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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 21, 14 September 1883, Page 1

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AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Mb. Stout, in a lecture delivered by him a couple MB. stout's of months ago,— fully reported in the newspapers* statistics, and, moreover, published again in a periodicalstated, as his conclusion, that " the children trained in Catholic schools are not so well behaved as those in State schools are." — And this statement he based on certain statistics given in a preceding portion of his lecture. But if Mr. Stout's statistics regarding the State schools were as looFely compiled by him, and, if they were founded on so very remarkably false a basis as those he gave with regard to the Catholic schools— they were false and worthless. Mr. Stout's statistics, in connection with the Catholic schools, we are now in a position to say, were false and groundless. — There were not twenty-six children who had attended Catholic schools sent, for misconduct, to tte Industrial School at Caversham, between 1875 and July this year. There were not twentyfour children who had attended Catholic schools sent there from Otago alone during the same period, and, if our readers will turn to another column in which we give the particulars concerning the Catholic children sent there from any part of the Colony, they will be able to judge of Mr. Stout's honesty or his common sense, and we confess that, here at least, his common sense seems even more at fault lhan his honesty — for, after all, he, without hesitation, allowed the list on which he had based his figures to be examined. Let us give him credit for all the good we can give him credit for. The total number of children who had even so much as shown their noses inside of a Catholic school, and who were sent from anywhere to the Industrial School within tbe period in question was twenty-two* And of these the particulars are briefly as follows : The attendance at school, even for a day of two girls and ene boy is doubtful.— One girl was sent by her father to the Industrial School only to keep her from straying away from home into the wild country ; one girl, if it be the same, had left school at the age of five ; one girl had attended a Catholic school for the equivalent of only thirty-two full days in four years ; fone girl bad been a degraded child before going to the school she attended most irregularly ; two girls had been most irregular attendants at a Catholic school for a short time ; and all the girls had been junior pupils,— even those two whose attendance is doubtful must have been so, if they were ever at a Catholic school at all. Four boys had been known only as truants ; one boy who had attended a State school had afterwards been for a few days only at a Catholic school ; one boy had only been at a Catholic school for from four to six weeks ; one boy, at a Catholic school in one town for from four to six weeks, had attended a Catholic school in another town for one week, and (with an interval of nearly a month) four days ; two boys had been irregular attendants ; one boy had probably, as Mr. Stout mentions, gone afterwards to a State school ; and all tbe boys, with one exception, were junior pupils. One boy only, out of the whole lot, boys and girls, had attended school regularly and got into a senior class, and he having been released a few days after his committal, has since been extremely well behaved. So much, then, for Mr. Stout's 26 children who fcal attended Catholic schools. Twenty-two, in all, as we have paid, bad ever had their noses inside the door of a Catholic school,— and our readers will see how they had attended there. Again, instead of 24 children trained in Catholic schools sent from Otago alone to the Industrial School, we find thateven including the three whose attendance is doubtful, and the girl sent to be kept safe from rambling in a way dangerous to herself only — there were but 19, and our readers will see from the particulars we have given here, and more fully, from the tables we publish in another column, the justice with which Mr. Stout says these children were " trained "in Catholic schools. Again, Mr. Stout, in his letter to Mr. Perrin, claims that the par. ticulars given by him as to the religion of the children's parent have been admitted as correct.— This is not so, for Mr. Perrin had neither the time nor tbe opportunity to investigate their religion

or nationality. We may state, moreover, that, out of six cases in which we have some acquaintance with the parents in question— two boys who were set down by Mr. Stout as Irish, are the children of mixed marriages; in one case, the father being an English Protestant; and in tbe other, an English Protestant, or a Protestant Australian Native, of English extraction.— The mother, in this case, is also an Australian Native.— The parents of another boy whom Mr. Stout sets down as Irish are reputed to be of English extraction. From this, therefore, we may, perhaps, form some judgment of the general correctness of Mr. Stout's calculations as to nationality and religion. —But Mr. Stout asserts that it makes no difference as to whether the children attend the schools regularly or not, and that the effects of religious or secular teaching cannot be determined unless truants and irregular attendants are also considered. — Had Mr. Stout not better include any child reared— say within 100 miles of a Catholic school-house ?—? — But 9uch an argument is really hardly sane, and not worthy of reply. We are quite of the opinion, and had already said so more than once, that the effects of religious or secular teaching cannot be ascertained merely from criminal statistics.— We have, besides, recently been confirmed in this opinion by an article in the Nineteenth Century, explaining that a great deal of the crime that is committed in Eng land goes undetected.— The New York Sun, moreover, has lately made a similar statement about his own particular city. — Mr. Stout, in conclusion, professes a desire for notes, of which he may make use in another publication he is about to undertake on this subject of morality and secularism.— We do not, however, profess to minister to a mind diseased, and, therefore, we should be unwilling to offer him any assistance. One note, however, we now offer him— it is one of advice, and its substance is that he should, before undertaking his new composition, place himself under some kind of suitable treatment—Mr. Hume, for example, might fora week or two give him advantageous entertainment at Ashbourne Hall,— for the letter we produce elsewhere seems certainly written by a man who is non. combos mentis, and this is the only excuse that can be offered for the refusal it.contains to retract— shameful, most dishonest, and harmful calumny . — For oE that, we say, Mr. Stout is now proved guilty.

It seems that somebody or another named Early, A "CRAM" IN General Agent for some society or another, was MOKE lately travelling in a railway carriage iv America WAYS thak ONE. where who should he meet with, bnt Cardinal M'Closkey. And the Cardinal, as was most natural , finding himself in such good company, was anxious to hear as much as possible of the great Evangelist's conversation, .and consequently lent all his attention to listen to it. But the Cardinal, being no doubt thrown in a state of tremor lest the whole Church should topple down on the spot under the powerful preaching of this General Agent for something or another, could not help ejaculating now and then, in an imbecile and witless kind of way, a query as to the grounds the great man had for believing his own particular views to be the right ones. And, as it happened, this went on until the great Evangelist got into a rage— a very godly rage, of course, on which there was no 'fear whatever that the sun should ~^o down— and he made the following startling reply, beginning in a comparatively mild tone, buj; ending in a bellow that not only put the Cardinal to flight but caused a sympathetic roar among the other passengers. " Well, sir, since you have asked me that question, I will jus tell you how Jdo know that Martin Luther was right. I know he was right because of what he did. There was the old Pope and his Cardinals and Bishops and priests and all the kings and armies of Europe on one side, and there was nobody but little Martin Luther and God Almighty on the other side ; and little Martin Luther jast took that old Pope's bull by the horns, and gave his neck such a twist as he will not get over until Gabriel blows his horn, and sends the old Pope, with all his Cardinals, Bishops, and priests down to perdition, where they belong. That, sir, is the way I know Le was right." This was a most elegant bellow, as our readers will perceive, and from the lip 3of the godly, no worder its effect was stunning. Still, the Cardinal, had he not been so nervous, might have bet bought himself of replying that besides " Little Martin Luther and God Almighty"— whose partisanship by the way seems rather doubtful— there were just a few more— Frederick of Saxony, for example, and Philip on

Hesse, with his brace of wives, and well nigh the whole of Germapy in fact, altogether making up an extremely strong temporal power without which at its back the glorious " Reformation " never progressed one inch. But if we are to receive it as tlie proof of the " Reformation's " value that it made progress— as it undoubtedly did not — against great odds, we must also appraise it by the contrary, by its having failed wherever the temporal power opposed it. Can our Evangelical friends say, for example, why Admiral Coligni was not as successful in Fiance with the aid of God Almighty as was Martin Luther in Germany— or why Catherine de Medici could successfully make such short work of the matter there. — The unblushing im" pudence, however, with which this vulgar story has been publishedj must be explained by the complete ignorance of its publishers — for in that way only can it be explained.

Inasmuch as one of the picas put forward for the THE QUESIION depopulation of Ireland is that it is too thickly inOF habited, it is of especial interest for us to find an population, argument in favour of a country's being thickly populated. Such an argument we find in a recent number of the Revue des JDeux Monies ; it relates to France particularly, but is applicable lo any other country, and it runs to the following effect : Let us suppose Franc 3 to be peopled by one million of inhabitants only, not only would the French people, taken collectively, be less rich, but individually they would be pcorer. If France were more peopled vast extentsof country, which, even as it is, are not cultivated, would be rendered productive. The excess of farm labourers does not injure agriculture, on the contrary^ the falling off in French agriculture is due to the falling off in numbers of the rural population. Commerce depends on the number of merchants — industry on the number of workmen, science, or the number of s&vans. Among great masses of men, intellectual or physical force is almost proportionate to numbers. Ten miners do less work than one hundred — ten Frenchmen less work than a thousand. Let us admit that every workman earns five francs a day, and that on his living he expends four francs 75 centimes, he will save daily five centimes. Ten individuals would save two francs and a-half ; one hundred would save twenty-five francs. If there were a population in France of 80 millions, instead of 40 millions, each Frenchman individually would not save much ; but the annual savings of the country would be double what they are today. The bringing-up of children, indeed, costs a good deal, but in about fifteen years they, in turn, become producers and repay the money they have cost the family and the country during their childhood — that ill-advised people who have not reared citizens for the future will be punished even in their prosperity. They will be crushed by the commerce, the industry, the armies, and fleets of countries more fruitful in men. As to independence, that treasure of treasures, on what does it depend, unless on) military force, and financial power, which are closely connected with the number of inhabitants 1 Does a small country possess a true independence ? Is Greece as free as Russia, Denmark as independent as Germany ? If we cast aside the fiction of neutrality have Belgium and Switzerland their autonomy as well assured as the great countries which surround them ? But, as an example of the population that a country can support, let us take the following. In Belgium the density of the population is extreme ; there are 190 inhabitants to the square kilo metre. France, on the contrary, has only 70 inhabitants to the square kilometre. Consequently, if the population of France were one hundred millions of inhabitants, she would he still, in proportion to the extent of her area, less peopled than Belgium. The Belgians, nevertheless, do not seem to be dying oE hunger. Their soil certainly cannot sustain them, but industry and commerce make up for the agricultural deficit. Man is a sort of primary living matter with which the destiny of a nation is built up. Tf the matter is abundant the destiny will be prosperous. All these uncleansed urchins will one day be men — soldiers, sailors, workmen, peasants. Who knows but there may even be found among them some productive artist, some profound tbinker, some powerful orator, some inventor of genius? It is among these that the destinies of the future lie.

At a meeting of the Howard Association held the A PALTBY other day in London, as we learn from the Times, question OF a certain Mr. Randall " considered that prisoners MONEY. should earn much more towards their own support. He queried, 'Why should the honesty of the nation be so heavily burdened with its rascality.' " — But then, perhaps, this Mr. Randall was a gentleman of an exacting nature and of the Gradgrind type. It is refreshing to think that among ourselves there is more moderation, and a kinder feeling for the condition of the poor captives. — Their labour, we understand, bas become much lighter of late, and about twelve hours now rcpiesents six hours passed by them at work under the savage Caldwell regime. — And this is, of course, quite as it ought to be, and will prove most pleasing to the more benevolent hearts that are so plcaly amongst us—

especially in the North.— The prisoners themselves will also appreciate the change very much, and the advantage they seem to have enjoyed in perusing the papers containing the reports of the late commission will no doubt enable thorn to decide correctly as to where their gratitude is due. — The commissioners, we may add, made no remark in their report as to this affair of the newspaper?, but then, perhaps, they consider them, or some of them, as improving almost as lectures to the criminal mind, and lectures, we know, are looked to for the production of the most admirable fruits there — to be given, for examp'e, « The Coming Man," or " Comets," for a pattern should be enough to reform Newgate itself.— The prisoners, no doubt, fully understand that the "Government stroke" is now alone expected from them, and that no officer will repoit them unless it be for something very remarkable iudeod. — All must be above board, now, and honorable, and no tale-bearing can be tolerated.— There is honour among thieves, in fact, with a vengeance.— But if the prisoners are to have better time 3 than they had under the iron rod of the past, the officers have resolved to spare no pains or trouble, in order to fulfil the duties of their place most zealously and well. The officers, we .conclude, will all take example by their superior the Inspector, who is most devoted to his duties, and a thorough zealot in discharging them.— The Inspsctor, in fact, if rumour be correct, will for the future bs at the trouble of coming all the way from Wellington to decide in cases that might be supposed to fall within the jurisdictionj urisdiction of the Visiting Justices, and to be capab le of being [decided therefore at a much less expense to the public funds — but where the prisons are concerned we know expense is a matter of not the smallest consideration. — Even as it is, we understand that there is a case awaiting the Inspector, and which a Justice has declined to inquire into— believing himself unauthorised to do so ; it is a charge of insubordination brought against a warder by his superior officer, who is in charge of the hulk, and a Visiting Justice has suspended the warder in question pending an inquiry. The wear and tear of travelling, then, is of no consequence at all to the Inspector in comparison with the fulfilment of his duties, and as to the increase of travelling expenses— well, all this will be saved when that sum of £82,000 has been profitably invested in the great central penal establishment at Wellington— where, we conclude in passing, flax for the million or something equally useful will be spun or ground by means of the best possible kind of treadmills. We may add that it was possibly in anticipation of the additional travelling to be undertaken by the Inspector, Mr. J. C. Browne, M.H.R., voted for an increase to that gentleman's salary, being aware of the Inspector's intention to confer on Lawrence Gaol the privilege of receiving all prisoners sentenced up to six months hard labour, and who so far had been sent to the gaol at Duaedin. — Meantime, we are narrow-minded and sordid enough to be of Mr. Randall's opinion that prisoners should earn as much as possible towards their own support, and we think also with the gentleman in question, that the honesty of the nation should be as little burdened as possible with its rascality, — even though prisoners should be made to do a full day's work, and prison officials, even the highest and most honourable of them all, should be recommended to spend as little money as possible on their travelling expenses.

It is a curious thing in conection with the report several of the Dunedin Gaol Commissioners, that it has CUEious things, condemned a man because he carried out his duties as the law directed him. — Mr. Caldwell, in factj has been condemned for disobeying illegal orders, for, us Captain Hume had not, until quite recently, been legally appointed, any orders he might have issued in the gaol were illegal, and could only have been illegally obeyed. Yet we see two magistrates who are supposed to be the masters of everything connected with the law, condemning Mr. Caldwell for disregarding illegal mandates— and this surely is a very strange aspect of affairs. But, indeed, the gentlemen in question may be held excused if their action was a little out of the ordinary couise. The position they occupied, in fact, was a most extraordinary one, and it is not wonderful if it confused their raindi in some degree. It is a very unusual thing to find such an appointment as that made by our Minister of Justice of two magistrates belonging to the Department of Justice, for the purpose of conducting an inquiry into charges made against other officials of the same department— that is, the Visiting Justices and the Gaoler. The whole affair, in fact, smacks of a family matter, and it would seem as if the head of the family— the Minister in question, had been over-much engaged in it, as if he had, io. fact, been judge and prosecutor all in one. Mr. Graham Berry, on the contrary, for example, when lately appointing a commission to investigate certain charges brought againstthe Medical Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylumn at Sunbury, in Victoria, expressly declared that it would be. moat unfair to appoint Government officers to carry on the investigations, and was careful to choose three independent gentlemen instead. — But then, Mr. Graham Bjrry acted like a colonial politician, whereas, in all probability, our own worthy Minister had received sonic instructions as to how these kind of

things are managed in Downing Street. Captain Hume, of course, knows all about the doings of the big-wigs at Home, and is always prepared to coacb thosa who desire to imitate them among ourselves. — We shouH say, in fact, that was one of the principal advantages to be derived from his presence here, for we know tuerj is something cr another which makes the Government regard him as an immensely valuable servant, and what it is cannot be seen by the public generally — but no doubt it is some) lung superfine. Another curious point in tbe rop->rt of the commissioners was their taking m proved the accusations made agaiust Mr. CaldwoU of maintaining a system of espionage, although some of the most respectable witnesses examined testified to the contrary, and the evidence of Chief Warder Ferguson seemed quite clearly to show that Dunedin Gaol contrasted in this respect most favourably with the gaol at Lyttelton. Some system of watchfulness, however, is necessary in every public institution, and as to gaol management, Sir Robert Peel is our authority for saying that the governor should have a clear knowledge of everything that is going on around him. To insist on his being over-particular as to how he obtains that knowledge appears to us rather a straining of the motto that there should be honour among thieves. — And, in fact, in all public offices, the heads of departments have confidential officers from whom they obtain information. Nay, even connected with most banks we understand there are officials whose business it is to keep an eye upon the clerks, and know what their habits are when out of working hours. But something of a system of espionage it appears to us was even evident in the reports made by Captain Hume himself to the Government, and whose contents the Minister of Justice declined to reveal. Something to espionage also, there seems to have been in Captain Hume's acknowledgment that he had received letters from Warders Clarke, Nicholson, and Noonan, and that these warders had, moreover, interviewed him at his hotel. Warder Clarke, again, carried letters from Cummock to Mr. Torrance, and Mr. Torrance communicated with the Inspector. We should very much like to know, if there was nothing of the spy system in all this, what the spy system, then, may be explained as being. Something mysterious, perhaps, that is all wrong when it is on the side found fault with, but all right when on that which is engaged in finding fault. In this case everything seems to have been right that was on Captain Hume's side, and everything- wrong that was on the side of Mr. Caldwell. — But Captain Hume, we have no doubt, could explain all this in the clearest and most able manner possible. — Tbe Captain's speech in defence of himself has been very much admired, and a great many people wonder how on earth it came to be so much more brilliant than any of his reports— which, as a rule, have not been regarded as very brilliant specimens of argument. — Indeed, it is rumoured about that a very considerable degree of credit has been gained by a certain learned firm of solicitors in this city who are said to have found in the Captain a most apt pupil, both as to the manner in which he should conduct his cross-examinations, and as to his defence. There is, moreover, a slight tone of the family matter in this also, for was not the Hon. Mr. Dick the Captain's special patron before the Hon. Mr. Conolly replaced him ? Indeed, it is also rumoured about that, so delighted was our contemporary the Evening Star with this address of the Captain's, and for fear, no doubt, lest his readers should lose a single word of it, he actually had it in type before it was delivered, and this we must admit to have been a feat in reporting that is eminently worthy of being chronicled, and should reflect untold honour on our contemporary's staff.^ That famous mind-reader, over in London, himself, must be a mere joke to them ! Fancy, their not only being able to read a mind, but to take it down as well in shorthand several hours in advance of its expression !' — It is positively marvellous ! On the whole, then, there has been a good deal that was curious and highly interesting about this inquiry ; we should be glad to say also, if we could with any degree of truth, that there had been a little that was creditable.

In " The Coming of the Friars," an article in the A Protestant Nineteenth Century for July, the Key. Dr. Jessop ecclesiastic gives us some details that are of high interest, ON although, as we might naturally expect, a good deal the friars, that he says is to be taken with reserve, and a good deal more to be rejected altogether. Nevertheless, it is of high interest to find a Protestant ecclesiastic testifying in a great degree, to the virtues of the religious orders of the Church. — " Those masses " the writer says, for example, " those dreadful mass s, crawling and weltering in the foul hovels, in many a southern town, with never h. roof to cover them, huddling in groups under a dry arcb, alive with vermin ; gibbering cretins with the ghastly wens ; lepers by the hundred, too shocking for mothers to gaze at, and therefore driven out to curse and howl in the lazar-house outside the walls, there stretching out their bony hands to clutch the frightened alms-giver's dole, or, failing that, to pick up shreds of offal from the heaps of garbage — to these St. Francis came." " More wonderful still 1 " he continues, "to these outcasts came those other twelve, to utterly had their leader's sublime self-surrender communicated itself to his converts. *We are come,* they Baid, 'to live among you and

be your servants, and wash your sores, and make your lot less hard than it is. We only want to do as Christ bids us do. We are beggars too, and we too have not where to lay our heads. Christ sent us to you. Yes, Christ the crucified, whose we are, and whose you are. Be not wroth with v«, we will help you if we can.'" It takes away a little from the effect of all this honest testimony to find, in a few sentences further on, the following :—" As one reads the stories o^ those earlier Franciscans, one is reminded every now and then of the extravagances of the Salvation Army." — To be reminded, nevertheless, of an exceedingly coarse and ugly caricature by a sublime original betrays some weakness in the mind so acted on. But the description given of the Franciscans in England is of especial interest. " Perhaps," says the writer, " there, more than anywhere else, such labourers were needed ; perhaps, too, they had a fairer field. Certainly they were truer to their first principles than elsewhere," — or, perhaps, the writer knows more about their work in England than he does concerning it elsewhere. " Outside the city walls at Lynn, and York, and Bristol ; in a filthy swamp at Norwich, through which the drainage of the city sluggishly trickled into the river, never a foot lower than its banks ; in a mere barn-like structure, with walls of mud, at Shrewsbury, iv the Stinkiug Alley in London, the Minorites took up their abode, and there they lived on charity, doing for the lowest the most menial offices, speaking to the poorest the words of hope, preaching to learned and simple, such sermons — short, homely* fervent, and emotional — as the world had not heard far many a day . How could such Evangelists fail to win their way ? " — The Franciscans, moreover, were as much distinguished for their learning as for their goodness. "We should have expected learning among the Dominicans," the writer goes on to say, " but very soon the English Franciscans became the most learned body in Europe, and that character they never lost till the suppression of the monasteries swept them out of the land."— Let us pause to consider the glories of the great "reformation," that champion of the cause of learning and civilisation that destroyed the houses of the " ignorant monk 3," especially in England, and whereof commemoration is made to this day, amongst the rest, in history taught to children who are in great part educated at the expense o f Catholics — they being thus fleeced for the propagation of what even learned and respectable Protestants tell us is lies, and egregious lies. The writer continues, having first mentioned some distinguished prelates chosen from the Order. " Meanwhile such giants as Alexander Hales and Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus among the Minorites — all Englishmen be it remembered— and Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus among the Dominicans, had given to intellectual life that amazing lift into a higher region of thought, speculation, and inquiry, which prepared the way for greater things by-and-by. It was at Assisi that Cimabue and Giotto received their moat sublime inspiration, and did their very best, breathing the air that St. Francis himself had breathed, and listening day by day to traditions and memories of the Saint, told peradventure by one or another who had seen him alive, or even touched his garments in their childhood. It may even be that there Daute watched Giotto at his work while the painter got the poet's face by heart." And let us take the following as a comment on that part of the great Protestant tradition which assigns to the Teligions houses at the time of the " Keformation " an unbounded luxury. " The Friars wera the Evangeliaers of the towns in England for 300 years. When the spoliation of the religious houses was decided upon, the Friars were the first upon whom the blow fell — the first and the last. But when their property came to be looked iuto, there was no more tc rob but the churches in which they worshipped, the libraries in which they studied, and the houses in which they passed their lives. Bob the county hospitals to-morrow through the length and breadth of the land, or make a general scramble for the possessions of the Wesleyan body, and how many broad acres would go to the hammer ?" — Nevertheless, strange to say, the writer goes on to speak of the falling away of the mendicant orders, of their zeal growing cold, of their simplicity of life fading, of their discipline becoming relaxed. — And still, as we have, moreover, seen of late, such Orders are also to-day engaged in doing such work as the writer has told us with admiration was done of old by the first Franciscans among those dreadful masses of tha Southern .towns. — They are still the servants of tbe poor— for Christ's sake.~Where, then, is the falling ofl ?"