THE TRURO TEMPEST 



its effects, and all did not recover, including a 

 good farmer friend of mine, a noted sheep-breeder, 

 whose death was entirely due to the poison he 

 took into his lungs at Smithfield. The monetary 

 loss to exhibitors, owing to the death or illness 

 of their stock, was considerable, but, happily, 

 it stands alone as a sample of what a metropolitan 

 fog can do when so minded. 



The Bath and West Society at one time had so 

 bountiful a share of wet weather that, if the crops 

 were suffering from the effects of drought, just 

 previous to the show, it used to be said that there 

 was no need to pray for rain, as it was sure to 

 come as soon as the show opened. However, 

 I do not think that of late years we have been 

 worse off than other Societies in this respect. One 

 of the worst meteorological catastrophes that 

 ever befell us was at Truro in 1913, when as near 

 an approach to an Eastern tornado, as was possible 

 in these climes, visited the show yard, and ravaged 

 it. The entire yard was on high ground, some 

 portions being higher than others, and these 

 had no mercy shown them by the storm. The 

 canvas of the machinery-in-motion sheds was 

 " untimely ripped " from its bearings and torn 

 into shreds. Fortunately, most of the cattle 

 shedding was on lower ground, but some of it 

 did not entirely escape, for a portion of the timber- 

 roofing of one of the sheds, weighing several 

 hundredweight, was not only detached from the 

 building, but carried through the air, as though 

 it were a scrap of paper, over two other sheds, 

 and deposited alongside one of them without 

 doing any damage to either man or beast. The 



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