INTERCOLONIAL

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 18 January 1906, Page 31

INTERCOLONIAL

The once-flourishing township of Inglewood, some 30 miles from Bendigo, has been seeing better days lately (writes the Melbourne correspondent of the ' Freeman's Journal '). A fine new church has taken the place of the old wooden structure. The Bishops of Ballarat and Bendigo joined in the opening ceremonies. Providence seems 1 to raise up a generous soul where funds are required. A Miss Martin has given in money and kind over £1000 to the fund. Amongst her gifts is a beautiful marble altar. Agricultural settlement in Victoria continues to progress at a rate which, considering the stagnation of the population, is remarkable and satisfactory. The return issued recently by Mr. W. iM''Lean, the 'Government statist, shows that the number of cultivated holdings of one acre and upwards in area is 52,598, as compared with 43,7*68 for the previous year. The number ofc acres in cultivation has risen also during the year from 4,021,590 to 4,175,614. On Monday evening, December 11, about 30 gentlemen met in the Catholic schoolroom, Cue, to express the general gratification at Bishop .Kelly's return home. Warden Troy, who presided, in a felicitous speech offered a welcome to his Lordship, which was supported by nearly everyone present. Bishop Kelly, after thanking those for their hearty welcome, gave a concise account of his few months' sojourn in the Eastern States. His Lordship stated his belief that business in Perth and Fremantle was on a more solid basis than anywhere else in the Commonwealth. Patrick M'Gann, at the age of 103 years, died on December 31, in the Home for Aged and Infirm conducted by the Little Sisters of the Poor, at Randwick, New South Wales. M'Gann was a wonderful old man. Almost up to the time of his death he was in possession of all his faculties. He had a phenomenal memory, and could talk of events of 80 years ago as though they had occurred only the previous day. Deceased was a native of Galway, Ireland, and had passed three score years when he set out for Australia in a sailing Vessel. M'Gann was a policeman in the early days. The G.M.S ' Grosser Knrfurst,' which called at Fremantle the other day, landed 124 passengers of the most varied nationalities and professions. They included 26 British, 21 Australians, 49 Italians, 10 Russuans, 10 Germans, 3 Austrians, 2 G reeks, and 1 American, Pole, Roumanian, and New Zcalander. The most favored calling Hvas that 'of miner, there being no fewer than 39, mostly Italians. There were also four merchants, one hotel proprietor, four farmers, nine carpenters, five butchers, three bakers, three laborers, as well as a storekeeper, settler, engineer, gardener, smith, plumber, printer, groom, mason, fruiterer, and two fishermen. The Very Rev. Father Bertreux, S.M., Prefect Apostolic of thei southern group of the Solomon Islands, arrived in Sydney a fry days /ago. Father Bertreux was here at the beginning of last year (says the 'Freeman's Journal ') and had printed at the Westmead Orphanage the first book of prayers in the Solomon Islands language. This book was prepared by the Marist Fathers for the use of their native converts, and the work' of seeing it put through the press devolved upon the Rev. Father Rertreux, who had to do all the reading, correct proofs, >etc. The strain was so much that when he returned tp the Islands he found that his sight began to fail. He* however, thought it was only a passing affection and would not cause much trouble, but recently it becarpe so acute that he was compelled to come to Sydney to consult an oculist. It is to be hoped that the devoted missionary will soon be thoroughly restored, and that he will be enabled to return to the Islands to carry on the work of evangelisation with the other self-sacrificing Marists, which up to the present has been so signally successfully.