488 International Exhibitions. [Oct., 



and Social aspects of the Free Labour question are calculated to 

 do much good, and to draw attention to a subject of the highest 

 importance. The want of equal success in treating the question 

 of the Origin of Species, is no doubt due to the excessively varied 

 and complex nature of the phenomena presented by organized 

 beings. Fully to grasp what is involved in that question demands 

 a knowledge of details, which it requires years of study to amass ; 

 and without such knowledge the acutest and most comprehensive 

 intellect will not suffice to solve so intricate a problem. 



II. INTEBNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS. 



By Fred. Chas. Danvers, M.S.E. 



At the close of another grand International Exhibition we may 

 well pause for a while and consider how far these great displays of 

 the works of industry have fulfilled the objects for which they were 

 first established. The thirteenth Paris Industrial Exhibition, and 

 the second International collection of works of art and industry 

 which has been held in that city, is now within a few days of its 

 termination ; and we may, therefore, for all practical purposes, 

 speak of it as a thing of the past. Whatever articles of exhibition 

 it may have contained that were considered especially deserving of 

 remark have long since been reported on, and the Exhibitors have 

 been awarded such prizes as the respective juries have thought fit 

 to recommend. The building will yet remain open for a short 

 time longer, and then the work of removal and demolition will 

 speedily commence. 



Before making any special allusion to the Paris Exhibition, it 

 is our present intention to take a hasty glance at the origin and 

 growth of Exhibitions generally, and the measures which preceded 

 the first International Exhibition. We are indebted for much of 

 our information on this subject to a Beport on the Paris Exhibition, 

 drawn up for the Society of Arts by M. Digby Wyatt, Esq., in 1849 ; 

 and, with reference to Exhibitions in England, to the Official Cata- 

 logue of the International Exhibition of London, published in 1862. 



Industrial Exhibitions in their early youth may have been 

 content with a pedlar's pack, the travelling show-van, or a booth at 

 a fair ; but as soon as they gave up their gipsy life they began as 

 national displays. It was long before the growing free-trade spirit 

 of the age allowed them to become international, although museums 

 did occasionally dabble in the products of foreign industry, and a 

 catalogue of curiosities exhibited at the public theatre of Leyden, in 

 1699, gives an amusing account of one of these early Exhibitions. 



