most precious articles should be snatched from the swift destruction.
Ten minutes without wind, or five with it, would suffice to wrap the
whole immense magazine in flames, and not a hundredth part of the value
of building and contents would remain at the close of another hour.

POPULAR EDUCATION.

The Exhibition is destined to contribute immensely to the Industrial and
Practical Education of the British People. The cheap Excursion Trains
from the Country have hardly commenced running yet; but it is certain
that a large proportion of the mechanics, artisans and apprentices of
the manufacturing towns and districts will spend one or two days each in
the Palace before it closes. Superficial as such a view of its contents
must be, it will have important results. Each artisan will naturally be
led to compare the products of his own trade with those in the same line
from other Nations, especially the most successful, and will be
stimulated to discern and master the point wherein his own and his
neighbor's efforts have hitherto comparatively failed. Of a million who
come to gaze, only an hundred thousand may come with any clear idea of
profiting by the show, and but half of those succeed in carrying back
more wisdom than they brought here; yet even those are quite an army;
and fifty thousand skilled artisans or sharp-eyed apprentices viewing
such an Exposition aright and going home to ponder and dream upon it,
cannot fail of working out great triumphs. The British mind is more
fertile in improvement than in absolute invention, as is here
demonstrated, especially in the department of Machinery; and the simple
adaptation of the forces now attained, the principles established, the
machines already invented, to all the beneficent uses of which they are
capable, would speedily transform the Industrial and Social condition of
mankind. I am perfectly satisfied, for example, that Boots and Shoes may
be cut out and made up by machinery with less than one-fourth the labor
now required--that this would require no absolutely new inventions, but
only an adaptation of those already well known. So in other departments
of Industry. There is no reason for continuing to sew plain seams on
thick cloth by hand, when machinery can do the work even better and
twenty times as fast. I shall be disappointed if this Exhibition be not
speedily followed by immense advances in Labor-Saving Machinery,
especially in this country.

But out of the domain