8
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
tion to perform that service. Before it could be made so, even through the most energetic telegraphing and correspondence, the occasion, fortunately for it, had passed away. While I was anxiously looking for the arrival of my several associates, the appointment of Mr. Jackson S. Schultz as United States commissioner, in "place of Gen. Yan Buren, was announced, and at once solved the difficulty.
In regard to the scandals and difficulties which gave such an unenviable notoriety to the American department during this period of the Exposition, neither my associates nor myself at the time or since have found it necessary to express, or indeed to form, any opinion. It was painfully evident that the mismanagement had been complete from the beginning forward. It required no investigation to make that fact patent to any one. As to who was responsible for this result, or the motives which actuated them, these were subjects which it was wholly unnecessary for us to pass upon. After the arrival of Mr. Schultz, therefore, it only remained for us to consider maturely why we had been sent to Vienna, and, having arrived at some definite conclusions upon that subject, to devote ourselves to the work before us.
Mr. Millett returned from Antwerp, and reported himself as ready to assume his duties as secretary on the 7th of May. Mr. Hill arrived upon the 11th of the same month. It was not until the 24th of May that Mr. Knight found himself able to reach Vienna, and his engagements in America were such that he was unable to remain Jhere after the 26th of June. Consequently the commission was deprived after that time of his assistance, and was practically reduced to Mr. Hill, Mr. Millett and myself. An office was secured and opened on the 16th of May; from which time until the 8th of October one or more of the commissioners was in constant attendance at it. It was then finally closed by Mr. Millett, and all its documents and records forwarded to America. I had previously left Vienna on the 10th of August, and Mr. Hill had followed on the 1st of September. Altogether the office was open and the commissioners were in Vienna during five months of the Exposition, which lasted in all but six months.
I do not propose to enter into any general, historical, descriptive or statistical report of the Vienna Exposition. Upon