None the less, whatever may be the unwelcome aftermath—and therearecertain to be some bitter dregs for the private drinking of the directors—the Fait is, in the judgment of all but an occasional somewhat soured visitor, a colossal success, No description can do more than justice to the beauty of the architectural and landscape effects within the grounds or to the bewildering profusion of features of unique and special attraction, especially of rare historical or ethnological interest.
THE WORLD IN MINIATURE, These latter are what constitute the peculiar fascination of that perhaps undignified but none the less irresistible "annexe," the Midway Plaisance. Never in the history of the world—which is to say not even at the Paris Exposition—has there been seen 80 kaleidoscopic a jumble of savage and civilised races as are here paraded for the delectation of the ronilering spectator, As soon as one turns into the broad boule-yard in question, the cosmopolitan charaeter of the throng thrusts itself upon his attention—the Piazza di San Marco on a summer's night is nothing to it. All sorts of curious rencontres delight one's attention from the outset. As I turned into the Plaisance the other day I was struck by the figure ofa Chinesecoolie who might have stepped off the Shanghai Bund an hour Ener attitude—hands behind his back, previously. He was standing in the
month wide open, and staring with a fixed ud fishy' glare at the gaudily dressed female who officiated as ticket-seller at the Algerian Cafe, and who sat perhaps four feet away from him. Disgust and contempt were written in the familiar handwriting of his open countenance. Suddenly from the doorway behind her there emerged an unmistakeable child of the desert, a fine figure of a man, tall, dark and' fierce of countenance, in striking costume and with a bristling fringe of swords and daggers arrayed picturesquely about his middle. He confronted the obtrusive Chinaman with a look disdainful and menacing enough to have routed him in confusion on the spot. But the Celestial gaze merely shifted little to the face of the new-comer and transfixed the owner of the cutlery with an imperturbable and stolid stare that would fare done credit to a stone Buddha, They looked one another down for a half a minute thus—but the Chinaman won by large odds. When satisfied he elevated his nose " few degrees higher, as if tu dismiss so unpleasing a subject, and moved slowly on to where he could command a point-blank view of the sellers in the French Bazaar.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.