room. Several gentlemen connected with
Surrey Chapel aided in setting the affair
afloat, but the working-men themselves
undertook the greater part of the management.
With twopence as the admission
fee, and one penny for a catalogue, there
was nothing in the way of cost to frighten
away working-men's families, who were
specially desired as visitors. It was modestly
stated at the outset, that "as this exhibition
can only be considered in the light of
an experiment, and is mainly managed by
working-men, it is earnestly hoped that all
who in any way take part in it will
endeavour to make the experiment a
success." There were about one hundred and
fifty exhibitors, mostly working-men
residing on the Surrey side of the water.
The articles contributed were, for
convenience of arrangement and inspection,
placed under seven classes, designated
useful, ingenious, scientific, artistic, literary,
curious, ornamental, and amusing. There
was no lack of the curious and amusing,
for some of the men certainly exercised
their brains in the production of pleasant
conceits. One exhibitor, a tin-plate worker,
displayed a "perfect cure" chimney-top,
for smoky chimneys; an all-in-one coal-
scuttle, for twelve daily purposes; a
corrugated conical smoky chimney cure; an anti-
hard egg-boiling saucepan, which lifted out
the egg when properly cooked; and a thief
detector, to strike a light, ring a bell, and
pull a chain across the door if a burglary
be attempted. Another exhibitor made an
apparatus competent to wake a sleeper,
strike a match, light a lamp, and boil a cup
of coffee. Another displayed a mechanical
pump, with a miniature man who pumped
up a glass of lemonade whenever a visitor
dropped a halfpenny into a particular box.
These oddities attracted quite as much
attention as the really good specimens of
manufactured work.

The small affair at South Lambeth having
paid its small expenses, and gratified a
considerable number of visitors, suggested
another attempt in another part of the
metropolis. This was held at the Agricultural
Hall, Islington, in the autumn of the
same year, and was called the North London
Working Classes Industrial Exhibition. It
was a bold step to engage so large a hall;
but as the applications for space were very
numerous, the managers ventured to do so;
and the result justified their determination.
There were eight hundred and sixty
exhibitors, mostly residing in the northern
part of the metropolis. It was frankly
admitted from the outset that the object
in view was not so much to display the
skill of workmen in their own particular
trades, as to bring together a collection
likely to attract and interest general visitors.
The committee, in assuming that the greater
portion of the articles exhibited would
consist of amateur contributions, took the
following view of the average condition of working-
men in relation to such matters: "An
artisan seldom chooses as a recreation that
branch of industry of which his daily
occupation consists. If actively or laboriously
employed during the day, drawing, painting,
or model-making is generally practised to
occupy his leisure hours; while he who
follows a sedentary occupation almost
invariably resorts to some more active method
of utilising his spare time." There was
evidently here a desire to encourage
ingenuity in amateur work, rather than to
develop the skill of each artisan in his own
particular trade. The committee adopted a
mode of classification different to that which
had prevailed at Lambeth; they grouped
the articles under the headings professional
workmanship, amateur productions,
inventions and novel contrivances, mechanical
models, architectural and ornamental
models, artistic objects, ladies' work of all
kinds, and (that most unsatisfactory of
all groups) miscellaneous. The exhibition
was really a curious and attractive one,
and drew such crowds of visitors that the
proceeds left a handsome surplus after all
expenses were defrayed. In the same year
a small but curious industrial collection
was exhibited by the Painters' Company,
at their hall in one of the small dusky
streets in the City. It was intended "to
stimulate the exertions of those engaged in
the painting trade," and comprised specimens
of four kinds of work decoration,
graining, marbling, and writing. It was a
very good attempt within its prescribed
limits.

These doings in 1864 led to immense
activity in 1865, when no less than eight
industrial exhibitions were held in the
metropolis, some special, but mostly general.
One was the Coachmakers' Industrial
Exhibition, held at Coachmakers' Hall;
another, the South London, an improvement
on the former display in Lambeth; a
third, the Model Lodging Houses Industrial
Exhibition, at St. Martin's Hall,
consisting of ingenious articles made by the
inmates of model dwellings; a fourth, the
West London, held at the Floral Hall,
Covent Garden; a fifth, the South-Eastern,
held, by official permission, in the Painted
Hall at Greenwich Hospital; a sixth, the