NEW PLYMOUTH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 28 February 1907, Page 24

NEW PLYMOUTH

(From our travelling reporter,) February 23. The local branch of the H.A.C.B. Society .is making steady progress, new members being- added at a satisfactory rate. At a meeting that took place on last Tuesday, the Rev.' Father McManus was elected to represent the branch at the. triennial District meeting to be held shortly in Auckland A new church will - shortly be erected at Waitara. The Rev. Father McManus is pushing on the matter very actively, and a bazaar that was organised by him and brought to a successful issue a few weeks ago realised a sum of about £150 net. The new convent and parochial school that was erected twelve months ago are meeting with gratifying success. 'The school opened with an attendance of twenty children. There are now ninety children in attendance, and the number keeps steadily increasing. The school is well staffed with three Sisters and one

pupil, teacher. One .of the, best evidences of- the excellence of, the training imparted by them- is furnished by the fact .that a large percentage of tjhe. pupils in attendance are children who Jiave been entrusted to the religious by non-Catholic parents. ' Things are moving in Tarana'ki,'. said the Very Rev. Dean, McKenna in the course of a^ conversationwith your representative. * Twenty years ago, for instance, there, were only three priests,. in the province—" two in - Hawera and one in New Plymouth.- Out of those two parishes several others have been fontnad,anid there are now two priests in Hawera, two in New Plymouth, two in Okato, one in Patea, : one in Strat-" ford, one in Kaponga, and one in Opunafce — ten in all,. Twenty years ago there were only two Catholic schools in Taranaki— one in Hawera, and one in New Plymouth. Now there are convents and schools also at Manaia, Kaponga, Stratford, Inglewood, and Opunake, . and in, mast of the centres named there is a high -school- as well as a parochial primary school.'