Lower Hutt

New Zealand Tablet, 15 January 1914, Page 45

Lower Hutt

(From an occasional correspondent.) January 5. The Boxing Day picnic, held at Lower Hutt this year, has been the most successful on record. The stallholders and sports committee displayed an energy, zeal, and an enthusiasm that guaranteed success, weather permitting. The conditions were all that could be _ desired, and there was every inducement for holiday-makers to come along to enjoy a good and varied programme in the shady bowers of the grounds attached to the presbytery. A picnic has the good effect of helping to unite our people, independent of the financial results. If both can be combined for a good cause, all the better. In this case Fathers Lane and "Walsh are to be congratulated on the net results towards the school funds, which have exceeded over £IOO. As a matter of fact, the parochial school will be free to the children. It has been free since its inception, owing to the results of the annual picnic, and so the children have never been subject to the unpleasantness of bringing their sixpences or shillings to school on Monday mornings. The people of Lower Hutt parish had also a very great treat in the spiritual field, as the Marist Missionary, Rev. Father McCarthy, has been giving a retreat to the Nuns of the Sacred Heart Convent here. He preached fine and instructive sermons on the Sundays.