12
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
But apart from these two minor considerations, which unquestionably had a considerable effect in diminishing the number of visitors after the month of May, there was another and far more fundamental fact which the Austrian authorities lost sight of in planning their enterprise, and which their experience should warn us not to disregard. There is excellent reason to believe that their experiment was upon a scale altogether too large for its base and surroundings. In other words, it is very questionable whether an exposition of the superlative grandeur of that of Vienna can ever be successfully undertaken in any city of the second class. There are two cities,—London and Paris,—sufficiently large and sufficiently central to sustain a world’s fair on the largest scale;—it is very doubtful if there are more than two. At least one-half probably of those who enter the doors of an international exposition belong to the population of the city in which it is held. That population must always constitute the great basis of attendance. In this respect no other cities at all approach London or Paris, and through them also passes the whole world which travels, whether for business or pleasure. It is not so with Vienna, and it is less so yet with Philadelphia. With neither of these cities are strangers familiar. They will, indeed, go to them if drawn there by sufficient attraction, but they cannot be induced to remain in them. This fact was singularly illustrated during the Exposition. The capital of the Austrian Empire certainly has the reputation of being a gay, a brilliant, an interesting and not a peculiarly severe or virtuous city. Nevertheless, even during the last summer, it was found impossible to keep the throng of travellers there for any length of time. It was most noticeable that numbers continually arrived with the expressed intention of passing weeks in the study of the Exposition, as had been so much the practice among strangers, both in London in 1862 and at Paris in 1867. Almost invariably, however, the stay of such persons was limited to two or perhaps three days. They seemed to weary of the place, and of the Exposition even more than of the place. The latter oppressed them, and Vienna failed to attract them;—they were neither amused nor instructed nor comfortable. They soon realized that they were getting very little enjoyment in return for a very heavy expenditure,
53BSB