the next it International Ex-ion, as it is called in Europe, or, World's Fair, as American writers, with a laudable -preference for the Saxon element in our language, rather call it, is to be held at Chicago and not at New York, is a very remarkable decision. There were obviously good reasons for holding the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 at Philadelphia. That Exhibition commemorated the expiry of a hundred years from the date of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States, and as that event took place at Philadel-phi it was quite fitting that it should commemorated there, nor could New York make any effective remonstrance to the suggestion. But the coming Exhibition is to commemorate the expiry of four hundred years from the date of the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and there is nothing in the nature of things to recommend its being held at a town which is hardly older then the foreign settlement of Shanghai, and which is about a thousand miles) from the seaboard. It seems to go without saying that a great national or international exhibition should be held at the capital of the country giving it, and up to to-day, while Washington has been the political capital of the United States, New York has been recognised unquestionably as the Empire City of the Union. Even Bishop Berkeley would never have dreamed that before the end of the nineteenth century we should see such a striking illustration of his prophecy that "Westward the course of empire takes its way."
The vast majority of the visitors to any great exhibition, national or international, must necessarily the people of the country in which it is held. Even at Paris last year, though the French are not a travelling; pleas the Americans ae, and though aris is the city in all Europe, even in all the world, most visited by strangers, the great. patrons of its exhibition were the French themselves. Under this consideration the U.S. Con, has done well to place the new World's Fair considerably more to the westward than the last one was. Even yet foreigners hardly realise how far to the westward of the Atlantic the centre of population has moved in the United States. New York is in longitude 74° West, and in 1790 the centre of population in the United States was in longitude 76°, or only two degrees westward of New York. The centre has been moving westward at the rate of between four and miles a year in the hundred years that have elapsed since 1790, and in 1880, the date of the last census it was in longitude 84°40' west, while the longitude of Chicago is 87°40'; so that the centre was in 1880 10°. 40' from New York and only 3° from Chicago, and the census to be taken this year will undoubtedly shew that has driven the Republican party still more favourably to Chicago. But into proposing a large expenditure this is only one consideration. It has' on the construction of ships of war. Jong been objected to New York by Against this Western indifference is writers at rival capitals, that it is not! working the desire of American manu-an American city at all, that it is a' facturers to take a firmer position on sort of cosmopolitan congeries in no' foreign markets, and' here they carnot sense representative of the great Am- afford to ignore New York, which will erican idea, and inspired by but luke- always represent to foreigners the warm patriotism. 'The old story of capital of the United States They, at the public meeting that was hield at' least, if they come to the States of. all the time of the Rebellion to urge to see the Exhibition, will find ita little the government to a more vigorous difficult to understand why it is held Prosecution ahs war, in hich after mon country form tu stead of at the a German, an Irishman, and a Jew chief city of the Union. successively addressed the audience, a! native American asked to be allowed to say a few words, and was howled
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.