File:An authentic account of the Chinese commission, which was sent to report on the Great Exhibition - wherein the opinion of China is shown as not corresponding at all with our own (1851) (14595470407).jpg

Identifier: authenticaccount00edwa (find matches)
Title: An authentic account of the Chinese commission, which was sent to report on the Great Exhibition : wherein the opinion of China is shown as not corresponding at all with our own
Year: 1851 (1850s)
Authors: Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland), 1828-1906 Vizetelly, Henry, 1820-1894
Subjects: Great Exhibition (1851 : London, England) Chinese Intercultural communication
Publisher: (London) : Printed at 15 and 16, Gough Square, by H. Vizetelly, and sold by him there ...
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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Text Appearing Before Image:
For transmitting in no time a great deal of news;
And, although it proceeds from a barbarous clime,
If you did introduce it, you perhaps would save time."

" Enough!" said the Emperor, " now Congou can tell
If he saw aught abroad which he liked half as well."

THE REPORT OF OLD CONGOU, IN WHICH HE EXPLAINS
THAT THE ENGLISH ARE RATHER DEFICIENT IN BRAINS.

" My opinion," said Congou, " is quickly expressed ;
You will soon hear which country I think is the best.
The organs and pianos, which made such a noise,
Compared with our tam-tams, are nothing but toys.
Excepting the objects from China, in short,
There was nothing worth naming in any report.
Their ' palace ' is built like a hot-house, Im told,
Because they have summers so dreadfully cold.
Then the plan of the building is truly absurd—
This is not my opinion alone, for Ive heard,
Erom natives of France, Italy, Germany, Spain,
That they could have made it as handsome again.
And, in England itself, the best men in the land
Say the whole is a scheme they cant understand]
Text Appearing After Image:

THE OPENING, IN SHORT, WAS AS DULL AS COULD BE;
THERE WAS NO EXECUTION WHATEVER TO SEE.

THE CHINESE COMMISSION. 31

There's Sibthorpe the Colonel, and Laurie the Knight,
Who opposed the concern from the choice of a site
To the very last day; and, een now, they declare
That a famine or plague may still end the affair.
And then, when the building was opened, a blunder
Was committed, at which our great sovereign will wonder—
For when the barbarians saw their Queen pass,
As she went through the Park to the Palace of Glass,
They shouted and screamed in so noisy a way,
That in China a man who awoke the next day,
And discovered his shoulders still carried a head,
Would have sworn that all justice and law must be dead.
But then they ve a Sovereign with such a faint heart,
That although there was uproar in every part—
Though the streets in all places with rabble were filled,
She sentenced not one of the lot tobe killed.
The opening, in short, was as dull as could be;
There was no execution whatever to see

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