The effect of the absence of price on visitors is a source of painful annoyance to themselves, and of loss to the manufacturers and shopkeepers, from whom they would otherwise have purchased largely. Foreigners are so sensible of this defect, that they have in many instances printed priced catalogues of their own articles. Their interpretation of our refusal to allow prices to be affixed is, that we are unable to compete with other nations in economy of production. The philosopher and the economist, by whose researches and comparisons the public might have been instructed, wander through the lofty avenues and splendid galleries of the Crystal Palace, tantalized by expectations, raised but to be disappointed. They at last are compelled to abandon their mission in hopeless despair, wilfully deprived, by the managers of this industrial feast, of that information on which all their conclusions must ultimately rest. [9] As by one of the rules each separate article exhibited must have a number, the same numbers might be used in the bills. CHAPTER IX. PRIZES. The great feature of the original plan of the Exposition was to give large prizes. One, at least, was to have been 5,000_l._, and the whole amount of them 20,000_l._ The anticipation of these prizes gave hope and industry to thousands: means were examined and measures taken by many a workman, at the expense of great personal sacrifices, to enable him to complete a model of some favourite scheme, by which he might hope to win one amongst the many pecuniary prizes, and thus be repaid at least for a portion of his efforts. The announcement on the Continent of these liberal arrangements was received with unbounded astonishment and admiration. The magnitude of the great prize seemed to foreigners incredible, and the liberality of offering it to the competing world, was altogether beyond their conception of the character assigned to us as a nation. It was certainly very unfortunate that such an announcement should have been made and then withdrawn. But as the question will probably arise again, it may be useful for some future occasion to inquire now into the principles on which pecuniary prizes should be awarded. Science, literature, and industrial art are in some measure subject to the same laws in the distribution of pecuniary rewards. It is desirable that such prizes should be given to those objects only which, possessing very considerable merit and utility, are of such a nature as not to repay the first inventors. § One effect of such rewards would be to increase very much the number of minds engaged in making inventions. This itself is a matter of more importance than might at first be thought, as will be shown on some future occasion in examining the question of monopoly.