HAWKE'S BAY SHOW.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8558, 18 October 1907, Page 5

HAWKE'S BAY SHOW.

By Telegraph—Press Association.. NAPIER, October 17. The People's Day of the Hawke's Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society's Show was favoured with beautiful weather, and the attendance constituted a record, about twelve thousand people being on the ground. The following additional championships were allotted:—Champion hack: Mrs J. H. McNiven's Puddler. Hereford bull: H. M. Campbell's Rori. Holstein-Friesian bull : Newton King's Sir Dekoeinka Pieterje (imp). Border Leicester ewe: Hon. J. D. Onnond. English Leicester ram: W. Perry; ewe, Douglas McLean. Romney Marsh ram: G. Wheeler; ewe, Ernest Short. The Hunters' Competition was won by Miss King Jimmy, W. and F. Mackenzie's Whereroa being second, and D. Noakes' Mignon third.. The Leaping Match was won by J. H. McNiven's Pickpocket, Mrs G. L. Sunderland's The Sinner being second, and D. Noakes' Mignon. third. THE LIGHTER SIDE. ON THE SHOWGROUND 4T HASTINGS. AMONG THE MONEYED MEN. THE CRASH OF THE ROMNEY RAMS. (From a Special Correspondent). The chief event of the week is thß great aristocratic Hawke's Bay Show, at Hastings. The show is one ot the oldest in the Dominion. It dates back 46 years—nearly half a century—so it is almost the father of shows, and quite hoary-headed. The membership, which clings like ivy to this venerable edifice, numbers 1.050. That is the second biggest roll call in tho Dominion. Palme'rston alone beats it. Poor Christchurch, which owns not its grandstand to offer as a bait, is down low with about 700. Hawke's Bay also falls beneath Palmerston in another matter —in the size of the throbbing human mass which places itself on exhibition at these festal times. Palmerston puts forward 40,000. Hawke's Bay replied last year with 21,000,. and was proud of that as a record. To-day (Wednesday) the attendance has been 100 below that of last year's Wednesday total of 7,000, but the weather has been gloomy. For to-morrow great things are expected. Will the record of last year be" broken?

It is a strange, delicous experience to be moving among magnates —to be rubbing coats with men of monumental wealth—the men who own Hawke's Bay. Every sandy-whis-kered man who jostles you is possibly the lord of fifty miles of this rolling, fertile, mellow, province—a man who makes ends meat on £200,000 a year. Every sun-burned creature in rustling white and a gorgeous parasol may be an unallotted heiress. Every dainty boot that is soiled to the ankles with the muck of the showground to-day may tread on pile carpets to-morrow. It makes you very humble, very respectful, very envious, but very happy. To have to spend £20,000 a year must be truly a stupendous task. But the motor car —that useful, slippery outlet for cash—has come; and t.'e task has grown easy. It is only necessary to ring the changes annually on two or three new exotic motor cars—-full brothers to King Edward's or the Sultan nf Turkey's--and the burden Of unspent surplus vanishes. It is simple, it is fashionable, it is utilitarian, and—the maze of motor cars on showgrounds and street to-day proves—it is popular. There are as many cars as cattle in Hastings. The chief event of the show was the Romn'ey ram fight, and Wheeler won it. One can scarcely conceive that any sheep in the world can possibly be bigger than Royalist. He is just colossal. His great sides spread out like those of a bullock. He looks stately, dignified, a real sire from tail to top-knot, and his ear is as soft and silky as a lady's muff. Surely while he lives, there can be only one Royalist. Short, the rival Romney man, brought up a phalanx of big, beautiful creatures, but they could not s' if: the colossus. Shcrt won in the ewes, but the popular eye is on the ram always; it cares little what the fsmale does—in dumb animals. Yet the popular eye j need not dim in a lack of interest because the victory is so decisive. It is only a tactical reverse. Mr Short has some big guns—some new sheep stuff, with the soil of Kent still on their hoofs—quai'antined on Somes Island. They will be let 'oose for the Palmerston Show, two weeks hence, and then the crash of the Romney rams will resound again. The Romney world will wait impatiently for the Palmerston battle.

Hawke's Bay is? famed for its Shorthorns; but it has' no fame for keenness in exhibiting them. In the fullest classes all th« animals belonged to two or three owners. The entries were many, but the spirit of competition was weak. The one Ayrshire stood out prominent as the last survivor of a dying race—deeply lamented. The merino was not. The hones were of mixed quality — hand: one as to the roadsters, mediocre as to the draughts. We cannot grow draughts of heaviness and bone in our warm climate, say the Southerners. But Hawke's Bay his only just begun to u=e draughts; it has only just begun to buy ploughs. Money will do many things, and there is money in good draughts. So when Southerners say, ''Stick to your little roadsters, but don't dabble in draughts"—well, wc shall see. So much then for the Hawke's Bay Show of Dominion year, and the animals that have won £1,520.