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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 22, 21 September 1883, Page 1

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SOME MOBE FIGURES.

Aud so we are given some more figures ! — Imported in this case, it would seem, directly and personally from Victoria for the confusion and total overthrow of all advocates of religious education. — And the figures we must regard as quite conclusive, whatever may be the facts and the logic that exist behind them. — Facts and logic are altogether unworthy of consideration, and bare figures carry the day. — But as to the logic in .the present instance we admit that it actually is wholly unworthy of consideration, — and if this kind of thing goes on, we may remark in passing, the character of our jurymen, as such, will be completely ruined.— They will be stigmatized as unable to discern whether there is a grain of logic or anything except sophistry in the "weightiest argument submitted to them by the weightiest man in a wig who pleads before them. — Here, then, is the logic that underlies the figures we speak of. — Ignorant Catholics are more criminal in proportion to their numbers than are educated Protestants and Jews, and this shows the evil nature of a Catholic education. — Catholics who have not been educated are criminal and this shows that a Catholic education is the source of crime. The argument is a perfect beauty, and it might have delighted Dr. Whately himself to throw it into syllogistic form. — The .Catholics nevertheless, must have something besides education to help them to live good lives, for, although we are told they are eight times as ignorant as the Jews, and three times as ignorant as Protestants, they are only two to one more criminal than the Protestants and three to two more ciiminal than the Jews. But as to the degree in which the morality of a people may be determined by their being able to sign the marriage register only with their mark— let us take the following official returns quoted by John M, Strachan, M.D., Dollar, in an article on immorality in Scotland, and published by him in the Scotsman of June 7, 1870.— And things seem rather worse, if anything in the present year according to the Provost of Edinburgh. — " In our Tenth Detailed Annual Report was given a table, showing the proportion of illegitimate births in every division and county of Scotland during the ten years 1855-64. This table, when compared with the proportion of those able to sign their names in writing in the marriage registers, confirms the conclusion drawn in former reports that there is no traceable connection between the ignorance or want of education among the people, and the proportion of illegitimacy. Indeed, instead of the uneducated counties showing the highest proportion of illegitimate births, it was rather the reverse seeing that the counties in which the proportion of illegitimate births was highest were also those in which the highest proportion of men and of women were able to eiga their names in writing in the marriage registers Thus, in Koss and Cromarty, where only 3.9 per cent, of the births illegitimate, only 60 per cent, of the men, and 45 per cent, of the women, were able to sign their names in writing. In Inverness, ' where 7.6 per cent, of the births were illegitimate, only 71 per cent, of the men, and 63 per cent, of the women were able to sign their names in writing. In Lanark, where 7.4 per cent, of the births were illegitimate, only 84 per cent, of the men, and 60 per cent, of the women were able to sign their names in writing. On the other hand, in Aberdeen, where 15.3 per cent, of the births were illegitimate, 97 per cent, of the men, and 92 per cent, of the women were able to sign their names in writing. In Banff, where 15.5 per cent, of the births were illegitimate, 96 per cent, of the men, and 85 percent, of the women, signed their names. In Dumfries, where 14.4 per cent, of the births were illegitimate, 97 per cent, of the men, and 95 per cent, of the women, were able to adhibit their signatures in the registers. These striking facts, then, seem to prove that the large proportion of illegitimacy in these highly educated counties is not a sin resulting from ignorance and debasement ; for every one who is acquainted with these counties knows how intelligent are the natives* and that in other respects they are of a somewhat higher caste than the generality of the inhabitants of those counties where illegitimacy is not nearly so prevalent." From this, moreover, may be seen the

general value of criminal statistics in determining the effect of education on morality. They seem, in fact, very inadequate for such a purpose, and the more godlessness spreads, the weaker they become, for, as we have, again, especially learned of late from an article in the Nineteenth Centiwy, and from the New York Sun, there is an immense quantity of crime committed by educated people in the higher walks of life, that is never detected. We may remark in passing that from the Nineteenth Century we have also learned that a great deal of undetected crime is committed in England by the members of that amiable sect of "No religion," concerning whose immaculacy in Victoria such great things are boasted — although how the fact that a small body of people, no doubt for the most part raised above temptation, manage to keep themselves out of Victorian prisons, can prove the virtue of the sect to which the great body of Parisian criminal? i for example, belongs, is not so very clear. We can understand, nevertheless, that it may be taken as a valid proof by men who, so long as they can back up their theories by the production of names and figures, care nothing for substance and fact. And the fact is that, at least, the great body of criminals everywhere, to whatever denomination they profess adherence, are of the honourable sect of " ]So religion." But let us note, again, to the honour of Victorian Catholics that, although they are three times as ignorant as Protestants, they are only twice as criminal, and this, although we may be very sure that the chances a Catholic criminal in Victoria runs of being brought to justice are very much greater than those ran by a Protestant criminal— and although there are several other circumstances that explain why tbe Catholic or Irish settlers in the Colony might be expected to be convicted of breaches of the law more often than their Protestant neighbours. — And, above all, let us note the admirable logic displayed by a professional reasoner who argues that, because uneducated Catholics are criminal, therefore Catholic education is productive of crime. The argument is superb, and moat worthy of any man of figures without facts. It would seem, however, that a very peculiar jury alone could be convinced by it.

A FLAW IN THE AKGUMENT.

The Anglican Bishop of Melbourne, nevertheless, does not seem so confident as to the glorious future that awaits the Colony because of the increase and growth of that admirable sect describing themselves as of "no religion." The Bishop, on the contrary, seems to think that to be possessed of no religion will make a sect in Victoria quite as dangerous as their confreres in Europe. Although, perhaps, the advocates of no religion might plead that things in Australia generally are the direct opposite of what they are in Europe, and that, as the swans of Australia are black, the Atheists will be good aad moral colonists. There is certainly no better an argument that they can advance, but then, as we have seen, they have a wonderful power over arguments, and that we have spoken of might serve their turn as well as another. So long as the jury lend a complacent ear no more is Deeded. The Bishop, however, brings forward the condition of the party of no religion on the European Continent as a warning to folk in Victoria of what may possibly come to obtain among themselves. As a matter of fact, he says, the corruption of city life ha 9 always kept pace with the decay of religion. " Look at Berlin — look at Paris," he continues, "a special correspondent of the English Times, who afterwards published bis articles in a separate form in 1870, reported that all the churches in Berlin ' provide accommodation for only 25,000 out of the 800,000 souls in Berlin, yet they are all but empty on Sundays.' Only co few could worship God publicly if they would, and out of that few scarcely any had the will. There is some slight improvement, I hear, during the last ten years, but nntil more churches are buile the improvement cannot be great. That is the religious state of Berlin ; and now, what is its moral condition ? The number of prostilutea in Berlin is four times as great as in Brussels, and the number of illegitimate births five times as great as in Cologne, a city in the same Empire." Bat let us note that b«th Brussels and Cologne are Catholic cities, and that Berlin besides being irreligious is highly educated, and even philosophic. The Bishop tells us of its immorality and an American contemporary gives us the following late details of its crime :— " According to the Berlin Press, the moral situation of

tb« German capital is deplorable. Murders, suicides and accidents of all descriptions have pestered the great city during the month of May and the first half of June. On the 15th June only 81 corpses were delivered at the amphitheatres or at the morgue. Amongst them were two cases of infanticide, five women and three men who had poisoned themselves, three women, seven men and a boy drowned, and thirty-three persons who had lost their lives through unknown causes." The Bishop then goes on to describe the habits of the Parisian working - classes, whose creed we have recently found described by a French writer of high reputation as identical with tbafc preached in philosophic circles among ourselves, — and no doubt professed, for the most part, by that hopeful sect of no religion in Victoria. "In Paris," he says, " I need be at no pains to prove to yon that the men of the working classes, especially the artisans, are almost all irreligious. And what is the moral condition of those classes ? It has been reported by one of themselves — a sceptic, but a man who by his conduct and industry had raised himself to the position of a master manufacturer. Its substance is given in a sketch of France and the French, by Karl Hillebrand which some of you may have read. Those specially dealt with are the employees at the railway works, but the author assures us they form one- seventh of the workmen of Paris, and that ' the other six-sevenths resemble them exactly.' The steady workmen, he says, constitute one-fourth of the whole, though the conduct of a large proportion of these is by no means uniformly good. A little more than one-te,nth of the whole constitutes an intermediate class. If marriedi the men of this class have to excuse themselves to their wives for keeping Saint Monday, and for drinking too much on pay-day ; if unmarried they usually live with a mistress. The rest— 66 per cent, of the whole — take the nickname, les sublimes. There are several sections of them arranged in saccessively descending moral stages. The description of the best of them is as follows : — ' He is always in debt. He changes employers five or Bix times a year. He is proud of himself if he can cheat a relation or his employer. If his wife or mistress reproach him he beats her. He spends his Monday in playing cards or billiards . . . and invariably gets drunk, nor does he begin work again aa long as he has a sou left." But what is this the Bishop has to say about Melbourne itself ? " Not drunkenness, but immorality, is the worst temptation here. A southern climate ie sure to tell in this direction more and more, and if I dare repeat to you the facts which I have read in reports of our own Parliament, you- would see how terrible is the piesent mischief, how menacing the future danger." Can it be, then, that there, is something besides those bare statistics of the prisons to be considered in order fairly to determine what the results of secularism are ? And must we reluctantly find a flaw in • that brilliant argument which should convince any jury in the world I—that1 — that because Catholics who have never been at school are apparently more criminal than Jews and Protestants who haye — although not nearly so apparently criminal in proportion to their ignorance, and relatively to Jews and Protestants, as they might be expected to be, therefore, Catholic schools are productive of crime. The very thought, indeed, of its being possible that a flaw could be perceived in any part of such an argument would be overwhelming— particularly since we kuow that unless it be admitted that Catholics who have not attended Catholic schools owe all their depravity to those schools, nothing can be proved against the results of a religious education. And we- really are anxious to be as accommodating as ever we can be, — but, then! we must stop short of accepting a conclusion, to accept which would prove that any man in the world was out of his wits — and even badly so.

WHOLESOME ADVICE.

M. Chaei/es db Mazade hardly seems impressed very highly with the nature of the progress of the day— md) from what he says, there would seem to be even some suspicion in his mind that the darkness with which the middle ages are commonly accredited, has extended its skirts up to our own highly favoured times of liberalism and liberty. — It is, in f act, both startling and suggestive to find that persecution is among the phenomena of the century. Our century, writes M. de Mazade, in effect, which has flattered itself on witnessing the reign of tolerance, and of unshackled reason, is perhaps destined to end among new religious struggles, fanaticism, and persecution. The truth is, strange sigaa are sometimes to be noted in this old Europe of ours, which every revolution has shaken. Blind hatreds and glowing intolerance that weie believed to be extinct are suddenly rekindling, and if, in France, in the name of a pretended freethought, war is made on Catholics, on their beliefs, and on their emblems ; in other regions, and in many countries, war is made on the Jews. This is a singular progress in ideas and manners. These wars which, in certain countries, no doubt, are caused by a combination of circumstances, are not the less extraordinary because of that. For a long time the condition of the Jews in the Danubian Principalities has been unsafe, and after the war that created Roumanian independence, the question appeared grave enough to call for consideration by the Congress of Berlin, In Russia of late years, there has been a series

of risings, violences, and murderous acts against the Jews. These scenes, which were often bloody, took the character of a sort of organised persecution which, in many instances, obliged the victims to take to flight, and the government, without being the accomplice of the agitations, was often very much embarrassed in repressing them, and in protecting the unhappy people against the furious onslaught! of the multitude. Even in Germany, the movement against the Jews, without being marked by scenes of murder as in Russia, has been revived of late in a manner quite unforeseen. It has found warm adherents, and has been concentrated in a kind of league formed to combat tha invasion of Israelitish influences. There has been, in a word, what is called the anti-Shemitic movement, and it is not certain that M. de Bismarck has always been very energeiic in discouraging this reaction of German and Protestant feeling, which he can make use of, on occasion, as he does of everything. In Hungary, distrust and popular hatred against the Jews are revealed in a drama which is now being played in a court of justice, and which resembles some scene from the middle ages brought before contemporaneous opinion. What adds to the gravity of this sad trial is, that it is only an episode in the revival of animosity against the Jews that is breaking out, more or less, .every where— even in peaceable Switzerland, in the respectable little town of Saint-Gall, where a Jew was attacked in his house, for having written a rather unfavourable pamphlet on the Zurich exhibition. There, as elsewhere, the manifestations were made with the watchword — Tarn out the Jews. It is, indeed, a strange fact that towards the end of the century, eighty years after the French Revolution, there are born anew these race-animosities, these religious struggles which were no longer believed possible in a civilisation wholly impregnated with ideas of tolerance. There is what progress means 1 when it was least thought of, we perceive that, in many respects, we have turned back towards the past. Populations blinded by old prejudices, can still believe that the Jews make use of the blood of a young girl for the rites of their worship, and in one of the most cultivated countries of Europe, that is Germany, there are crusades against the Shemites, as there are in other countries crusades against fhe Catholics. It would be the duty of enlightened governments to react against these tendencies, in every sense to resist these wanderings of opinion which lead us back to other times, to be the first to give the example of tolerance and of liberal equity in their relations with religious beliefs. — So far M. de Mazade, bat, for our own part, we will add that those governments who are persecuting by means of secularism, and so carrying on a crusade against their Catholic subjects that is no less bitter because it is dissembled, might, to their own profit and to that of the countries concerned generally, be guided by the advice of this veteran political writer, and wise and moderate man.

THE GUINEA'S STAMP MISAPPLIED.

Hebe is news that sbould make the hair stand straight upon the heads of sincere democrats in these colonies — that is if there be any such body of men, in lesser or greater n umbers, to be found among us. — For, to tell the truth, there is some reason to conclude that colonial democracy is merely the manifestation of a regard for self, and of a certain jealousy that is anything rather than democratic. The West British section of the Irish Press, then, expresses an extreme mortification because the colonies seem considered more worthy of honour than the party they themselves represent in Ireland is found to be. Says the Dublin Evening Mail " Almost every time w£ take up the Official Gazette, ■we are reminded that no Irish need apply for tha distinctions so liberally dealt out to every twopenny-halfpenny colonial jndge or successful Australian squatter." — And, again, he says, "the wife of a Fiji Chief Justice is accorded theysame rank enjoyed by the wife of an English Judge. Why should Irish Judges be alone denied the titles which are, of course, no distinctions for themselves, but which give to their wives a certain rank ? Again, while coasulting surgeons at Sydney are decorated, surgeons and physicians in Ireland are un-^*-recognised." — There we are, then, recognised and envied as the recipients of honours, that should make the very marrow turn cold in the bones of our sincere democrats. — What the rank to be conferred upon a lady by a distinction that would be perfectly worthless to her husband may be, we shall not stay to inquire. The subject is a delicate one, and its investigation might land us unawares in the middle of some question of woman's rights, on which Heaven forbid t bat, with our knowledge or without it, we should ever attempt to enter. — Common politeness, however, would seem to teach us that if anything whatsoever is no distinction to any man in the world, it ought naturally, if possible, to be less so to his better-half. — Perhaps, however, it might result in taking her in to dinner, or sending her out of a room, before somebody-else's better-half. — And there is probably a great deal in that, if it be rightly considered. — It seems* nevertheless that there are in these colonies, to the great envy of those who frequent Dublin Castle, ladies of this " rank," — whatever it may be, and who enjoy all its privileges. — The thought of its being so is overwhelming, and nils us, even at an immense distance, with reverence unspeakable. — But we should be, on the whole, better

pleased to see the organs of Dublin Castle and its clique envying us for something less refined and elegant. — We fear, in fact, these organs when they speak of the " twopenny-halfpenny " element among us, are not so very much ra Waken, hut that the colonial element, let it be male or female, that would hunger after decorations of the kind alluded to mint be of no vc.vy much h : gher a calibre. There could be nothing more injurious in a new country than the distinctions of rank — especially of a false rank with all its attendant snobbery — it petty pretences, and imbecile impertinences. — And, as it is, these colonies are far from biing free from the tendency towaids its adoption. The leaning towards it, indeed, of our colonists is producing the evil that in America has been produced by the false system of education — the system that exists both here and there — but which there has long since succeeded in turning out of the schools a useless class of people, unfitted for any plain line of business, and nnable to find any other ; and which system here encourages people who consider themselves somewhat better— or a good deal better, perhaps, than their neighbours to educate their children for clerkships and oth«r so-called genteel pursuits in life, rather than to bring them up with habits that should prepare them to act the part of men in developing the resources of the Colony, and building up the national prosperity. — The middle-class schools, must, in fact, ► greatly increase among us the taste for a false rank with all its surrounding snobbery, and it will be the baser taste, since it will be formed and fostered in institutions which are, in a great degree, charity schools, and where the sense of independence, and a respect for it, can never be acquired or encouraged, — We fear, then, that the envy shown by the Castle clique of the distinctions bestowed upon our " twopenny-halfpenny" element may he cminous, and that the colonies may, as the time goes by, become more and more worthy of such an envy.

PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF

Our contemporary the Lyttelton Times takes Dunedin to task for its treatment of the Salvation Army. Our contemporary accuses Dunedin of being the worst among tie exceptions which prevail in certain localities It) the toleration that he asserts —whether rightly or wrongly, we do not yet say— to be general in New Zealand. And he affirms that had any dignatory of the Presbyterian Church been treatt d in the same manner as the head of the Salvationists was treated in this city the other day, the protest made against- the treatment would hare been very loud indeed. — And it cannot be denied that our contemporary has grounds for bis rebuke, although it is in some degree questionable as to whether the leaders of the Salvation Army, since they cannot have an enthusiastically favourable reception from the whole town, might not prefer an unfriendly reception that would bring them prominently into notice* and serve to keep up the excitement that seems necessary to their progress. — They may, perhaps, even think it worth while to bear a few hard knocks in order to secure such an end. Nevertheless, that Dunedin not only should not support them against violence, but •should refrain from adopting their cause zealously, seems, we must •confess, extremely inconsistent. — Where, for example, more than in Dunedin has the cry been uttered louder or more constantly for the *' open Bible," the " Unaided Word " ? And now when a body of people arrive, basing all their conduct on the openest of all open Bibles — the most independent of all unaided Words, even the " unco quid " among us seem to take it quite as a matter of course that they thould be ill-used — and, under their own immediate shadow, allow them to be held up to scorn and ridicule. But the truth is, there is not now, and never has been, such a thing as an " Open Bible," there is no such thing as an " Unaided Word," and the very people who proclaim both of these things are they who shut the Bible tightest, and demand that the_ Word shall be most dependent. — They close the Bible in with their own narrow views, and offer it for their neighbours' acceptance, so closed in, on pain of damnation.— Tbe inconsistency, therefore, that exists between the professions of the pious inhabitants of Dunedin, and the manner in which they deal with the Salvation Army is .apparent, instead of real, because their meaning for the "Open Bible" is the Bible read and understood as they themselves read and understand it, — and in no other manner under penalty of eternal death.— they are intolerant as all " Evangelical " Protestants are intolerant, and their spiritual anathema is on everyone who does not agree with them. But, as we have already said, our contemporary the Lyttelton Times\&ffivma that, with certain exceptions, " In New Zealand public opinion is, as a rule, in favour of the law of liberty of worship "—and so far as bare outward toleration and decorum are concerned, no doubt, our contemporary is correct. Here, also, however, the appearance would seem to be in some degree deceptive, for, were there a sound and true public opinion prevalent in favour of liberty of worship, we should see nothing undertaken directly or indirectly to interfere with the interests of any particular form of worship— but the members of every Church would be encouraged, or at least allowed without interference to do anything"they considered necessary for the continuance and

up-holding of their form of worship. — Yet, what do we actually see ? The great majority of the people of New Zealand, however, they may otherwise differ, united together in an attempt to stamp out the Catholic form of woiship, and in this the intolerant Dunedin is not, one whit more engaged than is the presumably tolerant Christchurch. Nay, it is less so, for no public man connected with Christchurch hat dared or desired to lift his voice in support of just ice to Catholics — and, let it be noted to the credit of Dunedin and her public men, or some of them, such is not the case with respect to the city in question. There seems, then, very little reason why a Ohriotchurch newspaper should plume itself on the greater tolerance of the people of its town— because, perhaps, they would show themselves indignant at a rough reception offered to the leaders of one religious creed, while, at the same time, they are steadily willing, and continue in cold blood, to impose pains and penalties on the adherents to another creed, who are struggling to maintain their form of worship unharmed by the Bnares that have been set for its destruction. Our contemporary the Lyttelton Times, finally, who upholds the secular system, and stands resolutely opposed to the slightest concession of justice to the Catholics of the Colony, in upbraiding Dunedin with its intolerance, because of its composure in the presence of the ill-usage given to the leaders of the Salvation Army, simply plays the part of the time-honouied, if homely, pot that called the kettle black.