He was the godfather of the edifice, having originally invented and conferred upon it the title of the Crystal Palace; but he should leave to his friend the Archbishop the entire solemnities of the day, including an announcement which Dr. Sumner had most kindly undertaken to make, namely, that at the special instance of the Queen, arrangements would be at once effected for opening the Palace on Sundays. Fact is tempered with fancy in this account, as well as in his optimistic report of the meeting of Crystal Palace shareholders; it characterizes, too, the series of humorous handbooks to the Crystal Palace, which appeared in the pages of _Punch_ in the following months. But we find in the remarks put into the mouth of Mr. Laing, the chairman, a very good summary of his own views:-- On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves--all mutually sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace--than that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses. The subsequent history of the Crystal Palace hardly fulfilled _Punch's_ sanguine expectations of its future as a great people's playground and school. Intermittently it fulfilled this function, but as an educational institution it served the needs of the suburban residents rather than those of the great public; its entertainments were in the main supported by the patronage of the middle and well-to-do classes. As years went on the Crystal Palace, owing to its distance from London, suffered seriously from the competition of the series of exhibitions at Earl's Court. Yet one who is old enough, as the present writer is, to remember visits in his school days in the early 'seventies--recurrent Handel festivals from the days when Costa was conductor and Patti was in her golden prime; flower and dog and cat shows; the glory of the rhododendron shrubberies; pantomimes and firework displays; and, above all, the admirable Saturday concerts, which drew musical London for some forty years--such a one, and there must be many like him, will always look back on the Crystal Palace with grateful affection, and hold in reverence the names of Paxton and Ferguson, George Grove and August Manns, and many other good men and true who laboured to realize _Punch's_ ideal. CHARTISM [Sidenote: _The Fight for Cheap Bread_] [Illustration: NOT SO VERY UNREASONABLE! EH? JOHN: "My Mistress says she hopes you won't call a meeting of her creditors; but if you will leave your Bill in the usual way, it shall be properly attended to."]