The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17th.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 252, 17 December 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17th.

A meeting of the Akaroa and Wainui Road Board took place last Saturday. A full report of the proceedings is in type, but owing to the necessary length of our report of the Regatta and Exhibition, we are'compelled to hold it over to our next issue.' - We are glad to learn that the Committee of the Akaroa JLibrary have received advice of thie shipment of a case of books by the Northern Monarch. * The parcel consists of 89 volumes, and appears to i comprise on the whole a very judicious selection. Perhaps there is rather a preponderance of light literature among the works, but this, if a fault at all, is one that will no doubt be readily condoned. At the same time there is a fair admixture of more solid pabulum, amongwhich may be mentioned Arnold's Essays on Criticism, EcceHomo, Spencer's Sociology, Motley's Dutch Republics, Butler's Great Lone Land, Macaulay'e Essays, &c, besides some of the later novels of a politicophilosophical nature. The books have all been specially bound, some in half library calf, and the remainder in half roan. We think it would be as well in future orders to have all bound in tho former manner, as the difference in price is not very great, and the superiority in point of durability is considerable. We hope that this shipment will have the effect of adding considerably to the subscribers' list, which is far smaller than the excellenoe of the institution deserves. By advertisement elsewhere it will be seen that the Regatta Committee will hold a meeting this evening, at the usual time and place at which the prizes won yesterday will be handed over to those euntitled to receive them. In our telegraphic columns appears an announcement of theideath of the Princess Alice who has apparently succumbed to diphtheria, which former telegraphic advices informed us she had been suffering from. The deceased princess was the 2nd daughter and third child of her MajestyShe was born in April 1843, and was consequently in her thirty-sixth year at the time of her death. In 1862 she married Prince Louis of Hesse Darmstadt, by whom she had six children. She is believed to have been the favorite of her father the Prince Consort, and was with him in his last moments. A deep feeling of sympathy with the Queen in this bereavement will, we are sure, pervade all classes throughout the Empire. We are sorry to have to record a serious accident which occurred last evening to Constable McGorman, of the Head of the Bay. It appears that McG-orman, who was in Akaroa yesterday on duty, had started for home shortly after five o'clock in company with two or three others who were going in the same direction. When a short distance past Waeckerle's corner his horse stumbled over a stone Mid the rider fell heavily over the animal's head, cutting his face severely on the metal, and breaking his leg just above the ancle. The sufferer was conveyed to the Hospital.