AUCKLAND'S FIRST ROYAL SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 272, 16 November 1926, Page 10

AUCKLAND'S FIRST ROYAL SHOW.

INAUSPICIOUS OPENING DAY.

COLD AND INHOSPITABLE WEATHER.

OFFICIAL OPENING BY GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

FINE DISPLAY OF PEDIGREE STOCK.

f Auckland's first Royal Show, opened at Epsom by the Governor-General to-day, had a most inhospitable greeting from the weather gods. Day broke with a howling westerly, accompanied by sweeping rainsqualls, and as the morning advanced conditions grew worse instead of better. The wind increased; it was biting and cold; and the rain drove at frequent intervals with almost the cutting force of hail. At intervals there came a glimpse of gold through the clouds, scurrying in black battalions across the sky, but these fitful endeavours on the part of the sun to impart some brightness to the occasion were overwhelmed almost as soon as shown. It was a thoroughly bad day, the weather on its worst behaviour, and an inauspicious opening for the first agricultural display in Auckland entitled to the prefix of "Royal." it was not royal weather, unless it could be regarded satirically from a Satanic standpoint, and this wanton substitution of winter where spring should be wearing its most kindly smile cast a spell of pessimism over what should have been a joyful start. And what will say our Visitors from the South, who have come here for the golden shimmer of "the warm and kindly North"? The only hope of Aucklanders is that this is not an isolated meteorological disturbance, but that the climatic conditions are just as bad—or Worse in those Southern centres from which so many of our visitors come. But "hope springs eternal," and present hope is that this evening will be marked by a favourable break, and that to-morrow will dawn bright and beautiful "for "People's Day," upon which the show, from a financial standpoint at least, so greatly depends.