out that shining light in the
records of conflagration--Constantinople. Steam is kept up night and
day in the engines, which, with their appurtenances, are manned by
about two hundred picked men. The houses for their shelter, erected at
a cost of eight thousand dollars, complete, if we except some
architectural afterthoughts in the shape of annexes, the list of the
buildings erected by the commission.
[Illustration: WOMEN'S PAVILION.]
_Place aux dames!_ First among the independent structures we must
note the Women's Pavilion. After having well earned, by raising a large
contribution to the Centennial stock, the privilege of expending
thirty-five thousand dollars of their own on a separate receptacle of
products of the female head and hand, the ladies selected for that a
sufficiently modest site and design. To the trait of modesty we cannot
say that the building has failed to add that of grace. In this respect,
however, it does not strike us as coming up to the standard attained by
some of its neighbors. The low-arched roofs give it somewhat the
appearance of a union railway-depot; and one is apt to look for the
emergence from the main entrances rather of locomotives than of ladies.
The interior, however is more light and airy in effect than the exterior.
But "pretty is that pretty does" was a favorite maxim of the
Revolutionary dames; and the remarkable energy shown by their fair
descendants, under the presidency of Mrs. E. D. Gillespie, in carrying
through this undertaking will impart to it new force. The rule is quite in
harmony with it that mere frippery should be avoided within and
without, and the purely decorative architect excluded with Miss
McFlimsey. The ground-plan is very simple, blending the cross and the
square. Nave and transept are identical in dimensions, each being
sixty-four by one hundred and ninety-two feet. The four angles formed
by their intersection are nearly filled out by as many sheds forty-eight
feet square. A cupola springs from the centre to a height of ninety feet.
An area of thirty thousand square feet strikes us as a modest allowance
for the adequate display of female industry. For the filling of the vast
cubic space between floor and roof the managers are fain to invoke the
aid of an orchestra of the sterner sex to keep it in a state of chronic
saturation with music.

[Illustration: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING.]
Reciprocity, however, obtains here. The votaries of harmony naturally
seek the patronage of woman. Her territorial empire has accordingly far
overstepped the narrow bounds we have been viewing. The Women's
Centennial Music Hall on Broad street is designed for all the musical
performances connected with the exposition save those forming part of
the opening ceremonies. This is assuming for it a large office, and we
should have expected so bold a calculation to be backed by floor-room
for more than the forty-five hundred hearers the hall is able to seat. A
garden into which it opens will accommodate an additional number,
and may suggest