There is going to be a mess made of this
Paris Exhibition. Napo- leon, finding that his spectacle will cost 1,500,000/., owing to some heavy jobbing, has ordered that each nation shall pay part of its own expenses. So the House of Commons, which expected to pay about 40,000/., finds itself let in for 116,0001., and will have to pay about 40,000/. more. Naturally the House is savage. sail but for Mr. Gladstone's help, poor Mr. Hunt, who has to ask for the money, and who naturally does not want to scold the Emperor, would hardly have' got his vote. He obtained it, however, on Wednesday, and now there is a new trouble on hand. The "big gasometer," as the Emperor himself calls it, is constructed as if on purpose to burn the wonderful mass of treasure it will contain, the insurance offices fight shy of it, and some great exhibitors are frightened. The danger seems to be of the gravest kind, so grave as to afford a hope that its very imminence will make the authori- ties as careful as they are in a powder magazine. Lights, cigars, and hobnailed shoes ought all to be equally and absolutely for- bidden.
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