xxxiv Introduction. 



industries as may most conduce to the support of a constantly increasing 

 population. 



Suggestions for the furtherance of these interests have been made in Blue 

 Books over and over again, as in the endeavours to obtain the establishment of 

 a Government vessel for the instruction and assistance of fishermen, repeatedly 

 made by the late Mr. Frank Buckland ; to whose memory no monument could 

 be erected either more in accordance with his own desire, or more worthy of 

 the debt of gratitude owed to him by the nation, than such an institution. 

 But Blue Books are easily read, and still more easily left unread, and nothing 

 speaks so forcibly in behalf of a reform as a practical example of its utility 

 made patent to the eyes of all men. It is in carrying out such objects as 

 these that Exhibitions, National and International, discharge their most dis- 

 tinctive and salutary functions. They collect in a single focus the scattered 

 rays which illuminate the recesses of the body politic; they present in a 

 visible and striking form those features of our industrial and social life which 

 almost of necessity escape common observation, and so to speak, they place 

 beneath a hive of glass the operations and domestic habits of our human bees. 



Few articles connected with Fishing were displayed at the World's Fair of 

 1851 ; and such as there were came almost entirely from the United Kingdom. 

 Angling, in fact, was but little known or appreciated in foreign parts, and 

 there was probably no other country where the manufacturers of tackle con- 

 stituted in themselves a distinct trade. Twenty-five British Exhibitors 

 contributed such sportsman's gear as rods, lines, artificial flies, and baits ; 

 while, with the exception of some apparatus for float-fishing emanating from 

 France, no foreign manufacturer sent an exhibit illustrative of fishing, either 

 in salt or fresh water. The model of a smack, however, fitted with auxiliary 

 screw propeller attracted general notice, as the principle had not been pre- 

 viously applied to this class of vessel. Nor were matters performed on a 

 much larger scale when, eleven years later, a second opportunity was afforded 

 in our metropolis, though some ingenious machinery was shown for the manu- 

 facture of nets, together with a fine assortment of tackle, and models of vessels 

 for service at home and abroad. In 1867 the Imperial Commissioners at Paris 

 offered a reward for co-operating societies in connection with the Exposition, 

 and amongst the successful competitors was the Free Fisheries Society of 

 Whitstable, incorporated in 1793, and established as a ^working fishery guild 

 long before. At Vienna in 1873 models of Swedish and Norwegian fisheries 

 were displayed, and at Philadelphia three years later was presented a capital 

 machine, invented by Messrs. Baron, and subsequently improved by Poecqueur, 

 for making nets. Another most noticeable feature in Philadelphia was a 

 complete collection of Models, in papier mache, of the varied and valuable 

 Marine Fauna, of North America. 



Like all vigorous and well-conceived ideas, the notion of a Great Inter- 

 national collection of works of industry like the World's Fair of 1851, gave 

 birth to similar enterprises of a more limited and partial scope. Beneath the 

 wonderful influence exercised by the first and most beautiful of them all, local 

 and special exhibitions grew up almost from year to year for all sorts of 

 objects and in all sorts of places. In these specialities Cork led the way in 



