AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 85 



passengers at different times of the day, on different days, on dif- 

 ferent occasions, should be carefully collected and mapped in 

 curves so as to show the results to the eye. It would then be 

 seen how the wants of the public could be best supplied; how 

 many cars were wanted ea^ch hour of the day, each day in the 

 week, when the Crystal Palace was open; and, generally, on what 

 occasions when open. A study of this enterprise would lead to 

 rational results as to the need of others, and the study of them 

 in connection, would show their mutual influences. What is now 

 left to the " rule of thumb " would then be arranged by the 

 judgment, and the evils which are now left to accumulate until 

 they grow so far as to require abatement as nuisances, would be 

 guarded against, and life would flow more smoothly. Then we 

 would not see so many groups on the corners of the Sixth Avenue 

 waiting for cars only to see them pass filled to overflowing, and 

 forced to walk two miles or lose the sight of the exhibition. 



Industrial Exhibitions of Europe. 

 When visiting the exhibitions of industry in Europe, some 

 twenty years ago, I was much struck with the great difference 

 between the products exhibited and those wiiich our fairs pre- 

 sented. The articles turned upon the luxuries of life chiefly, 

 which, to be sure were displayed in forms and qualities realizing 

 the highest ideas of the beautiful. Since then, what a breaking 

 out of the workshops and manufactories has taken place ! The 

 very catalogues of the London and Paris exhibitions startle one. 

 The spaces covered seemed almost fabulous, and the demand for 

 more — an absurd craving. The condition of opinion among man- 

 ufacturers and mechanics now-a-days and twenty years ago, must 

 be as different as that in regard to national communications. Then 

 the traveller went to Liverpool and Manchester to pass be- 

 tween them on the only passenger railway in Great Britain. 

 Now, the post-horse system is almost obsolete, and the steam horse 

 carries the traveller over the whole kingdom. Then Edinburgh 

 was fifty hours from London, now it is hardly eleven. On the 

 continent the only railroads were in Belgium, except a few miles 

 from Leipsic towards Meissen. Then Vienna was two weeks from 

 Paris, and now it is hardly more than two days. Then the work- 

 shops were almost inaccessible as a rule, and the processes kept 



