devoted to machinery, the internal to the gradual development
of civilization, commencing with the stone age and continuing
to the present era. A great feature of the exhibition was
the park, which was studded with specimens of every style of
modern architecture—Turkish mosques, Swedish cottages,
English lighthouses, Egyptian palaces and Swiss châlets. The
number of attendances was 6,805,969. The exhibitors numbered
43,217, and the total amount received for entrances, concessions,
&c. , was £420,735. This was the first exhibition at which there
were international restaurants. The cost of the exhibition was
defrayed partly by the state and partly by private subscriptions.
Small exhibitions were held in various parts of Europe between 1867 and 1870, and in the latter year a series of international exhibitions, confined to one or two special descriptions of produce or manufactures, was inaugurated in London at South Kensington. These continued till 1874, but they failed to attract any very large attendance of the public and were abandoned. A medal was given to each exhibitor, and reports on the various exhibits were published, but there was no examination of the exhibits by jurors. In 1873 there was an International Exhibition at Vienna. The main building, a rotunda, was erected in the beautiful park of the Austrian capital. There were halls for machinery and agricultural products, and hundreds of buildings, erected by different nations, were scattered amongst the woodlands of the Prater. Unfortunately, an outbreak of cholera diminished the attendance of visitors, and the receipts were only £206,477, although the visitors were said to have reached 6,740,500, and the number of exhibitors was 25,760.
None of the International Exhibitions held between 1857 and 1873 had attracted as many as 7,000,000 visitors, but the gradual extension of education amongst the masses, and the greater facilities for locomotion, brought about by the growth of the railway system in all portions of the civilized world, largely increased the attendances at subsequent World’s Fairs. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876, to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of American Independence, was held at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The funds were raised partly by private subscriptions, and partly by donations from the city of Philadelphia, from Pennsylvania and some of the neighbouring states. The central government at Washington made a large loan, which was subsequently repaid. The principal buildings, five in number, occupied an area of 4812 acres, and there were several smaller structures, which in the aggregate must have filled half as much space more, the largest being that devoted to the exhibits of the various departments of the United States government, which covered 7 acres. Several novelties in exhibition management were introduced at Philadelphia. Instead of gold, silver and bronze medals, only one description, bronze, was issued, the difference between the merits of the different exhibits being shown by the reports. Season tickets were not issued, and the price of admission, the same on all occasions, was half a dollar, or about 2s. 1d. The exhibition was not open at night or on Sundays, thus following the British, and not the continental, precedent. The number of visitors was 9,892,625, of whom 8,004,214 paid for admission, the balance being exhibitors, officials and attendants. The total receipts amounted to £763,899. Upon one occasion, the Pennsylvania day, 274,919 persons—the largest number that had visited any exhibition up to that date—passed through the turnstiles. The display of machinery was the finest ever made, that of the United States occupying 480,000 sq. ft. The motive-power was obtained from a Corliss engine of 1600 horse-power. At this exhibition the United Kingdom and the British Colonies of Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, New Zealand, Cape Colony and Tasmania made a very fine display, which was only excelled by that of the United States.
The Paris Exhibition of 1878 was upon a far larger scale in every respect than any which had been previously held in any part of the world. The total area covered not less than 66 acres, the main building in the Champ de Mars occupying 54 acres. The French exhibits filled one-half the entire space, the remaining moiety being occupied by the other nations of the world. The United Kingdom, British India, Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Cape Colony and some of the British crown colonies occupied nearly one-third of the space set aside for nations outside France. Germany was the only great country which was not represented, but there were a few German paintings. The display of fine arts and machinery was upon a very large and comprehensive scale, and the Avenue des Nations, a street 2400 ft. in length, was devoted to specimens of the domestic architecture of nearly every country in Europe, and of several in Asia, Africa and America. The palace of the Trocadero, on the northern bank of the Seine, was erected for the exhibition. It was a handsome structure, with towers 250 ft. in height and flanked by two galleries. The rules for admission were the same as those at Philadelphia, and every person—exhibitor, journalist or official—who had the right of entrance was compelled to forward two copies of his or her photograph, one of which was attached to the card of entry. The ordinary tickets were not sold at the doors, but were obtainable at various government offices and shops, and from numerous pedlars in all parts of the city and suburbs. The buildings were somewhat unfinished upon the opening day, political complications having prevented the French government and the French people from paying much attention to the exhibition till about six months before it was opened; but the efforts made in April were prodigious, and by June 1st, a month after the opening, the exhibition was complete, and afforded an object-lesson of the recovery of France from the calamities of 1870–1871. The decisions arrived at by the international juries were accompanied by medals of gold, silver and bronze. The expenditure by the United Kingdom was defrayed out of the consolidated revenue, each British colony defraying its own expenses. The display of the United Kingdom was under the control of a royal commission, of which the prince of Wales was president. The number of paying visitors to the exhibition was 13,000,000, and the cost of the enterprise to the French government, which supplied all the funds, was a little less than a million sterling, after allowing for the value of the permanent buildings and the Trocadero Palace, which were sold to the city of Paris. The total number of persons who visited Paris during the time the exhibition was open was 571,792, or 308,974 more than came to the French metropolis during the year 1877, and 46,021 in excess of the visitors during the previous exhibition of 1867. It was stated at the time that, in addition to the impetus given to the trade of France, the revenue of the Republic and of the city of Paris from customs and octroi duties was increased by nearly three millions sterling as compared with the previous year.
Exhibitions on a scale of considerable magnitude were held at Sydney and Melbourne in 1879 and 1880, and many continental and American manufacturers took advantage of them in order to bring the products of their industry directly under the notice of Australian consumers, who had previously purchased their supplies through the instrumentality of British merchants. The United Kingdom and India made an excellent display at both cities, but the effect of the two great Australian exhibitions was to give a decided impetus to German, American, French and Belgian trade. One of the immediate results was that lines of steamers to Melbourne and Sydney commenced to run from Marseilles and Bremen; another, that for the first time in the history of the Australian colonies, branches of French banks were opened in the two principal cities. The whole cost of these exhibitions was defrayed by the local governments.
Exhibitions were held at Turin and Brussels during 1880, and smaller ones at Newcastle, Milan, Lahore, Adelaide, Perth, Moscow, Ghent and Lille during 1881 and 1882, and at Zürich, Bordeaux and Caraccas in Venezuela during 1883. The next of any importance was held at Amsterdam in the latter year. On that occasion a new departure in exhibition management was made. The government of the Netherlands was to a certain extent responsible for the administration of the exhibition, but the funds were obtained from private sources, and a charge was made to each nation represented for the space it occupied. The United Kingdom, India, Victoria and New South Wales
