OBITUARY.

JOHN ANDERSON. : The flags hoisted at half-mast in all parts of the city on the death of Mr John Anderson becoming known this morning fittingly expressed the regret felt throughout the community, and especially by the older residents, at the lost of one of the most respected of the pioneers of Canterbury. Mr Anderson, who has passed away at the ripe age of seventy-six years, was a man who not only made few, if any, enemies, but who made many friends Though not a man of ostentation, his hand was ever open to the deserving needy, as his house was ever open to the friends of his early days, whether they had, like himself, been successful in life, or whether they had failed. Those who knew him best esteemed him most, and though, through the infirmities of age, he has, for the last : few years, been almost withdrawn from the public gaze, the general feeling of regret at'his death proves that he was not altogether forgotten. Mr Anderson was a native of Musselborough, Scotland, and his connection with Canterbury dates from the year of the Pilgrims; He, with his late wife, was a passenger by one of the first four ships, the Sir George Seymour. He remained at Lyttelton but a day or two after landing ; lie came over to the plains and, amidst the flax, fern and tussock which then flourished on the future site of Christclmrch, set up a blacksmith's shop, close to where was what was known as the Bricks Wharf, about the present position of Barbadbes Street bridge. After labouring there for about two years, he bought a section in Cashel Street, and built thereon a shop, which was the germ of the large foundry and engineering works afterwards so successfully carried on there by him, and of late years, since he retired from business, by his sons. How he prospered exceedingly, and grew in the estimation of his fellow citizens as in wealth, is known to all Christchurcli settlers. He filled many public positions in ■ the old days ; he was a member of the old Town Council, which sat under the chairmanship of Sir John Hall. " He was the second mayor of the city, in 1869, when he received H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, and exercised splendid hospitality. He was a member of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, of the Chamber of Commerce, and other bodies, and a director of the New Zealand Shipping Company, the Christchurch Gas Company, and the Alliance Insurance Company. He was one of the fathers of the Presbyterian Church in Canterbury, and took a prominent part in founding the old Scotch High School, which stood in years gone by on the site of the present West Christchurch school. He retired from' business and to a great extent from public life a few years since and the death of his wife, three years ago, was a blow from which he never recovered. He had been in very weak health for a considerable time, and his death, which was not unexpected, occurred it half-past seven o'clock this morning. He leaves a grown-up family of four sons md two daughters.