It was some time before “the shilling folk” could be got to see these things, and therefore they did not go down in a body, and besiege the doors of the Crystal Palace, clamouring for admission all of them together, immediately the price was brought within their means. Gradually, however, they have come to see the true uses of the Great Show, and they now attend in almost the same vast concourses as the sanguine Executive Committee were led to believe they would on the first day. The consequence is, that the groups within the building have already assumed a very picturesque appearance. To those who have watched the character of the visitors since the opening—the change in the dresses, manners, and objects of the sight-seers has been most marked and peculiar. The alteration, too, has been almost as striking outside the building as it has in the interior. For the first week or two, the road within a mile of the “Glass Hive” was blocked with carriages. From the Prince of Wales’ Gate to Apsley House there stretched one long line of cabs, omnibusses, carriages, “broughams,” “flies,” now moving for a few minutes, and now stopping for double the time, while the impatient visitors within let down the blinds and thrust their heads out to see how far the line extended. At every intersecting thoroughfare stood clusters of busy policemen, seizing horses by the reins, and detaining the vehicles till the cross current had in a measure ceased. And here might be seen persons threading between the blocked carriages, and bobbing beneath the horses’ heads, in order to pass from one side of the road to the other. To seek to pass through the Park gates was about as dangerous an experiment as “shooting” the centre arch of “Old London Bridge.” _Then_ the journey to and from the Great Exhibition consumed some hours of the day, but now there is scarcely a carriage or a Hansom cab to be seen. The great stream of carriage visitors has ceased (except on the more expensive days), and the ebb and flood of pedestrians set. The “southern entrance” is no longer beset with broughams, but gathered round it are groups of gazers, too poor or too “prudent” to pay for admission within. The public-houses along the road are now filled to overflowing, for outside them are ranged long benches, on which sit visitors in their holiday attire, resting on their way. Almost all the pedestrians, too, have baskets on their arms, evidently filled with the day’s store of provisions. The ladies are all “got up” in their brightest-coloured bonnets and polkas, and as they haste along, they “step out” till their faces are seen to glow again with their eagerness to get to the Grand Show; while the gentlemen in green or brown felt “wide-awakes,” or fluffy beaver hats, and with the cuffs of their best coats, and the bottoms of their best trowsers turned up, are marching heavily on—some with babies in their arms, others with baskets, and others carrying corpulent cotton umbrellas.