CHAPTER XXV 



Cloud and Sunshine Some Show Yard Trials The Kilburn Slough 

 The Smithfield Fog A Cornish GaleThe B. & W. Mess- 

 Relics of the Past. 



IF T have dealt in a somewhat light-hearted 

 spirit with some of the incidents of a show- 

 man's career, it must not be inferred that 

 it has not its trials and anxieties, but these are 

 not alleviated by taking either them or oneself 

 too seriously. However much one may endeavour 

 to look ahead, or, as a Parliamentarian once put 

 it, display " an intelligent anticipation of events 

 to come," there are always lurking possibilities 

 of unforeseen contingencies, capable of upsetting 

 all human calculations. In a show yard, Nature 

 herself is very good at lending a hand to give 

 point to the ancient reminder that " the best- 

 laid plans of mice and men aft gang agley." It 

 can be safely said that Nature, as represented 

 by weather, has been a source of more anxiety 

 to showmen than all other influences combined, 

 without excluding even swine-fever, which has 

 had an unhappy knack of making its presence 

 felt on the eve of a show, with the natural corollary 

 of a sheaf of Government orders perplexing to 

 those who have to act upon them, and fatal to 

 the porcine section of the exhibition. But meteoro- 

 logical conditions, speaking generally, have a more 

 powerful effect upon the s. d. side of a show than 



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