General Meeting > Tuesday , June 2G, 1894. 
xcx 
The resolution, having been carried 
by acclamation, was duly telegraphed 
by the President to H.R.H. the Duke 
of York. 1 
Vote of Thanks to Mayor and Cor- 
poration of Cambridge. 
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales then 
said : — 1 have been asked to move the 
following resolution : “ That the best 
thanks of the Society are due, and 
are hereby tendered, to the Mayor 
and Corporation of Cambridge for 
their cordial reception of the Society.” 
I feel sure that all of you will agree 
with me that this is a resolution 
which ought to come before all others, 
and we shall all most unanimously 
tender our thanks to the Mayor and 
Corporation for what they have done 
in their reception of the Society at 
Cambridge. It may be interesting to 
remark that the last Meeting of the 
Royal Agricultural Society at Cam- 
bridge was held fifty-four years ago — 
a year before I was born. The amount 
of the prizes then offered was 900 1 . ; 
at this Show it is 5,433/. I can only 
say that it has given me great pleasure 
to attend here again at Cambridge 
— a place which is full of agreeable 
associations for me, as I lived here 
for a year at Trinity College. I hope 
that the fine weather may last, and 
that the Show may continue to be a 
great success throughout the whole of 
the week. I have great pleasure in 
moving this resolution. (Cheers.) 
Mr. E. V. V. Wheeler (Senior 
Steward of Stock) seconded the reso- 
lution. He said that without the 
assistance of the Mayors and Corpora- 
tions of the different towns visited by 
the Society, there would be consider- 
able difficulty in carrying out that 
great Show. The success of the present 
Meeting was in large measure due to 
the Mayor and Corporation of that 
town. The Mayor of Cambridge had 
in no way been behind the Mayors of 
other towns in the hospitality which 
hediad extended to the Society, and 
he (Mr. Wheeler) had great pleasure 
in seconding the resolution. 
The vote of thanks having been 
put and carried unanimously, 
1 For the terms of the reply received iu 
answer to this telegram see page' lxxvii. 
The Mayor of Cambridge (Mr. 
Edmund H. Parker), in replying, said, 
in the first place, he should like to 
add the congratulations of the town 
to His Royal Highness on the birth of 
another representative of his Royal 
line. They all heard the good news 
on Sunday in that very tent, and 
“ God save the Queen ” was immedi- 
ately sung. On behalf of the Cor- 
poration of Cambridge, he cordially 
thanked His Royal Highness for 
proposing this resolution, and the 
meeting for the unanimous way in 
which they had adopted it. He need 
scarcely tell them that Corporations 
had their difficulties, and they had 
had theirs. They would not be sur- 
prised to hear that the chief one was 
of a financial character ; but, thanks 
to the liberality of their townsmen, 
helped nobly by the University, the 
county, and others from far and near, 
he trusted that their exchequer would 
be found quite equal to the require- 
ments. Hewouldliketo make mention 
of one or two gentlemen in this con- 
nection. Messrs. Foster & Co., the well- 
known bankers at Cambridge, headed 
their subscription list with a most libe- 
ral donation, and Mr. George Newnes, 
M.P. for East Cambridgeshire, came 
forward and guaranteed any deficit 
there might be. This enabled them 
to work with a light heart. He had 
had put into his hands a copy of the 
Cambridge Advertiser of 1840, which 
gave an account of the Society’s Show 
held in that year. He had set him- 
self to see if he could find anything 
unchanged at the present day. At 
first sight everything seemed altered, 
but he did find two things which were 
the same in 1840. The Royal Agri- 
cultural Society appeared to have 
been more given to dinners than they 
were now, for he read of a large 
dinner in the Quadrangle of Downing 
College, when 3,000 people sat 
down in a pavilion erected at the 
costof 1,300/. After dinner, the Duke 
of Richmond, who was then President 
of the Society, called upon the 
assembly to rise and drink to the 
Queen, whereupon the whole vast 
assembly rose, and with enthusiastic 
cheering drank the toast. He would 
like to point out that there was the 
same spirit of loyalty in this country 
