DUNEDIN HORSE SALEYARDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 7, 12 February 1903, Page 13

DUNEDIN HORSE SALEYARDS.

Messrs. Wright, Stephenson and Co. report as follows :—: — For Saturday's sale between 20 and 30 horses were entered, this number being composed mainly of light harness horses, most of which were aged and more or less screwed up with hard work. With two exceptions no draught horses were offered, these being a six-year old horse of medium size, which was disposed of for £34 10/and an aged heavy gelding at £4-5. There were numerous buyers present for good young horses, 'both draughts and light harness classes, but, unfortunatel" very few ha\e come forward of late to our sales. We can, how, ever, strongly advise owners having suitable horses to send them to us, as this market is very bare, and buyers are prepared to give big prices for horses of the right stamp, if sound and young. At this week's sale one upstanding light harness horse realised £25, and we have

buyers prepared to take a large number of good average horses suitable for rabbit waggons, trams, drags, waggonnettes, etc., at full market rates. We quote : Superior young draught geldings, £50 to £55 ; extra good, prize horses, £56 to £60 ; medium draught mares and geldings, £35 to £48 ; aged do, £26 to £33 ; upstanding carriage horses, £30 to £35 ; well-matched carriage pairs, £70 to £90 milk cart and butchers' order-cart horses, £22 to £28 ; tram horses, £14 to £21 ; light hacks, £10 to £16 ; extra good hacks, £18 to £25 ; weedy and aged hacks and harness horses, £4 to £8.

The ' Tribune ' publishes the following old-time Melbourne church memories :— ln 1841 the Catholic residents in the town of Melbourne and county of Bourke were reckoned at 2073. The first advertised charity sermon preached in Melbourne was by Father Geoghegan, at '2 p.m. on Sunday, December 22, 1839. The first bell ranpat the original St. Francis Church was a sheep bell, on which old Bodecin rang the changes in an astounding manner at the church door. High Mass was celebrated for the first time at Port Phillip on St. Patrick's Day, 1843, the celebrant being the Key. Daniel McEvoy, Rev. Fathers Geoghegan and Stevens deacon and sub-deacon respectively. The Rev. P. B. Geoghegan, the first priest who landed in Victoria, arrived per the Paul Pry on the 15th May, 1831). Mass was celebrated for the first tnno on Pentecost Sunday, four days afterwards, in an unroofed store at the corner of Little Collins and Elizabeth streets, now the site of the Colonial Bank. Previous to this time Catholics gathered together in the house of a zealous French Catholic, Mr. Peter Bodecin, a carpenter by trade, and there recited the Rosary and other prayers.