PRACTICAL SYMPATHY VICE-ROYALTY AT WORK

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 17

PRACTICAL SYMPATHY VICE-ROYALTY AT WORK

(From our Wellington correspondent.)

Nov. 2

_ The best sympathy is of the practical kind, and this is the sympathy that her Excellency Lady Plunket feels for the good work of Mother Aubert. The Rev. Mother was anxious to have a concrete reservoir erected in connection with the new Home at Tsland Bay. On looking into the estimated cost, she saw that the item for the cartage of the necessary sand and gravel to the top of Xf™ U on which the res ervoir is to be built came to ±-200. She therefore decided to shift the stuff herself and the boys from St. Patrick's College decided to assist' Her Excellency Lady Plunket heard of the project and volunteered to assist. On Wednesday afternoon His Excellency thq Governor, Lady Plunket, Cantains GathorneHardy and Lyon, As.D.C, arrived at the scene of operations and began at once to assist in removing the gravel. The work was carried out with such vigor that in an hour and a quarter, 8£ tons of gravel had been V>hiflckl to Ihe site of the reservoir. At the conclusion of these labors, afternoon tea was dispensed, and Mother Aubert presented her Excellency with a little silver model of one of the gravel boxes. The memento was thus inscribed on one side : ' Her Excellency Lady Plunket, Wellington, New Zealand, October, 1907/ arid on the other side, ' In ioving and grateful remembrance of her reservoir labor, Home of Compassion.' The Viceregal party drove away amidst the cheers of the college boys. This act of charity is one that speaks for itself. Workmen are at present engaged remedying the defects recently discovered in the new Home. Messrs. Campbell and Bourkp, the oripinal contractors have the work in hand— a testimony of the confidence they enioY.

If Roman Catholics (says the ' New Zealand Times ') are to provide the whole cost of the education of their own children out of their own pockets in order that their children may get the religious teaching considered necessary, surely the Protestant denominations, who have to pay nothing whatever for the education of t-heir children in secular subjects, cannot complain if they are called upon to provide themselves the teaching they desire for their children in Bible catechism, or other standards of their faith. The attempt to get this done by the present school machinery is one which the Premier and his Cabinet very properly refuse to encourage and countenance.