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 Rev. Thomas Cahill (nephew of the illustrious Dr. Cahill, of Irish and American renown) was the local superior, and amongst the members is the Rev. Michael Watson, whose contributions on Australian subjects to the Irish Monthly, under the signature of "Melburnian," have been read with general and appreciative interest. Fathers William Kelly and Joseph O'Malley have also worthily upheld the reputation of their order in the colonies—the former by his varied scholarship and his remarkable eloquence in the pulpit, and the latter by the vigour and incisiveness of his controversial pen.

Collingwood, in a political sense the most democratic suburb of Melbourne, occupies an extensive and densely-peopled flat to the north-east of the city proper. Within its confines is the Convent of the Good Shepherd, at Abbotsford, a noble institution that has been conducted for many years by a self-sacrificing band of cloistered Irish and Irish-Australian ladies. It has the widespread sympathy and support of all denominations in its ceaseless and successful efforts to raise up and reform the Magdalens of Melbourne. Fitzroy, a suburb on the western side of Collingwood, also possesses a noteworthy convent, the parent-house of the Sisters of Mercy in Victoria, a massive pile of bluestone buildings in which a large array of sisters and several educational institutions are established. Mrs. Mary Ursula Frayne, a Dublin lady, who was the foundress of this extensive religious colony, enjoys the singular distinction of having been the pioneer of her order in two continents. As far back as 1842, she was sent from Dublin to establish a branch of the Sisters of Mercy in America, and she successfully accomplished the work. She was then sent on a similar mission to Australia, and, after spending some years on the western side of the continent,