“The approaches to the Palace were very much crowded as we proceeded there about eleven o’clock. The thickly-studded drinking-shops were flaunting in their intemperate seductions. The various shows of monsters, mountebanks, and animals, numerous as the jubilee-days of the Champs Élysées, opened wide their attractions to simple folk. Little speculators in meats, fruits, and drinks had their tables and stalls _al fresco_. A rush and whirl of omnibuses, coaches, and pedestrians encircled the place. But amid all this was plainly discernable the excellent provisions of the police to maintain order. The entrances to the Palace were kept clear, and no disturbance manifested itself through the day. Different colored tickets admitted the visitors at three different sides of the Palace, the fourth closing up against the giant Croton Water Reservoir. “There were two platforms partially under the dome, the centre point under which being occupied by Baron Marochetti’s exceedingly absurd statue of Washington, with Carew’s indescribably absurd statue of Webster--the worst calumny on that great man ever yet perpetrated, or that can be perpetrated--standing behind it. One of these platforms was toward Forty-second Street, or the north nave; the other toward the Croton Water Reservoir, on the east nave. According to the programme, they were filled by the following classes of persons: ON NORTH NAVE PLATFORM. General Franklin Pierce, President of the United States. MEMBERS OF THE CABINET. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War. James Guthrie, Secretary of the Treasury. Caleb Cushing, Attorney-General. SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. Salmon P. Chase, U. S. Senator from Ohio. Richard Brodhead, Jr., U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania. OFFICERS OF THE ARMY. Major-General Winfield Scott, Commander-in-Chief. Major-General John E. Wool, and a few others. OFFICERS OF THE NAVY. Commodore James Stewart. Commodore Boorman, of the Navy Yard. There were several other naval and military officers present, but their names are not recollected. GOVERNORS OF VARIOUS STATES. Horatio Seymour, Governor of the State of New York. George F. Fort, Governor of the State of New Jersey. Howell Cobb, Governor of the State of Georgia. THE CLERGY. Rt. Rev. Jonathan M. Wainright, D. D., Provisional Bishop of New York. Most Rev. John Hughes, D. D., Archbishop of New York. Rt. Rev. Henry J. Whitehouse, D. D., Bishop of Illinois. Gardiner Spring, D.D., William Adams, D.D., and others. THE JUDICIARY. Judge Betts, Judge Edmonds, Judge Oakley, Judge Roosevelt, Judge Sandford, Judge Emmett, etc. MILITARY, ETC. Major-General Sandford, Brigadier-General Hall, Brigadier-General Morris, with the Staff of the Major-General. FOREIGN COMMISSIONERS.