I want to give you some results of observations of the Exposition made within a fortnight, and of some other observations elsewhere. (I have this Summer travelled in sixteen states and have seen a great variety of people.) Everywhere there is a growing interest in the Exposition. Everywhere I have found indications that people are planning to go to it. In country papers accounts of visits are now appearing adapted to increase the desire to see it. Clergymen who have been to the Fair are referring to it in their sermons and are delivering lectures about it which are reported in these papers. Reports are generally enthusiastically favorable, but nearly always incompletenesses are referred to, favoring the idea that much remains to be done, and that the show will be better later. For this, with various other reasons, people are delaying their visits. It is thought that Chicago is a very hot place in July and August, and that bye and bye the railroads will reduce fares. Farmers are waiting until after harvest, when it is supposed that there will be cheap excursion trains from farming districts. There is everywhere much talk about going to the Fair. On the platform of a small railway station in Kentucky a farmer-looking man asked me: “Been to the Chicago Fair; sir?” “Yes.” “Is it as fine as they tell of?” “Yes; I think so. Are you going to it?” “Reckon I shall have to; seems like everybody round here meant to go, and I don’t suppose I can stay back.” My opinion is [657]that after harvest you will have much greater throngs than at present, and that the number of visitors will go on increasing until the cold weather. It looks to me now as if the chief element of financial success would not be newspaper reports, but a contagious enthusiasm spreading from the earlier visitors through verbal reports, and reports of reports, to their neighbors. People who have gone to the Fair have, in the main, found more than the newspapers, acting on their imaginations, have led them to expect. There is a rising tidal wave of enthusiasm over the land.

There is a reverse under-current, the substance of which is, “Look out, or you will be fleeced unmercifully.” But I hear of no specific charges except with regard to the commissary arrangements. It is said that the restaurants are apt to be crowded; the attendance insufficient, so that much time is lost in waiting, and that the charges are extortionate. This complaint is universal; and stronger than you in Chicago are aware of, I am sure. It comes from rich and poor alike. The effect will be to induce people more and more to bring their food with them, and more and more to scatter papers and offal on the ground. The evil resulting will surely increase, and it is a question whether, here and there, convenient lunching tents or canopies over seats and tables, might not, even now, be prepared, and perhaps provisions made of milk or hot coffee to be sold at low rates, for people who bring their lunches with them. Nothing else is injuring the enterprise now as much as the prevailing reports of the inadequacy and extortion of the purveyors of victuals. I think that I have myself paid ten times as much for lunch at the exposition as I did a few days ago, for an equally good one in Knoxville, Tenn. The frugal farming class yet to come to the Fair will feel this greatly. I am afraid that it is an evil which it is now too late to much palliate.

But there are many things that can quickly, and at small cost, be yet made better than they are, and by the prompt action upon which I am sure that enthusiastically popular admiration of the arrangements will be developed and propagated, with the result of drawing increasing numbers. I think that I have heard more people, strangers to me, speak of their enjoyment of the outside of the Fair—the waters, the buildings, the groupings of foliage with the water and the buildings, and so on, than of the interior exhibits. But I know, that with respect to our landscape department, all shore-foliage being extremely backward because of the coldness of the water, the attraction of the Exposition exteriorally must be seen increasing very greatly, and will continue to increase until Fall comes.

I intend this letter to be one chiefly of fault-finding, wishing to call attention to such defects as I have referred to, yet possible to be speedily, and at small outlay, made less; and by the lessening of which, popular enthusiasm will be increased, and more glowing reports spread abroad. This is the advertising now most important to be developed; that of high-strung, contagious enthusiasm, growing from actual excellence; the question being, not whether people shall be satisfied, but how much they shall be carried away with [658]admiration, and infect others by their unexpected enjoyment of what they found. What bars are there to this result? I propose to contribute to the answering of this question.

WALKS AND PROMENADES. There is not a square rod of admirable, hardly one of passable, gravel-walk in all of the Exposition Ground.

It appears probable to me that neither the contractor, nor the inspector, whose business it is to keep the contractor up to his duty, can ever have seen a decently good gravel walk, or that they have any idea of what good gravel walks are. What are the defects of your walks? In some places there are cobbles or small boulders protruding from the surface, upon which no lady, with Summer shoes, can step without pain. In other places, the surface material is such that when damp enough to make it coherent it becomes slimy, and thus unpleasant to walk upon; also, without care, the slime is apt to smear shoes and dresses, which materially lessens the comfort of ladies. Before it was laid, the surface material should have been screened of dust and dirt, and of all particles of stone smaller than a pinhead and larger than a pea. It should be nightly water-soaked, rolled and gently swept. No dent or knob should be perceptible in it, except upon close examination. For all that would appear to a man walking upon it, it should be as even and clean as a drawing room floor. With the material the contractor is using (and which he may, for want of better near Chicago, be compelled to use) you cannot expect the walks in general to be brought to such a condition; but they ought, everywhere, to be much better than they are, and on the terraces, they ought, at any necessary cost, to be made really good. The present condition of the terraces seems to me almost disgraceful. On an ordinary English place, the gardener who suffered any walk to get into such a condition as generally obtains on the terrace walks would earn his prompt discharge. Why, now, in Chicago, for the terraces, is a much lower standard necessary? I do not believe there is one square foot of the thronged miles of public walk at Kew, near London, or in the walks of the great Luxembourg playground, in Paris, or in hundreds of private grounds in New England, that does not offer a finer footing every evening than the very best square foot to be found, even early in the morning, anywhere on the so-called gravel walks of the Exposition. So-called, I say, because these walks are not really gravel walks. There is less gravel in them than in the common public roads in our part of the country. They are largely composed of pebbles and boulders and the materials of mud.

LITTER. More strenuous and active means should be taken to prevent the scattering, and to insure the quick collection, of paper and other litter and rubbish. Twice the force now employed for the latter purpose, I should judge to be wanted. I have found that on the Capitol Grounds, at Washington, in which there is little or no throwing down of lunch papers, the constant employment of one active man to 40 acres insufficient for the picking up of papers, envelopes and light litter dropped by people passing through them.

I have seen papers that had been apparently swept off the terraces [659]upon the shrubbery between them and the lagoons. Such a shirking trick in a workman employed to keep the terraces clean should be a criminal offence.

The screeching of steamboats within and near the Exposition remains an abominable and as far as I can see, inexcusable nuisance. That is to say, I do not believe that to comply with the law, or to insure safety, half or quarter the hideous noise they make is necessary. If I am wrong, then, surely, the contract for these boats should be broken. No return the contract can possibly make will compensate for the injury of this noise to the Exposition. The boats, are cheap, graceless, clumsy affairs, as much out of place in what people are calling the “Court of Honor” of the Exposition as a cow in a flower garden.

Awnings.—With deference to you, to Mr. Atwood and Mr. Millet, I cannot help thinking that colored drapery, shadowing portions of floors and stairways of terraces, is greatly wanted. This especially on the Main Court. We should never have designed these terraces without making provision for large bodies of foliage upon them if we had not expected that they would be much covered with colored awnings.

I think also, as I wrote a year ago, that there should be large numbers of seats under awnings in various parts of the grounds. Heat and fatigue are the most dangerous enemies against which public enthusiasm has to be battled for.

More incidents of vital human gaiety wanted. Expression of the crowd too business like, common, dull, anxious and care-worn.

The Exposition greatly needs more appearance of impromptu and volunteer aids to personal cheerfulness, and to social incident within its crowds. There is too much appearance of an impatient and tired doing of sight-seeing duty. A stent to be got through before it is time to go home. The crowd has a melancholy air in this respect, and strenuous measures should be taken to overcome it. This cannot be done by processions and concerts, or any kind of stated or programmed entertainments. All these will be good in their way. The present concerts are capital in their way. But as to what I speak of, minor incidents are wanted of a less evidently prepared character; less formal, more apparently spontaneous and incidental. Matters that seem to be a part of the crowd; or, at least, to go for themselves. Small parties of singers to come within hearing, as it were, accidentally. Such parties afloat or ashore. (Consider the effect of those singing Russians we saw in the boat with other boats gathering and moving about with them). Parties of merry-making masqueraders, running in and out. Parties of children singing. A squad of banjo players moving about—not rowdy, clownish, imitation niggers, but such parties as one may see at night on college greens; young fellows, well dressed and refined. Trumpet or French horn players moving from point to point on the island. Even, as Mr. Millet suggested, the sound of a drum and fife coming occasionally across the water, would help to the end. But incidents within the crowds, unexpected and apparently unprepared, are chiefly wanted. Why not skipping and dancing masqueraders with tambourines, such as one sees in Italy? Even lemonade peddlers would help if moving about in picturesque dresses; or cake-sellers, [660]appearing as cooks, with flat caps, and in spotless white from top to toe. There should be more music on the boats; music of bugles or of fiddles or of singers. And there should be more Chinese lanterns on the boats and on and under the bridges.

On Festa nights, when the Midway must be nearly deserted by visitors, and trade dull, could not several of the many varieties of “heathen,” black, white and yellow, be cheaply hired to mingle, unobtrusively, but in full native costume, with the crowd on the Main Court? They would at least give spice and variety to the scene, and a picturesque element. Could not the Esquimo and the Indian; could not sailors and soldiers in uniform, be turned to account in this way? Hundreds of thousands coming to the Exposition have never seen a properly dressed seaman.

WATER CLOSETS. I did not look into enough of the numerous water closets of the Exposition to justify a confident expression of opinion of the manner in which they are conducted. But what I saw led me toward the opinion that they need much more careful supervision than they have had. It is plain that the interest of the contractors is not identical with the interest of the managers of the Exposition. I do not think that it is commonly recognized, or that the contractors wish that it should be recognized, that there are free closets in connection with the pay closets, and doubt if the free closets are receiving the attention that is needed to keep them as clean as they should be. I did not, of course, visit any of the closets for women, but I was informed, that, at least, in some cases, they were not kept as they should be. I do not know what your arrangements for the inspection of the women’s closets may be. They certainly should be visited at frequent and irregular intervals by a female inspector, who would have a high standard, and be firm and resolute in insisting that this standard should be maintained.

I think that the signs lately prepared to direct people to water closets are of a somewhat more obtrusive character than they need to be, being rather advertisements than notifications. I think also, that the contractors wished to have them displayed in places and in a manner more conspicuous, and more disturbing to the suavities of the Fair, than is necessary to their purpose, satisfactory to the public taste or favorable to good report. If the suggestion of Mr. Millet to be made below is adopted, a smaller number than has been prepared of signs specially directing people to water closets will be sufficient, and none need to be so placed as to disturb contemplation of the finer passages of scenery.

Mr. Millet’s proposition is that a large number of bulletin posts should be placed on the grounds, one, for example, in a central position, wherever walks come together at such an angle that a suitable place will be found for the purpose. At least a hundred, altogether; perhaps two hundred. The bulletin posts to present four faces, each two feet wide and seven feet high. (Three sided and eight feet high, would be better for some situations; perhaps generally). [661]One side would contain a map; the other two would be occupied by posters, the contents of which might be as follows:——

GUIDING INFORMATION.

A map of the Exposition Ground will be found on the adjoining panel to the right. The place of this bulletin post is indicated upon the map by a red star.

GUARDS. 1,500 guards in uniform are distributed throughout the grounds so that no visitor need go far in search of one. Any guard, will, upon request, aid visitors in finding their way to desired points. The arrow over this post points to the north. The lake is on the east of the Exposition.

WATER CLOSET AND TOILET ROOMS. Clusters of toilet rooms and water closets for men, and others for women are to be found in each of the Exposition Buildings. The nearest one to this point is  . In each cluster (except that of the Art Building) there is one division of closets for the use of which no charge is made, and another for entrance to which cents is to be paid. This payment buys the use of a lavatory, and of soap, towels and service of an attendant. For repair of accidents, the use of pins, needle and thread, and a clothes brush, and temporarily in case of illness, of a lounge, are also to be had by request of the attendant.

IN CASE OF SUDDEN ILLNESS OR INJURY, a fully equipped hospital with physicians, nurses, medicines and surgical appliances is provided on the Exposition Ground. Also a special carriage (ambulance) for the removal to the hospital of any needing medical aid. There are numerous signal stations from which, in case of illness or accident, a guard will summon the ambulance, and if necessary, a physician.

REFRESHMENTS. Sterilized water for drinking is supplied without charge at stands for the purpose, at numerous points. Failing to see one apply to a guard. “Waukeshaw water” is supplied at numerous pavilions at a charge of one cent per glass. This is regarded as wholesome water in its natural state, and is brought by pipes from a spring   miles distant from the city.

Mineral waters and other refreshing drinks are supplied at numerous pavilions, on the grounds and in the buildings, at moderate charges. There are also numerous pavilions for the sale of fruit. To find the nearest of any of these places, inquire of a guard.

Restaurants of different classes are widely distributed. To find the nearest apply to a guard. Clams in the New England manner are supplied at a house north of the United States Government Building. Fish at the Marine [662]Cafe, northwest of the Fisheries Building. There are several tea, cocoa, and chocolate houses on the grounds.

USE OF LAGOONS AND CANALS. There are fifty electric launches plying on the lagoons and canals, each fitted to carry passengers. There are   landings, at each of which one of them calls every few minutes. The charge for a round trip,   miles in length, is fifty cents each passenger. Electric boats may also be exclusively engaged for parties. For further information about these boats, see signs, or inquire at ticket office, at landings. To find nearest landing, ask a guard.

There are   large gondolas for boating purposes, each adapted to carry a party of ______ persons, and of a smaller class, carrying each   passengers. These boats have been built and equipped in Venice for the Exposition, and are true copies of those used in the 16th century, before the law was passed restricting ornament, and requiring all to be in black. They are manned by skilled gondoliers coming from Venice. The charges for gondolas are as follows:—

WHEEL CHAIRS. There are   stands at which wheel chairs can be obtained. To find one inquire of a guard. Rates:-

GUIDES. (Here insert statement about guides, with rates).

INTRA MURAL RAILWAY.	Time Tables,
SLIDING RAILWAY.	Rates &c.
MOVING SIDEWALK.

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I would like to have the above draft submitted to Mr. Millet, as a suggestion to be amended, modified and resubmitted to you, with such additional advice to visitors as he may see occasion for and may collate with the aid of Mr. Sturgis, in consulting Captain Symonds and others.

Suppose that the bulletin boards are to be three-sided, I should hope all the above could be legibly posted on one side, a map on another and the current programs on the third.

Very Truly Yours