GARCIA MORENO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 138, 24 December 1875, Page 15

GARCIA MORENO.

Ouk readers are already conversant with, the melancholy story o£ the good and great President of the Republic of Ecuador, Garcia Moreno, so foully murdered at his capital, Quito, a few months since. The ' Times' correspondent at Paris now informs hit» readers that he has reliable information that Moreno was assassinated by members of a secret society, Avhich has branches all over South America, and even in Europe. Lots were drawn to select Avho should clo the deed of blood in the Presidential Palace at Quito. One of the murderer's a-ccomplices Avas a military officer. He Avas caught af tor the assassination, and told by the President of the court-martial before -whom he Avas tried that his life would be spared if ho -would give the names of his associates. "My life," Avas the reply, " would be Avorthless, for if you spared me my comrades Avotild not. I would rather be shot than poinarded." The story is another evidence of the wide extent of the Cosmopolitan Revolution, of its extraordinary power over those it has draAvn into its meshes, and of its determination to stop short at no crime to attain its ends. Garcia Moreno, whose " crime" was his devout Catholicity, has shared the fate of the Duke de Berri, Count Rossi, Archbishop Darboy, and. the host of eminent men who, within the present century, have perished by the dagger or the bullet of the Red. A nobler victim and a fouler deed has seldom been chronicled.—' Weekly Freeman.' President Moreno's last message, not yet delivered at the moment of his assassination, Avas found in his pocket after this lamentable event. The NeAv York ' Freeman's Journal' has had it translated from the Spanish. It is a noble document, which furnishes in itself the best answer to the calumniators of the dead hero, " the bravest man in South America" and one of the most loyal sons of Holy Church. Providence, which permitted his martyrdom, did not fail publicly to justify his course, not only by this memorable paper "but by the testimony of all his associates in the government of his country and by the universal grief of liia felloAV-countrymen. The prosperity of Ecuador under his prudent administration has been maiked and abundant. The public debts have been largely decreased, AA'hile at the same time taxes have been knvered find many of them entirely rescinded. Out of a population of nearly a million, but fifty criminals deserve incarceration in the public penitentary, and it stood almost empty. Churches Avere repaired and built, railroads, highways jand bridges added to the State's internal Avealth, and, as if by way ,of fitting rebuke to the insolence of Sonor Flores, in hinting that under a more (judicious executive more schools would be provided, President Moreno informs his cabinet that during the last year the number of primary schools had been increased by ninety-three, and some ten thousand pupils added to those already under instruction. During his administration the number had risen from between thirteen and fourteen thousand to above thirty thousand, and three-fourths of these pupils Avere boys. President Moreno Avas already intent on devising- means, for the proper teaching of girls, the difficulty arising from the lack of teachers — a. lack which Germany and SAvitzerland have put it in the power of governments loss idiotic, to supply. — ' Catholic ReA r ie\v.'