CHRISTCHURCH EXHIBITION.

Kumara Times, Issue 1736, 24 April 1882, Page 2

CHRISTCHURCH EXHIBITION.

[" ClVIs" IN THE OTAGO WITNfeSS.]

.Not having been selected to to "do" the Christchurch Exhiiiition for the Witness, I have made up my mind that I don't think much of the Christdhurcll Exhibition. I don't want to go, not in the least. There is nothing to see but a series of open shops Kinged in half a mile of improvised cow-sheds. Why should one travel a couple of hundred miles to see a row of shop fronts in a cow-s'ied 1 I don't envy the "special " who has beeu sent North regardless of expense to see and describe this great sight. Let him gush about it if he likes. He is paid to gush. I take a severely pessimist view of the whole affair; and this is the view I commend to all my fellow-citizens who, like rayself, were constrained to spend this sloppy Easter at home. Let us unite iu assurinu each other that the grapes at Christchurch are sour. We are told that on the opening day there was a procession two miles long. What of that 1 We have seen processions en~uwh before now, and we can imagine the tw., miles. For my part I take only a languid interest in pr--cessions. Good Templars in their regalia and Oddfellows with banners move me not ; Firehrigades. though armed with hooks and ladders, I can view without enthusiasm; the United Bricklayers and the Amalgamated Joiners marching in their Sunday clothes are nothing to me. Neither do I hanker after the music of half-a-dozen brass bands playing different tunes at the same time. These are things which never afforded me any real happiness, and when I read of a procession two miles long, my feeling is one of gratitude that I wasn't there. As for the Exhibition itself, the thingsit contains are merely things that are sold in shops. Messrs Joubert and Twopeny who are running it, are commercial

travellers in a large way of business—that is all. Their gigantic cowsheds ate a new, costly, and (no doubt) efficient form of advertising-cost generously defrayed l»y the public. I admit that this is somewhat a pessimist view of the Grand New Zealand International Exhibition, but it is a natural view in the circumstances, and I find it consolatory.