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1874, his salary was stopped. Father Bassetto promptly wrote a letter of protest to the
Archbishop appealing against his transfer to Castlemaine and claiming that, thanks to
him, the Italian and French speaking Catholics had begun coming to Easter
Communion. He said that he had been treated as an inferior and that, after the use he
had been put to among the foreigners and all his hard labours, he deserved more than
the 'reward of exile'.^^ For the Italian-speaking community he had served, his
dismissal represented a disregard for their religious needs and a lack of understanding
and tolerance for their Catholic traditions: they were made to feel strangers in a
country where they lived for close to 20 years. Fr Bassetto became the last of the
district's Italian-speaking priests, Fr Gough arriving as his replacement in Febmary
1875.
Meanwhile, back in September 1872, Gaetano had paid the full purchase price
in annual rents on Lot 153 near Eastem HiU and was waiting for a licence to be issued
from the Lands Department. Two years later, on 17 Febmary 1874, Kate gave birth to
a son, christening him with the first Italian name in the family, Celestino Patrick. The
infant had possibly been named after Celestino Lafranchi who stood male sponsor at
his baptism on 15 March 1874. Kate was not present at the service due to an onset of
mastitis which had resulted in her transfer to the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum at Kew,
in suburban Melboume.^'* Mastitis was an illness suffered by many women in the eariy
years of the Colony and developed while the mothers were adjusting to breastfeeding.
When infection occurred, the women would experience an increase in temperature,
sometimes to the point of delirium or death. Kate was moved by police to the asylum
from a house in Dover Road, WilUamstovm, on 11 March 1874: it is uncertain
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