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INTRODUCTION.

Catalogues.

Insurance fromlire.

curtailment of space, and a constraint on Ms wishes, with a patience thatgreatly lightened the labours of the Executive Committee. In fact, owing to thesecircumstances, inevitable in such a work, without precedent or experience, and tothe very late period at which some demands for space were made, it was onlypossible to make an approximate guess at the space which each of the classes ofgoods of the United Kingdom would occupy, and to leave a considerable marginfor adjustments.

It should be borne in mind that every Foreign country was able to regulate thecharacter of the arrangement by the articles themselves. The whole of itsarticles were first collected, and then the arrangement settled. Every Foreigncountry, in this respect, stood in the same position as an individual British exhibitor; but on the British side, the general arrangement, and almost theposition of each of the 7,000 exhibitors, were necessarily fixed before thearticles were brought into the building. An elaborate classified list of sub-jects included in each of the 30 classes was prepared, and recommended as abasis of arrangement to exhibitors, though, from the causes already stated, thesystematic classification could not be carried out in so complete a manner as wasdesired.

At the British side, every exhibitor had entire control over his own allot-ment, the Commissioners, from an early period, having decided that eachexhibitor was at liberty to arrange such articles in his own way, so far as wascompatible with the convenience of other exhibitors and of the public. Whenthe exhibitor’s wishes involved expense, the exhibitor defrayed it himself. Glasscases, frames, and stands of peculiar construction, and similar contrivances for thedisplay or protection of the goods exhibited, were provided by the person requiringthem at his own cost. Persons who wished to exhibit machines, or trains ofmachinery in motion, were permitted to do so. The Commissioners found steamnot exceeding 30 lbs. per inch gratuitously to the exhibitors, and conveyed it inclothed pipes to such parts of the building as required steam power. Arrange-ments were made to supply water at a high pressure gratuitously to exhibitors,who had the privilege of adapting it to the working of their machinery, &c.And the Chelsea Water-works contracted to supply 300,000 gallons of water perday, at the rate of £50 per month.

It was decided that two Official Catalogues should be prepared and publishedby the authority of the Commission; the one of a large size, containing fullnotices of everything that the exhibitor desired to state, and the other anabridgment containing the names of the exhibitors only, with a very generalsummary of the articles they exhibited. The right of printing and publishingthese was offered for competition. The contractors were at liberty to fix the priceof the large Catalogue. The smaller Catalogue was to be sold at Is., and thecontractors were bound to pay 2d. for every copy sold to the funds. Severalparties tendered. The offer of Messrs. Spicer Brothers, and Messrs. Clowesand Sons, as the highest, was accepted; the amount of their offer being £3,200It was also provided {Min. xxix., p. 1), that should the number sold exceed500,000 of the small edition, and 5,000 of the large, then the contractors shouldgive a further sum for all sold over and above those numbers. The contractwas sealed 6th January, 1851.

The insurance of goods from fire, or other kinds of accidents, and the responsi-bility for all losses, devolved upon the exhibitors. The Metropolitan Fire