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and not a producing country; but the simple facts themselves are worthy of note, whether we theorise concerning them or not.

The great honours, the Council Medals, were very unequally distributed in respect to the classes of exhibited articles; for out of the whole number of 166, no less than 88 (more than one-half) were awarded for machinery alone. This is a significant fact; showing that the Juries, or rather the Council of Chairmen, were not deterred by the gorgeous display around them from doing justice to the great working agencies by which modern wealth is produced.

MINOR STATISTICS.

We will conclude with a rapid glance at a few minor, but still curious and interesting, facts concerning the building and those who visited it.

The temperature and climatology of the Exhibition had various points of interest. During the first month or two the heat was not excessive; the canvas awning served as a sun-screen, while the louvreboards admitted a current of fresh air. At length, however, at three o'clock on one particular Saturday, a temperature of 86° Fahr. was experienced in the centre of the nave, and 94° in the much-thronged 66 wax-work" gallery. This necessitated the removal of many of the vertical sashes, by a judicious management of which the building was never again unbearably hot. Mr. Bennett, one of the clock and watch exhibitors, placed about twenty thermometers in various parts of the building; and near these were skeleton forms to be filled up with entries of the temperature at intervals of two hours throughout the whole period. Whoever has preserved a complete set of these papers might institute many curious tabulations arising out of them.

But the electric telegraph was made the means of converting the Crystal Palace into a gigantic observatory, whence the weather could be observed all over England. Electric wires, as is well known, are laid down from London to the principal towns; and the Crystal Palace was made one link in the chain. At nine o'clock every morning certain officers in about five-and-thirty towns transmit to London a meteorological register for that hour at each town, giving the direction of the wind, the height of the barometer, and the state of the weather. A neat lithographic skeleton map of Great Britain was engraved, with the railways and stations; and on this were laid down, every day, the meteorological observations of that day from about twenty towns, each set being engraved, in convenient symbols, near the name of the town to which they belonged. For many weeks before the close of the Exhibition these maps were purchaseable (a new edition every day) in the Crystal Palace at a penny each. The maps were published by Mr. Saunders of Charing Cross, and a complete set of them is certainly not among the least of the curiosities of the Great Exhibition.

Such a commonwealth did this Crystal Palace and its inmates become, that a regular postage system became necessary. Early in June a Belgian post office was erected in the south transept, such as are used in the towns of Belgium. It was a hollow cylinder about

five feet high, with a mouth something like an ordinary letter box; there was a locked door beneath the box, and an inscription label above it. Letters were put into this box, and were taken out three times a day for despatch to their destinations. The PostmasterGeneral sent directly and specially to the Crystal Palace for and with letters, without the intervention of any of the branch offices and there was a regular post establishment within the building in connexion with all the separate departments, British and Foreign. For a long period after the opening of the Exhibition the daily despatch of letters averaged 500, and the daily receipt 300.

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Whatever might be the subject of a letter addressed to the governing body of the Exhibition, it was, we believe, a rule to preserve and register the letter, so that it may be found on a very short notice if wanted. The whole collection would include some of the richest bits of epistolizing which any collector could desire; and were it not that the letters deal in matters which can hardly be made public, a most amusing selection might be made out of them.

The losing of personal property in the Exhibition, the finding of the lost articles by the police, and the plan for restoring them to their proper owners, form a curious chapter in the history of the Crystal Palace.

What may be the total number of articles thus suddenly deprived of owners is known approximately but not exactly. In the two months from May 1 to June 30, they amounted to the astonishing number of upwards of one thousand. Pocket-handkerchiefs took the lead, to the number of 271; parasols were next, 118; bracelets, brooches, and shawl-pins, together made up 255; veils and falls and neck-ties and bonnet-shades figured at 94; ladies' cuffs and gloves and goloshes numbered together 39; shawls and victorines were 30. The minor articles, or articles in smaller number, were most miscellaneous, and comprised every imaginable thing which could reasonably be taken to an exhibition-umbrellas, shirt-studs, catalogues, books, bunches of keys, lockets, camp-stools, slippers, great coats, card cases, chains, knives, pincushions, walking sticks, spectacles, eye-glasses, opera-glasses, pencil cases, rings, fans, watches, toothpicks, thimbles, reticules, baskets, boxes, scent-bottles, &c. Purses were not wanting to fill up the inventory, containing sums varying from £0 Os. Od. to £5 9s. 4d.; while the sum of £2 10s. Od. was picked up in loose coins. One of the articles secured by the police, and made to figure in their report, must ever take rank among the marvels of the Great Exhibition; it was one petticoat!" Pope says, of flies in amber :

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"The things themselves are neither rich nor rare;
The wonder 's how the devil they got there."

And so we may say of this particular garment, under the circumstances. A second and a third list of the same kind was made public. The final list of totals, brought down to October 24, figured at 5,167, of which 3,318 were still waiting for claimantsmaterials here for supplying a tolerable "store."

It says much for the good organisation of the police that such a plan as this "Found Register" should have been proposed, and

should have been carried out with such truthfulness. It is said that no less than 1,849 lost articles have been recovered by application to the police, whose admirable conduct in and around the building was beyond all praise. Nor were lifeless things the only ones that went astray; many a luckless child got separated from its parents in the vast building; but the police station at Prince's Gate became an asylum for the little wanderers, the whole of whom were ultimately restored to the proper quarters.

In every other public exhibition, the mere supply of light refreshments is so small an item in a financial aspect, that it seldom needs remark; but at the Crystal Palace this as well as everything else assumed a character of great magnitude. Not only was a sum of £5,500 given for permission to sell refreshments within the building, but the contractors candidly acknowledge that they have made large profits by the venture. The central refreshment court was farmed or leased by one firm; the eastern and western courts by another; and both have, since the close of the Exhibition, published a list of the quantities of creature-comforts brought by them to the Exhibition building, and there sold and consumed. We will combine these two lists together, and give the chief items in a somewhat altered form, and in round numbers:

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Milk and Cream

Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate

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65,000 quarts 21,000 lbs.

1,090,000 bottles

Lemonade, Soda Water, and Ginger Beer With a few other minor items. These enormous quantities were not consumed wholly by the visitors; there was an "Exhibitors' diningroom," where sometimes two thousand cold dinners were disposed of in a day.

The amount of money taken for these eatables and drinkables is an item of statistics on which no information has been afforded; and a guess would be of little value, except from one who is professionally cognizant how many sixpenny cups of coffee may be made from a pound of the berry, or how many sandwiches may be carved out of a pound of ham. The uninitiated may ferret out this fact, however that buns, with ginger-beer and similar bottled liquids, brought a round sum of £30,000; and a few other items may be elicited to reward a little arithmetical calculation.

III. CENSUS OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1851.

[The following is an Extract from the Introduction to the Official Tables, explanatory of the method of making up the Returns,]

THE Census Act, and the instructions issued in conformity with its provisions, required that the 40,000 enumerators employed should copy into as many books all the particulars collected by them concerning the inhabitants of Great Britain. These books were to be placed, complete, in the hands of the 2,190 registrars in England, and the 1,074 superintendents of parishes and burghs in Scotland, who were to subject them to a strict examination, and make all necessary corrections. This being accomplished, the books were to be transferred to the custody of the 624 superintendent registrars in England, and the 115 sheriffs, sheriffs-substitute, and provosts in Scotland, who were required to test the accuracy of their contents by a further process of revision.

The Act of Parliament allowed these officers until the 1st of June, for the purpose of returning the revised books to the Census Office, where they have still to undergo strict and minute examination and revision, before any detailed and authentic statement of results can be presented to the world. As this essential labour must, however, of necessity, engage much time, it was thought desirable not to withhold from the public such an approximation to the facts as might be obtained, without waiting for the entire completion of this series of checks. The registrars, therefore, in England, and the sheriffs and provosts in Scotland, were desired to frame and to forward to the Census Office, summaries of the population and houses within their respective districts.

From these summaries a number of tables have been compiled, and they must be taken to represent the results of the Census according to the statements of the local officers, previous to the revision now in progress at the central office. And although minute accuracy is not in these tables to be looked for, neither is it to be apprehended that the alterations which a careful revision of the original documents may render necessary for a future publication, will be of importance sufficient to lessen the value of the figures, as materials for whatever general inferences may fairly be drawn from them. [We have given those Tables which comprehend the most interesting results, without going into analytical details.]

In the present publication, the "Counties of England and Wales," which may be denominated "Registration Counties," comprise groups of Registration Districts, generally conterminous with Poor Law Unions; consequently the aggregates of such districts seldom correspond with the precise boundaries of the actual counties. The rule adopted, whenever a district extends into more than one county, has been to assign it wholly to that county in which, at the Census of 1841, the greater portion of the population of that district was located. For the purpose of comparison between the different Censuses, the population of the counties previous to 1841 is given for the same boundaries as those which have since been assigned to the 66 Registration Counties." As Scotland is still without any system of registration, the counties there remain as before.

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TABLE I.-HOUSES and POPULATION in DISTRICTS, 1841 and 1851.-ENGLAND and WALES.

* The Districts or Unions, like the Counties, are arranged in groups, so as to bring together as much as is possible neighbouring and connected populations.

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