A VIEW IN MIDWAY PLAISANCE.—A city in itself was the Midway, picturesque certainly, and educational as well, however meretricious some of its droll features. It was the playground of the multitude and they learned much while they ate, drank, stared and were merry. The view above presented is from a point about the center of the west half of the Plaisance and a little west of the Ferris Wheel. On the right appear the fronts of Old Vienna and on the left the entrance to the Chinese Village and Theatre, the difference in styles of architecture affording a striking contrast. Still further on the left rises the front of the panorama of the volcano of Kilaueau, and in the remote distance may be dimly perceived the domes of the great buildings of the Exposition proper. The particular locality represented in this illustration was one exceedingly popular with visitors, and the number of people appearing in the broad thoroughfare at the time the photograph was taken is by no means up to the standard of crowded days at the Fair. The three or four attractions here grouped together always commanded their laughing great constituency. From Pekin to Vienna is a far cry, and from thence into space on the wings of an American inventor is another remarkable bit of travel, but hundreds of thousands of people made the journey within the limit of an hour or so. The view, it need not be said to the observer, is an admirable one, the familiar fronts being reproduced with a fidelity which speaks for itself.
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STATUE OF THE REPUBLIC.—The one figure intended to be symbolical and representative of the Fair, as a whole, was the gigantic statue of The Republic, at the eastern end of the waterway in the Court of Honor. A figure, the total height of which from the water was one hundred feet, it stood, grand, majestic and kindly, a fitting idealization of the nation, the world’s hostess for the time. The statue proper was sixty-five feet in height above the massive pedestal and was the largest ever made in America. It was modeled after the Phidian style, with simple, flowing garments, the bust covered with an armored shield and arms upraised, one hand upholding a globe upon which was perched an eagle, indicative of America’s invitation to the world; the other sustaining a staff surmounted by a liberty cap. The arms were bare, the hair was arranged after the Grecian fashion and the head was crowned with laurel. The distance from the chin to the top of the head was fifteen feet, and the arms were thirty feet long. The interior of the statue was ascended by a stairway, and the man who attended to the electric light, by which the crown was illuminated, climbed up a ladder through the neck. The magnificent figure was gilded and was a striking object in its commanding position. It became popularly known as “The Golden Statue.”
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