‘Ion’ [George Jacob Holyoake], ‘Progress of the People: The Workman and the Exhibition’, The Leader (1851)

The relation of the workman to the Exhibition has been incidentally discussed in the article by G. J. H., entitled “The Birmingham Man at the Crystal Palace;” it admits, however, of a fuller development. The cry against the Exhibition as an injury to trade will, probably, prove to have been premature. While curiosity was whetting itself, orders were dull, and, exhausted by the unusual task of such sight-seeing as the banks of the Serpentine now afford, it has been impossible for the visitors to attend theatres or feel any great relish for public amusements. Lord John Russell, with a healthy anxiety to feel what wretches feel, once passed one night in Pentonville Model Prison, and he rose next morning a slightly wiser man; but had he wanted to know the whole truth, he should have got transported for fourteen years, or for life, and his first night there, then, would have been far more instructive to him.