Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 467, 24 March 1882, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The Russian Government has refused to hear the THE CASE petitions framed in England on behalf of its perOF the secuted Jewish subjects, and the Russian Press RUSSIAN JEWS, affirms that feeling in England is being stirred up not so much in favour of the Jews as to the prejudice of Russia. It fuither denies that the barbarities said to have been executed on the Jews are truly leported of. But Russia continues true to itself, and there is nothing to surprise any one in all this, nor is there anything to make us change our minds as to that which has been reported, for when did Russian authorities scruple at falsehood or fail to screen the abomination of cruelty committed on the part of either Government or subject by a lie 1 Eyewitnesses of what has been done, and sufferers from it, have escaped from the country, and there is no reason to doubt their words, even if they were not backed up by the testimony of other and more independent witnesses. But in any case, why should we doubt or question the excesses committed by a wild Russian mob, while we recollect what has been done by men acting under the instructions of the Russian Government ? What is there that the mob has done to the Jews, that the disciplined soldiery have not done to the Catholics ? And if the Jewish women have been ill-treated, let us not forget what it was that was attempted, for example, against the nuns of Minsk. But even were the outrages committed on the Jews of Russia exaggerated ten-fold, a tenth of them would still be shameful, and call for the heaviest condemnation. The anti-Jewish movement in Germany has not been accountable for so much as a tenth of these, and yet we feel that it is a disgrace to Germany — the greater disgrace that Germany owes to the Jews innumerable works of learning and art that have enriched her for ever, and added to her proudest fame. But now she would repress the people and place under an interdict the intellect that, even in our own times, gave her, for instance ( the works of Heine, and Mendlessohn, and Meyerbeer. The jealousy of the cultivated classes in Germany who seek to place the Jews at a disadvantage by legislative means is but the same feeling that hounds on the Russian mob to abuse and outrage them, and it is alike disgraceful in both. — Or, rather, we may say, it is more disgraceful, even if less brutally displayed, in the cultured German, than it is in the half-barbarous Russian, for his culture should teach the German to recognise, detest, and curb the unworthy passions of human nature. But as for the charges that are brought in Russia against the Jews, theie are the best reasons to believe them groundless. The correspondent of the London Times, for example, writing from Odessa, and evidently writing in a subdued anti-Jewish strain, has now and then given instances of such charges, and they were such as it was evident could only have emanated from the basest, most unreasonable prejudice. Mr. A. L. Green, again, a Rabbi who writes to the Times in defence of his Russian kindred, declares himself prepared to prove in the face of the whole world that they are " cruelly maligned as well as ill-treated." But it is a disgrace to civilisation that prejudice should have such a power at toe present day. That it should have prevailed and been powerful in the Middle Ages was a different thing — and prejudice was then very fixed and determined against the Jews. Chaucer's " Prioress's Tale " is indeed of itself alone quite conclusive here ; the accusation brought in it against the Jews is made in a way that shows us how fully persuaded was the public mind of the times that they were a cruel and murderous people, a people among whom no Christian child even could pass with safety — and we can well understand bow any accident, while the public mind was so affected, could raise an outbieak against them. But tfmes were then favourable to prejudice, and it existed by necessity ; we know how easily a report arises, and how it grows and gathers in the telling. Even with all the means of public contradiction and explanation that the age affords we constantly see how long it takes and how difficult it is to have the truth brought to light and made generally know n. But how must it have been in times when men were more credulous, and mystery was among the things of every

day life ; when, also, there was no Press at hand to show things in their proper light, and distant communication was slow and difficult Any peculiar people, then, must needs have been misunderstood. Now, however, the times are changed ; men's lives are now before the world ; their characters, in the aggregate at least, can hardly be hidden, and where prejudice exists, it can do so only by the ignorance or fault of those who entertain it. It is the fault, we hold, of the German, who is prejudiced agaiast the Jews ; it is the brutal ignorance of the Russian who is so prejudiced that influences him ; but it is a slur on civilisation in the one instance that, in its highest degree, it is unable to restrain men from yielding to shameful prejudices, and tbat in the other it cannot bring at least such outward influences to bear as will restrain brutality and ruffianism within bounds. But it is in Russia that the chief interest of the Jewish question for the moment centres, There we find exhibited to the world a great multitude of people exposed to all that is cruel and detestable. "It seems," says the Times, "to be the intention to make Rass ; a an impossible home for the Jews, or even perhaps to doom them to complcte'extiuction. The Russo-Jewish question may, therefore, be summed up in these words : Are three and a-half millions of human beings to perish because they are Jews." The question is, indeed, one of no ordinary gravity, and the more so, because there does not seem to be any satisfactory way of answering it. There is no nation to undertake a war of deliverance on behalf of these unfortunate people ; national philanthropy hardly extends so far anywhere, Even Holy Russia herself we imagine would not have undertaken to strike in the cause of the Slavs, had she not had ulterior^iews of aggrandizement and conquest, and anysuch step would doubtless be regarded as Quixotic on a gigantic scale. But how shall so great a multitude be provided for out of Russia? How shall three millions and a half of people emigrate without delay, or where shall they be received 1 Their case is, indeed, a hard one ;— let us hope that it may stir up a feeling throughout the world generally strong enough to influence the Czar, for that seems the only hope — and we fear it may prove a forlorn one. Meantime, the Russian Jews uave a full claim to anything that can be done in their ca.u3e everywhere ; Eor can we think that any man of decent feeling will with-hold from them at least his sympathy. If they be human beiugs they deserve so much — if they be human beings of considerable merit, as is credibly reported, their claim i 3 so much the stronger.

A whiter who contributes an article io the catholic January number of the Dublin Jteview on " English influences. Men of Letters," in speaking of authors whe although Protestants have aided the Catholic cause by their writings} mentions Wordsworth, and says that, besides showing himself touched by much else that is Catholic, "he is Christian and poet enough to feel transported with the love and purity of the spotless maid of Nazareth." And in illustration of this he quotes the sonnet which begins with the lineg :—: — " Mother 1 whose virgin bosom was unorost With the least shade of thought to sin allied." But it has always seemed to us that a passage in which Wordsworth has shown himself most affected by the Catholic spirit is to be found in his verses entitled " Our Lady of the Snows "—" — " Thy very name, O Lady ! flings O'er blooming fields and gushing springs, A holy shadow soft and dear Of warmer sympathies." It is, indeed, true that to the Catholic the ground hallowed by the traditionb of religion or the associations that surround the shine is clad in additional beauty, and to lose the full eight of this is one of the misfortunes that are the lot of those who ate not in communion with the Church and are cut off from her privileges. — Dr. Johnson, however, appears to have been favoured with something of tho happier vision when he visited lona. But when we find Wordsworth, who so deeply entered into the meaning of nature, and, as M. Aubrey de Vere has explained in his essay on the passion of the poet, almost identified himself as a spirit of the elements, recognising the hallowed influences that surround the scenes of Catholic devotion, and add to nature a softer charm, it is evident that there is a reality in these things which can only be denied by the blind. The " blooming fields and gushing springs," the sublime and lovely aspects of nature were

Wordsworth's own peculiar temple where he was wont continually to worship, and to find the Catholic association with Our Lady spreading abroad there for his spiritual perception a new and holier incense ia of no little significance. It is of less import to find another poet touched, as many who arc not Catholics frequently acknowledge themselves with the solemnity, the comprehensive beauty, and the reality of Catholic worship, but still the following passages relating to Lord Byron, and which we also owe to the article we have alluded to, are of high interest :—" In the year 1817 (The writer quotes a letter written by Fletcher, Lord Byron's valet, to Dr. Kennedy) I have scon my Lord repeatedly, on meeting or passing any religious ceremonies which the Roman Catholics have in their frequent processions, while at Nivia, near Venice, dismount his horse and fall on his knees, and remain in that posture till the procession had passed ; and one of his grooms who was backward in following the example of his Lordship, my Lord gave a violent reproof to. The man in defence said, 'I am no Catholic, and by this means thought I ought not to follow any of their ways.' My Lord answered very sharply upon the subject, saying ' Nor am I a Catholic, but a Christian, which I should not be, were I to make the same objections which you make.' " The writer goe3 on to relate the circumstance of Byron's decision that his daughter should be educated as a Catholic. "'lt is my wish,' he wrote to Moore, in April 1821, ' that she should be a Roman Catholic, which I look upon as the best religion, as it is assuredly the oldest of the vaiious branches of Chiistianity.' On another occasion he wrote to the same friend : ' I think people caa never have enough of religion if they are to have any. I incline very much myself to the Catholic doctrine.' ... He wrote to Murray also April 9, 1817 : 'When I turn thirty I will turn devout ; I feel a great vocation that way in Catholic Churches and when I hear the organ.' "

It is all a mistake, we perceive, for any one to woman affirm that woman is by nature in any respect vindicated, man's inferior. We learn that, on the contrary, she is by right vastly hi 3 superior, and it cost him some paina to establish himself on a higher level than hex; it is only owing to his having got the upper hand in some unexplained kind of a way that she has come to be dependent on him. In short, instead of being in a state o£ development that has not reached its perfection, as it has of late been very ungallantly declared— for if woman is not perfection what is, we should like to know, or is it allowable to believe she is capable of improvement even during the course of the 150 millions of years that intervene between our times and those of the days of 700 hours ? — she has gone back in the evolutionary race, and now holds a position inferior to that which she once occupied. There was a titne says Miss A. W. Buckland, who writes in an English publication defending woman from the charges brought against her, when woman's head was as big as man's, but the Aryan races reduced it in size by depriving her of all real power, while they hypocritically pretended at the same time to be treating her with the most chivalrous devotion— by which perhaps she was beguiled. Bigheaded women, it seems, were as little to their taste as are women with big feet to that of the Chinese, and so they undertook to reduce the size of the female skull by cutting off the need for female brains. Woman, however, seems to have retained a tradition of her big-headed days, and, with the memory of them, endeavours to make up for her small allowance of skull by the manner in which she disposes of her hair, or, it may that of somebody els?. As to whether plaits and braids, with even some amount of stuffing, supply the place of the superfluous brains of which the cruel Aryans bereaved her or not, we hardly care to examine. But again we cay, biains or no brains, woman is all perfection— perfect in her big-headed days when she had the whip-hand of man, and perfect in her days of a smaller head when— let them speak as they will— man must give her an account of the matter if she by any means i 3 led to suspect that she has not still the whip-hand of him. She is like the Sybillinc books, and, however much she may have diminished she still remains as costly as before. Meantime Miss Buckland has discovered a race where things continue as they should be, and where woman, as of yore it was universal, continues to guide the councils of the nation and is supreme. Nor has it teen necessary for her to go back to the clays of antiquity for this, and point out the happy homes, for example, in the shade of the pyramids, where Egyptian men Lad given themselves up into the possession of their wives, who at marriage took over all their husbands' property, and conferred their names upon them — names, moreover, to be borne, instead of the fathers' names, by their sons, — and whence women went out in place of the men, to buy and sell, to mortgage, to lend money, and make contracts. — And, by the way, does it not almost secro as if the Great Pyramid also must have had a woman for its architect 1 Who else, at least, but some goody could have constructed it to yield the meanings we have found deduced from it of late years in Dunedin 1 Matrimony, in a word, bound Egyptian men as tightly while they Uved as did the mummy-cloths their corpses after death, and in

some instances it appears pratty clear that it may even have given them a notion that mummy-cloths were the " only wear," for woman used her power while she had it, and amongst the records of her rule are to be seen some that tell of high-handed proceedings on her part — but if any one doubts concerning this, as out of harmony with woman's well-known timidity and gentleness, he will find in Turin, as we learn from the London Times, a papyrua that will tell him all about it — let him go there and be undeceived, or even completely disillusionized. It would appear, in fact, if we may judge of the matter by the state of things that of old existed in Egypt, that it was not without considerable reason the Aryan races undertook to reduce the size of woman's head— and, if we arc to take example by the state of things in ancient Egypt, it will be wise for us to resolve never to let her head grow big again— that is, of course, from the inside ; with the devices of fashion and the tricks of beauty we should be slow to msddle. Miss Buckland, however, has found a people existing at the present day among whom things are as they should be, and, with whom there ia nothing to hinder woman's head from growing as big as a prize turnip if it only will be pushed out by effect of power on the brain. The people are, it seems, the Wyandotte Indians, where women are supreme, and the men own nothing but the clothes on their backs, such as they are, and their weapons for war and hunting,— matters in which the size of the head is only of consequence to the Billy-goat, and which may therefore be left very well to the inferior creat-ire man, as yet unelevated by a low cunning to the control of his betters, and unacquainted with the wiles of fie Aryan races. Here is what Miss Backland tells us about the Wyandotte Indians. " Their social polity consists of four groups— the family, the gens, the pbratry, and the tribe. The head of the family is a woman. The gens is organised on the basis of relationship ia the female line. Tha phratries are chiefly concerned with religious and festal observances. The civil government ia vested in councils and chiefs. Each gens has a council of four women by whom the chief of the gens is selected. The tribal council is made up of these chiefs and the women councillors, and is therefore composed of one-fifth men and four-fifths women. Further the women councillors already named are appointed by a constituency of women — that is, by the heads of households who by frequent discussion s decide who shall succeed any given councillor in the event of her death." Had the men of the Aryan races then not succeeded in reducing the size of woman's head, all our government would be carried on by her, and we should, moreover, in everything else as well most probably find ourselves in the condition of the Wyandotte Indians, or at best, we should look forward for relief to the shelter of the mummy-clcth. — Decidedly the diminished skull sits well upon woman's shoulders, and let it be man's constant care — apart of course from all the changes and adornments of fashion — to see that it retains the size his interests demand of it. The advantage gained for him is one he should fully appreciate.

Our contemporary the Dunedin Morning Herald the says we have succeeded in discovering what must " penal prison." be admitted to be a new phenomenon entirely — that is a useful " mare's nest." He says the statement made by us last week as to the " penal prison " at Wellington is not well founded, that it rests on the " bombastic propensities " of the New Zealand Times only, and is a " mare's nest," but, nevertheless, says he the Tablet was "quite right to give the alarm in time," for there is nothing too outlandish to be attempted by Wellington in support of its metropolitan pretensions. We believe, however, that in the present instance. Wellington is not anxious for the acquisition of a central penal depot, and we owe our information not only to the N. Z. Times, but also to a Northern correspondent who is of quite sufficient authority, — for a deputation of the Wellington Town Council interviewed the Government the other day for the express purpose of protesting against the erection of the contemplated prison at Mount Cook as tending to lower the value of property in the neighbourhood, and it was, moreover, stated by the deputation, that a convict depot was not nee-ied there. — The Government, we may add, were not favourable to the views put forward. As to what is meant by the expression " penal prison," to which our contemporary, with much exactness, seems to object as pleonastic, we believe it may be explained by the fact that the prison alluded to is intended for the breaking in and grinding down of prisoners sentenced to terms of penal service, prior to their being distributed among the gaols throughout the colony, but if our contemporary's sense of the proprieties of speech, and the use of the expression, which, moreover, is not of our invention. Attachment to strictly correct grammar are not satisfied by thi«, we shall not insist upon the use of the expression, which, moreover, is not of our invention. The The expressions " penal prison " and " penal prisoners " are, nevertheless, we believe, commonly used by people wont to deal with such matters— at least familiarly. What we do insist upon is that the classification of prisoners is an impossibility, and has been denounced as such by the competent authorities, for instance, of Lord PalmGrston, Mr. Walpolc, Sir George Grey, Sir John I'ackington, and Si

Cornwall Lewis. Among ourselves, again, the Hon Captain Fraser, who, some years ago visited the principal e;aol9 and penal establishments in Groat Britain and Ireland, and who may also be reckoned an authority on the subject, has declared himself opposed to caging up prisoners in cells, and considers that they may be much better emp'oyed. as th°y have been in Otago during 1 th ; last, twenty years, on useful and prndnc'ive p-iblic works. — an opinion in which we tmderstan 1 Mr. Macandivw, and indeed, all the Southern meinVers coincide with him. In conclusion, wo are pleased to find that, on the who'e, our contemporary the Morning Herald, although with modifications, takes pretty much the same view of the matter that we do ourselves, and as an illustration of the fact that be nibbles in the same direction in which the Tablet "bites," we quote the following passages from his leader to which we have already alluded. ' ' It most be admitted that Captain Hume haß not proved a succesp. He has all his past experience to unlearn, and an entirely new experience to acquire, before he can advantageously discharge the duties which, we lake leave to think, he has somewhat rashly undertaken. It was a very great mistake to send to the other side of the world for an Inspector of Prisons. All thirgs here, all circumstances —nay, the people themselves — differ so extremely from the Old Country type, that the English expert finds himself in tbe position of an untaught infant on his arrival in New Zealand. ADd whilst not entirely endorsing the extreme opinions of the Tablet, we are bound to say that Captain Hume is out of place as Inspector of New Zealand prisons. Without any desire to say aught to that gentleman's disparagement, it is only just that the truth should be told, unpleasant though it may be. There are in this colony men far more capable and better fitted for the post which he holds — men who to preat, it may even be said, exceptional capacity for performing its duties, superadd that local experience which is of inestimable value, and for the absence of which no amount of training at the other end of the wo! Id can yossibly compensate. Again— and here we have to run counter to one of Captain Hume's recommendations deliberately set forth in his official Report — we are most decidedly of opinion that, of all persons in the world, military and naval men are the least fitted, and most unsuitable for the position of gaolers, or supervisors of gaols. The martinet idea of strict discipline, upon which Captain Hume places so much stress, is precisely the element which it is undesirable to introduce into the management of prisoners ; and the wonderful success -which has attended the efforts of Mr Caldwell in his treatment of the inmates of the Dunedin Gaol furnishes allconvincing evidence of the soundness of the argument."

A pew weeks ago we were applied to for informabuenos A-YUES. tion respecting Buenos Ayres on behalf of some of our readers wbo professed themselves desirous of emigrating there from this colony. We gave the few particulars that we at the moment could remember, but we did not feel called upon to take any great pains in the matter, as our conviction was that as good a settlement may be made in New Zealand as in any other colony. We have here a fine and beautiful country with an excellent climate, and all that is required to enable its advantages to be freely enjoyed is that liberal land laws should jbe enacted. Laws designed sincerely to settle the people on the land, and whieb'cannot be evaded by any Government, or so set in action or interpreted as to shut out the people from the lands and make these the inheritance of privileged classes only. We know that it is 6ti enuously denied that this is done; it is affirmed that there is abundance cf land always available, and that its possession is open to all alike, but we also know that the " proof of the pudding lies in the eating," and that, while bad land may be always obtained, land worth having is only to be gjt at with extreme difficulty, if it may be had at all, which, for the most part it may not. But favourable land laws will never be obtained by the people's running away out of the colony ; they may only be brought about by the determination of the people to stay here and insist on their enactment, as they have both the right and the power to do, if they choose to exert themselves. Meantime, as to the attractions of Buenos Ayres we have by accident fallen, on some passages that may throw a little light upon them for the benefit of our inquiring friends. They occur in a review given by the Month of a work on South America written by a lady named Mulhall, and run as follows :—": — " Her description of the plague epidemic which ravaged Buencs Ayres in the early months of IS7I, and cost the lives of 26,000 citizens, is intensely vivid, as that of an eye-witness alone could be ; ' and in the scenes of horror it reveals, goes far towaids rivalling the tales with which the records of Naples and Florence were rife during the prevalence of a like scourge iv mediceval times. The following humourous story belongs to the period when the disease was rapidly abatirg : — ' A prisoner was brought into the Policia, charged with having attempted to stab some of the grave-diggers at the Chacrita Cemetery. He was a negro, and his head and face were so covered with lime that his appearance was extremely ludicrous. It appeared that he had been a nurse, and having earned high wages got very drunk ; he was picked up for dead in the Btreet, and taken in the

Municipal dust-cart to the Chacrita, but the lime which the gravediggers threw on the corpse got into his eyes and soon brought him tn his senses. So enraged was he that he drew his knife and attacked the grave-diggers. When I saw him he was quite sober, and tbe^ commissary let him go without any fine, but took the knifo from him. It is needless to say that many persons were believed lo have been buried alive, which was quite possible.' " It is quite probable, nevertheless, that if any of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres were questioned concerning this epidemic they would deny all possibility of its ever again returning. There is a disposition often found amoDg colonists to despise any past evil as if it were done with once for all and never could return. In Australia, for instance, it is quite common to hear people residing in districts that have been heavily flooded asserting most confidently that such a catastrophe will never more be experienced there, although there is nothing whatever to give them any such assurance, and instances are on record where in spite of such a belief subsequent floods occurred in which the water rose to a higher level by far than that it had reached before. The people of Buencs Ayres appear to have possessed their fair 6hare of the confidence alluded to ; " Tbe authoiess concludes her account of this visitation in the following words : — ' Before many weeks the plague was as utterly forgotten as if it had occurred in the previous c intury, and the foundations for a new opera house were laid on the site oi a saw-mill used for making coffins during the epidemic.' " "We never read of any country (continues the reviewer) in which human life was held in such utter disregard, the greatest insecurity prevailing in consequence, especially as criminals seem to be scarcely ever brought to justice, and assassins, even when apprehended are 1 simply locked up, to play cards until they get a chance of murdering the guards.' Whilst visiting a fort, used as a prison, the authoress was shown by the officer in charge a half-caste with a sinister countenance. ' That,' he said, 'is Guemes, who beheaded tie Neapolitan.' It appears a Sicilian organ-grinder was playing one Sunday evening for a group of people at the Arroyo-Seco, when Guemes came up, cut off the Sicilian's head, put it on the organ, and went on playinp in the presence of the by-standers, who were too terrified to move." Here then, are a few details that may prove of interest to our readers who are desirous to emigrate, and which will at least serve to show them that they might be much worse off than they find themselves j in New Zealand.

Our contemporary the Southland Times continues " KNIFE AND to cry " scissors," and refuses to be convinced SCIBSOBS." against his will, whatever may be the value of the arguments or proofs submitted to him, that the Land League is or ever has been anything but the source of countless evils to Ireland. He will believe, and nobody shall prevent him, that the Land Act is a divine measure, and the fountain of countless blessings — or, at least, of all the blessings that a prejudiced editor writing for prejudiced readers considers it desirable that Irelacel should obtain. Our editor, who has by this time, it seems, read Canon Doyle's letter to Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, will remain as if he bad not read it, and believe and advance only what suits him and the majority of his readers. He. moreover, presents his readers with a prodigious rigmarole written by one Dr. Knox, of Belfast, to the Catholic Presbyterian, and in which the writer, io a rather more than usually tiresome sort of a way if possible, makes all the charges that we have heard over and over again, beginning with the commencement of the agitation and continuing down to the present. We need hardly say that for ns to undertake to reply sentence by sentence to Dr. Knox and the editor of the Southland Times both together would be for us to fill our paper from beginning to end almost with one continuous article, repeating denialp, statements, arguments, and proofs, that we hive given several times already, and it would be I manifestly impossible for us to do this, even were there the slightest reason for it. But, henceforward, in every paragraph on the Irish question that we publish, no matter from what source it emanates, we 6hall have the intention of saying " knife " to our contemporary the Southland Times, and, if he desires to send us back " scissors " in return, it will be necessary for him to read every such paragraph and reply to it. If he doe^ not, as sure as fate we shall have the last word, and be will be forced to recognise that he is nowhere. But let us take a sample or two from the rigmarole of Dr. Knox. " One grievance after another," says he, " has been removed, till at last the tillers of tbe soil have been elevated to a vantage ground unknown in any other pirt of the world, and yet a portion at least of the people are not satisfied." But whether it is that Dr. Knox does not know a word about the provisions of the Laud Act, or about the tillers of the soil in other parts of the world than Ireland it would be hard to determine from this. That on either subject he is completely ignorant it is, however, very plain. The " vantage ground " to which the Land Act has elevated tbe tiller of the soil in Ireland is very much lower than that upon which he stands in France or Belgium, for example — not to speak of the new world. And, although a pretence is made by the Land Act of a provision for the formation,

of a peasant proprietory as in France or Belgium, it must, as Canon Doyle has shown, prove wholly abortive. Dr. Knox's article is from beginning to end filled with similar exaggeration and misunderstanding. Again he says : " One of the great sources of misery in Ireland has been the drinking habits of the people. It is absolutely Bickening to announce the fact that the Irish drink bill for tbe last year exceeds the entire rental of the country. Men talk of not being able to pay their rent, and we listen to them with sympathy. How is it that they can afford to spend a sum equal to their entire rent in intoxicating drinks?" The whole sum is of course spent by the tenants ; the jovial landlords are to a man total abstainers. But how comes it that " drinking habits " in England and Scotland have not i also led to misery, and to greater misery than in Ireland since the sum expended there on drink is in proportion to tbe population higher than that spent thus in Ireland ? How comes it also that Switzerland remains prosperous, a paragon among European countries, although the drinking habits of her people aTe far in excess of anything known in Ireland ? Again a sample. " God is opening the way," says the doctor. "He is breaking up the fallow ground. The throes of the great crisis through which we are passing have quickened the mental powers of the Irish people. The Roman Catholics are learning to think and judge for themselves on many subjects. They are no longer to be led about by every wind of doctrine (!!!) Their implicit faith in their spiritual guides has recei red! a shock from which it is never likely to recover. God's own hand is opening the door to the national heart by the very violence of the agitation through -which we are passing." The Land League, then, after all proves to be a great " Evangelical " engine. Here is a strange theology, and which implies that tha devil is " evangelising " Ireland— for who but the devil could have inspired an institution to which the doctor attributes all that is infamous ? " The latent fires of rebellion smoulder under the surface," but yet they " break up the fallow-ground" for the gospel of peace, and Lucifer becomes an Evangelical missionary. We, however, very heartily agree with the implication contained in the doctor's theology ; if ever Ireland is " evangelized " it will assuredly be by the devil and by him only. But peibaps the doctor is too hopeful. His theology is after all by no means a novelty ; there never yet was disturbance or misery in Ireland that men of his stamp did not see in it an opening for the setting op of their own peculiar conventicle, and, at least, by implication, invoke the devil to their aid. That their invocation was duly responded to we have no doubt, but a stronger than Lucifer protects and has protected Ireland.