Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 498, 27 October 1882, Page 1

Current Topics.

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Oh dear no, " Cms," you creature of a most ex« cellent wit ! Why, you even fail to give an effectual thrashing "with your pen, not to speak of anything else ; but your will is good here also, and you must on all accounts be commended as a man of spirit. The Christians of St. John, nevertheless, have not lost those twelve over whom Archdeacon Edwards makes lamentation, that is if he be reported aright, which seems, however, do-ibtful — and let us add reporters in some instances are us good scape-goats as typographers themselves. Twelve pupil of the convent schools plucked from the beautiful feet of St. John's successor there have not been. The few children, not in all amounting to twelve, who were the children of mixed marriages, and who were allowed to conform to the faith of either father or mother — albeit in one or two cases a faith not practically observed — on being placed under the care of the nuns, would otherwise most probably have been brought up in no particular church, and the non-Catholic parent was not always an Anglican. Two instances there further were in which the children of Protestant parents asked to be admitted into the Catholic Church, and were immediately referred by the nuns, in one instance to a father, and in the other to an aunt — in both instances being removed from the school, and still remaining Protestants. And we may add that at least one of them, if not both, at no time sat at the feet of the antipodean successor of St. John, but had been and remained a professor of that Calvinism of which the said successor seems to hold no very exalted opinion, but to whose extremes, no doubt, he would prefer to see his flock conformed rather than that they should in any way favour Catholicism. And times must be *cry much changed in the Church of England, by the way, if the worthy gentleman who poses here as St. John's successor, and bishop of masquerade, does not number in bis flock a very considerable share of the Calvinist element. Not only did it largely leaven his Church in England a few years ago, but in Ireland it almost exclusively prevailed, and woe be to the parson who would venture to hint that his flock were not, beyond all backsliding, the Lord's elect. Is Calvinism, then, wholly removed from the Church of England in Otago— are there no Irish " Protestants " here I—and1 — and are we to accept as a sign of this doctrine's exclusion the fact that a Wesleyan preacher may, so to speak, take a flying jump over the side of his pnlDit and land instanter a high-Church divine in the English Church ? Or is there a general mixterum gatherum in that institution totally indifferent to various shades of doctrine, and content with anything that may befall ? Unless there be, indeed, we fear that the project of an Anglican High School, where the children shall be instructed in one creed, is a little Utopian. We can picture the condition of things that would obtain in some households, for example, on their damsels' coming home with the news that their lesson that day had been on baptismal regeneration. In fact, we know of an instance in which a certain parson of an English parish was one day so moved to indignation by the teaching on this p^iut ' -f an ecclesiastical neighbour that it was with difficulty he was prevented from falling into a fit. It is quite possible that a like state of things might take place in Borne of our good Anglican families, although, of course, we cannot undertake to say what may happen among these newly-discovered Anglicans of St. John— discovered the other day at the antipodes as unexpectedly as the Christians of St. Thomas were a century or two ago discovered in India. But as to the opinion of Archdeacon Edwards that the girls educated at the convent " seemed to lose a great deal of the openness which was so much to be desired."— -That, of course, is also a matter of taste.— Men there be we know that agree with the judgment of a certain connoisseur in beauty who declared that the acme of perfection was reached by •• fat, fair, and forty," and who can find fault with Mr. Archdeacon if, in his turn, he declares, as to manners, for frank, free, and frolicsome ? It is fortunate for him that he is in a position to enjoy abundantly the ways that please his mind, and he must be singularly

"CIVI8" IS AGAIN COLLAKED.

IMBECILE KUFFIANISM OB RUFFIANLY IMBECILITY.

unobservant if he can so much as walk through the streets without being filled with delight and complacency. Indeed, it happened to us personally on one occasion to have this state of things we allude to pointed oat to ns by the foreman of a gang of labourers-— an Englishman and probably one of the Archdeacon's own floek — but then they need not all agree with their shepherds about mere matters of taste, need they ? He said that never at Home had he seen young girls who would not turn aside at the sight of a large body of workmen, but here they kept their ranks unmoved and marched right through the middle of the men. Everyone to his taste, then, and we may congratulate Mr. Archdeacon on the opportunity he enjoys of finding that which he admires in the fair sex most fully displayed. Meantime, we have already answered " Civis " concerning his *n« founded charge of the godlessness to Protestant pupils of convent schools. His attempt to joke, with the basis of the great Protestant tradition, is hardly worth answering — unless it be by a comment on the ease with which he adopts for his own the motto, " the end justifies the means," and bears false witness against his neighbour without a scruple. Verily if there be nothing to hinder one who laughs, or essays to do so, from telling the truth meanwhile, neither, it is clear, is there anything to prevent one who tries to laugh from tiling the direct contrary— not to use a naughty word and offend against good manners. But *' Civis " here, although, like Joe Bagstock, he may be " sly, sir, sly," is by no means tough — not even " devilish tough." He is, on the other band, somewhat soft and foolish, as must be every man who has recourse to the quotation and repetition of rubbish as stale as ever it can be, and to be found in any anti-Catholic horn-bowk. Again, with regard to the post-script touching the London Tablet's article on the Rev. Mr. Leach, if " Civis " cannot see its force, neither we nor anyone else can supply him with brains.— God help him ! he wants them hopelessly. Our heading, it will be seen, is a somewhat strong one, but, by the time our note has been read through by them, our readers will, we believe, hold us excused for making use of it. There appeared, then, in the London Spectator of August sth an article on Mr. Godkin's paper in the Nineteenth Century headed, "An Ameiican View of Ireland," and in which the writer accuses Englishmen of having, by their hatred of Irishmen, begotten the hatred that Irishmen bear towards them in return. The Spectator repudiates this statement, and brings forward several arguments to refute it. " The typical English feeling for the Irishman," he says, "is one rather of bewilderment than of either hatred or contempt, — genuine inability to understand him, genuine desire to do him justice, genuine admiration for his liveliness, genuine fear for his fitfulness, and genuine despair at his ineradicable hostility." Be it so ; we have no desire to bring the Englishman in guilty of a deadly hatred towards us, but would far rather have it found with truth that his heart was filled with a genuine benevolence towards Irishmen, for, then, we should be certain that if his all but invincible stupidity could once be overcome the concession to all our just claims would at once follow. But the Englishman's stupidity is almost in* vincible or wholly so, if indeed, the passage we have quoted from the Spectator form a true index to his state of mind. If he cannot understand how the people of a country that has been treated as Ireland has been treated are discontented and hostile to those who have ill-treatedt hem, and if he, earnestly desiring to do justice, cannot see the way that lies plainly pointed out before his eyes. Nevertheless we are content to believe, and even believe gladly, that there are classes of Englishmen who. like those represented by the London Spectator, feel nothing of the hatred which Mr. Godkir. has described, and would recognise that to harbour such a feeling would be unworthy of them as Christians and as men, and our hope is thab the time is not far removed from us in which their charity will be equalled by their understanding, and they will see that .the attitude and disposition of the Irishman are but those which any other being on earth would display in a kindred situation. But on the other hand it is not possible for ns to doubt that there are classes of Englishmen also who are disgraced by every whit of that hatred spoken of by Mr. Godkin, and who delight in nothing more than its expression on every possible occasion. For us to deny this would be

for ns to tell a falsehood, and make a feint of drawing the Bkiu over * putrefying wound. ' Mr. A. M. SolHtan had occasion two or three years ago to denounce the public spokesmen of i thin section of the English people, and- with a justly scathing pen he described the calumniator skulking in sdm« garret whence the unprovoked, insulting, mischievous, and altogether scoundrelly out-come of his miserable scribbling was carried by him to be published in the columns of the Trm, that It misrht 'perpetuate strife, and call -out in strength the retributive hatred now alluded to by Mr. Godkin. Such fellows also, ' we are cursed with in this colony of Sew Zealand, and here we present our readers with one of the latest exhalations of the foulness of mind that distinguishes one of the most despicable— or let us not be unjust to others the 1 most despicable among them— him of the Otago Daily Times.*— Speaking of the reported shooting of a sentry in Dublin the other day — how or by whom not stated— this man speaks as follows : " This murder recalls the horrible butchery of the 6th May, but nothing could be more thoroughly senseless— we had almost said, more thoroughly Irish— than Bnch a crime. The murder of the Secretaries may have been regarded by brutal fanatics of the Fenian type as a master-stroke of policy, but the shooting of a poor soldier on guard is the very superfluity of wickedness. But the Island of Saints has for long years been the land of cowardly and purposeless crime, and this apparently national characteristic will most certainly hare been intensified by the epidemic of outrage and murder which has raged in many parts of the country during the last three years." Are we not justified, then, in heading our note as we have done, ". Imbecile ruffianism or ruffianly imbecility," for the quotation we have made contains nothing else ? Why does this fellow meddle at all with Irish affairs? he knows nothing about them, but what does he know anything about I His leading columns teem with ignorance -—one day, for example, he informs us that in the United States there is nothing heard of in connection with self-government— an other day he says, an admitted end of government by the majority is the indirect oppiessiin of the minority. — Everywhere he betrays the ignoramus. Is it to rehabilitate himself with those people who certainly must deride his ignorance that he falls foul of Ireland in his peculiarly nasty and insulting manner I A manner, by the way, that puts us in mind generally of the upstart — say, for example, the parish clerk of by-gone days elevated to the dignity of sipping a cup cf tea occasionally at Mrs. Proudie's tea-table, and bursting with self-conceit, and a new-born contempt of the profanum vulgus, looked down upon from so sublime a height. But while we find English editors of any degree, aware that by the vilest calumny and grossest insults uttered against Irishmen they can preserve or regain the favour of an English public, it is vain for the Spectator, or any other newspaper, to contradict the statement of the English hatred towards Ireland. It is a living fact and we know it, not so much because a malevolent and insolent fool writes a few scurvy paragraphs containing its expression, but because those paragraphs are read without disgust or ever, it may be, with approbation by an English public. Ma. Sclatek Booth, M.P., the President of a section of the British Association, remarked the other day in commenting on a certain paper read by a learned professor, " that although it was true that the Iribh race, as a whole, in the general way, were superior to ourselves, and in some very important points of morals, that should not blind us to the awful crime of murder which prevailed in Ireland." The admission, nevertheless, coming from such a source, meant a great deal, anil it will be found to be the more important if we consider that " the awful crime of murder " in Ireland is the outcome of long centuries of oppression, and the natural result of bringing a people to bay. The Times in an article on the atrocious slaughter of the Joyce family, indeed, tells us that murder is in the blood of the Irish people— but the Twits is also among those whom the Spectator can hardly clear of the hatred Mr. Godkin has spoken of.— Here is its line of argument :— " Grant, for the sake of argument, that the men who murdered this unfortunate family themselves lived in the same squalid misery. It is a large concession, but quite inadequate to explain their moral depravity ; for Joyce himself stands as the proof that there is no necessary connection between a life to which we would not condemn our horses or dogs and cruelty such as wild beasts never display. Squalor is by no means confined to Ireland. On the contrary, over a great part of the Continent the emergence of the labouring population from a mode of life essentially similar to that of the Joyce family has only recently been effected, and in many countries it is very partially effected even now. Russian serfs, notwithstanding their emancipation, are described by one of their most recent visitors. Mr. Gallenga, as living no less rudely and filthily than the peasants of Connemara. In some districts cf Switzerland the lot of the poor is as hard as in the most backward parts of Ireland, and in Silesia the abject poverty of a peasantry inhabiting barren and inhospitable mountains matches anything that can be adduced to explain Irish disorder. Yet in none of these countries do we find anything to compare with the violence and cruelty which are the standing disgrace of Ireland and the enduring problem for

OXE FOR IRELAND.

her rulers. IE we are told that the Irish have the spirit of freemen, \^hjle the others are , slaves , N wJtio hag their chains, we still respire some explanation of the circamstance that it is not merely or chiefly in revolt against their rnlers that the Irish display tbeir cruel turbulence, bat, as in the cases under discussion, in the most wanton and barbarous maltreatment of their fellow-countrymen. There is no reason to think that things would be much improved by the granting of, Home Bale to the fullest extent. The spirit of the blood-feud and the village faction-fight ions through the whole national life.'' feat for all the Time? Bays here, men oppressed as the Irish are now have in their day surpassed the Irish in cruelty. — Was it not from the Times itself we took the particulars we published a month or two ago concerning a system of agrarian outrage that existed in Normandy not very many yeara since 7 It was, however, from some reliable source. And, says a writer in the Month, speaking of France before the Revolution, " until such a beneficent form of land tenure was established, French landlords were living continually in fear and terror, the evils of agrarian strife were felt, 4 boycotting was an institution, and outrage a custom. 1 Men were murdered in open day before sympathising crowds, and there was no conspirator found bold enough to impeach the offender." But those who live in Irelaud in a condition to which, says the Times, Englishmen would not condemn their horses or dogs, are not even there left at peace. They bare been, aa it were, brought to bay, and when the hunter closes to despatch them they strike in desperation — They strike only at one another when by one another they have been betrayed, In Russia there are no landlords to hound .the wretched people further down, nor have we heard of them in Switzerland or Silesia. — We hear fully of them in Ireland, and that from even some of the English newspapers themselves. Take this as another instance of their tender mercies. "It is painful reading the account of the eviction of the Limerick tenantry of the Rev. Conyngham Ellis, of Cranbourne Vicarage, Windsor," says London Truth, " who were ' industrious» but terribly poor : ' Whose ' offers of arbitration had all been rejected,' and who could not go into the Land Court because they had 1 leases.' I don't want to be sentimental, and I daresay exposure to wet and cod is nothing to grown-up men and women — when they are used to it ; but it seems to me that for a child of tender years (and there were eight such in one of these cases) it might be unpleasant, and probably unwholesome, to sleep a couple of nights running in a damp ditch by the road-side." If the writer in the Times himself were standing by while his little children were thrown out to sleep by the road-side, shelterless in the ditch, it may even be that he also, far removed as he is from all Irish sympathies, would feel the " spirit of the blood-feud " tingling more' or less in his heart, or even if he had the fear that those who had dealt so with other families, would probably treat him likewise in his turn, even he might also be moved to at least the contemplation of s©me desperate action. — But to return to Mr. Sclater Booth, the cause of the acknowledgment made by him and which we have quoted, was a paper read before the Association at Southampton by Professor Leone Levi " on the State of crime in England, Scotland, and Ireland." And the Irish race, as a whole, were thus found to be superior to the English race or the Scotch race. They surpassed these races however in the crime of murder. — Let us remark, nevertheless, that into the English statistics of murder there did not enter those cases of child murder which authorities declare to abound in London, nor were there included in them the numerous suspicious cases of coroners' juries unable to find verdicts for want of evidence, or of bodies found drowned, or of mysterious disappearances that it has been credibly asserted are in all probability to be accounted for by murder, on the Thames embankment or elsewhere. In Ireland, on the contrary, crime is sharply watched, and it would be strange if any instance of its occurrence could escape detection. There is the police force of some 12,000 men night and day on the look out, and the whole machinery of the law is beyond all comparison closer and more effective thau it is in either England or Scotland.— This is more especially the case with respect to drunkenness in which Professor Levi also finds Ireland to exceed — notwithstanding that the proportion of alcohol consumed is very much less than in either Scotland or England.—But in Ireland it is the rule that the drunken man be arrested apart from the condition of helplessness or disorder, in either of which in Great Britain he must be found before a constable can touch him. And, indeed, even the half-drunken Irishman is for the most part a noisy fellow, whereas, in the case of the Scotchman particularly, a quiet demeanour may be observed so long as the man who is " blin 1 fou :> can stand— aud of this, also, we see frequent examples even ia our own streets. Sandy rolls steadily along as mute as a mouse, with twice as much beneath his belt as would set Pat danciDg like a grasshopper and roaring like a bull of Bashan. The English and Scotch then, at any rate, make use of far more alcoholic drink, proportionally, than do the Irish. We are convinced they do not waste it, but why it does not make them drunk, if it does not, we do not pretend to explain— they.are harder in their heads, perhaps, or firmer on their feet. And now let us come to those particulars in which Ireland is acknowledged to excel her more,

prospr rou.o, and far more pretensions neighbours— but first, let us add that Professor Levi attributes an increase in Irish crime in 71-2 and ' 79-80 to " the crimes which had occurred in the unhappy relations between landlord and tenant." Ireland, then, tLrou-h all the ten years was less criminal than Great Britain-notwithstanding this rise in crime owing to ll,e agrarian hard 9 hip.-The Professor Blatec !, says the Tlmei* report " that the number of indictable offences reported to the police within the hit (en years showed aslMitin. crease m England and Wales-frcm 197 per thousand in 1871 to 200 m 1880, and in Ireland, from 10l to 1-62. The ten years included five of great prosperity and high wages, and five bad years' lne number of crimes reported in Ireland was uniformly smaller in proportion then in England. As to Ireland, the larger number of crimes at the commencement and end of the period-viz., in 1871-2 and v 1879-80-was clearly due to the crimes which occurred in the unhappy relations between landlord and tenant." But what will many of our worthy friends think when they learn in what particular respects Ireland ranked above the lands of which they make so loud a boasting-the roaring Paddy above the orderly Englishman, and the douce Scotchman? "Offences against public order and justice, riots breaches of the peace were-in England and wales, 16 S£i th ° v . Band of the population ; in Scotland, 6-13 ; and in Ireland, i **. -l he i proportion for offences against morals was--0-2l per 1000 m England and Wales ;008 in Scotland ; and in Ireland 0-04? But even m murder Ireland was, after all, net so very much in advance of her neighbours.-The Hon. Mr. Oliver, for example, may learn irom these statistics, if they be worth the notice of a man of his money, that murders may not be actually counted by the hundred in ireland-or if so, they must be counted by fifties in Scotland and twenty-fives in England. Murder and manslaughter -in England and wales, 0-01 ; in Scotland, 0.02 ; and in Ireland, 0-04 per 1000 Assaults-m England and Wales, 2-81 ; Scotland, 11-55 ; and Ireland # , fZ offences against property, again Ireland has the advantage. Offences against property were-per 1000 of the population, in England and Wales, 331; In Scotland, 4-66 ; in Ireland 227." But tbe particulars as to the greater powers of the English and Scotch to tWfi* alcoho '^i th steadiness and propriety may be gained from these figures. "Offences against public decorum and drunkenness 7Z &^ and Wales; 7-26 in Scotland ; and 16-60 in Ireland, per 1000 persons." To sum up, we are told that « honour and property were safest in Ireland, the person was safest in Great «£r?{.- drunkennesß was worst in Ireland." The Professor also made this statement : •• Prosperity moved hand in hand with rirtue : ST7n W V ii eVreß6ione Vreß6ionV reß6ion an <l crime. The bulk of criminals were generally found to be illiterate, and drunkenness was both a direct and indirect cause of crime." All honour to old Ireland, then, where, although whole districts are in a condition to which, the iitnes says, Englishmen would not condemn their horses or dogs, the race an a whole is acknowledged to be the superiors of the British race, so much more fortunately situated than they are. And all honour to the Catholic Church that has the power to keep even her illiterate children more virtuous than those without her pale whose education is the boast of the world. What, finally, shall we say of a drunken Ireland that is more virtuous in its riotous cups, than John JBull and Sandy, able to stand steady on their legs and hold their tongues ? Here are marvels inexplicable to many people.

AJfOTHEB HONEST ENGLISHMAN.

It is, moreover, particularly pleasing to us to find that there are Englishmen ready to come forward at the present time, and give us practical proofs, bearing ont the statements of the Spectator, that they know nothing of the hatred which Mr. Godkin has spoken of. The letter of such an Englishman, for example, we find has been lately published even in the columns of the Times itself— which also devotes a leading article to this letter. He writes for English readers, to whom he gives a description of things a* they were witnessed by him in Ireland, where he says he had gone " with that large amount of ignorance of things Irish which is usual among educated Englishmen." This traveller, then, first of all fell in with representatives of the landlord class, whom he perceived to be filled with wrath and indignation at Mr. Gladstone and the land commissioners. The sole business- of the commissioners they vowed was to reduce rents, regardless of everything in the way of fairness or justice, ana they accused Mr. Gladstone of having given them instructions to such an effect. When this accusation was objected to they claimed that it was Mr. Gladstone's duty to give the commissioners a hint that they were going too far. The traveller did not feel himself eqnal to the task of Betting these gentlemen right, so he says : " I listened in silence to an amount of abuse of the idleness and general wickedness of the Irish tenant, which" showed me that I had come into a country in which, however fair the prospect, man at any rate was exceedingly vile." The argument of a Protestant bishop, givtn a little further on, is too fine to be curtailed, and we quote it entire as follows :-« He told me that the Protestant Church in Ireland depends chiefly oa the landowner^ and that it cannot with unconcern see them deprived of a quarter of their income by tha

commissioners ander tbe Land Act. I suggested that, as the commissioners were fixing fair rents, the inference waß that the quarter of their income of which the Protestant landowners were being deprived was an unfair exaction to which they had no moral right, but this he would not allow, maintaining that the commissioners were making it their business not to fix fair rents, but to reduce them in every case without any reference to their fairness or unfairness. I could only deplore, if this were, indeed, the case, the lamentabta appointment of such an unrighteous set of Commissioners." The traveller, nevertheless, bad fortunately not fallen altogether among thieves. Some honest men there were also to whom he could hare recourse, and among them was a certain correspondent for an American paper, with whom he made an arrangement to accompany him in a tour through the country parts. But before leaving Dublin he was taken to the office of the Ladies' Land League and introduced to several of the ladies. " I was introduced especially," he says, "to Miss Reynolds, a yonng lady who had twice been imprisoned under the Coercion Act in default of bail. I asked her of what crime she had been accused, and she said the charge was intimidation of the police. I further inquired in what way she had intimidated a body of public servants not usually supposed to be timorous, and she informed me that on the first occasion she had told them that, although they might seize upon a man's car if they wanted a driva, they could not compel him to drive it for them ; while on the second she had been present at an eviction and had Bhaken her head at the police." At this the traveller within his mind made query and answer : " I felt inclined to ask, with the clown in Hamlet, • la this law?' but refrained, foreseeing the obvious answer — • Ay, marry, is't; Coercion Act law.' " These ladies had, nevertheless, some other information to afford him : " They told me that there had been an enormous number of evictions, and that they had seen evicted tenants sleeping in ditches by the roadside even in winter, but that this could not happen now, as the League is always ready to supply them with huts. There had lately been a lull in the camp of the evictow, but they were afraid it would not last long. The fight was being kept up most vigorously on the estate of Lord Cloncurry, who seemed to be put forward as the especial champion of the landlords. Outrages, they feared, were to be expected to continue as long as eviction for non-payment of exorbitant rents went on. The Land League had always denounced them, but the Government, by suppressing their organisation, bad taken all responsibility away from them, and must now put them down as best they could with the help of their Coercion Acts. They told us that two educated girl 3, farmers' daughters, had the other day been sentenced to a fortnight's hard labour by a magistrate under the new Act for groaning when some ' emergency men ' passed by. The hard labour had been remitted but the imprisonment remained, aud one lady remarked that the hardest part of the imprisonment was the wearing of the convict dresa. A lady's opinion on a question of dress is, of course, always valuable. She went ou to remark that outrages were to be expected in that district after such tyranny as that, but I am glad to say that aa yet none have taken place there. They agreed that there could be no end to the agitation as long as the leaseholders were kept out of the benefits of the Land Act, aa many of them had only signed their leases under threat of eviction, although they could not prove this in court, as naturally the threat had not been reduced to writing ; and they highly praised the conduct of the Duke of Leinster in tearing up his famous leases, which debarred his tenants from all access to any of the courts, saying that the FitzGeralds would never be boycotted in Ireland." During the course of another day or two in Dublin the traveller met, among others, with several Laud Leaguers* from whom he learned that " many evictions had taken place with the view of preventing the tenants from going into the court, and that the landlords now refused to accept the full amount of the arrears, rather than allow their formerly recusant tenants to get the benefit of the Land Act." The traveller, however, determined to see tbe state of the country with his own eyes, started for Longhrea, in company with the American correspondent already alluded to— and in whom we may most probably recognise Mr. Henry George, lately arrested in that town together with a gentleman whose name we have for the moment forgotten, but whom we believe to have been this traveller. He took a place by train to Ballinasloe, and on the journey made acquaintance with a labouring man, whom he found to be anything rather than what the English Press especially has represented the Irish peasantry as being. The man's personal appearance even, strange to say, was quite different from those pictures of the typical Irishman now published under the editorship of the excellent Mr. Burnand, of the London Punch, and concerning whose Catholic zeal for religion, and admirable domestic virtues so much is related. But who, nevertheless, takes the same advantage of his editoral position that is taken by the editor of the London Tablet, and, apparently at least, endeavours to clear himself of the imputations made by Mr. Gladstone in his " Vaticanism " very cheaply, if not in quite the true spirit of the Catholic religion, by giving free rein to his innate dislike of Irishmen. The description of this man whom oar traveller met with is also worthy of full quotation —indeed the whole letter in

question is co were it not too lengthy for our columns. " We travelled with a labouring man, who had gone over to England for the harvest, as he could there earn 4*. a-day, in place of the la., which was the remuneration for his day's work Cthat is, when he could get any employment) at home. I wondeted whether this could be called idleness, yet the landlords say that the labourers are idle, and the landlords are honourable men. This particular labourer, whose fine, intelligent face struck me very much, had been obliged to return to his home before the end of the harvest, having unfortunately fallen over a scythe and inflicted a terrible wound on his leg. It was a mystery to me how he could walk at all, and he was evidently in great pain ; but he had tied up his wound with a handkerchief in a miserably clumsy fashion, and to my horror said that he had seen no doctor, and would not do so until he reached home, miles beyond Westport, the last station on the line. His foot and leg were a dreadful sight, but he had wished not to waste on himself the money earned in harvesting, which he had intended for his wife and children on the other side of Weßtport. This did not look like wastefulness or extravagance ; yet the landlords gay the tenants are wasteful, and the landlords are all honorable men. I wished that I had gone through a coarse of ambulance lectures, and learned something of ■urgery ; but I could do nothing beyond making the man promise to have his leg bandaged at Westport and presenting him with a fee for the doctor there. He was not even smoking to divert his thoughts from his pain, for tobacco cost money, and that he wanted for his wife ; so my friend G. gave him a cigar, which puzzled and amused him considerably, as he made vain attempts to smoke it without cutting off the end, his former experiences of smoking not having gone beyond a pipe." But the principal feature that struck our traveller in his journey was tlie multitudes of policemen ; they were everywhere and uselessly everywhere. " The only occasions on which they are conspicuous by their absence," says he, "are those oa which the long- suffering peasants retaliate on their oppiessois by some dreadful agiarian outrage. With these unfortunate exceptions they may be said to be always on the spot ; but as with these identical exceptions Ireland is particularly free from crime, it would seem to an outside observer that the large snms spent in maintaining in idleness this army of able-bodied policemen are rather more uselessly wasted than if they were thrown into the sea, where they would not serve to irritate the people against the Got eminent by keeping up a perpetual system of petty tyranny in their midst." The police moreover, sharply surveyed oar traveller and his 1 companion on their arrival at Ballinasloe. Oar traveller, here, made the acquaintance of Mr. Mathew Harris who had been one of the traversers and from whom he obtained a good deal of information relative to Irish affairs. "He told us that in our drive of nearly 20 miles to Loughrea we should hardly pass a single bouse, for grazing was now more profit, able to the landlords than agriculture, and they had therefore exterminated the inhabitants in order to add a few pounds to their rents. This had happened more than once in the history of the country, and the culture had been changed from corn to grass and vice versa whenever a profit might be expected from the alteration, and without any reference to the rights of the unfortunate tenants." Of the truth of this statement of affaire our traveller found on his road abundant evidence. "We drove through a rich tract of country," he says, " and saw, as had been predicted, scarcely a single house. The district had formerly been full of people and was now inhabited by sheep. Ruint of houses we occasionally saw, but these had been almost entirely obliterated and the stones used for the walls which intersect the country. Reddish-brown stains in these stones would sometimes indicate that they had once formed the chimney of a cottage, in which a fanner's family had maintained the peat-fire on the hearth till its smoke had left a lasting mark which the weather had as yet bpen unable to destroy." Occasionally, however, the cottage of a herdsman was passed, and with one of the men in question an acquaintanceship was formed— from the details given of it we may also see how peasant proprietor would thrive in Ireland, for here it a man who makes a fair livelihood out of three acres of ground cultivated irregularly. Of this herdsman, then, and bis concerns onr traveller speaks thus : " He was one of those courteous and gentlemanly peasants of whom there seem to be so many specimens in Ireland, and ho readily told us the terms on which he worked for his bread. The woik which he grave to his landlord was the supervision of 180 acres of grass land, wiih the care of 100 sheep and 50 cattle. The wages he received in return consisted of a cottage and three acres of land rent-free. Out of these three acres he managed to make a fair livelihood, by cultivating them in the time which he could spare from the management of the 100 sheep and the 60 cattle on the 180 acres of gracing land. We ask d after bis crop of potatoes, and he said that the blight was in them, but not so bad as it might be." Loughrea was reached in due time, and here a surprise awaited these two gentlemen. The police, it seems, bad seen reason to suspect them, and no sooner had they alighted from their vehicle than they were surrounded by a body of these lealous officials and carried off to the barrack*, where they were shut up '• We arrived at the police barracks," says our traveller, " and were

placed in a small room, furnished with a table and a form, and with strong iron bars to its window. Here our pockets were carefully searched for papers and a minute examination of our luggage was made. In mine, besides the ' flannels,' they made the discovery of six clean white linen shirts, and this at once aroused their strongest suspicion. They asked me if I bad supposed that it would be impossible to get a Bhirt washed in Ireland, and the question was certainly most apposite to the occasion, for in their zealous search for I treasonable documents they thrust their dirty fingers into every fold of the aforesaid shirts, and made their speedy washing a thing of primary necessity. (Will anyone write to a daily newspaper saying that Irish policemen always keep their bands washed; that dirt would not stick to them in fact I) Having collected every scrap of paper that was to be found, they proceeded to examine their spoils. I was asked if I denied the authorship of a pamphlet on the land question which had been put into my hands in Dublin, and which I had not yet had time to lead. This I accordingly did, and the statement was duly recorded. The sub-inspector and a constable, one after the other, read through every one of our private letters and diaries and note books?, and with some difficulty and much solemnity managed to spell out between them the only thing I was ashamed of -—viz., some verses which I had jotted down on a scrap of paper in imitation of the Irish national songs. When this was over, the subinspector departed, taking all our documents with him. and leaving us in the charge of a couple of constables. We were.informed that as soon as a magistrate could be wbtained our case should be tried before him, but when this would be was problematical." Three hours were passed by our traveller and his companion in this condition, daring which they in vain petitioned to be allowed to go out, guarded of course, to the hotel for same dinner, or to be at least given some of the legitimate prison fare, bread and water.— One considerate and generous constable there was, nevertheless, who at his own expense supplied them each with a glass of milk, and our traveller returns him thanks in his letter. At 9 o'clock Mr. Byrne the Resident Magistrate arj rived, and after a good deal of annoy ing red-tape had been gone through with the prisoners were discharged with an expression of regretfor their arrest on the part of the magistrate. Of the drive to Athenry on the next evening, the writer speaks as follows : — " It wa? a beautiful night for driving, but the associations of the scenes that bad been enacted there fastened on the fancy and spoilt the enjoyment. I could hardly consider that eystem of law and government satisfactory, which had made it possible for the present state of things to arise. We talked to the driver about the murders, and could easily see that he regarded them as just executions for cruelty, tyranny, or the violation of unwritten, but well-known laws. He said that if a man was notorious for harshness and cruelty, he was solemuly warned by a message from a secret assembly. If he would not amend his ways, he was warned again, and if he still persisted, he received his final notice, and after that his sudden death might at any time easue. He evidently considered that these three notices, which are always delivered to a man before his death is determin ed on, regularised the proceedings, and took away from them any imputation of lawlessness to which they might otherwise have been open." And, if any one will, let him condemn this wild system of revenge ; let him temper his condemnation, however, by some recollection of that desolate stretch of country spoken of, where the brown stones here and there in a wall are alone left to tell that human beings once had their hearths there ; let him recollect that such a desolation could only I have been brought abuut by means that needs mubt leave the revengeful spirit behind them every where, and that, besides, the just fear of such means' being still employed is everywhere felt throughout the country. But it would be well if other candid Englishmen would also visit Ireland and see for themselves, and report of what they had seen. — Letters such as this we have quoted from mußt do much to make peace and bring about a good understanding between the divided countries. Meantime, the perplexity of the Time* concerning this mattei is far from lacking an amusing element. '• Our correspondent started as an Englishman," it ciies, •* but he seems during his stay in Ireland to have gone through the usual procens o f transformation with more than the usual rapidity, and to have become in three days as genuine an Irishman as the rest." Does the country, then, cast a spell over all who visit it, and are not interested in its oppression— or is it that the candid mind of the Englishman being undeceived by what he has witnessed, he becomes as generous in his acknowledgement of the truth as he has, while he was deceived been obstinate and violent in his prejudices ? This view at least accords with the character which Cardinal Newman has given to his fellow-countrymen, and which we, for our part, have never felt inclined to question or in a position to doubt.

A cause in the last stage of preparation is that of the canonisation of Father Vincent Pallotti, the founder of the Order of the Pious Society of Missions, The evidence in this case is voluminous and the decision need not be expected for some considerable time. It may bzap,oposot the proposed canonisation of Father Pallotti 'to mention that the progress of the < >rder— known more widely on 'the Continent by the designation of Pallottini than as the Pious Society of Missions— founded by him, is greater than is generally known, tio numerous are the students in the parent house of the Order in Italy that the establishment of new houses in America or Australia it seriously contemplated,