PALMERSTON NORTH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 18, 30 April 1903, Page 20

PALMERSTON NORTH

(By telegraph.)

For some considerable time past the establishment of a branch of the Hibernian Society in Palmerston North Has been desired by many persons. This desire took practical shape last Monday evening when a highly enthusiastic meeting took place, the Rev. Father Bowden, S.M., M.A., being in the chair. A delegate from Wellington, the Rev. Father O'Shea, was present, and explained at length the benefits to be derived from membership of such a Society. Subsequently the Rev. Father Tymons was requested to ask the executive in Auckland for the right to form a branch. Fourteen candidates paid their initiation fees. It is confidently assumed that this number will be doubled in a short time.

As proof more or less positive of the great distress in the country (says the ' Freeman's Journal ') we may be permitted to observe that never even in the ' boom ' times were the Sydney hotels so crowded with visitors as this Easter. The opening day of the Easter Show was a record, the money at the gates .being nearly three times as much as last year. On Good Friday there was another record with nearly 62,000 people. On Saturday there was 40,000, and on Monday— black and threatening rain — the record was broken with an attendance of 64,000.