Experience as Member of the Board of Judges At the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. One day in April I was surprised to receive by mail a commission as a member of the Board of Judges in Group Twenty of the Philadelphia International Exhibition. I was at a loss to know how I got it, but learned afterwards that I had been appointed on the recommendation of Mr. Holley, who was consulted by the commissioners about the judges in several groups. The exhibition was opened on May 1, but the judges were not to assemble until the 24th, and on that day we had quite a ceremony in the judges’ hall. The American judges were seated at one side of the hall and rose to receive the foreign judges who filed in from some place where they had been corralled, while a fine band played the national airs of all nations that had any airs. After a time spent in welcoming and responsive addresses, we were marched to a large café and given luncheon, after which the different groups were organized. There I had the pleasure of first meeting Mr. James Moore, also Professor Reuleaux of Berlin and Colonel Petroff of St. Petersburg; and Emil Brugsch the interesting Egyptian commissioner, also serving as a judge in our group. I observed that these foreigners used the English language more accurately than I did. We organized by the election as president of Horatio Allen, formerly president of the Novelty Iron Works (then extinct), he being the oldest and the biggest man among us. Under Mr. Allen’s administration we had a fine illustration of how not to do anything--of endless preparation and never getting to work. He had an interminable series of subjects for discussion and was accustomed to say: “These questions must be all settled before we can enter upon the discharge of our duties, gentlemen.” This had the effect upon our foreign judges that they absented themselves from our meetings. I remember Mr. Moore saying to me: “Porter, if you and I had had this work to do we would have had it half done by this time.” Directly after that Mr. Moore resigned, ostensibly pleading want of time to attend to it, but really disgusted at the waste of time. Our work was in a state of chaos. The field was very extensive, as it embraced all exhibits pertaining to steam and water except locomotives. One morning I came to the meeting with a copy of the catalogue on which I had divided the exhibits into three classes, lettered A, B, and C: class A embraced steam-engines and their accessories, class B boilers and their accessories and class C pumps and their accessories; I had prefixed these letters to the names of all our exhibits according to their class. At this meeting, at which I had procured the attendance of the foreign judges, this classification was unanimously adopted, and the judges formed themselves into these classes accordingly. Our work was then undertaken in earnest; it was found to be really too extensive to be accomplished otherwise.