THE QUEEN STOWN CONTEST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 13, 18 July 1884, Page 17

THE QUEEN STOWN CONTEST.

There is a row up there in reference to the eligibility of Catholic children for scholarships provided by public funds. One of the candidates for this constituency affirmed that Catholic children were excluded from these scholarships and his assertion was denied . Reference has been made to the Secretary of the Minister of Education for information, and he

has telegraphed to say that Catholic children, are not excluded. Nothwithstanding'the assertion of Mr. Habens, we affirm that Catholic children cannot hold any scholarship provided out of public funds. Catholic children may indeed compete, and win scholarships. But after winning them, they cannot hold them unless they disobey their Church, abandon their principles, and become inmates of godless schools. This is the real state of the question.

Amosg the proposed measures of Sir George Grey, if we understand aright, there is one that we should lite to see carried. It is that journalists shall be obliged to sign their names to the articles written by them. Two at least of our would-be legislators, in the event of their being returned, will be likely to support Sir George in this matter — that is Messrs. Stout and Bracken, who have been notably made the victims of men discussing public affairs in the bitterness of their private spite — and perhaps even compromising principle in their hunger for a paltry vengeance. Whatever one may think otherwise of the men attacked from under cover in this way, it is impossibles not to feel disgusted and indignant at the dastardly conduct we allude to. The sum received in cash by the Yen. Archdeacon Coleman daring the collection in aid of the Cathedral building fund made by him in Dunedin and its neighbourhood amounts to £1020. The schools conducted by the Dominican nuns at St. Joseph's Dunedin, and St. Patrick's, South Dunedin, will re-open on Monday. The Convent Boarding and High schools will resume studies on Monday week, the 23th inst. We have received, as we are going to press, a copy of Mr. J. R. Browne's address to the Foxton electors. We regret that it has arrived too late to admit of our commenting on it at any length as it is particularly able and deserving of attention, — We hope, however, that it has produced its due effect on the people principally concerned and that they will have the good sense to return Mr. Browne, as he well deserves and their interests should prompt, at the head of the poll. The Venerable Archdeacon Coleman will visit Milton on his collecting tour on Sunday the 27th inst. Those persons in Dunedin ■who have not yet contributed, lor paid their subscriptions, are requested by the Archdeacon kindly to send in their money to His Lordship the Bishop as soon as they find it convenient. A correspondent of the Athenceum of May 31, in treating of the manuscript German Bibles in the British museum, once more contradicts the Lutheran tradition. " There were thus," he says, " in the fifteenth century in Germany at leaast four different translations of the Bible current, an additional argument against the popular superstition that the Bible was unknown in Germany in the fifteenth century, or that Luther performed a very unheard-of feat in translating it." Now that it is so common to pretend or assume that statesmen and legislators actuated by Catholic principles are the enemies of freedom and the upholders of retrogressive and illiberal measures the following testimony borne to the Government of Lord Ripon in India by a Protestant minister, and reported by the Cheltenham Examiner, is of some value :— " Speaking at a Baptist missionary meeting in Salem Chapel the Rev. W. J. Price, a returned missionary from; India, has decribed the Marquis of Ripon as an excellent, straightforward, and conscientious man. He was a God-fearing man and did not shrink f ram letting the fact be known. Some people objected to him on the ground that he was a Roman Catholic. Well, they were sorry he was a Roman Catholic. They would rather that he should be a Protestant, but they would rather h ive a good Roman Catholic than a bad Protestant i and a good Roman Catholic Lord Ripon had shown himself to be. He did not know that the viceroy sought directly to advance the interests of Roman Catholicism, but he acknowledged God and his Providence, and the speaker took it that a Governor General of this kind could only exert an influence for good upon the people of that land. And as to his government, so far as they could observe, it had been conducive to the welfare of the people. He believed that the policy of the Government was based on the principle that the people ef India were their fellow-subjects, and were eutitled therefore to equal rights with themselves. This was the only safe principle upon which they could rule in that country. A late Governor General was sent out to establish a scientific frontier. The speaker did not know whether he. succeeded but he placed restrictions on the native press. He (Mr. Price) was in the country at the time, and he well remembered the discontent which wa3 stirred up and continued until the present viceroy arrived in the country. One of his first acts was to sweep away the restrictions imposed by his predecessor, and give the people the liberty that had been taken from them. Very grateful they were for their restored rights. They met in large numbers and presented his Excellency with an address of gratitude." It is further of interest to find that the minister of a particularly narrow evangelical sect can afford to look favourably on a Catholic ruler, from a religious point of view, as being a " good Catholic "—and those worthy members of the sects who among ourselves are doing all they can to make the Catholics of

the future in New Zealand bad Catholics might well and advantageously take a hint from what he says. We found last week an example of the extravagant fables invented by Colonel Robert Ingersoll in his attack on Christianity. This week we give the following particulars of some of the evils from which Christianity delivered the world, aa they appear in a work named " Christianity Judged by its Fruits," recently published in London by the Rev. Dr. Croslegh, au Anglican writer .—•". From infancy to old age, in the highest rank as in the lowest, what we understand by security of life was a thing unknown. "The crime of infantiside has been practised all the world over. In Europe, ia Asia, in Africa, in America, in the Islands of the ocean, the new* born babe has been sacrificed either to want or luxury, or pride, or superstition. At Rome it was no uaommon practice to make a pre-nuptial agreement that boys only should be reared. The orphan was not safe from the poison of the guardian to whom his property was entrusted. The husband poisoned his wife to enjoy her dowry, the wife her husband to marry another. Under Augustus, will-hunting was an act systematically practised, and the physician was the ready and skilful poisoner. Three thousand persons were put to death in part of one season for crimes of this kind. The purple itself failed.; to protect its owner from violent death. Of the Emperors before Constantine, more than 80 per cent, were sacrificed either to -war, conspiracy, or private hate. The hideous practice of human sacrifice also demanded its yearly tithe of victims. For it was not only wild and savage barbarians who offered their lsons and their daughters to devils j it wa9 not only Druid priests and Aztec rulers who thus spilt human blood ; the practice was common to Greece and Rome. . . . The Felasgi devoted a tenth of their offspring in order to escape the ravages of famine. Aristomenes sacrificed 300 noble Spartans at the altar of Jupiter. And the Lacedaemonians offered up a like number of victims to Mars. Livy tells us that human sacrifice, though not originating with the Romans, was often practised by them under public authority. And even Augustus, in the second Triumvirate, offered 300 persons of rank to the Manes of Julius Csesar, on the ides of March. — Sueion., Oct., c. XV. ; Dion Cassius, XLVIIL, 14." A South AFRICAN pape reports the finding of the bodies of five dead natives in the same, neighbourhood between one Saturday night and Sunday morning lately. The verdict returned in the only case in "which an inquest was held was death by " drink and exposure " — the reporting newspaper, however, answering for it that a like verdict might have been pronounced on every body found. Such, then, are the glories of British civilisation. — But let us "be consoled — the superior race must vindicate its superiority, and the fittest must survive. Drink does not finish the white man off quite so quickly. The usual fortnightly meeting of the Dunedin Catholic Lltefafy Society took place on Friday. July 11, — Mr. Callan, Vice-President, in the absence of the President, occupying the chair. Mr. Callan read the concluding part of Tennyson's " Enoch Arden " in a masterly manner, and on the motion of Mr. Carolin, seconded by Mr. Dunne, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to him. The members then read part of " Henry the Fifth," which proved highly interesting. It was agreed that every member present should give an original essay, not exceeding a sheet of note paper, at next meeting. It seems well for themselves that the House of Lords have reconsidered their rejection of the Franchise Bill. To reject a measure carried by so large a majority in the House of Commons, and so anxiously watched by the country, required a degree of rashness that could not have been expected even from the fatuous Chamber in question. If persisted in, it must undoubtedly have proved the last step in determining the country to do away with the offending House, at least as it at present exists, and, no doubt, it has been the recognition of this fact that has led to the motion of Lord Wemyss. If this be, once more, foolishly and insolently rejected, we may expect a very violent agitation by which the Peers will be brought, but probably too late, to their senses. Their pretence of the redistribution of seats can deceive nobody. A liBXTEE from a respected correspondent, to be found in another column, gives us a mo3t cheering account of the progress being made in the erection of St. Patrick's College at Wellington. The people of the diocese who have so readily and handsomely contributed towards the raising up of this great institution, are warmly to be congratulated on a work that promises so splendidly for the future of the Catholic Church in New Zealand. The Most Rev. Dr. Redwood, the Marist Fathers, and the clergy of the diocese generally, have good reason to be content with the fruits of the religious spirit they have dove so much to plant and foster in the hearts of their people. Wjb record with extreme regret the death oE Mrs. Drumm, wife of our esteemed fellow-citizen Mr. John Drumm, which took place at her residence, St. Kilda, on Thursday, the 10th inst., after a few days' illness. The deceased lady has left an affectionate husband, four sons, and two surviving daughters to mourn her loss. The funeral, at which the Key. Father Burke, pastor of the district, assisted by the Yen. Archdeacon Coleman, officiated, took place on Sunday, and was one of the most largely attended ever seen in the neighbourhood of Dunedin, — the numerous ttendance testifying to

the deserved respect felt towards Mr. Drumm and his family in and around the city. — R.I.P. What can the Dunedin Evening Star mean that was wont to be the fountain of piety. — Here we find hiai publishing in his correspondence describing the South Seas what must certainly bs a shockingly calumnious account of the work of the good missionaries— that is if many other accounts were anything better than a bundle of falsehoods. Evangelical men dispnting and quarrelling, like the Rev. Baker and Moultrie, missionaries building luxurious homes, evangelical converts combining a corrupt Christianity with their heathenism — native catechists taking the lead in pagan superstitions, — and yet by-and-bye the Star will publish all kinds of enticing statements in connection with cocoanuts and mission vessels calculated to secure for the missionary-box the pennies of pious little boys and girls. Perhaps, however, it is only in the islands that Europeans visit that the labours of the holy missionaries have had such queer results. — The edifying and glorious fruits of the gospel of which we hear so much may possibly exist in those more remote places where nobody sees them. The action taken by the Governor of New South Wates (writes ' Tapley ' in the Advocate) in placing Government House at the disposal of the Archbishop of Syduey, and the offer to send h ; s private carriage to convey his Grace ta the vice-regal residence, cannot be too highly commended. The liberality shown by her Majesty's representative in the sister colony is a strong contrast to the bigotry displayed in certain high quarters in this colony. Take, as an example the shuffling over the election of the chancellor of the Melbourne University. It is stated that the claims of Dr. Brownless are to be ignored, and simply because he is a Catholic. Dr. Brownless has been vice-chancellor of the University since its establishment. I could understand the opposition to Dr. Brownkss for the office if it was contended he was nonqualified for the position. But no such plea has been put forward, nor could it, considering that Dr. Brownless has acted as Chancellor since Sir Redmond Barry's death. His claims are to be passed over simply because he is a Catholic. Pity that such a spirit should exist in the Alma Mater of Victoria, but it does. The Berlin correspondent of the Times sends to his paper the following extract from the Kreuz Zeitung :— " It is an established fact that Germans were the first to effect a settlement in Angra Pequena. If the English wanted to protest they should have done so on the spot and not afterwards. . . . That the German Empire, with which politicians in Europe have learned very well to reckon, also means something out of it— this is a fact of which they do not yet seem in London to have formed any correct idea." — The report that Germany is also about to found colonies in the Pacific islands Is suggestive that the time for the formation of the idea in question, at least among ourselves, is nearly arrived, and if those colonies be destined for the same purpose as that spoken of in connection with Angra Pequena, the idea will be no very agreeable one. — It is said, for example, that to the colony in Africa it is the intention of the German Government to transport such convicts as they havereason.to fear might prove troublesome during a revolution. — Jußt as France proposes to yet rid of her recidivists. — Oar prospects from a criminal point of view at present most idecidedly are not bright. The Rev Mr. Habens hag given an authoiitative confirmation to the statement of Mr Fergus referred to by us in our last issue, — and which we showed to be false. — It must however be kept in mind that the Rev. Mr. Habens is not only a Government official engaged in maintaining the godless schools, but also a godly evangelical man always glad of an opportunity to protest against anything "Romisb," his word, therefore, must be taken for what it is worth when he boldly proclaims the letter of the secular system as opposed to its spirit. — With the particular worth of M r. Habens's word we bavefor our own part long been acquainted. — We explained how Catholic children are practically excluded from the Civil Service examinations in our last issue — and the truth remains, arraign it who may.