NEWS FROM THE PAST

WHAT I SAW AT THE SHOW

By a Visitor

The sounds of the National Anthem brought me to the scene of His Excellency’s arrival; and here you must excuse me for sending you the pun that some facetious gentleman manufactured while the Governor was taking his walk around the building, viz, “That HIs Excellency was well Groomed, and was followed by a Traill.”

The Governor seemed to be in excellent form for the show, and his opening words were more than usually apropos to the occasion. Of late His Excellency seems to be gaining in popular approval, and he has been making himself more at home with those with whom he has been brought into contact. Let us hope his Queensland experience will stand him in good stead in South Australia. A Crown colony and a colony possessing representative Government, and with strong democratic tendencies, are very different places to govern, and so I fancy His Excellency has discovered – hence the change that has come o’er the spirit of his dream of late days.

Of horses, cattle, sheep, and all the various et ceteras that helped to make up your exhibition, I cannot speak with the learning and experience of a practiced hands. Suffice it for me to say, as a visitor, that, despite the weather, I was exceedingly well pleased with all that came under my notice.

I had no idea that Toowoomba was a town of such importance as it is, and it is evidently destined to be more important in the future; there is an air of solid prosperity about it that inspires confidence.

The new School of Arts is a noble building, and indicates that energy and perseverance pervade the townspeople, and will as the urban population. The Grammar School I could not see, but I hear it also is a building of which any town in the colony might well be proud.

You have all the elements of greatness with you – a splendid climate, a soil of unexampled richness, and an energetic persevering people. May success attend you!

Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertise, January 30, 1877