and diffused a knowledge of the useful arts throughout previously barbaric Europe. The American soldiery are similarly engaged.
From these considerations, the thoughtful reader may naturally be induced to inquire, at this day of immense armaments during profound peace, whether the men thus withdrawn from industrial pursuits, and thus, both directly and indirectly, subtracting from the wealth of the nation, might not most legitimately be expected to contribute in some slight degree by their labour toward the cost of their entertainment? Whether also the health, moral and physical, no less than the efficiency of troops, might not be incalculably advanced thereby?
To any idle assertions to the effect that a soldiery would be demoralised by such toils as have been described in the preceding pages, apart from the undeniable refutation afforded by Roman history, and by the less known American army; it may be replied, that all the great public works in Algeria, the forts, quays, barracks, roads, and bridges, erected within the last thirty years, are due to the genius of the officers and the energy of the men of the army of occupation; and it remains yet to be shown that the French army has in any respect deteriorated in consequence.
BLONDIN.
“Have you seen Blondin?” is a question which the bill-stickers have propounded to the students of mural literature throughout the metropolitan police district, and at every considerable railway station in the kingdom. Well, we have seen Blondin—something of him, that is to say. By the time that these remarks are public property he will, very probably, have performed feats which will put those we saw entirely in the shade. It would not do, you see, to dish up the terrible all at once. The pleasing feat of placing the life of a little child in deadly peril, for example, was in reserve. Horror! For ourselves we desire no second portion. We have seen enough—enough (we are not ashamed to own it) to set our pulses thumping painfully, to send a cold sickening terror crawling along our veins, to make us very glad to look anywhere but at the figure on the rope, when the fascination which rivetted our gaze upon it had a little died away. When this happened, and we looked around, we beheld a more curious spectacle than Blondin will ever present, reflected in the sea of upturned faces that were watching him. Desiring faithfully to represent this performance, we then divided our attention equally between the rope-dancer and his audience, until we could see what was going on above reflected upon the faces below, and observing the performer could tell exactly how each feat was received by the crowd which surrounded us.
From the first, our object had been to observe the effect of this sort of amusement. We, therefore, carefully avoided the two first exhibitions which took place upon special half-crown days, knowing that your special half-crown visitor is of the class which habitually conceals its feelings, and educates its countenance to assume, under all circumstances, the expression of a well-to-do caterpillar of inferior intellect. We, therefore, chose a one-shilling day for our visit to the Crystal Palace, and it so happened that it was the seventh anniversary of its opening. Remembering certain sports and pastimes which certain small but lively children had witnessed there, perched upon our shoulders at Christmas time, and reflecting upon what we were going to see; we could not help moralising a little as we rolled along in the train, upon the career of the famous Sydenham Glass House—the great things it was intended to do, and the small ones which necessity had declared should be done by it instead. Poor Albert Smith’s prophecy, delivered at a time when the wise of the land had made up their minds that Alhambra courts, Pompeian houses, and models from the Vatican were sufficient attractions to fill the building and enrich its proprietors, came to our remembrance, and lo! we were to be present at its fulfilment to the last particular. There had been dancing, there had been catch-penny spectacles, there had been conjurors and fireworks and clowns—and here was the acrobat! And very natural too. The gentlemen who compose the company are speculators who require interest for their money, not philanthropists who devote it to opening a school for the public which the public would not attend.
It is perhaps indispensable that the language of the circus should be used to announce its peculiar feats, otherwise it would be difficult to explain why M. Blondin is styled the “Hero of Niagara,” and his transit from one end of a level rope to the other over the boarded transept of the Crystal Palace be announced as a “great cataract ascension!” Arrangements are now being made for him to perform upon a rope stretched over the fountains in the garden which are to play upon and around him; of course with an object of giving the untravelled British public the best possible idea of the Falls of Niagara!
The rope upon which M. Blondin performs at present is two inches in diameter, and 240 yards long. This is stretched from the level of the hand-rail of the highest gallery in the transept, right across to the other side, and kept from swinging laterally by fifteen pairs of guy-lines, each line having one end secured to the sides of the roof, and the other passing through pulleys attached to the rope and weighted with heavy lumps of lead. The hawser is thus made steady without being rigid, at a height of 170 feet from the ground, and M. Blondin disports himself upon it as though it were as broad and safe as the pavement of Waterloo Place. He walks along it, dances along it, runs along it, throws (what is called but which is not) a somersault upon it, stands upon his head upon it, traverses it blindfold, enveloped in a sack, trots merrily along it with his feet fastened in waste paper baskets, takes a cooking stove upon his back, and having fastened that in the centre of it, cooks an omelette there, which the spectators may eat if they please. The ease and apparent certainty with which all this is done takes off something of the terror which the performer’s situation inspires; but quite enough is left to make the spectacle a most painful and, to many minds, revolting one.
