Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 286, 25 October 1878, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

§" Je suis fort obligde a cc souhait pieux." HE pious wishes of Tartufe are, indeed, most touching. Mr. Charles Chiniquy, the apostate French-Canadian priest, has arrived in Sydney, where, in reply to an address of welcome, and a promise of protection bestowed upon him by the Orangemen, the worthy brethren of those valiant heroes in Canada, who, the other day, amongst other martial deeds, fired a volley of shot in -v amongst a crowd of school boys,— he professed his desire to " undeceive" those of his late " co-religionists" still held in the bondage of their faith. He would not, however, abuse or insult the Eoman Catholics "he loved them too well." Tartufe, we know, was very loving. We regret that, for our part, we cannot return the affection of this gentleman. Experience, unfortunately, warns our sympathies off an apostate priest ; for we have, ere now, had an opportunity of observing the careers of some such. Probably several of our readers will remember especially two specimens of the kind, ■who were once, and indeed still may be, inhabitants of a certain district in the West of Ireland, Both of these worthies were looked upon as apostles capable of " converting"' " Romanists" without number, indeed we believe that in certain quarters it was supposed they had overcome their " thousands" and their "tens of thousands," emulating in spiritual matters the warlike deeds of the great captains of Israel. Bat we never could discover that, in fact, the honey-sweet " blarney" of the one had had a visible effect in the way of " conversion" more than the undisguised brutality of the other ; we know that moderate Protestants, as well as Catholics without exception, held the pair in horror. We were not even unprepared to hear that foaming anti- Catholic, the late Right Jlev. Robert Daly, Bishop of Waterford and Cashel, declare that "converted" priests were men of whom no good was to be expected ; they were thoroughly bad. But this man Chiniquy who, like a hog that has swallowed a jewel and concealed it in his unclean stomach, carries the obscured priesthood about him, is, of course an exception to the general rule. He comes amongst us under the special patronage of the Orangemen, our tender friends who deserve our gratitude now and then by cruelly butchering some of our fellow-Catholics, or otherwise outraging or insulting them. This fact bespeaks for him a hearing from his late " co-religionists" whom he would so lovingly ' ' undeceive." He has converted Canada. There are now no Catholics to be found there, or next to none. Those multitudinous pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Anne, and the various other Catholic demonstrations we read of are mythic. The land of this glorious apostle must needs be " reformed." It is impossible that his " valiant contests ■with the gigantic power of Papal Rome" can have only existed in an attempt on his part to " lie in wait for the heel " of the august adversary selected by him. His visit to these colonies, then, ia not a mere stumping expedition with the design of stirring up the bigotry that already abounds here. He has "coverfced" Canada and now he is going to convert us. Meanwhile, we trust, the "glorious Gospel liberty" that prevails amongst this man's people at home may not attend upon his footsteps here. It looks rather ominous, with the accounts of Orange outrages in Canada ringing in our ears to find the Orangemen of Sydney professing themselves his champions. As to his unctuous expression of "love" to Roman Catholics we consider it as trustworthy as Tartufe's defence of Damis, " J'aimerais mieux soufErir la peine la plus dare Qu'il etlt re?u pour moi la moindre <sgratignure." A certain interest in Catholics, no doubt he may take, he looks upon them, perhaps, as the fittest tools to revenge whatever slight, real or imaginary, it was that first drove him on the thoughts of apostacy. There is, most probably, some bishop or some ecclesiastical body he would mortify by the perversion of Catholics. At all events the fable of the fox that lost his tail is an instructive one. The unfortunate often, the guilty generally, are not unwilling to see their plight partaken in by others. They whose consciences are seared, may well be suspected of being anxious in their petty spite to make proselytes, secretly desirous of seeing these become the children "of hell twofold more than" themselves. But this Mr, Cbiniquy has taken the wrong

' course : a moribund Protestantism is but a feeble attraction to Bpread before our eyes. The sight is a familiar one ; we thoroughly under-.i stand and thoroughly despise it. It can neither attract nor terrify us. Besides for an evangelist he comes under strange auspices. The Rev. George Brown hardly showed himself to the natives of New Britain more ominously accompanied. An Orange body-guard ill befits one who pretendsto " preach the G-ospel of peace." It sorely mars the beauty of his feet upon the mountains. It betokens, in fact, corns that pinch him to the quick, and arouse the malice of the renegade, who comes to excite the bigotry of the bigoted crowd against the holy cause, in opposition to which he has enlisted hims»lf under the banner of his successful tempter, the devil.

Jotjbert, who has been so well introduced to the English reader ttj Mr. Matthew Arnold, said of the Jesuits, in contrasting them with the* Jansenists, that they seemed to love God " from pure inclination ; out of admiration, gratitude, tenderness ; for the pleasure of loving Him, in short. In their books of devotion you find joy, because with the Jesuits, nature and religion go hand in hand." This is a noble testimony, and its value is increased since it comes from one who was so clear-sighted and just in judgment. The Jesuits then have discovered the secret of sanctifying nature ; they have attained to directing every faculty of the mind to its true end, God ; and have thus well deserved the reputation of masters of the spiritual life that in the Catholic Church they have obtained. This seems the nearest approach to the condition of unfallen man conceivable now, that converted nature, instead of finding itself pained by the force of earthly attractions, should be capable of continual joy, because it finds the unspeakable beauty of God so apparent to it as to overcome every obstacle that would obscure it. Such is the spirit which the trueeyed critic has read in the Jesuits' books of devotion, and we doubt not also discerned in the lives of the fathers themselves. Joubertbad spent eight years amongst them, first as their pupil and then as an assistant teacher in their school at Toulouse. Mr. Matthew Arnold tells us this, and that " they seem to have left in him a most favourable opinion, not only of their tact and address, but of their really good qualities as teachers and directors." But, indeed, if the world is full of calumnies against the Jesuits, it is also filled with monuments of their piety, learning, and abilities. We know how the calumnies have arisen, the fathers maybe proud of them. "'Tis the fate of every mortal man," says Father Prout speaking of them, " who raises himself by mother wit above the common level of fools and dunces, to be hated by the whole tribe most cordially," and the fatuous tribe keep repeating their burden of hatred until even wise men take it up, and cunning men turn it to their own account ; and so the thing is done. l>ools and dunces have more to do with the course of this world's affairs than, perhaps, we could easily describe or even believe, and when they are supported by bigots, who nevertheless must partake in some degree of the nature of both, by the irreligious and the designing, as in the case we refer to, the wonder is that any of those they dislike can at all contrive to exist. It was the late Anglican Archbishop Whately, if we recollect aright, who compared the Jpws to the burning bush in the desert, always, as it were, on fire yet not consumed. Such a similitude might also well be applied to the Society of Jesus, for they likewise have suffered a continual fire of persecution and still they survive. Centuries ago they were expelled from Venice, and yesterday Bismarck expelled them from the German empire. Again Father Prout says " thej encountered, like Paul, ' stripes, perils, and prisons,' in Poland, in Germany, in Portugal, and Hungary. They were hanged by dozens in England. Their march for two centuries through Europe was only to be compared to the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon." Nevertheless this march was marked by lofty monuments ; everywhere great men, either who had been their pupils or who were members of their order, were raising by their talents the status of whatever country it might be to which they belonged, and writing their own names upon the roll of fame. Descartes had been their pupil, so had Torricelli and Tasso. Boscovich was a member of their Order, and Bossuet had been so. Amongst their pupils were also Corneille and Moliere, Conde, Marshal Villars, and a host of others all pre-eminent in whatever calling they had chosen, -whose names alone would fill more space than we have to give. 80 much, however, although a mere trifle on so great a topic, will suffice to remind ua of what have been the services to the civilised world, of that

society some of whose members are now coming amongst us. We do not speak of the uncivilised world where services as great, or in a certain sense greater, perhaps, have been performed. " India repaid half Europe's loss O'er a i c\v hemisphere the Ciosa Shone in the azure sky ; Ami, from the isles of far Japan To the broad Andes, won o'er man A bloodless victor y !" We trust that the day will never come when the Xenophon-like retreat shall be repeated in this colony. We are confident that, in any case, monuments of the Jesuits' settlement amongst us will not be wanting. We may not, indeed, see great geniuses come out from their schools to execute works whose praise shall last for ever, like those of the men we have named. To expect this would be on our part a mere conceit. A people is hardly more entitled to expect to see a genius arise from amongst them than is a religious community to look for one of their members becoming a canonized saint. God may, indeed, confer either calling, but presumption only could expect it. But we shall undoubtedly see the success that has everywhere distinguished the efforts of the Jesuits crowning them here also. They will make the best of the material entrusted to them ; they ■will develop to the fullest the talents of the pupils placed under their care, and thoroughly educate them. That is all we need desire. We trust, moreover, that we shall see the spirit of the order spreading abroad amongst the Catholics of the mission. That spirit which Jouberl described when he s-pokc of their loving God " from pure inclination, out of admiration, gratitude, tenderness ; for the pleasure of loving Him, in short." It seems to us that religion has attained its greatest height on earth in those for whom " nature and religion go hand in hand." THE truth of Eobespierre's decision that if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him is well brought out in an article which appeared in the KortJi American Review for July and August last, and which is entitled '•' An Advertisement for a lleligion." It is a keen satire on the philosophy of the period, and pourtrays in sombre colours the condition to which this philosophy must inevitably bring the society which accepts it. The writer professes himself to be an Evolutionist, but he does not fail to insinuate a powerful argument against the truth of this theory, which he pretends to hold, and, in a similar manner without open condemnation, he skilfully contrives to bring into discredit certain of the Apostles of " modern thought."' Indeed, it might almost be thought that no satire was intended, were it not that here and there are a few words that might seem to have found admittance by accident, but which plainly indicate the feeling of the writer ; and that a tone of covert irony pervades, although almost imperceptibly, the whole article. The writer begins by describing the various ways in which religion has been condemned by the men of science of the day. He, however, afterwards hints that these men of science are hardly to be regarded as infallible. Huxley says of Comte— "ln so far as my study of what specially characterises the positive philosophy has led me, I find, therein, little or nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal that is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence of science as anything in Ultramontane Catholicism."' After twenty years study of the works of J. S. Mill, Professor Jcvon says — " I will no longer consent to live silently under the incubus of bad logic and bad philosophy, which Mill's works have laid upon us. . . . But in one way or other Mill's intellect was wrecked."' Nevertheless, all ni en of science are agreed "that man has religious instincts, is, in short, a religious animal, and must have Borne sort of worship. Hume, Kant, Voltaire, .Rousseau, and Comte admitted this. " Huxley, as a member of the School Board in London, insists that the Bible be introduced into every school, as knowing that science does not tend to make men moral, and that the Bible, though full of error, is the only book iitted to form the character of the young." Tyndall is angry at being charged with doing away with religion. And Herbert Spencer " has allotted a very spacious region to God and to religion." A new-born religion, then, there must be, but it must have nothing in common with those hitherto in existence. "It cannot have a God living and personal. ... It cannot insist on a personal immortality to the soul. . . . There must be no terrors drawn from a day of judgment. . . . There must be no ghostly sanctions, or motives derived from a supernatural power, or a world to come. . . . Everything beyond what can be seen must bo represented as unknown and unknowable. The negative aspect of this new religion is easy enough to picture, but not bo the positive one. It is easy to say what it is not to be, but difficult to say what it is to be. Mr. Mill has given a description of the religion set up by Comte : " Private adoration is to be addressed to collective Humanity in the persons of worthy individual representatives, who may be either living or dead, but must in all cases be women." For ourselves we should prefer the dead ones. Live goddesses have been tried before, and the end was humiliating. '• Rassurez-vous : char, autel, flours, jcuncssc, CHoire, vertu, grandeur, espoir, fiertO, Tout a peri ; vons n' etcs plus dwsse, Ueesse do la Libcrte."

There are many ladies amongst the dead who might well serve to typify the object of the worship towards which the times are tending, — Semiramis, Thai's, Cleopatra, and many others, all of them most worshipful dames ! "Alas! How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire, Conducted these unto the dolorous pass ! " Unfortunately, however, this idea of Comte's has been, even by some of his followers, considered to prove him lunatic. But worship of some sort there must be : Huxley s&ys it must be " chiefly of the silent sort." Immortality also there must be : Mr. Harrison explains in what it consists. It is not a personal immortality ; it is life continued in a man's works. Homer is immortal in the Iliad ; an orator in the words spoken by him ; the actor in the parts he has played ; the singer in the songs he has sung ; the trumpeter in the vibrations he has initiated ; the ploughman in his upturned soil ; " thefisherman in the fish he has caught and the butcher in the cattle he has killed 1 " But might not these fish and cattle have the proud fate of conferring immortality, perhaps, on more than one individual, for we conclude the glutton would be immortal in the food devoured by him 1 Basta I our " Evolutionist" is laughing in his sleeve. Our " Evolutionist" himself would have a worship of fetes and festivals with statues ; with groves of Baal and Bacchantic dances. These would be all appropriate attendants on the religion of the future. But whence have these religious instincts come ? How is it that they cannot be eradicated 1 "We evolutionists, tell religious men (so-called) that they may give up their fears for religion has its seat so deep in the heart that it cannot be dislodged. But our prophets assure us the human soul is developed from the higher animals, and these from the lower, so that there is a physical basis underneath the whole. How or when have these indestructible instincts come in ? If they have come in from without, we have here a very marked phenomenon of which the evolution theory can make nothing, and which our pietists will say implies a supernatural power. But if we are to bring in one thing independent of development, why not more, . . . until we overwhelm the whole glorious theory 1 " On the other hand if the religious instinct be merely a natural product then it should disappear in the struggle for existence like other superstitions. The new religion must come, but meantime the aspect of affairs is somewhat alarming. On young men especially the effect of this state of transition is most deleterious. Young ladies seem less affected by it ; they are not so much caught by the science of the day. Our Evolutionist's daughter having on one Sunday attended a lecture of Huxley's, and a Wesleyan meeting, declared in favour of the latter ; she preferred the shouting Methodists to the " worship of the silent sort." Another young lady after six weeks' attendance on Huxley's lectures declared she would rather worship the Virgin, attracted by the images she had seen in Italy. But there are no means of restraining the young men. They are told to be moral, but they do not see why they need be so. It is but rational that they should proceed as far in advance of their fathers as their fathers have proceeded in advance of those who went before them. It cannot be said that the unbelief of our age is more moral than was that of Tom Paine's time. "It is alleged that in circles affected with our views (evolutionist) directly, or more frequently indirectly, there is a loose code which allows those who yield to animal affection to justify themselves by an appeal to the now established doctrine of human parentage and descent ; " as in the decline of Rome the licentious appealed to the doctrines of Epicurus, and in the reign of Louis XV. to the teaching and example of the Encyclopedists. Our " Evolutionist" concludes with some pathetic, and, indeed, terrible passages, relative to the effect of the loss of their religious beliefs on those who would gladly have retained them. They have seen their beloved go away from them, telling them that they -were going to heaven, and leaving them the hope of joining them there, but now the hope is destroyed. There is heard a cry " for the touch of a vanished hand which has been cut off, and committed to the earth from which it will never rise again." There is despair, and with it is mingled fierce anger against those who have robbed the world of its faith. The article is in a word a powerful condemnation of secularists, whom it exhibits in their true light as the deadly enemies of the human race, — the foes alike of God and man.

The San Francisco mail, which reached Auckland on Tuesday last, brings very little news that has not been anticipated. Condon, and Melady have been released, and received a national reception at New York. The Pall Mall Gazette inveighs against Condon's release having been brought about by the solicitations of the United States, and considers Minister Walsh's letter on the subject almost offensive. The telegrams do not say whether the released men are in a dying condition, as we may rationally expect to be the case. The Pope has sent a Nuncio to Russia to treat of the interests of the Catholic Poles, and a Nuncio is also to be sent to Constantinople. The Swiss Government have granted an amnesty to the Catholic Priests deprived of their parishes in '73. It is said a basis of agreement between Germany and the Vatican has been settled without any modification of the Falck laws ; o£ this, however, we arc extremely doubtful. France is about to abandon the protectorate of the Catholics of the East.

The editor of the Pays has been fined and imprisoned for insulting the President, and an internationalist Propaganda has been discovered at Pans. Another plot against the life of the Emperor William has been discovered. The cholera had appeared in Spain, and the gossips iwere busy about marrying King Alfonso to his " deceased wife's fcsister, ' Christina. The state of affairs in America continues far from satisfactory. The yellow fever, it is true, is abating ; the cities which suflcred most aTe New Orleans, Memphis, Canada, Canton, Holly bprmgs, Vicksburg, Bolton, Kenge, and Port Gibson. Large amounts of money were sent to the sufferers from all parts of the United btates, and several of the cities of Europe. A national fast day was to be observed because of the pestilence and the discord and commercial discontent that prevailed. Popular agitation still continues. A Jew named Cohen is at the head of the working-men at Washington ; there was a strike of stone-cutters at Chicago, and Kearney has been sued for libel by a manufacturing firm in New York. During the month of September a number of wealthy and influential men committed suicide. The local columns of the New York papers are swelled with accounts daily of murders and all kinds of evil deeds. Destructive floods have visited Ontario, Canada. And Beecher has been denouncing the working-men and adulating wealth. About the only satisfactory news we receive is that the Trappist Monks are about to form a community in Pennsylvania. The land of secularism, indeed, continues a spectacle to the world.

We are in a much worse piight than ever Dogberry was in. We have fallen in with one much more ribald than Conrade, and are not even permitted to have the satisfaction of hearing ourselves called an " ass." We could even find it in our heart to cry—" Masters, remember that I am an ass ; though it be not written down, yet forget not that lam an ass." For surely it would be better to be condemned as an existing ass than to be snuffed out altogether, completely despised, and declared to be a nonentity. This is most humiliating. The European Mail says there is an "industrious bookseller at Wurzburg " who declares that there is no such newspaper in the world as the New Zealand Tablet. The fellow must decidedly be in the pay of Prince Bismarck. He is afraid that we may go over to the socialists, and then lie knows there would be no chance whatever for his German Empire. This must be the reason why he has clapped the extinguisher upon us. He is determined to shut it out completely from the view of the German public that this journal lives and thrives amongst colonial literature. Let us take comfort ; it is fear that has led to our obscuration. The existence of many great things has been alike denied. Men have asserted that the maelstrom was a myth ; they have denied the being of the sea-ser-pent, and contradicted the legends of "the giants. The gorilla himself was for some time doubted of ; not to speak of " Mrs. Harris." But wo will not he silent under the insult. We are not " made of so slight elements." We are no mere morsel of saur Iwant to be thus " chawed up "by some frowsy German book-worm. We live to defy him and to confound his statistics. It is indeed inexcusable for people to set themselves up as authorities on matters of which they know nothing. Unpretending parties may, indeed, make sad mistakes about these colonies ; we have for example seen letters in which the most preposterous suppositions were made of personal intercourse between individuals inhabiting far distant parts of different colonies ; and once we found a highly educated lady in London filled with alarm because of the extreme danger her friends, dwelling in the interior of Queensland, ran from the neighbourhood of the bloodthirsty Maories, but such errors are venial. We can hardly say that such is the case when a man professing seriously to publish statistics jof the Press, and comparing the Catholic periodicals or newspapers of &scb, country with the Protestant ones, asserts that Australia, of course including New Zealand, has not a single Catholic periodical. If we are to judge by this of the statistics collected by the industrious gentleman of Wimburg, all we can say is, his industry has been very ill expended. He might better have occupied himself in dusting his book-shelves. But that we may continue to live and thwart the malice of such Bismarckians, we beg of our subscribers to be prompt in forwarding us their subscriptions.

The Bay of Plenty Tinws is rather severe on the new batch of settlers for Kati Kati. He divides them into « the settlers useful and the settlers ornamental." The dress of the usefuls stinks in our contemporary's nostrils. Here is what he says of it : " Collars are forsworn, jacket and waistcoat exchanged for a blue jersey, light boots for hobnails, and easy caps for preternaturally large white felt ' billycocks.' As they stroll down the Strand with careless swagger, and hideous black ' cutty' in mouth, they fondly imagine that they are an fa it with the customs of the colony, and will be taken for ' old chums.' " But surely the ornamentals atone for this : " The men are nearly all good looking, and with theii fashionably-cut clothes and pleasant insouciance impart to our streets a whiff of Hyde Park. Occasionally we see figures faultlessly arrayed in the neatest of riding breeches, apparently about to set off on an expedition, but whether they ever do get on horseback is a dark mystery which only the livery stable keepers can golrc." Our contemporary does not seem quite to have

made up his mind whether to sympathise with Mr. Vesey Stewart or the persons w'.io complain of him. He thinks the locality where some of the people are staying has affected their tempers, still " There can be no doubt that many of the settlers have real bona fide personal wrongs to complain of. . . . We sincerely hope that at the forthcoming meeting at Katikati a reasonable and practical tone will bo taken. Even if Mr. Stewart did somewhat misrepresent things in. Ireland, nothing can be gained by twitting him with it now. Let every man state what he personally requires, either by way of redress or alteration. If ' the dux ' listens to him his injuries will be gone, if not he can fairly demand his money back." This is very disappointing : we were prepared to be quite charmed with this Katikati sottlement. We thought it was to be a perfect agapemone — a kind of Platonic Paul and Virginia sort of affair, with the " glorious and immortal memory " playing the part of a Puritanical Cupid, mature and with all the tricks knocked out of him, and binding each family to their neighbour in the bonds of brotherly love, and all to Mr. Vesey Stewart. We thought we should have lived to see— that is with the aid of a telescope, for of course no " Papist " dare approach within miles of the spot — the orange lily playing the part there of vine and fig tree and patriarchal groups reposing serenely in its shade. But, lo I all our hopes are frustrated, and nothing more sublime reaches our ears than the echoes of quite an ordinary shindy. A mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, this smacks horribly of commonplace. The Bay of Plenty Times, however, has an eye to business. He greatly disapproves of any thing being done that would prevent other people finding themsel ves in the same predicament with the present batch of immigrants. He does not at all approve of their publishing their grievances in Ireland. l> It would be shocking bad policy on the part of the new settlers to discourage immigration to their neighbourhood. The larger the population the greater the prosperity and wealth of the district. By- and-byc, when all this trouble bas faded away, these gentlemen will feel sorry that they should have injured their own and their companions' prospects by abusing the settlement." Let them write home and say they are surrounded by luxuries, as comfortably fixed as if a perpetual siege of Derry were going on at their elbow, let them act as decoy ducks, and draw the whole blessed North out here, that is their true policy. Our contemporary decidedly has an eye to business ; nevertheless, it is to be hoped bis circulation in the North of Ireland is by no means as extensive as it deserves to be. If it be the cat is out of the bag once for all.

The impossibility plea that is urged in opposition to the common justice demanded by Catholics with regard to education has been well exposed by Bishop Moorehousc. His lordship has completely demolished the argument of those of our legislators, who really arc, and cannot be expected not to be, so ignorant as to suppose that it is quite an extraordinary thing for Catholics to require that their children should be educated so as to preserve to them their faith. And the arguments likewise of those who arc by no means thus ignorant, but avail themselves of the ignorance of others to carry out their paltry tyranny, and their an ti- Christian designs. Dr. Moorehouse points out that the right of Catholics to educate their children in their own faith has been universally conceded in Europe. He, moreover, plainly informs the secularists of Victoria that they may as well yield with a good grace that which in the end they will be forced, at any rate to yield. Here is what he says : — ••" It seems to me, then, that all the rights of the state are conserved in the proposed scheme, and that the Eoman Catholics are asking from us nothing more than what the freest Governments in the world have granted to them. In Prussia, in Baden, in our own colony of Canada, and wherever Eoman Catholics and Protestants are largely intermingled in the population, the Government bas recognised that the peculiar opinions of Roman Catholics have made separate schools for them a necessity. The concession of such schools is inevitable. If not granted by our sense of justice, it will sooner or later be wrung from our political necessities. And, let me add, if granted, and not grudged, such a concession will be found as expedient as it is just." We have ourselves advanced no stronger argument than this — the Bishop in a few words sums up what we have so long said, and endorses our policy of the block vote.

HAS the "first newspaper in Taranaki" no lineal descendant? Is there no one to refute that statement that the said newspaper caved in to a " fall in pumpkins ? " Or, if it cannot be refuted, and that it is acknowledged that the editor and staff, literary and typographical, were long nourished on tbe succulent vegetable in question, will not some ono produce * number of the said first newspaper so that pressmen and typographers may learn what waa the nature of the work performed on such a diet. It may have been excellent for the brain, perhaps we are on the eve of a valuable discovery. Are there any of the old staff still in Taranaki, or did they die of surfeit when the price of pumpkins fell ? There is room here or a scientific enquiry. Will not some ono in Taranki let us have an essay on tke connection between pumpkin? and. literature 1