Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/89

Rh where similar products from all regions are gathered, and the practical judgment of the using and consuming public is pronounced, from which there is no appeal.

The principle in this applies not only to raw products, but in a general sense to manufactures and to industrial products of all kinds in general use.

In this view of the subject, the method of awards adopted by the Centennial Commission presents the great advantage that it is judicial rather than representative, and the Commission is perfectly free to select judges from the best sources, regardless of localities.

The men to seek for are those who, by their ability, education, character, and experience, are fittest for the work, and they will be less difficult to find than to obtain, being generally employed, and frequently connected with large industries, important works, and the higher institutions to which their superior qualifications have led them.

Freedom to choose our judges from the best sources cannot fail to produce good results if the selection be made upon proper investigation, with suitable care and without favor.

The announcement of this method of awards has been received in foreign countries, as far as heard from, with expressions of distinct approbation, and there can be no doubt that they will select and bring to us their hundred judges, who will be distinguished by their reliable and solid qualifications, and it is incumbent on us to select a body of men of character, able and expert in their respective callings, and equal in attainments and experience to our foreign cooperatives, with whom our own will be intimately associated.

I need hardly add that the useful results and success of our Exhibition and the public satisfaction which it should produce, as well as the reputation of this Commission, as practical and sensible men, depend largely on the selection of our judges, and finally upon their organization and work. . ..



HE improvements in telegraphy, about which the public has lately been learning a good deal through the newspapers, really constitute a remarkable element of progress, and are deserving of separate consideration. With the fire-alarm, domestic, and district telegraphs in our cities, the reduced rates and increased efficiency of the great lines and the further improvements promised us, it does not seem too much to expect that the telegraph will soon rival the post-office and the press as a bearer and diffuser of intelligence.

The failure of the English postal telegraph to fulfill the sanguine prophecies of its advocates will hardly be held to militate against this view, when it shall be shown what the nature of these improvements is. Prof. Jevons, in a late number of the Fortnightly Review, has indicated the causes of this failure. It was taken for granted by the promoters of the scheme, he asserts, that, as in the case of the 