Report of tlio Senior Steward of Implements at Windsor. 473 
XXVI. — Report of the Senior Steward of Implements at Windsor. 
By S. P. Foster. 
The great Windsor Show — to wliich all connected with the 
Royal Agricultural Society were looking forward with so much 
anticipation — has come and gone, and has happily left none but 
pleasant memories behind it. The highest hopes of those 
responsible for its inception and organisation were more than 
realised in the unprecedented entries, the high quality of the 
exhibits, the brilliant summer weather, the gratifying atten- 
dance of the public, and last, but most important, the distinction 
conferred upon the Meeting by the personal interest and pre- 
sence of Her Majesty the Queen and the other members of the 
Royal Family. 
It falls annually to the lot of the Senior Steward of Imple- 
ments to chronicle the leading features of the Show at which he 
makes his last official appearance ; and it is not seldom a matter 
of difficulty for him to find the wherewithal for his brief chroni- 
cle of the times, the more elaborate papers of the official reporters 
and others leaving him little more to descant upon than the 
attendance of the public, the weather, and the hospitalities 
which the Society receives from the local authorities. This 
year, however, there is a more noble theme for the pen of the 
chronicler ; and if I shall seem in what follows to tell a twice-told 
tale to those who had the good fortune to be present at Windsor, 
the facts may, I trust, not be without value in years to come, as 
a record of the circumstances in which the Society celebrated 
its Jubilee by the holding of a Show of unparalleled size and 
importance. 
It is not necessary here to dilate upon the various incidents 
of the year which led up to the opening of the Show. The 
public meeting at the Mansion House on June 25, 1888, to 
promote the success of the exhibition by obtaining funds from the 
citizens of London for the augmentation of the prize-sheet and 
the defrayal of the unusually heavy expenses ; the subsequent 
efforts of the Lord Mayor (now Sir James Whitehead, Bart.) 
and of Mr. Walter Gilbey (the Chairman of the Show Com- 
mittee) in collecting the Mansion House Fund ; the indefatigable 
labours of the Mayor of Windsor (Mr. G. H. Peters) in raising 
the local guarantee fund, and in meeting the requirements of 
the Society in other ways ; Her Majesty's state banquet to the 
Council at St. James's Palace on March 26, to commemorate 
the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Society ; the 
Lord Mayor's banquet on the eve of the opening of the Show, 
and the Mayor of Windsor's luncheon to His Royal Highness 
