Tke late Sir B. T. Brandreth Gibbs. 
615 
vear, from calves up to full maturity, makes all the notable stock so well 
known, that the best precaution is to have Judges in whose honour and 
integrity perfect confidence may be placed. 
" The award also was, as far as possible, kept secret until it was publicly 
announced at the Council dinner, which took place on the judging day. 
The Show was held on a small plot of land called Falkner's Fields (if I 
recollect rightly). It is now, I believe, covered with streets and houses, as, 
on visiting the locality, I failed to discover the site once so familiar to me. 
" There may be other matters which I have forgotten, so many sub- 
sequent Shows having intervened ; but there are two firmly impressed on my 
mind, viz. that I was wet through nearly all day in the Yard receiving the 
cattle, &c. ; and that I had to remain at work during the entire night, pre- 
paring for the numbering, &c.,of the stock for the Judges next morning. All 
this, however, soon got changed ; and by systematic arrangement the larger 
Shows can now be conducted with an ease and regularity unknown at this 
early period of the Society's history." 
The Liverpool Meeting soon grew into annual gatherings of 
its manifold limits ; but the labour and discomfort of superin- 
tendence and direction which are here referred to did not grow 
in similar proportion. Mr. Brandreth Gibbs received the formal 
appointment of Honorary Director of the Showjards of the 
Society in 1843, and soon brought his powers of organization 
and administration to bear upon the difficulties of his office. 
Regularity, promptitude, and punctuality, with rigid adherence 
to well-considered rules, soon made everything go easy. Nor 
must we imagine that here was a martinet who made every- 
thing " go " as he desired by sheer force of will. A certain 
elasticity, and even an uncertain vagueness, were by no means 
wanting in the rules and provisions which he arranged — a 
vagueness, however, it must be confessed, which seemed con- 
trived rather to increase the power of the Director than to 
facilitate encroachments on it. There was formerly (and it 
still to some extent survives) an " &c. " at the end of many of 
the regulations under which exhibitors are made welcome ; and 
its value was early recognized. The story goes that a clever 
exhibitor had obtained entrance for his contrivance in the 
implement department " as an invention for the acceleration of 
the speed of the periphery of a fly-wheel." When the Yard was 
crowded with spectators on the third and following days of the 
Meeting, he produced his " fly-wheel " in the form of an attrac- 
tive spinning-top of unusual size and shape ; and a rapid sale of 
tO}s was thus soon going on, and a harvest of a decidedly non- 
agricultural kind was being reaped, greatly to the scandal of the 
authorities. There was some difficulty in bringing the rules of 
the Yard to bear upon the offender and his playthings ; but, as 
our informant says, the fortunate " &C. " at the end of one of the 
provisions enabled Mr. Gibbs " to bag the lot." No one, we 
are sure, will imagine from this short reference to the precision, 
