OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10267, 26 January 1895, Page 2

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

(From Our Own Coktik.vondent.) San Fkan'cisco! December 13. TOE CIIDHCII AND I'OUTIGS.

The Lexow Investigating Committee, whose incompleted labours have already startled the outside civilised world with its exposures of moral infamies, seems likely, in an indirect and unintentional manner, to be the cause of a rupture between well-known officials of the Roman Catholic Church scarcely inferior, from a popular standpoint, to that of Father M'Glynn's. And on this occasion, as in the previous one, sympathy is with the recalcitrant and against the dignitary who posses judgmisnt. It would seem that a prominent priest, Father Ducey, of New York, has been constant in his attendance at the proceedings of the Lexow Committee from its iuception to this hour. Nor has he beeo a merely passive spectator, but has by voice and pun most heartily joined ia denouncing and exposing the horde of moral lepers which foe yarn has contaminated the city's life. This acl.iou on the part of Father Ducey gate umbrage to his superior, Archbishop Corrigan, apd the latter promptly forbade Father Ducey to attend any further meetings of the committee. This prohibition lead to some correspondence between .the two gentlemen, and, as was inevitable, the press heard something about it and sent out its armies of reporters to investigate. "No !it was not true that the archbishop had forbidden Father Ducey to attend the meetings of the Lexow Committee," said one of the archbishop's secretaries, "his Grace has simply counselled the reverend father in a fatherly way ; nor has the archbishop any intention of interfering with Father Ducey's rights as a citizen," and a good deal more to the flame, effect. It is a pity, however, nay such statement; was made, as it compelled Ducey to defend himaelf from the charges hurled againut him by the archbishop's supporters, and, inasmuch as he chose the shortest method of doing this, bis position wag the more strengthened. In brief, he published his own letter to the archbishop aud extracts from the latter'a tetter wherein the above fatherly sid.vice was given. A perusal of this letter shows clearly what before was only gossip—that never by word or deed did Archbishep Corrigan exercise bis great influence to crush the brood of vipers in Tammany Hall, but rather did he, by his silence, lend colour to the charge that he was, if not actively sympathetic with, at least strangely indifferent to, the municipal rottenness around him. Further, the archbishop does moat emphatically forbid Ducey to attend any more meetings of the Lexow Committee, and that, too, upon the remarkable opinion that any honest Catholic laymau. would blush to go to' inch an assemblage. Here are extracts from Ducey's letter more immediately, bearing "lipon the above:— "■

ception ono renders himself liable to—it must [ not bs forgotten that Tammany Hall is controlled in every detail by Irish Catholics, and ! the vast influence it has exercised for years has been, in many ways, to the advantage of Archbishop Corrigan's adherents. Suffice to say the char^a against Corrigao of sympathy with such an abomiaation has not been sacret but above board. The defeated anti-Tammany candidate for one of the Legislative Assembly districts in New York published an open letter to his archbishop charging that the priest of the Church of the Sacred Heart had, after the celebration of each mass, on the fourth day of November, appealed and, in so far as he might, commanded bis congregation to vote the straight Democratic (i.e., Tmnmany) ticket and against any and all others. The writer also charged that, this action of the priests had been threatened him him by a Tammany leader, and that the eaid leader publicly boasted of its accomplishment. His Grace's answer has not yet been published, nor do I think it will be. It is hardly necessary to add more. The fact remains that no active opposition was made by the most powerful organisation in New Ynrk against—in the words of Bishop Henry C. Potter, preaching before the mayorelect of New York on Thanksgiving Day—" a civic bondage whose infamies, let me tell you, you but half know; a reign of oppression which has spared no class, robbing and enslaving rich and poor alike, creating such a reign of terror that, as I have been toid,, men of foremost rank and largest fortune who have contributed of their means to the uncovering of the great moral cesspool over which we havu all been living, have entreated that their names should be suppressed lest their publication should work their ruin.; a reign of terror which has held iv its iron grasp the most powerful institution's, and has robbed them equally with the most helpless bootblack and apple vendor at its will; a reign of terror which has even claimed to have the most venerable dignitaries of religion, who have remained silent through all the disclosure of its infamies, chained to its chariot wheels; a reign of terror which has mads New York a stench in the nostrils of the civilised world and citizenship in it a stain and a dishonour to every mad who shared it." Meanwhile it is as well to note that Father Ducey attends the meetings of the Lexovr Investigation Committee most regularly, and it is rumoured he may be called as a witness; go that, as matters at present stand, it would seem as though the rev. father is predetermined to ba •' disciplined." . ■ ■ ■ LITERARY NOTES. The book about which everyone is talking, and a very large number are buying at the present time, ia Dv M»urier's "Trilby." It is Btated that 100,000 copies of the work have been sold up to date in the United States alone. If true, it is questionable whether any work ever had so large « sale in gp brief a period, the more especially when the cheapest edition is Bold at 7s (3d. At such a figure, and with