INVERCARGILL. (From our own correspondent.)

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 1, 4 January 1900, Page 20

INVERCARGILL. (From our own correspondent.)

The Hon. J. G. Ward returned from Wellington on Saturday He was heartily welcomed both here and at the Bluff.

The Rev. Father ODea, who had been ill from a severe cold, is now convalescent.

Midnight Mass was celebrated for the first time in the ohurohat Rakahooka on the festival of Christmas by the Rev. Father Hearn. Many of the congregation came a very long distance, some even 14 miles, to be present at it. The choir, under Miss Fahey, was very efficient and rendered the music in a creditable manner. On the same morning the Very Rev. Dean Burke said Mass at the West Plains Church, where there was also a very large attendance. In Invercargill at the 8 o'clock Mass, Father Hearn officiating, there was a very large number of communicants, and at 11 o'clock St. Mary's Church was packed, when Solemn High Mass was celebrated. The Very Rev. Dean Burke was celebrant, the Rev. Father Hearn acted as deacon, and the Rev. P. O'Neill as subdeacon. The choir's singing of Farmer's Mass was very good. The Very Rev. Dean Burke delivered an eloquent discourse. The new directors of the Irish Athletic Society held their first meeting on last Friday week, in the absence of the president (the Hon. Mr Ward) Mr J. W. Forde oconpied the chair. Nearly all the directors were present, and a large amount of business was disposed of. A mass meeting in aid of the Transvaal Fund was held here on Thursday evening. Though there was a downpour of rain all the evening the Theatre Royal was thronged. From the start the whole assemblage showed much enthusiasm in the cause. By common consent the best and most appropriate speeches were those delivered by the Hon. Mr Ward and the Very Rev. Dean Burke, who urged ' the meeting to distinguish itself, not by frothy vaporings about parliaments of man and federations of the world, not by sentimental quotations from British poets and orators, not by analysis of these emotions which a time of war evokes, but by the eloquence of silver and gold chinking on the collectors' plates.' I heard it said that £100 were lost by the speeches of a few of the ' abstract jnßtice' men coining between the Dean's appeal and the taking of the collection. However, the collection was creditable to the town, £671 being raised — a sum expected to reaoh £1000 in a few days. The Hon. Mr Ward and the Very Rev. Dean Burke addressed the Campbelltown meeting on Friday at the invitation of the Mayor of the borough.