454 
The Cambridge Meeting , 1894. 
Horse-Shoeing Competitions. 
These contests were limited to shoeing-smiths in the Society’s 
District A, comprising the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, 
Cambridge, Essex, Hertford, Huntingdon, London, Middlesex, 
Norfolk, Oxford, and Suffolk. The Judges report : — 
In Class I., Roadsters, there were 13 competitors, amongst whom there 
were several good workmen. With the exception that some of the com- 
petitors made the shoes much too light for roadsters, the work upon the 
whole was satisfactory. We awarded 5 prizes and one H.C. — and upon 
inquiry found that 5 of the 6 men placed were Registered Shoeing Smiths. 
In Class II., Agricultural horses, there were also 13 competitors, none 
of whom had competed in Class I. The work done was very good, much 
better and more uniform than in Class I. 
The 1st and 2nd prize winners were Registered Shoeing Smiths. 
It is satisfactory to state that every man entered competed, and that 
there is now a marked improvement in the treatment of the foot. 
A lecture, plentifully illustrated by specimens, was delivered 
by Mr. Clement Stephenson, F.R.C.Y.S., at the Shoeing Forge 
on the Wednesday. The subject was “ The Horse’s Foot and 
How to Shoe it,” and the address was listened to by a large 
number of farriers and others interested in the subject. 
A “ Cambridge Meeting ” of the Past. 
A delightful record of an old fair which used to be held on 
the outskirts of Cambridge has been preserved in the quaint 
writings of Defoe. 1 With this year’s Meeting of the Society 
still fresh in the mind it is interesting by way of contrast 
to recall how business was conducted on almost the same spot 
in the earlier years of last century. To mutilate Defoe’s 
description would be to deprive it of its most attractive charm ; 
hence it is quoted in extenso. 
I now draw near to Cambridge, to wbicb I fancy I look as if I was 
afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand ; but I 
must yet make another digression before I enter the town (for in my way, 
and as I came in from Newmarket, about the beginning of September), I 
cannot omit, that I came necessarily through Stourbridge Fair, which was 
then in its height. 
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the gaiety of 
Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to the trading part of 
the world, to say something of this fair, which is not only the greatest in 
the whole nation, but in the world ; nor, if I may believe those who have 
seen the mall, is the fair at Leipzig in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort-on- 
the-Main, or the fairs at Nuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to 
this fair at Stourbridge. 
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from the side 
of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile square. 
1 Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722. By Daniel Defoe. 
