CHAPTER XXX 



Some Retrospections A Sad Feature of Long Service Direction 

 Posts Parting Words. 



THESE later chapters from a showman's 

 life are the embodiment of a long- 

 cherished desire to pay tribute, ere I go 

 hence, to the old Society with which I have been 

 so long and so happily connected, by putting on 

 record some account of its work and of its inner 

 life during my lengthened association with it. 

 Opportunity represented by sufficient leisure 

 to do this came to me owing to the unavoidable 

 suspension of the Society's annual show and also 

 to the necessity, owing to illness, of restricting 

 some of my physical activities. 



A cut-and-dried official chronicle of things 

 would not have fulfilled what was in my mind, 

 as it would not have gone beneath the surface or 

 have taken sufficient cognizance of personal char- 

 acteristics. Besides, it would have been a work 

 of supererogation, inasmuch as a purely official 

 record of the Society's public doings and happen- 

 ings is to be found in its Annual Journal and 

 elsewhere. 



So far as I have been able to ascertain, I have 

 held office, as an Agricultural Showman and 

 Secretary, longer than an}^ of my brothers-in- 

 arms now in the land of the living ; certainly 



320 



