The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-21 00:00:00

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

The 114th annual session of the Society of Arts
was opened last evening by au address from Win.
Hawes, Esq., the chairman of the council. The
address was a very able one, and referred to a
variety of interesting topics.
The field for the society's exertions was regarded
as wider than ever ; the subjects which appear spe-
cially to belong to its consideration increase in
number and usefulness year by year, a great re-
sponsibility thus resting upon the council and the
society that the opportunity it now has of widening
its sphere of action should not be neglected. After
the obituary notices of deceased members, the action
taken during the past year by the food committee
was noted. This committee, reappointed this ses-
sion, and presided over by the Right Hon. Austin
Bruce, has already resumed its inquiries, and will,
it is trusted, elicit information of perrnan,-;ut utility
to the country. One of its first acts has been to
seek an interview with the Home Secretary to re-
present the hardship to the costermongers and the
injury to the working classes which will follow any
approach to a rigid enforo.unent of some of the pro-
visions in the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867, espe-
cially in some branches of tra le. To withdraw the
supply of the costertuongers would be to deprive
thousands of their regular and legitimate livelihood,
and probably tens of thousands of tae market where
they now obtain the cheapest and best supply of
provisions. Timis committee is now meeting twice
a week, and another of the special subjects to which
it is directing its attention is the fool Markets of
London, and when it is considered how extremely
inadequate these are to the wants of our constantly
increasing population, it would be felt, he thought,
that the committee is most usefully employed in
attempting to obtain a remedy for this evil.
With respect to the workmen despatched to
the Paris Exhibition, it was stated that
nearly all their reports had been received,
and are now in the press, and with a fe a, trifling
literal and grammatical corrections, they will be
printed exactly as they have been delivered to the
society, and will be ready for publication before

Christmas. The council believe that they will form
an interesting volume, and that the result of the in-
quiries made by these artisans will convey a great
deal of useful information to their fellow workmen
in this country. The men were received in the most
friendly manner by the French workmen. They
hal access to ineny workshops, and, by means of
the very intelligent body of guides nod interpreters
provided for them, and with the assist tnce of several
of their own boy who spoke French, they were able
to obtain a very good insight into the quality of
French work and the habits of French workmen. It
is gratifying to find that the cenduct of the men
whilst in Paris, and the intelligence ti:cy di played
in their incpuris, were se appr _elated by the French
authorities of the Exhibition, that they have applied
for permission to trauslate the reports for circula-
tion among French workmen. The question of
"Technical Education" was next alluded to. The
Paris Exhibition, naturally enough, considering the
large share the society has had in promotion of the
English displays of 1851 and 1862, occupied a very
prominent portion of the chairman's speech, in
which it is gratifying to find him
_strongly urging
the views first publicly argued in this newspaper,
from a basis of facts to logical definition. Upon this
matter Mr. Hawes said :--" The vastness of the ex-
hibition was its greatest drawback. None but those
who systematically examined it could comprehend
or appreciate the treasures it contained. On only
one department—that of machinery—will I venture
an opinion ; and well aware as I am:th-t it will not
agree with those expressed by various high authori-
ties, I do so with respect, though still with confidence.
Various letters have appeared in the society's journal,
the tendency of which has been, if not expressed
distinctly, to lead the public to suppose that foreign
countries have already equalled, if not surpaised us,
in mechanical skill and workmanship. The writers
have exaggerated the skill of foreign workmen, and
depreciated that of our own. They have assumed
that because the first mechanical engineers of France
have taken a contract for a certain number of loco-
motives for the Great Eastern Railway that our
superiority has passed away. They also appear to
assume that every man engaged in productive in -
dustry should be equally well informed, whereas
everyone familiar with such matters knows this is
not necessary —however desirable it may be—to
enable us to maintain our superiority. I took great
pains to examine the locomotives and steam-engines
of foreign countries, carefully looking to the finish,
the simplicity, and beauty of construction, and I
endeavoured to bring to my mind the respective
position of similar machines of the same countries
in 1851 and 1862, and I am satisfied that whilst
foreign countries, starting from a very much lower
point, have advanced in a greater degree since 1851
dnd 1862, than we have, still our pre-eminence is
complete. During the sixteen years which have
elapsed since 1851 every foreign rival has had our
best examples to copy. He has had free access to
our manufactories, where our newest and best me-
chanical tools have been seen in action. It would,
therefore, have been more than remarkable if our
rivals had remained stationary in the quality of their
work than that they should have improved as
rapidly as they have done. In the same time we
have had nothing to learn from abroad, and have
had little more to do than to improve and perfect
our models of 1851 and 1862, for who that atten-
tively examined the machinery exhibited in those
years can forget the beautiful marine engines of
tau Islay and of Penn, the locomotives of Stephen-
son, or the stationary engines of Boulton and Watt
and others, models of workmanship not now sur-
paseed—nay, not equalled--by any foreign machi-
nery in the Paris Exhibition of this year; and the
same comparison might be made in respect of our
cotton and our carding machines. Moreover, when
we compare our exhibits with those from Other
countries, we must not forget that many of our
most important industries were very imperfectly
represented. This, undoubtedly, was our own
fault ; we had the opportunity afforded to us of
exhibiting our finest works, but we did not
use it as we ought to have done, either in fine art,
in machinery, or in many branches of manufactur-
ing industry."

The improvement of the metropolis, and the pro-
posed Museum of Science and Art at the East-end
of London, were the other topics of the address.
The society has presented 100 guineas towards the
latter object.

. -
The gold Albert medal was presented to Messrs.
Cooke and Wheatstone, for the energy, scientific
knowledge, and practical skill with which they over-
came the great difficulties incidental to the success-
ful introduction of electric telegraphy. The silver
medals of the society were also presented to James
Fergusson, Esq., for his paper "On the Study of
Indian Architecture ;" to C. R. Markham, Esq., for
his paper " On the Tinnevelly Pearl Fisheries ;" and
to S. J. Mackie, Esq., for his paper " On the Con-
struction of Iron Ships and their Preservation from
Corroding and Fouling." The Prince Consort's
educational prize was again awarded to a student
of the City of London College, William Meadows,
a clerk, 19 years of age, who has taken 11 first-class
prizes in the years 1864-63-66 and 67.