CHAPTER XXVIII 



The Show in War-Time Administrative Difficulties A Concertina 

 and a bit o' baccy Aid for our Allies. 



THE Society, inasmuch as it came into being 

 previous to the French Revolution, the 

 revolt of the American Colonies, and the 

 Napoleonic Wars, has lived through more than 

 one crisis in the national history, and has survived 

 more than one social upheaval. Yet its past 

 records during these eventful periods convey that 

 it was but little affected by the momentousness 

 of the times in which it lived. It seemed to have 

 pursued " the noiseless tenor of its way " amid the 

 clash of arms, undisturbed by happenings which 

 were shaping the destinies of Europe and of our 

 Colonies. After a long lapse of years, its tranquil 

 calm was rudely broken in our own time, for it 

 cannot be said that the greatest of wars that has 

 ever desolated the earth has failed to leave its 

 mark upon the old Society. 



If not many years ago anyone had told me 

 that I should live to see the day when the holding 

 of agricultural shows would be prohibited by the 

 State on war emergency grounds, I should have 

 put down my informant as a romancer. Yet lie 

 would have been a true prophet. 



The Bath and West Society, with the con- 

 currence of the State, held on to its show longer 



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