ty, the Bavarians have
a very similar arrangement to that of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society of this country, of which mention has already been made. Each
article is labelled with the name of the designer and maker.

In conclusion, it seems evident that, with all the faults and shortcomings
of this latter part of the nineteenth century--and no doubt they are many,
both of commission and omission--still, speaking generally, there is no
lack of men with ability to design, and no want of well trained patient
craftsmen to produce, furniture which shall equal the finest examples of
the Renaissance and Jacobean periods. With the improved means of
inter-communication between England and her Colonies, and with the chief
industrial centres of Europe united for the purposes of commerce, the
whole civilized world is, as it were, one kingdom: merchants and
manufacturers can select the best and most suitable materials, can obtain
photographs or drawings of the most distant examples, or copies of the
most expensive designs, while the public Art Libraries of London, and
Paris, contain valuable works of reference, which are easily accessible to
the student or to the workman. It is very pleasant to bear testimony to
the courtesy and assistance which the student or workman invariably
receives from those who are in charge of our public reference libraries.

There needs, however, an important condition to be taken into account.
Good work, requiring educated thought to design, and skilled labour to
produce, must be paid for at a very different rate to the furniture of
machined mouldings, stamped ornament, and other numerous and inexpensive
substitutes for handwork, which our present civilization has enabled our
manufacturers to produce, and which, for the present, seems to find favour
with the multitude. It has been well said that, "Decorated or sumptuous
furniture is not merely furniture that is expensive to buy, but that which
has been elaborated with much thought, knowledge, and skill. Such
furniture cannot be cheap certainly, but _the real cost is sometimes borne
by the artist who produces, rather than by the man who may happen to buy
it_." [24] It is often forgotten that the price paid is that of the lives
and sustenance of the workers and their families.

Conclusion.

A point has now been reached at which our task must be brought to its
natural conclusion; for although many collectors, and others interested in
the