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    nor worse , and indeed that seems to be a matter incapable of being carried to perfection ; the local arrangement was certainly more intelligible , and the arrangements for the display and working of machinery were infinitely superior . In asserting this * we seek to do no more than support the old truism , " experientia docet ; " we have no doubt at all that , when we have another Exhibition at home , it will manifest a still further advance , and it is but fair to our countrymen to record that the last improvement mentioned ( namely , the better arrangements for the machinery ) was entirely due to the mechanical genius of one of our own most eminent machinists . We wish that we could state that our own Exhibitors had manifested , in all respects , the same tendency to advance ; but we cannot : in some particular instances the very contrary was the fact . Take , for instance , the Silk Manufactures . In the " Reports of the Juries ¦ " for the Great Exhibition of 1851 , we find the Silk Jury lamenting the absence of sufficient illustrations of tlie preparatory processes , accompanied by an admission that France alone had paid attention to the matter . What is the result ? Why , we find that the French supplied no less than one hundred and seventy Exhibitors to illustrate the preparatory processes , and'Great Britain and Ireland only two . This brings us to another important consideration : the backwardness which the traders of England displayed in responding to the call of the French Government . Although , in most cases , probably some of « the best men in each branch of trade came forward , there can be no doubt that we were not sufficiently represented , either as to number or variety . In . seeking out the causes of this , we must remember the natural jealousy with which the English manufacturers regard any interference with the private course of business . They have an independent and , in some respects , an admirable detestation both of patronage and of interference . This feeling , however , is apt to be carried into extremes . The Society of Arts found it a powerful opponent whilst getting up the Exhibition of 1851 , and it was found necessary to take the Prince Consort through the manufacturing districts , to make a full use of his courtly influence , before the leading manufacturers could be persuaded to join heartily in the undertaking . But deeper influences were at work to the detriment of the French Exposition , and , without going very far a-field , we shall briefly refer to two of them . In the first place , there prevails throughout this country a very considerable and extraordinary ignorance respecting the inner condition of France and the true character of the French nation , and to this must be attributed a notion which was commonly entertained when the prospectus of the Exposition was issued , that valuable property would not be safe in the heart of Paris . It was believed , in fact , that in the event of a popular disturbance , the Exhibition Building would immediately be sacked , and its contents distributed among the mob . We need scarcely tell our readers that a more unjust and erroneous notion -could not have been invented ; that popular ententes in Paris are never attended by plunder ( unless the burning of some old furniture in the Tuileries is to be so considered ); that these events are really conducted by the very persons whose object it is to prevent plunder , and always with the connivance of the armed force ; and finally , that Paris itself is a vast emporium of wealth aud treasure , in the midst of which even the contents of the Palais de l'Industrie offer no very special temptation;—all these facts are perfectly familiar to our readers ; but it is sufficient to know that the contrary was believed , and that the belief exercised an influence in deterring persons from exhibiting . Another cause of the unwillingness manifested by the English manufacturers arose from the fiscal arrangements luow existing between this country and France ; and here we entirely sympathise with our countrymen . It is a fact very disgraceful to the iberalifcy of the French Government that English textiles ( especially cotton ) are absolutely prohibited in the French market : they are not admitted upon payment of any duty whatsoever . The manufacturers of Lancashire and Yorkshire had , therefore , great reason to be jealous when they were asked to submit the highest efforts of their skill to the scrutinising ken of the French manufacturers . It was already pretty well known that , since 1851 , the cotton and other manufactures of France had made mighty strides ; that the Pas de Calais , the Department du Nord , and the borders of the Rhine were fast assuming the appearance of our great industrial counties ; and our manufacturers argued that , so long as the French kept up the monopoly of their own market , it would be unwise to give them the means of competing with us in the free markets of the world . What would be the result if the French markets were thrown open to the English trade is sufficiently obvious , from the fact that , when the French Government gave permission for the sale of such English goods ns were exhibited , they were all eagerly bought up , although subjected to a very high duty . We believe that we are stating the fact when we say that scarcely a single piece of textile goods will return to this country . The preference which the French ladies have for Spitalfields ailks over the more showy products of the Lyons looms is nlso well known , and arises from the superior texture of the former . We should not close our remarks upon the general tendency of the Exposition without saying something about a feature in which it offered a very marked advance upon the Great Exhibition of 1851 , and which , in the event of another experiment , we should do well to imitate . We refer to a collection of the cheap necessaries of life—such things , indeed , as are necessaries to the working classes . This idea ori ginated , we are informed , with the Emperor j and , if so , it does him grout credit . Possibly its existence may have escaped the notice . of the greater pnrt of the visitors to the Palais ; for it was arranged in the moat remote of those numerous sheds which communicated with the Rotonde and its tributary galleries . Those who did find their way to it will remember with pleasure the excellent and useful collection of cottage comforts and necessaries , and the wonderful cheapness of production developed by competition . And now lot us take a brief survey of the results of , the Exposition . Judged by the number of exhibitors rewarded with either crosses , medals , or honourablo mention , those results should be enormous : but wo fear it is precisely this profusion of rewards which detract from the merit of having obtained one . Nearly one-half of the English Exhibitors have been rewarded in one y ) ay or other , and the exhibitors of other countries have been treated with similar liberality . Not only have the hungry been filled with good * "in g « > but the rich have not been sent empty away . Considerably more

    than one-half of the English exhibitors in Class I . ( Arts relating to Mines an ? Mineralogy ) are to be found in the prize list ; while nearly two-thirds of the exhibitors in Class XXIII . ( Hosiery , Carpets , Lace-work , Embroidery , and Lace ) have got something or other . Agricultural and chemical exhibitors , hardware manufacturers , and clothiers , are equally well treated . In some of the Classes , to be omitted from the prize list must be a positive slight , if not a disgrace . Then we have a list of Englishmen selected for the Legion of Honour by Prince Napoleon himself , consisting of two noble lords for Commanders ( one of whom has been a great purchaser at the Exposition ) , and several distinguished gentlemen to be officers and simple Knights of that celebrated order . Now , at the risk of being thought very ungracious , we must be permitted to observe , that either these honours are not intended to be taken as indications of superlative merit , or they have not all been fairly deserved . It looks very like the expedient of that schoolmaster who bestowed prizes upon all the scholars , lest their parents should grumble . What would the Greeks have thought if all the competitors had left the Olyrrrpic games with wreaths upon their brows ? Yet here we have good , indifferent , and positively bad all rewarded indiscriminately together . Let us be thoroughly understood when we say that we do not wish to cast any slur on the gentlemen upon whom these blushing honours have been thrust ; probably none are more shamefaced about them than themselves . Here we have one ( a highly respectable gentleman , it is true ) made an officer of the Legion of Honour on account of his " extensive manufactures ; " when the fact is that he is not a manufacturer at all , but only a considerable spinner for the lace and hosiery trades . Another is retvai-ded for being "the inventor of Alpaca tissues ; " a title which popular error has assigned to him , hut which he scarcely would have the hardihood to assert in the district where that manufacture is carried on . In the list of medallists , similar incongruities are everyway discernible , and in no class are they more obvious than in the 19 th ( Cotton Fabrics ) . There is evidently some feeling of jealousy at work between the English and French manufacturers with respect to this class , for although the pre-eminence of the < nglish was most obvious , the rewards bear a smaller proportion to the Exhibitors than in any other Class . The Grand Medal of Honour is awarded to the Manchester and Salford Committee , which is very unsatisfactory , seeing that it is impossible to say to what particular branch of cotton manufacture it is due . We should have supposed , moreover , that the highest place would have been awarded to that manufacturer who succeeded in presenting something novel and valuable , —the promoter , in fact , of some advance of marked importance . Now , with respect to the Cotton Manufacture , there was only one such in the whole Exposition ; he is an Englishman , and he has received ajirst-class medal only ; while the Manchester Committee gets the Grand Medal of Honour for exhibiting a miscellaneous collection of common stuffs , and a fine-spinner for the lace trade shares with the City of Glasgow the two minor Medals of Honour . The original invention to which we refer is of a description of Calico for sliirting of a superior description to any that has ever been before attempted . No such texture has ever before been known . It is made of a description of yarn never before used for calico . Its advantages are its extreme richness and softness of texture , combined with great lasting power ; combining , in short , the luxurious qualities of the best linen with the valuable sanitary qualities of calico . Side by side with the inventor of this , we find in the lists of medallists the name of a firm , distinguished for nothing whatever , who manufacture indeed very fair calico , but whose collection exhibited no special merits and certainly no novelties . What will the former gentleman think of the discernment of the jury when he gets his first-class medal in such company ? Did time and space permit , we could multiply those cases from all the classes ; but ex uno , etc . "We are reallv very curious to receive the reports of the juries . Those who know anything " about the Reports of the Juries for the Great Exhibition of 1851 will bear us out when we assert that the majority of those documents were discreditable to the intelligence of the country , both as to matter and manner . They were often not only weak in style , but positively ungrammatical , whilst the information communicated by them was , generally speaking , of the most elementary and commonplace description . Let us hope better things of the forthcoming Reports;—but we must confess that we tremble for the result when we look at the awards of the juries , and above all when we remember that the collective wisdom of the English commission includes many of the amiable weaknesses of the Great Exhibition of 1851 . How are all those difficulties to be avoided for the future ? Our solution may be an uncourtly one , and may smack perchance of " vulgar declamation , for it is by getting rid of the patronising elements in these groat industrial competitions . The Prince Consort may make a very competent Field-Marshal , n zealous Chancellor of the University of Cambridge , an able bencher of Lincoln ' s Inn , and may hold , not merely to the satisfaction of the Throne , but also of the country , that immense variety of other offices whose duties he is supposed to fulfil ; but not even the divine right of kings could make mni suddenly omniscient upon all matters relating to Science and Art . The deplorable consequence was that he was misled and earwigged by flatterers and intriguers , while men of real merit and genuine knowledge stood obscured in the shade and hung their heads ashamed . And so it lias been with the French Exposition . Prince Napoleon may he the prince of /«»'" ceurs and the bravest of Crimean heroes ; but he 1 ms not been nb _ lo to escape the pit-full in which our own good-liearted , well-intentione * l Prince fell a victim to "the long-necked geese of the world . " When nuthority is prompted by such courtiers , honours naturally fly askew , and nlignt upon any but the most deserving breasts : backstairs influence become , . everything , honest competition nothing , and the whole business a complicated sham . . ., When next we try the experiment and hnve an Exhibition which shall fnr transcend the Exposition of 1855 , as the Exposition in the Champa Elysde ' s has surpassed our own in Hyde-park , let us provide against tlxC . evils by setting in the judgment-Beat men who by education aud pursui are fitted to give a sound opinion upon the matters in hand . An Arcopagu formed of the highest authorities in Science and Art that exist , is nl onJ capable of exercising these duties : and to such it should be entrusted / not to courtiers and dilettanti .

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    U 60 T H E L BADE R . [ No . 297 , Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 1, 1855, page 1160, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2117/page/20/