90
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
tion. It is said that no less than fifteen thousand persons had free admission daily as exhibitors, exhibitors’ assistants, foreign commissioners, their officers and attendants, the employés of the general direction, .consisting of clerks, attendants, police,- military, firemen and keepers of the roads and gardens, besides a host of other people connected with the restaurants and other matters. No general rule could be hit upon for the management of this host, and the executive seemed to think that the best way to protect itself from imposition was to keep perpetually changing the passes, and giving all the trouble possible, so as to prevent its being worth the while of any trickster to try and circumvent them ; but this was legislating for a few vagabonds, and giving endless annoyance to thousands of anxious, hard-working and honest people. Had a certain number of wicket-gates been allotted for the entrance of the holders of free passes, and picked men placed at them, in a week or two they would have become familiar with the people who had a right to pass, and no real difficulty would have been felt. So irritating was the Austrian process, that upon several occasions it was with difficulty that a general strike amongst exhibitors and their assistants was prevented. About twenty-five nations were represented in the Vienna Exposition ; and as many wicket-gates, with three attendants allotted to each, two to be in regular attendance and one to relieve the others for meals and rest, would have made the administration sufficiently secure, and would have saved money, trouble and inconvenience to a considerable extent. For nearly as many gates were open to free passes, and even a greater number of people were employed, besides the useless staff whose whole occupation was printing and changing admission tickets continually ; but there was no system, and consequently expense and trouble were incurred without any other result than extreme dissatisfaction. Mistakes of this kind, which affected the general management, multiplied of course in all the smaller branches of the arrangement and originated innumerable difficulties and disappointments which greatly militated against the realization of that satisfaction which it ought to have been the general aim of the administration to produce. - The want of reliable departmental officers forced the