Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/177

Rh sheets at the rate of one penny each copy. There can be no doubt the sale of them would have been very considerable. As it was, I found the woodcut representing the Difference Engine No. 1 in great request, and during the exhibition I had numberless applications for it; having given away my whole stock of about 800 copies.

The calculating court might have held comfortably from sixty to eighty seats. Each lecture would have produced say 3l. This being repeated three times each day, together with the sale of the woodcuts, would have produced about 10l. per day, out of which the Commissioners would have had six shillings per day to pay the assistant who gave the required explanations.

If the dignity of the Commissioners would not permit them to make money by such means, they might have announced that the proceeds of the tickets would be given to the distressed population of the Manchester district, and there would then have been crowds of visitors.

But the rigid economy of the Commissioners, who refused to expend six shillings a day for an attendant, although it would most probably have produced a return of several hundred pounds, was entirely laid aside when their patronage was to be extended to a brother official.

Captain Fowke, an officer of engineers, whose high order of architectural talent became afterwards so well known to the public, and whose whole time and services were retained and paid for by the country, was employed to make a design for the Exhibition Building.

The Commissioners approved of this design, which comprised two lofty domes, uniting in themselves the threefold inconvenience of being ugly, useless, and expensive. They then proceeded to pay him five thousand pounds for the job. 3em