INTERCOLONIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 50, 13 December 1900, Page 15

INTERCOLONIAL.

At the swearing-in of the Governor-General of Australia national airs will be render* d by a choir of 10,000 school children, with an adult chorus of 1000, and massed bands. A fire broke out in the Greta colliery last week, with the result that five men, named Buck, Fuller, Hislop, John Crowell, and Fred Crowell, were entombed. The rescuers were driven back by the heat and smoke. All hope of saving them had to be abandoned. The oldest prie«t in the archdiocese of Sydney is the Right Rev. Monsignor Rigney, of Prospect, whose term of service has extended over more than 60 years. Next, in Beniorifcy is Archpriest Sheehy, of Ryde, who was ordained in Sydney 50 years ago. The Victorian old-age pension scheme, aa drafted by Six G. Turner, provides for an appropriation of £50,000 from the consolidated revenue for the latter half of the present financial year. This gives 7s weekly to persons over 63 and to permanently disabled applicants, who must have resided 20 years in the colony. The Right Rev. Dr. Reville, Coadjutor Bishop of Sandhurst, who had been in Sir T. N. Fitzgerald's private hospital, Melbourne, for the purpose of undergoing a surgical operation, has returned to Bendigo. His Lordship looked very weak and ill after the operation. At the Ballarat National Show held recently the Convent of Mercy, Ballarat East, almost exhausted the prizes in the needlework division, winning 14 firsts, 12 seconds, and 6 thirds. From the same convent 23 pupils passed the examination of the Royal College of music. The father of the Australian Bar is Mr. Townsend McDermott, of Ballarat (Victoria), who was 'called' in Dublin in November 1840, and in Victoria in '54. Mr. McDermott was in his day an able criminal advocate, and gave much attention to mining cases. A Bar committee has been formed to present him with a momento of his diamond jubilee. The new St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, is to be commenced next year. The Convent and St. Patrick's High School will be removed to make room for it, and they will be re-erected on a larger scale on the Chalmers' Church site, originally intended for the hospital. The Congregational Church, at the corner of Victoria Parade and Fitzroy street, has been recently purchased and will be used as a hospital at an early date. There will be special ceremonies at St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, on January 1. Midnight Mass will be celebrated and the music and ceremonies will be on a scale equal to those connected with the Dedication festival. The Catholic children will not take part in the procession in connection with the inauguration celebrations of the Australian Commonwealth, but will muster at the swearing-in ceremony of Lord Hopetoun, the Governor-General, in the Centennial Park, and will sing an anthem. The death took place recently at Ballarat of Mr. W. E. Ballhausen, whose benefactions to charitable and other movements in the town and district were on a very generous scale. The funeral cortege was, notwithstanding heavy rain, over half a mile in length, and included representatives of all bodies and classes, including the city and town councils. Amongst the legacies left by Mr. Ballhausen, who was a non-Catholic, were the following .—Sisters of Nazareth House, Ballarat, £250 ; Sisters of Mercy, Ballarat East, £100 ; Catholic Bishop of Ballarat, £100. At a large and representative meeting of the Catholics of Sale, presided over by the R^v. Father Rynnott, it was resolved to present his Lordship the Most Rev. Dr. Corbett with an address and testimonial on his return to his diocese from his first decennial visit to the Holy Father. The advice of the administrator of the diocese (the Very Rev. Father Colman, V.G.) having been obtained, it was decided that the testimonial to his Lordship should take the form of presenting to the Bishop his Cathedral free from debt. A sum of nearly £ 100 was subscribed at the meeting, and the project is being warmly taken up in all the other districts of the diocese.