FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



proceedings that former shows had lacked, whilst 

 the attendance was well ahead of previous records. 

 Then, for the first time in the history of the 

 Society, we had some lady exhibitors, a great 

 novelty in those Mid- Victorian days, and pour 

 encourager Us autres I trumpeted their enterprise 

 far and wide as the happiest of auguries. Although 

 we did not quite clear expenses, we were a deal 

 nearer this than we had been for years, whilst the 

 Society obtained a good advertisement of itself, 

 as was shown by the fact that two towns, Bicester 

 and Witney, competed for the honour of receiving 

 it the following year. 



So the curtain fell upon the first act of my 

 little agricultural drama. I had reverting to 

 my old theatrical days what was equivalent to 

 a call before the curtain at the finish, for, at the 

 annual dinner which crowned the show-day's 

 proceedings, I was brought into the limelight 

 by those who would not be denied. And so I 

 suddenly found myself on my hind legs and for 

 the first time in my life addressing an enthusiastic 

 gathering of agriculturists. After all I had gone 

 through, after the ever besetting dread that for 

 so long possessed me that my lack of essential 

 knowledge and experience would land me in the 

 hopeless quagmire of failure, I should have been 

 either more or less than mortal if I had not been 

 full in heart and uplifted in spirit as I looked round 

 at the sympathetic souls, who in this way brought 

 home to me that I had come into the day's reckon- 

 ing. Had the mantle of a prophet fallen upon 

 me I should have seen that this was but the 

 forerunner of half a century's kindliness on the 



40 



