AGRICULTURAL FAIRS. 335 



t 



ral fair is not a variety show, a hippodrome, amphitheatre, or a circus. They 

 may pay reut money into the treasury of the society, but it is the price of 

 yielding up what is manly, respectable, and of good report ; and striking hands 

 and going into partnership with whisky sellers, gamblers, vagabond organ 

 grinders, and vulgar tramps. 



Societies, whether State, district, or county, that prolong their existence 

 from year to year through such agencies, and are not otherwise sustained in 

 attempting to carry out the real principles and objects for which they were 

 formed, rest upon an uncertain and sandy foundation, and their utility and 

 usefulness may well be questioned. While societies cannot meet current 

 expenses and pay premiums without an income equivalent thereto, and cer- 

 tain unobjectional outside attractions may properly be admitted, yet, the 

 nearer agricultural fairs are kept true to name in every particular, the better 

 they will be every way, and their influence more potent. Besides, there is 

 danger that many persons, otherwise interested in agricultural exhibitions, do 

 not attend because certain vulgar shows seem to be the prominent leading 

 features of the fair. 



It may be said that officers of fairs, as such, are not special guardians and 

 conservators of public morals, and that the people must take care of them- 

 selves inside, as well as outside the fairgrounds. Granting this, yet the respon- 

 sibility rests upon us as good citizens, to protect society from harm in every 

 possible way, and not to lend our influence, approve, or grant facilities for 

 doing aught which tends to undermine, corrupt, and degrade our fellow men. 

 Young people of both sexes, in large numbers, frequent the annual fairs. 



A dram-drinking, irreverent, and dissolute society, says: "Let the boys 

 and girls have a good time, they'll soon be old and have trouble enough." In 

 other words, leave them free to consort with low, vicious companions; to drink, 

 smoke, gamble, swear, and idle away their time. Remove them from the influ- 

 ences of a respectable, orderly. Christian home, and away from all parental 

 authority and restraints. Turn them loose upon the town and the more obnox- 

 ious and disgraceful their conduct, the better ''time" they are supposed to 

 have. Gentlemen, we need to take earnest heed to our ways, lest our agri- 

 cultural exhibitions cease to exert a healthful influence in community, and, 

 failing to accomplish that for which they were organized, fall under condem- 

 nation. A leading metropolitan journal, criticizing the management of some 

 of our western fairs, said : " The complaint has become general that the better 

 class of farmers take little or no interest in agricultural fairs, probably owing 

 to the fact that they have ceased to be agricultural in anything but name." 

 But we at the west are not sinners above all others. Look at Puritan New 

 England. 



The New York Tribune, in a recent editorial, headed "The New England 

 Kum Fair," said: "The public appearance of that money-making ring, 

 known as the N. E. Agricultural Society, is confined to an annual fair of a 

 week's duration, but the influence of this autumn debauch is perennial, and 

 may be counted as the most degrading to which the rising rural population of 

 the six States is subjected." The Boston Farmer pertinently asks : "What 

 has the N. E. society accomplished in nineteen years of its existence? It was 

 organized in 1864, for the encouragement of agriculture in all its branches 

 by the application of the best intellectual efforts, and for the exhibition of 

 animals, farm products, and machinery." The Farmer then says: "Take 

 the last fair at Manchester, in September, 1883. Was that show anything 

 to be proud of for the members of the society, the friends of agriculture, 



