SHOW GLOAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 109, 4 November 1939, Page 12

SHOW GLOAT

BULLS TO DACHSHUND

"SOMEWHERE IN MANAWATU"

COUNTRY ON PARADE

(From "The Post's" Special Reporter.)

Country met Town in both nostrils yesterday, People's Day at the Centennial Spring Show of the Manawatu and West Coast Agricultural ana Pastoral Association. The sun, weary of having his hat on, raised it politely, and a goodly measure of hips; with hoorays in proportion, met the concession. An unnerving number of people, all suffering from suffocating energy, sucked down dust and odd trifles, lost children and money, and went away again until- next year. To give them their due, they- looked as if they enjoyed it, except a five-year-old'who popped into the lost children's department looking for a man^ who was short oi a five-year-old. The completely mechanised units in the grand parade ranged from 'a champion bull to a solitary dachshund whose centre of gravity, almost subterranean, made it want to pitch kampf half-way- round the oval.

We —editors, bishops, and Cabinet. Ministers are always plural—felt ■frightI fully mysterious and important when we lost ourself in? the crowd, but we knew that our dear and hot so hear could find out immediately where we were by ringing up unimpeachable sources, well-informed circles, or, as a last resort, authoritative quarters, and being told that we were, "somewhere in Manawatu." . -DOGS IN SOCIETY. Had a moth-eaten hound of the poor loped into the doggery by mistake it would have been appalled by the talent waiting to be found in the search, and would have been yapped into a slink or a disconsolate sniff. A Bren gun carrier ' disguised as an Old English sheep-dog trundled up and down the aisle—"alleyways" just aren't donewhen dogs of class foregather— a few inches of bulldog puppies were practising making faces at each other, and a Scotch terrier behind netting swore softly into his sporran. Labradors and cocker spaniels, whites of eyes gleaming from the black, looked very A.R.P., and a lonesome greyhound was giving a creditable imitation of Mona Lisa before she saw the joke. The Sydney Silkies were merely silk and chatter. The dog is reputed to be man's best friend—except, of course,; that it can't tell him anything. Man embraces woman, therefore one dog equals best friend of one woman. But you wouldn't have thought so. In the boxes the darlings were pets, and on the floor for a limber up the pets were treasures, but as soon as some of the canine largesse were dumped on the judging platform in company they became cantankerous urchins. When they were meant to stand and show their qualifications they sat, and when they were taken for a gallop to show their rhythm or whatever judges look for they persisted, in bloodhounding an invisible but apparently absorbing objective. Anyhow, they reasoned, if a dog were called Prince Egbert of Ellovanich-Saxe-Steinberg (imp.) it wasn't his faulty and when it came down to fundamentals he was; plain dog. BREATH OF THE COUNTRY. The man who unwound himself to the extent of* calling autumn "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" hadn't been to the stock pavilions of the Manawatu Show in the spring. The fruitfulness had mellowed into ripeness after an hour or' so, but it was all part of the show. A nice old lady ot inquiring disposition, who had come by herself all the way from the oval to see Nature in the raw tried valiantly to ignore the grumphing accompaniment to a piglets' lunch and transferred her interest to the Southdowns. "Aren't they sweet?" she twittered to herself. "Baavellous," supplemented a ewe with a touch of adenoids. | "Ma-a-" chipped in another in faulty! recognition. Even if mutton were a scandalous price, there was no need to be cheeky about it/ The lady re-; turned to the oval. On the way back she passed a bevy of Clydesdales making neigh while the sun shone. Big chaps they were, with fluffy spats and tails in curlers. "No, madam, these are not Shetlands and they're not going to RiccartOn." Thinking of the lawn that hadn't been clipped since the neighbours' moved, the seeker of the other six and threequarter pillars of wisdom went over to the agricultural machinery, learning on the way past the cattle competitions that rings in bulls' noses did not mean that they were engaged^, and that cows chewed gum because it stopped them asking silly questions. The rattle, grind, and throb of the heavy armaments in the agricultural war made the lady forget about her lawn; she'd have to pick up a cheap used sheep somewhere, one that had been rebored and carried a guarantee. The chug and rip of a small power press had as an undertone the muted power of a huge grain?thresher; a giant cutter shimmied and sliced; and a milking unit thumped and sighed. It was all interesting to think that one collection of belts, wheels, and cogs could put so many men out of work, but life was like that. BEN HUR HORSE-POWERED. Back on the oval a roar of engines accompanied the efforts of two men to add a "t" to Ben Hur. Each had a chariot, one blue and the other yellow, and each was hitched, to twin motor-cycles, which were steered with long arms reaching from the driver's platform.. The idea seemed to .be to chase each other round.the track, the winner Ijeing the man who made the most noise and raised the greatest dust. Yellow won by a hundred or so togas, blue getting second place and dirty. It was certainly more methodical than the performance at the last Winter Show, when an unwilling steer^ driven by a hopeful charioteer cleared a five-foot fence in a standing jump and left its cart behind. In the afternoon yesterday the inmates of the various stalls and pavilions were persuaded to behave themselves for the grand parade. Shorthorn bulls led the procession because they have that way about them, and they were followed obediently by the rest of the cattle. When they all lined up facing the main stand and lowed dutifully, the draught horses, ribbons flaming, came out to take their bow, and trouble almost started. When a pound or two of prancing Clydesdale nearly treads on a bull's toe (foot; hoof, claw—take a pick) and refuses to apologise, the time has come for a Note, White Paper, or something. Tension was eased by the horse frightening a cow. . ; After the parade a member of a motor-car crash squad lurched round the track twice, demonstrating that the car crashes only when the driver wants it to, and then a man with five best friends (Collies), all under friendly control, rounded up. and penned four sheep. It was a longish job;, the dogs knew the rules of herding and so did their -owner, but the sheep were just cads. 1 Show-longl