woodcut; we see the man, the materials, and
the tools, and what he does to the second
through the medium of the third. And if the
makers are permitted to sell as well as to make
in the building, all the more pleasant to the
visitors. A man would enjoy his pipe better if
he could tell his friends that he had seen that
self-same pipe made; and his wife would look
with additional interest on her quilling if she
has actually seen it quilled by the very ingenious
machine contrived for that purpose. There
was an excellent attempt at this sort of thing in
the recent North London Industrial Exhibition.
A person connected with the Luton straw-plait
trade had a stall in which the manipulations of
that craft were well illustrated. And not only
the manipulations, but the materials also; insomuch
that the sum total was nearly equivalent
to the Natural History of a Straw Bonnet.
There was a little of the soil in which Bedfordshire
wheat is mostly grown; there were some
grains of different kinds of wheat; there were
some good stalks of corn, ear and straw
included; there were the straws after the ears
had been thrashed out; there was the inner
tube after the outer sheath had been removed;
there were straws dyed in different colours;
there were straws split up into two, four, or
more strips each, and a woman at work to show
how this is done with the aid of a very simple
little apparatus; there was a girl at work, busily
plaiting the split straws into the narrow ribbons
or plaits of which straw head-gear is made; and
lastly, there were the finished hats and bonnets,
with and without the decorative appendages
that belong to the milliner's art. All this was
very good; so good, that we would advise an
extension of the same system in any future
Industrial Exhibition. Let managers and
exhibitors lay their heads together, and decide
how it may best be done. A silk hat could not,
perhaps, be managed, for there is much stove-
drying and heated liquids required; but there
might be pegged and screwed boots and shoes
made before one's eyes. Stocking weaving, by
hand and rotary machines; lace-making and
tambouring; needle-making; hook-and-eye making;
confectionery making; penny ice making (not a
bad speculation if the season for the exhibition
happened to be in hot weather); cigar making;
bookbinding; pottery making; electro-plating
—in these and a hundred other manufacturing
trades, whatever could be done to bring the
workers and the working, the materials and the
tools, directly under the notice of the visitors,
would indisputably be attractive. Of course
there would be preliminary difficulties to
encounter; but difficulties are—things made to
be conquered.

A fourth suggestion:—moving power. Many
kinds of apparatus cannot be effectively shown
at work unless some continuous rotary power be
provided: to turn a winch-handle would often
suffice; but a man gets tired, and his time is
worth so much an hour; whereas a steam-engine
knows no fatigue, and dines simply on coal.
Steam-engines are not always large affairs. For
an exhibition in a swimming-bath, a steam-engine
in a band-box might be large enough. And they
really are now to be met with very small indeed:
right little, tight little, compact, sturdy, go-
ahead, never-say-die machines, which, if not
possessed of one-horse power, would at any rate
command one-pony power. It is not unreasonable
to believe that there are makers who would gladly
lend such a steam-engine as a recommendation
in the way of business; and then the managers
would only have to provide some fuel and a
stoker or engineer. All the exhibited machines
and apparatus that require the aid of moving
power, might be grouped around the little
steam-engine, like satellites round a luminary.
Or, if not a steam-engine, we believe that
Manchester could say something about a recently-
invented hydraulic machine, by which rotary
motion is produced in a simple and inexpensive way.
At all events, once let the idea be accepted, and
there are brains sharp enough to find out how to
manage it. At Hyde Park, in eighteen hundred
and fifty-one, and at Brompton eleven years
afterwards, there was steam-power on a mighty
scale, moving some of the most stupendous
machines ever seen in our metropolis; transpose
mighty into tiny, and a working man's
exhibition might do the same thing in a degree
sufficient for illustrating the action and worth
of many an ingenious piece of apparatus. If
coal is dear and cash is short, the engine
might be kept working during certain busy
hours only, when Simmonds and his wife and
children are most likely to come and have a
look at the place; for Simmonds is a hard-
working fellow, and can't afford to come in the
forenoon.

The arrangement in the building is another
matter on which a hint may, perhaps, not be
superfluous. Both at the South London and
the North London displays the distribution was
too much in the style which a tidy housewife
would call " higgledy-piggledy." There was
not sufficient grouping. Birds of a feather did
not flock together. Tin saucepans were too
near watch movements; cork models were too
near early risers' friends, which would " wake
you at a given hour, strike an alarum, ignite a
match, light a lamp, illuminate a clock-face, and
make a cup of coffee, while you are dressing;"
and patchwork quilts were too near to smoke-
jacks and dripping-pans.

Make whatever classification you think best.
At South London there were seven classes
Useful, Ingenious, Ornamental, Scientific,
Artistic, Curious, and Amusing. At North London
there were eight: Professional
Workmanship, Amateur Productions, Inventions and
Novel Contrivances, Mechanical Models,
Architectural and Ornamental Models, Artistic
Objects, Ladies' Work, and Miscellaneous
Articles. No one has a right to speak very
authoritatively on this subject of the best
mode of classification, for the subject is
confessedly a difficult one; but whatever be the
number and designation of the classes, the
arrangement of the articles in the building ought,