THE FILTH OF SECULARISM ONCE MORE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 272, 19 July 1878, Page 7

THE FILTH OF SECULARISM ONCE MORE.

People wonder why Catholics insist upon having Catholic schools, with Catholic teachers, Catholic pupils, Catholic school books, Catholic management, Catholic association, Catholic ai mosphere. Our reasons are manifold, but distilled down they amount to a lively dread of the horrors which Superintendent Field, of Brooklyn, anticipated from the system, a few years since, and which another official, Mr. Cornstock, is ready to prove have already been produced. " There are," says this investigator, "three public schools in Brooklyn where, lately, I found girls from eight to thirteen years of age who had read within the last six months the most obscene and filthy matter, and I have in my possession some of the same taken from these little girls. I one day interviewed some ten or fifteen of these little girls, either in or out of school. I found twelve girls in one school, or former pupils of the same, who had the most infamously vile matter. In another school I found among the boys an obscene book of the worst possible character. This was taken there by a boy of most respectable parents living in an elegant home. On one street I found four brown stone houses where the girls in three of these elegant houses had or had had these vile articles. In another place a little girl, thirteen years of age, went to her bureau drawer and took out a sealed box, and, breaking the seal, gave me a most infamous paper which she had copied off, and on searching this box I found others of the same chaiactcr. Another little girl had carried one ot these infernal things to and from school in her geography, and was sent home for it. Another one took them home and was found showing them to a little cousin." No wonder that the late Professor Agaseiz was able to discover that the soiled doves of Boston attributed their ruin to the fatal influences which surrounded them in public schools of the immaculate commonwealth of Boston. It is not alone in our public schools that this vile trade of obscenity flourishes. We find in a Protestant paper of this week an account of a woman who " came to this city several years ago from Cleveland, 0., bringing with her a diploma from a reputable medical college, and the best testimonials. She has been a member of Dr. Deems's church, and has been considered a physician in good standing, and has practised in families of wealth and position. At the request of Mr. Peter Cooper, she has delivered several free courses of lectures on physiological subjects at the Cooper Union, and has delivered many private lecture? at her own home. But all this has been only a cover for traffic of the vilest kind— a traffic that has been carried on so secretly that it is only within two or three weeks that she has been suspected. Mr. Comstock, after obtaining unquestionable proofs of her criminality by himself calling on her and purchasing some of the articles that she sold, had her arrested, and she will undoubtedly receive the full penalty of the law. The offence of Mrs. Chase " is a more grave one." as regards the safety of the public, " than that of 'Madame Ecstcll,' " The latter made no secret about her business, but conducted it boldly, and even advertised it in the papers. No one called upon her except deliberately, and with a definite purpose. But Mrs. Chase inveigled women into attending her lectures, and afterwards into buying^her vile instruments, who would never have dreamed of going to a person like " Madame Kestell.' When Mr. Comstock asked her if she were not afraid of the law, she replied to her supposed customer, •' Oh, no ; you see I have been selling these articles for the last two years. The business has been canicd on in the most quiet way. No one is the wiser for it outside of my own patrons. I don't advertise, for I have no idea of falling into the clutches of the law. I don't want to have Anthony Comstock get hold of me." Truly the example and lesson of the Cities of the Plain are forgotten ; Sodom and Gomoriba and Pompeii have been revived.— Catholic lierlnv.