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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 32, 6 February 1862, Page 6 (Supplement)

Millions of bricks, and tons of mortar, and square miles of glsas, and waggons of iron girders, and forests of timber, —these are the rude and the raw materials which now make what is little more than the bare skeleton of the great Exhibition building. The finished structure will grow into a fairy fabric. We shall in a few months bo called upon to contemplate domes wider than those of the Pantheon and the Baths of Carscalla, higher than the Cathedral in Florence or St. Paul’s in London picture-halls as long as the grand gallery in the Louvre ; platforms and wide passages for ceremonials and processions ; corridors and cloisters adorned with Florentine mosaics, terra-cottas, and decorative sculpture. The grand nave of the International Exhibition will be 100 feet in height and 800 feet in length. But the principal architectural feat ure of the building will be the domes. “ The domes,” says the printed semi-official statement, “ will be of glass, with an outer and inner gallery. It has been proposed to erect one of Messrs. Chance’s dioptric lights at the top of one of them, and to illumine it at night.” Concerning one department of the arrangements, we are glad to learn there can be but little apprehension. Whatever may be the quality of the food provided for the intellectual appetite, it is at least some consolation to know that “ creature comforts” will not be neglected. The following bill of fare is taken from the semi-official document:—“ The refreshment halls and arcades will be permanent buildings, and will present novel and striking features. They overlook with a north aspect the whole of Royal Horticultural Gardens, with its arcades, fountains, &c. They will be cool, but with a sunny view. The halls will be 300 feet long and 75 feet in width. All kinds of refreshments, both light and solid, will be supplied. The visitor will be able to obtain—in the morning, a dejeuner a la fourcliette ; at luncheon, Neapolitan ices Bass’s ale and bread and cheese; at dinner, English roast beef and plum-pudding, or the latest inventions in cooking from Paris, with samples of the wines of all nations. At the close of the exhibition they will become the most delightful dining-halls in the metropolis, supplying a great public want in this respect.” A ship ought not to be fixed by a single anchor nor life upon a single hope. Am elderly female, on being examined before the magistrates of Bungay, as to her place of legal settlement, was asked what reasons she had for supposing that her deceased husband’s settlement was at St. Andrew’s. The old lady, looking earnestly at the bench, said, “He was bom there, married there, died and was buried there ; and if that is’nt settling him there, I don’t know what is.”