DUNEDIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 258, 9 January 1873, Page 8

DUNEDIN.

(From our own Correspondent.) Otago's capital has of course been in a whirl of excitement for the past week. Since the landing of the Grovernor and suite business seems to have resigned its generally paramount place in favour of pleasure, and balls, parties, shows, picnics, and numerous other entertainments have held out their seductive attractions in rapid succession, and lured all and sundry away from their every-day cares and troubles. Boxing Day was of course kept up in the usual jovial style, and one of of the brightest of summer days greeted the gaily dressed crowds of pleasure-seekers who thronged the city before taking their departure for the amusements and rural scenes to be enlivened by their presence. The Agricultural aud Pastoral Society's show at Forbury Park and the Oddfellows monster picnic about a mile below BurkeVßrewery, were the great centres of attraction. Not being a competeut judge of the merits and demerits of the various species of horses, domestic animals, farming implements, &c, &c, which are necessary adjuncts of the farming industry, and being as little able to describe to your readers tbe beauty and good points of the prize animals exhibited by our wool -kings, I will not injure my reliability as .a correspondent by committing myself to a eritiesm of the exhibits beyond saying that the live stock seemed to be well deserving of the praise which was bestowed upon it ; the attendance at the show was very large, and its success I should think uuquestionable. The eager anticipation with which a trip bj rail to the Oddfellows fete had been looked forward to, was amply shown by the large gathering; of people who patronised the festivities. From the starting of the train which conveyed His Excellancy the G-overnor and Lady Bowen to the ground, until late in the afternoon, the trains poured in their crowds of visitors. The Governor made himself extremely 'agreeable at the fete, and replied to the addresses and compliments which were paid to himself and Lady Bowen amidst the cheers and good wishes of the Oddfellows and their large party of friends. The afternoon was pleasantly spent in the prosecution of various games and amusements, and between seven and eight o'clock the last batch of excursionists were landed in at the terminus in Dunedin, fortunately without any accident having occurred to mar the day!s pleasure. And this is saying a good deal, considering the mad scramble which took place to get into the carriages before the starting of each return train. Such a desperate hurry did some people seem to be in to secure passages in the first trains which left, that notwithstanding the fact of the carriages being already crowded, several made violent efforts to scramble in by the windows, and were only awakened to a sense of their reprehensible conduct, by being i^nominiously hauled back again by the le«s. The Masonic Ball, from which, with the exception of the G-overnor, non- Masons were excluded, passed off, so far as Masonic reports go, very successfully, and those of" our citizens (and their number is consider, able) who would have liked to be present, but were precluded by reason of their bein^ without the pale of the brethren of the mystic tie, have pocketed their chagrin at the exclusion with as good a grace as possible. It is on the tapis to give His Excellency a Citizens Ball, and if the suggestion is carried out, it will no doubt be made as brilliant an affair as possible, and thus make up for previous disappointment. The lamented death of the Rev. JM>. Williams formed the subject of sermons delivered in the Baptist Church on Sunday by the Rev. John Q-ow and the Rev. A. Reid. The church was crowded to excess on each occasion.