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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 8, 15 June 1883, Page 1

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AT SOME AND ABROAD.

M. Febdinand Bbunetiebe, ia the Revue des Deux Monde* of April 1, gives us some particulars as to the condition of the French peasantry under the ancien regime which are contradictory to the views commonly received, and show us that even if the Church had been accountable for the condition of the people in question as it is for the most part assumed, she would not have had so much that was evil, after all, to answer for. The writer begins by quoting certain passages from various authorities, and which are generally brought forward in proof of the extreme misery of the people ; these passages he compares with others that are of an exactly opposite value, and Tf present the people to have been extremely well off. He, then, proceeds to examine the matter in detail. In Champagne, he says, for example, a province whose poverty at the time in question is proverbial, every labourer owned the cottage in which he lived. The clothing of the families appears to have been sufficient, and a certain labourer of Piccardy in 1751 was possessed of 27 shirts. The furniture, moreover, was suited to the wants of its owners, and among it, in the time of Louis XVI., there was found in some instances a wooden clock. There are circumstances also to show that on the whole food was abundant and of fair quality, and wine and cider were in common use respectively in those provinces where they were produced. The Provincial Assemblies of the Eighteenth Century have been much spoken of, but there were also Municipal Assemblies whose powers seem to have been very extended, and who managed most of the affairs of their districts, including the repairs of churches and presbyteries, of public buildings, roads, and bridges ; in some cases they fired the hire of the labourers also. As to primary instruction in country places the ancien regime had done a great deal to promote it— .the peasant of the times in question could find means to educate himself, and, if he were intelligent and industrious, could raise himself in life as he can to-day. We need not seek very far back into the genealogy of Colbert, for example, to find the mason, or into that of Louvois, for the Parisian shopkeeper in a small way. The truth is that under the ancien- regime, except the embassies and the great military commands, every function up to that of Prime Minister was accessible to all. According to an authority quoted it was hard to see more than one generation of lucky peasants, for the cultivators of the soil had no sooner acquired a little property than he sent his son to find a situation in the town. Michelet speaks of the testimony borne by travellers to the miserable condition of France ; but elsewhere they would have seen what was worse. The Englishman would have seen it in Ireland ; the Italian in Calabria ; the Spaniard .in Castille ; and the German, in some degree, all over' his native land. Arthur Young had only to make a journey of a few days into Catalonia to learn to admire Le Rousillon. "We found ourselves suddenly transported," he wrote, " from a wild, desert, and poor province, into the middle of a country enriched by the industry of man." Again, when Dr. Rigby went to Cleves and thence to Holland, he wrote, " How the countries and peoples we have seen since we quitted France lose by being compared with that country so full of life." But much of Arthur Young's testimony is worthy of quotation. Writing at Pau on August 12, 1787, he says : " A few parts of England compare with this country of Beam, but we have very few equal to what I have just seen in my drive of 12 miles from Pau to Moneins. . . . Everywhere there breathes an air of cleanliness, well-being, and ease, which ia found in the bouses, in the newly built offices, in the little gardens, in the enclosures." He speaks also of the 'rich country around Port l'Eveqne and Lisieux, and in the valley of Oorbon, whose herds would be remarkable in Leicester or Northampton. But, it has also been said, that the French peasant under the ancien regime might well enquire as to what had been done with the heavy taxes he had paid. Nothing then, in the Sventeenth or Eighteenth Centuries has more astonished travellers ia France than the development and ~ splendour of her public works. • These taxes have been the price of the political power and moral grandeur of France. Without doubt there was heavy ex-

NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL.

pense. A King of England and the Princes of the League of the Rhine were not to be bought for nothing. France conld not keep in her pay for nothing the King of Sweden and' the Elector of Brandenburgh. She could not resist a coalition' of almost all Europe without great outlay. A great diplomacy is not supported without money, nor fleets, nor armies— nor the fortifications of Vanban which after two hundred years were still found of use. If the internal misery, which was by no means so great as it has been pretended, was the price of the external greatness, this should not be omitted when the cmoten regime is spoken of.

A NOTABLE „ FAILURE. -

The late Canon Kingsley once preached a sermon on education, it seems, in which he very energetically accused the religious dissensions of the country of being the means of sending the country to the devil, because they made compulsory Government education impossible. "It is," he added, " the duty of the State, I hold, to educate all alike in tbose matters which are common to them as citizens— that is, in all secular matters, and in all matters also which concern their duties to each other' denned by law. Those higher duties which the law cannot command or enforce they must learn elsewhere, and the clergy of all denominations will find work enough — and noble work enough— in teaching them. We shall always have work enough in such times as these in teaching what no secular education can ever teach, in diffusing common honesty, the knowledge of right and wrong, and the old-fashioned fear of God as the punisher of those who do ill and the rewafder of ' those who do well.' 1 But since this sermon was preached compulsory 3overnment education has been found to be possible and has been enforced and has by no meapa proved to be the saviour of the rising generations, and the cultivator that should prepare their minds to receive the lessons of the clergy. An English Protestant paper, in fact, published at the end of last February thus describes the changes that have followed in the wake of the improved educational system. It says :— " The winter assizes have just been concluded, and on all the circuits there has been an unusual number of civil and Crown cases. If we analyse the criminal calendars of the recent Assizes, we shall find that, after striking off a fair average of ordinary offences— such as invariably appear and- may be accounted as constant quantities on such occasions — the remainder consists chiefly of these two classes :— (1) high crimes such as murder, arson, rape, burglary, and such like ; and (2) skilled roguery. It is to this last that we wish to direct attention. Under the head of ' skilled roguery ' come all that class of offences which are the ruin of young men — embezzlement, falsifying of accounts, forgeries, obtaining goods by false pretences, and the fraudulent getting up of bubble companies. Thus it would appear that, if we were getting rid of one class of offences, we* were enlarging another. It is a very anxious consideration. A larpe proportion of these offenders have been trained in our elementary schools, some with, and some without religious instruction. Many of them have passed from the school to the warehouse or the counting-house, only to learn the way to the gaol. It forces upon us two grave considerations — first, that it is more important than ever to insist that our schools shall give definite religious instruction, and arm young men with the know* ledge which shall enable them to ' cleanse their way ' and rule them* selves after God's Word. And the other, that we must devise some more effectual means of guiding and controlling young men when they have left school. How this can be done is a hard problem. Though the number of children sentenced under 14 years of age is less than it was, the number over that age is much larger. The increase of crime is on the part of young people of both sexes. Our education is proving itself a failure already. It will be well that this should be -looked fully in the face, especially by tbose who are determined to work for the maintenance of denominational schools. Facts of this kiud ought to move them to leave no effort untried to s >.cure for the doctrinal schools a fair share of the rates, and thus to some extent check the evil which threatens to break down society jby its weight." Compulsory Government education, then, is hardly of the force that Canon Kingsley anticipated that it would be in improving the moral condition of the rising generations, and it 'has proved itself to be in England, as it haß elsewhere, a failure, and more than a failure — the encouragement of crime and immorality.

AMERICAN OPINION.

Thb utterances of the New York Press on the Explosives Act also go far towards explaining the attitude of the American mind on the Irish question. Even those papers that approve of the Act have still a strong word or two to say as to the measures that should be taken to remove the causes of the dissatisfaction that has led to the 'wild theory of dynamite, and, to judge from what they say, it would not appear as if England can expect much help from America in repressing even the most extreme conspiracies that are made against her. The Herald, for example, while it does not consider the Act unreasonable, thinks that England is bound to remove the causes of Irish dissatisfaction. " Dynamite " it says, "is merely a symptom of a disease which now deserves study in order to find a remedy more than ever. For us to advise England would be as foolish as it was for England to advise us' in our Civil War. But the moral in both cases is the inutility of repressive laws. Great Britain is bound to remove every cause tending to make the Irish poor, unprosperous, and discontented." And again, it recalls the facts connected with the Bernard affair in 1858, when, although sixty people had been mangled, England refused to legislate concerning the matter. " Not one human being has been hurt by the dynamite," it adds, " yet England indulges in extravagant domestic legislation, and her reported representation to the United States abont ' liberty to conspire ' is significant in view of the Philadelphia Convention." The World, on the other hand, considers the Act offensive, and speaks very plainly as to what the results may be of the present troubles. " The relations " it says, " between England and Ireland are a constant menace to the repose of the United States and the prosperity of Great Britain. Angry notes between Lord Granville and Mr. Frelinghuysen would disturb vast interests on both sides of the Atlantic. But we cannot accept the passions of England as our guides here. The Cuban incident during President Grant's administration proves that it is impossible to mend our laws to meet British convenience ; but the Americans will insist that England should restore peace to Ireland. If Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster cannot do this, Lord SaUsbury and Sir S. Northcote should give the matter a trial. Why do not the British voters begin with this ? If nobody in England has a remedy, why make faces at New York ? Why do the London journals ask America to dam the stream which wells up under their own eyes ? " And again, it says, " For centuries England made not a single concession to the Irish appeals for justice. The Irish have learned the lesson that the readiest way to secure any reforms is to destroy the property and disquiet the lives of Englishmen. It is perfectly natural thattbe English should prefer moral suasion, which they can control, and perfectly natural that they should desire to enlist foreign Governments as their police. But.it is scarcely credible that they should expect sneb a demand to be granted. If the English cannot govern Ireland without summoning all mankind to assist to suppress the Irish resentment of their processes, there is clearly nothing for the English to do but to allow Ireland to govern herself." Finally, the Sun saya, " The Explosives Act endows the Government with powers nearly as unlimited as those once exercised by the Spanish Inquisition, ot as were wielded by the notorious Third Section at St. Petersburg. A retrospective clause would have made this law the engine of a persecution as intolerable as any that was ever sanctioned under an autocracy. The fact that the expediency of such a clause was mooted by influential organs of public opinion best indicates the extent to which fear has paralysed the normal principles of the English people. No more striking proof of terror could be furnished than the reckless and headlong celerity of the passing of this Bill.".

KIDNAPPED I

In connection with a trial that has lately taken place in London, and to which some allusion has been made in one or other of our daily contemporaries, we find some particulars in the Standard of April 11. The case was that, in which a young Polish Jewess, who it was alleged desired to become a Christian, had sought shelter in a Catholic Home conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, and under the jurisdiction of the Most Rev. Dr. Lacey. According to the evidence given by the Bishop and the Superioress of the Home, the girl had come there last September stating that, in consequence of her desire to become a Catholic, which she owed to having associated with Catholics and attended their places of worship in New York, whither her father had escaped from the Russian military service, her relations in England had treated her very harshly and had turned her oat into the street, whence she had made her way, in a very filthy condition, to the Home. There she bad been taken in and had remained for some time, receiving frequent visits from her grandmother, who was always allowed to see her alone, and who seemed satisfied at the treatment bestowed on her. The Superioress, moreover, who had had some doubts as to the sincerity of the girl's professed reMgious desires, had constantly recommended her to return to her friends, which, however, she refused to do, and she at length left, in company of a respectable married lady tor the Home of JTotre Dame de Sion at Paris,

Nothing more than this was known about her by the hoods o( the English Catholic Home. The fact of the girl's having been sent "td:-~ Paris, we may add, is quite sufficient of itself to show that there had , been no design on the part of the Sisters of Mercy to interfere with her liberty in any way, and that they had only done for her what charity inspired them to do. The French police arrangements are such as to make it certain that no attempt at deception or unfair dealing could have been made in the Parisian Home, and they are such also as to prove that the truth was told as to where the girl had been sent to from England. No suspicion can, therefore, be attached ' to the Catholic Institutions concerned in this case.

THE'<SOGGABTH ATinoN."

A history of Cromwell's doings in Ireland, recently published in Dublin by the Her. Denis Murphy, S.J,, once more reminds us of how closely united the priests and people of Ireland have been in all the sufferings inflicted upon that country — the priests bearing the extremity of all the evil, and enduring it without flinching in order to strengthen and sustain the courage of the suffering people. In Cromwell's time, then, a price was placed upon the head of three " beasts " respectively— the second •« beast " being the priest whose head was valued at £10 or double the price of that of the wolf. But the priest still did not desert his people or seek for his own safety in a flight from the country, as he might have done. " I wandered through woods and mountains," says the Bishop of Ferns> speaking of the time that followed the horrible massacre at Wexford, "generally taking my rest and repose exposed to the hoar frost, sometimes lying within caves and caverns of the earth. In the woods and groves I passed more than five months, that thus I might administer some consolation to the few survivors of my flock who had escaped from the merciless massacre, and dwelt there with the herds of cattle. But neither woods nor caverns could afford me a lasting refuge ; for the heretical governor of Wexford, George Cooke, well known for his barbarity, with several troops of cavalry and foot soldiers, searching everywhere, anxious for my death, explored even the highest mountains and most difficult recesses ; the huts and habitations adjoining, in which I had sometimes offered the Holy Sacrifice, he destroyed by fire ; and my hiding-places, which were formed of branches of trees, were all thrown down. Among those who were subjected to much annoyance on my account, was a nobleman in whose house he supposed me to be concealed. He searched the whole house with lighted tapers, accompanied by soldiers holding their naked swords in their hands to slay me the moment I should appear. But in the midst of all these perils God protected me, and mercifully delivered me from the hands of this blood-thirsty man. 1 ' Of the massacre itself, the Bishop had already given the following particulars :— " On that fatal day, October 11, 1649, 1 lost everything I had. Wexford, my native town, then abounding in merchandise, ships, and wealth, was taken at the sword's point by that plague of England, Cromwell, and sacked by the infuriated soldiery. Before God's altar fell sacred victims, holy priests of the Lord. Of those who were seized outside the church, some were scourged, some thrown into chains and imprisoned, while others were hanged or put to death by cruel tortures. The blood of the noblest of our citizens was shed so that it inundated the streets. There was hardly a house that was not defiled with carnage and filled with wailing. In my own palace, a boy hardly sixteen years of age, an amiable youth, also my gardener, and sacristan, were barbarously butchered ; and my chaplain, whom I had left behind me at home, was pierced with six mortal wounds and left weltering in his blood. And these abomi- ■ nable deeds were done in the open day by wicked assassins." Another famous bishop of these troubled times, we may add, taking our information from another source, was a native of the Scotch Highlands, named McDonald, whose skill in playing the bagpipes stood him in good stead as he went about disguised in the tartan of his clan. — The stories told of the piper-bishop, as he is called, are many, and his adventures and hair-breadth .escapes from the hands of the murderers are very wonderful. Bishop McDonald, however, was destined, after all, to give his life for his flock, and after a saintly career of some length he died of starvation. The whole story of Ireland's struggles, in fact, is the story of the priest's devotion, and the extremity of all the suffering was willingly borne by him.

HOW THEY WOBK FHEIB SYSTEM.

Especially comforting to the people who are engaged in the .worship of the great god secularism, and in sacrificing their children in his honour — and especially creditable to the moral standing of statesmen in Victoria, — as well as suggestive concerning the management of the famous system generally, are certain extracts that have recently been published from the evidence taken by the Royal Commission. — Junior teachers appointed over the heads of senior teachers, unqualified and unnecessary teachers appointed and even immorality considered as no bar to the teacher's profession, — such are the interesting particulars that the Avitralasian gives us in the following paragraph :— " the extracts which the Argut has

been printing from the evidence taken by the Royal Commission on education throw a very strong light on the paragraphs on which the commission have summed up their findings on the subject of political patronage. They show the utter imposture of Mr. Smith's statements about private and confidential information from officers of the department on which he made his appointments and promo, turn*, and show them to have been cases of political jobbery in which some Berryite member of Parliament preferred a demand and 'the Major greeted it with his unfailing < All right, my dear boy.' The shameless case in which the son and daughter of Mr. Richardson, M.L.A., were wrongfully appointed over the heads of a large number ThfSrA . eMappear in the evidence in their damning detaili,r!f Ji 1 ? Caaeßt iv whicb un( * a *Kfied young women from Balixtitiprotigki of 'the Major,' were appointed to schools where no SSr?!? 106 was ■** for ' aTe "* oat in *""• and are cleariyinatances of the most corrupt political jobbery, in which 'the Major' P«d for electioneering services by appointments given at the expense of the State. The infamous Beechworth scandal, in which a woman of known immoral character wasappointed by Mr. Smith, on JhealZT d^ On , 0f Mr ' Billßon ' M.L.A., supported, it seems by S^ P M?f ede^ tmeDt>iß tbe Worst o£ ■"• fr° m I* *«- disregard of every consideration of public decency. As the evidence standsas a whole, Mr. Billson, Mr. Richardson, and ' the Major ' stand of 6^ 16 ligbt bßtow the public ' aQd * be " *• q«*«« tLyth^^iT ae t COme9Xlp fOT Practical di^siontheilJustrauoZn^'Zl? ba :^ n * 8 o£ itß excise must not be forSZS' -Tb?BJßteT b ? BJBtem ' then .« not only bad in itself, but eminently capable of being made worse by the unscrupulous manner in which thefcfri^rr 1 ? QBe ° f ife in tbeir OWn i n^ests,and those of SuSTS^"? T nca tt has been made tbe meaDS of -nytag out In A»\f d'Bbd ' 8b^ e8t u undertaki^. and generally on a giganTic scale, f ? tuaßbeeQemployedt u aßbeeQemployed b * Or angemen for promoting ntnS. I" » ° b i eCt8 ' aUd iQ Victoria we ■■" bow Major Smil has used it.-~But doubtless we have still a good deal more to see

SHUT OUT.

The prospects of the rising generation in Hokitika at present look somewhat gloomy.— The rising by fi «onUH- f* cT * tio "> in fa =*. bidsfair togrow up uncultivated fTomTn ♦ ' B ° dt p hare no part in the advantages to be derived for Ye ColnnT 7iD K^ and C ° mpU lßOr^ **~~- Prided for the Colony at large by a wise and devoted legielature.-ComDul-in O tne m on^ at **?** - matters are at preset, sSms tofean in the opposite way, for the school is shut up, and the children we may presume are left to roam the streets aUheir discrete f, or 'that th« >Xh P ? apßj CXCept in thoße taßt ances where th«y attend theEdnl? «"? "J 1 " difference that has occurred between the Education Board and the School Committee respecting the expeuditure of the education funds, and each body accuses the other of ?ST?f k UC \ 18a PP r °Pria«on. The complaint of the Committee is that they have been refused a sufficient salary to pay a wretaker to keep the schoolhouse and its surroundings in proper wder Td^hat they have not been provided with money to buy f^el ThV^ther tneTwhh TJ O&Td 8h ° ald abUndant means o£ f «^htg teem with all that is necessary, and would have them had they not been worse than extravagant, and especially had they not misappro! priated the funds by the purchase of offices in which they sit, and which they were not justified in buying. But it would appear that the HolaWca Committee is not the only body in the dSict tha comp aius, and, if we are to believe the statements of one Mr W Doug as, who writes to the West Coast Times, the shutting-up of O ? l8 f .[ he f generally seems anything rather than an impossibility. « Hokitika," he writes, " is not the only school committee cryTng out fn despera ion for funds to pay for cleaning and fuel. Arahura is in the aame plight; and I should not wonder if the closing policy-if it may bo so designated-would follow there next. I know of this case ; but are there not many such cases ? I don't in the least hesiw t , i? V here are< " The pa P ilß of the B«dta. schoolsHu short, generally throughout the district seem called upon to perform their ask* somewhat under similar circumstances with the m seamstress, who sang Hood's "Song of the Shirt "for although Z ?n\r ffi ii d d p dTf they ar r hungry> n the midd c of poverty and dirt.-The secular system, then, accord think hat ?H 8U J,^ l 8 affeCtiD^ The wri '<* «eems to think that they are all wrong together and that there is no hope at all of the* ever coming right again. "Instances of gross extravagance could be cited against them (the Board)," he says « Th?v are, at the present moment, up to their ears in deep water. Bntdoes all this justify the Committee in following their exLple? I^Com!

mittee should not have over-run the con»table in the manner it has done. Any damage done to the building should become a responsibility of the Board, if they will not pay a caretaker. But' even admitting that the Board is in the wrong in not recognising the services of the caretaker, is the course just adopted by the Committee likely to improve matters? -The Committee may probably hope, by the closing of the school, to cause the Government to appoint a Royal Commission to .enquire into the past administration and present constitution of the Board. Knowing something of the views of tbe present Minister of Education on the question of interference with Boards of education, we cannot for a moment believe that such an object, however desirable, will be achieved. Neither can we see in what way matters are likely to be improved, beyond entering a protest against the Board's management, by keeping the school closed." But at least it will prevent the children from soiling their clothes and getting colds and chilblains, and our contemporary should learn to be thankful for small mercies— particularly when there are no big ones to be had for love or money — or at least, for love, since the money seems to have gone, the Lord only knows where.