A FAMOUS PEARL

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1929, Page 11

A FAMOUS PEARL

£lO,OOO GIFT FOIJ POPE.

A prominent Roman Catholic peer is taking a leading part in a proposal to raise a fund to purchase the famous “Southern Cross” pearl as a gift from English Roman Catholics to the Pope. The pearl, valued at £lO,OOO, is at present one of the most attractive exhibits in the' Evening World Pavilion at the North-East Coast Exhibition at Newcastle. It consists of nine distinct pearls joined together in the form of a natural cross and the suggestion, made by a reader of the Evening World, that it should be acquired for the Pope has been taken up with enthusiasm. . • Roman Catholics who support the idea suggest that it would be a fitting tribute to mark the centenary of Catholic emancipation and the jubilee. of the Pope’s ordination as a priest. The pearl, one of the most remarkable of its kind, was found 55 years ago by a pearl-fisher at Roeburn, Western Australia. The owner of tho schooner, a Roman Catholic named Shiner Kelly, was so overcome with superstition that he buried the pearl. It was found five years later by Alexander Forrest, the Australian explorer, who bought it for a few pounds and brought it to England. Since then it bas changed hands several times.