The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 136, 6 November 1877, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6.

This present is Carnival week in. Christchurch, and the City of the Plains will be full to overflowing. The Spring Meeting of the Canterbury Jockey Club will occasion an •influx of lovers of the turf, as well as of .Ihose who delight in witnessing a well .contested horse race. The Theatres and other places of amusement will present their most attractive features, and will doubtless bo crowded nightly. In short, tho greater portion of the week will bo spent in pleasure and excitement. But the races, important as they are, as tending to promote the breeding of superior horses, dwarf into insignificance, when compared with the events sot dovra for Friday's programme. On that day the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association holds its annual exhibition, an exhibition which justly holds the position of being the first of its kind in the Colony, and, which will even compare favourably with many of those held in the old country. On that day thousands will visit the grounds of the Association, for the purpose of viewing the first class animals of various kinds, as well as the very interesting collection of New Zealand products and agricultural implements, imported as well as colonial, which will be shewn there. The breeder of stock, the sheep owner, and the farmer, will be present critically to inspect the exhibits, but in addition to these, there will be many others whose sole motive iji visiting the grounds is curiosity, or it may be to meet with friends, to see and to be seen. Be this as it may the exhibition is one of the utmost importance, showing, as it does, the immense strides that material progress is making in the colony, and in Canterbury in particular, and it is worthy of special remark that although this show is no novelty, yet year by year it seems to grow in greatness and to increase in public interest.

The Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association is the parent of many similar local institutions ; but those, although they flourish, do not appear to do so at the expense of the parent stock, but rather to act as its feeders, causing it to become more vigorous in action,, more instinct with life. Nearly all these local associations hold their exhibitions prior to the great annual show, and, we be'ieye, it will be found that the eflee t of this has been the culling out of only first-class exhibits, to send to the metropolitan exhibition, a' process which it is obvious must have a beneficial result. Hitherto, the exhibition of the Banks' Peninsula Pastoral Association has been an exception to this, rule, but we would throw out as a suggestion for the consideration of the Committee whether it would not be well to change the clay, so that in future years the show of this local Association should precede the metropolitan one. It would be wfll for the Peninsula to be as little isolated as possible from the rest of New Zealand, and, we think, tljat the alteration we have suggested will tend to promote this object.

It is our melancholy duty to record the death of an old Akaroa resident of former years. The deceased gentleman, Mr Patrick M. Brough, resided some years since atTekau Bay with his brother, the late Mr Thomas Brough, but, for the past ten years has lived in Wellington, duringwhich time he has been employed by both General and Provincial Governments. The last situation held by the deceased was that of wardsman at the Wellington Hospital. Finding his health failing, Mr ' Brough came to Akaroa, thinking the change might have a beneficial effect upon his system, but the pulmonary disease from which he Avas suffering had too firm a hold, and his illness terminated fatally on the 3rd inst.