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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 21, 14 September 1883, Page 15

Here is a note that, by the way, we may as well present to Mr a Stout, if he does not already possess it, to aid him in his forthcoming paper — and we think he richly deserves the gift. It is taken from the London correspondence of the Adelaide Observe)' : — " Last Saturday week morning a young man nineteen years old, nude, after passing a dissolute night at what is called a ' gay house,' shot himself dead. Mrs. Charlotte Watkins at the ensuing inquiry deposed that she was a widow of no employment ; that the dead man had asked her if she was afraid of this ' sort of thing,' showing a revolver ; that she replied ' No. I will tell you why. I have been in Australia all my life, and I have my mother there.' She seemed to be afraid of nothing, not even of rifling the clothing of the dead man. The bitterest satire upon the whole scene, upon atheistic rationalism or common sense, or whatever people choose to call the state of mind, lies in the letter which the almost boy left behind to his mother :—: — My dear mother — I was amazed to read your letter and the insult you in the first part put upon me. . . . As to your remarks upon religion, your Bible is a myth. Christianity and other religions may be necessary amongst a certain class of people, but that does not prove their truth or that there is no truth outside the doctrine of the Cross. . . . As it is, I say good-bye. You have brought any sorrow you may have upon yourself. — Your loving son, WALTER Henet Lees.' Whatever may be the difficulties in thoughtful minds connected with ' Christianity or other religions,' they at least inculcate generosity and a manly spirit." Our Free thinking friends, we perceive, are in a great state of excitement about those forty harvest men out of whom it is reported that two have been poisoned by the " town of New Boss." Our Frecthinking friends want to know what is the religion of the town in question. Well, we admit there is some cause for their showing themselves contemptuous in this matter — a whole town, for the most part of course Catholic, fails to poison more than two men out of forty. It was a most miserable failure. When our Freethinking friends had the upper hand, and a whole town fall of them made np their minds to carry out a slaughter they did a great deal better than that. 1 hey guillotined the people they meant to deal with by the hundred, and imprisoned them by the thousand, and there was not the least chance of escape for any one they laid their hands on. We admit the Catholics of New Ross have shown themselves very much inferior to the Freethinkers of the Be volution— of whom those with ourselves are the humble followers,— and have need of being trained by a good course of secularism to carry out matters more skilfully ,J

Our contemporary the Dunedin Morning Herald published, on Wednesday, an extract from the London correspondence of the Argus containing an account of a so-called," Martyrs' Meeting " held lately in America — and at which Messrs. Sheridan, Byrne, and others spoke. We had hoped on reading the paragraph alluded to that its statements were not true, or at least were greatly exaggerated. But on looking into the columns of an American contemporary we found it was not so. We, therefore, desire to say, in the most emphatic manner possible, that we abhor and reprobate with all our strength the sentiments expressed by the speakers at this meeting. We deny that the Phoenix Park murderers were martyrs, or that they were anything but murderers, who met the fate they deserved. Such meetings as those alluded to are most disgraceful, and are calculated to do more damage to the Irish cause than fifty Coercion Acts or the abuse of the Press of all the world. They are almost enough to disgust all right-thinking men with the Irish cause, and bring it down into the dust, to remain there for ever. It seems there is some probability that an/ Education League " will be formed to watch over the interests of secularism, and one of its dnties will be " to print and publish careful statistics of the results of religion on conduct " — that is, of course, of the results of the name of religion on conduct. — So much we learn from Mr." Stout's argument as to how the results of secular or religious education are to be arrived at. To be called by the name of any sort of a Christian at all— we know now for a dead certainty — is quite enough to account for the results of having not a scrap of Christianity of any kind about you. — The statistics of the " League " will be most interesting and, we need hardly add, reliable in the highest degree — that is as plain as daylight. We received a telegram on Wednesday from Mr. John W, Walshe announcing his arrival, with Mr. William Redmond, M P., at Auckland. Mr. Walshe also informed us that he had sent us particulars by letter, — and these we shall have received befoie next week's issue. A report will be found in our' news columns stating that the Messrs. Redmond will commence their mission at Hokitika, and it is probably true that it has been so arranged . We regret to record the death of the Rev. Lindsay Mackay, minister of the First Church, Dunedin, which occurred on Thursday the 6th. inst, at the age of 39. The deceased gentleman was much esteemed among the Presbyterian body of this city. Hib Lordship the Bishop of Wellington has left by the s.s. Wakatipu for Sydney,, where he will preach the panegyiic at the Month 'b Mind of the Late Archbishop. His Lordship is already famous in New South Wales for the splendid sermon preached by him at the opening of St Mary's Cathedral. We have ascertained that the girl, number 25, included among Mr. Stout's statistics as a misbehaved child, had not attended any Catholic school . — In any case, the child was not misbehaved, but had been sent to the Industrial School, where she bears an excellent character, merely to preserve her from evil influences that surrounded her. So much, once more, for the reliability of the statistics that Mr. Stout has refused to correct. In the article published by us last week headed " Important to Hibernians," the following typographical errors occurred — in the last line of the introduction, " reinitiate " for reinstate"; in the second line of the letter, " merely thank " for " sincerely thank." In our last week's leader, two rather absurd typographical errors occurred.— "Br.," instead of Dr., Burns, and " parable " for parallel in the following passsage : "We venture to say such a recommendation, after such a finding, has no parallel in the history of commissions." The amount accredited last week by us to Miss Mary Day in connection with the Port Chalmers art-union should have been two ponnds instead of two shillings, as printed.