SIR JULIUS AT CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 27, 30 October 1885, Page 16

SIR JULIUS AT CHRISTCHURCH.

People, before this is published, will have read Sir Julius Vooel s speech at Christchurch. It is not necessary, theretore for us to give a resume of it. This is an able speech such as might be expected from one who really deserves the name of statesman. We always entertained the opinion that bir Julius, if treated decently by Parliament, and free from charlatans in the shape of colleagues, has in him the stuff that would enable him to take the Colony out of the slough of despair and send her spinning along on the road of prosperity _ And we entertain this opinion still ; and are continued mit by this very statesmanlike speech. It appears to us that he is at present, if not the only one, at least the chief of those who, having sufficient knowledge of the political situation, has at the same time the courage and mental resources necessary at the present time. And we should regard it as little less than a calamity were anything to occur to withdraw him from the Ministry. Indeed, we think he should be Premier, and that to a great extent the whole policy of government should, in the present crisis, be shaped on his advice. Once before his policy raised up the country from very low depths indeed, and gave it such a stimulus that we now stand where fifty years of ordinary legislation and government would not have placed us. Were Parliament wise enough to give him more of its confidence, he would again, we feel convinced by his wise measures, inaugurate another series of prosperous years. We say all this because we think it; not, however without some misgiving that we may rather injure than serve bir Julius. For such is the benighted ignorance and rabid bigotry of not a few of our fellow-citizens that our favourable appreciation of any public ruan is the red rag that provokes to hostility against him. For this reason we have often abstained from giving expression to our approval of many public men whose career, nevertheless, recommended itself highly to us. But we have now come to the conclusion that it is best for us, as well as for the public, to have no further reticence as to our opinion on public matters. Experience has taught us that no prudence on our part can disarm unjust suspicions or induce certain men to think that we have not always some sinister purpose to serve. In this case, however, it ought to be apparent that we can have nothing to expect from a Ministry presided over by the genius of dulness, embodied in the assumption of philosophy

The Irish papers give us the following details concerning the religious, prayers for the repose of whose soul were offered at the Misses in St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin, last Sunday :-On August 18, the remains of Mother Mary Vincent, Ennistymon. were laid ia their last quiet home within the Convent grounds. Mother Mary Vincent was a nun whose strength of character made itself felt far and near for the good of the many, and in the higher interests of religion, during the last thirty years. She took the vows so far back as 1846, but her active life commenced when she founded the Convent of Mercy, the first of that order in Clare, at Ennis, in 1854. Beginning with very little, like the mustard seed, the eood work progressed under her energetic, yet quiet management, till she lived to see it spread literally to the very ends of the earth. She was the foundress not only of the parent house, and this flourishing offshoot at Ennis^ tymon, but of not less than eiprht others in America, ten in New South Wales, and seven in distant New Zealand. God alone knows the good wrought in the lives of thousands through the agency of this one devout soul She passed away to her reward on August 15 fortified by all the rites of that Church of which she was so devout a daughter. — R 2. p.

We clip the following from the Westport Times of the 9th inst.~ The usual monthly meeting of St. Canice's School Committee was held at the school-house on Tuesday evening Present ; Father Walshe (in the chair). Messrs. Moynihan (Hon. Sec), T. M. Easton Kelly, James, O'Shea, and Robert Carr. The minutes of the pre' vious meeting were read and confirmed, and accounts were passed for payment. It was unanimously resolved to increase Mr Began s (the Master) salary by £20 per annum. The Master's report ■bowed an average daily attendance of 100 pupils. An offer from

the Dramatic Club, through Mr. Siaaton, to give aa entertainment in aid of the Prizes Fund, was thankfully accepted. We are indebted to our contemporary the Duaedin Evening Mar for this paragraph :-'• An inquiry is taking place with reference o a rumor of certain irregulaiities arising out of the intimate association of boys and girls during Br.hool hours in the Timaru school. The Herald fears that the ' disclosures will more than bear out the worst apprehensions of alarmists ia respect to this matter ' Our contemporary says :-' From information in our own possession we are justified in speaking with some degree of confidence on the question, and we have no hesitation in affirming that very serious irregulanties, arising from the indiscriminate mixing of the sexes do occur in our public schools. Within the last week three cases' of a character we are anable to discuss in public, but suffHentlv offensive to alarm every parent interested in our local schools have been reported to us.'"— Ind these are the schools into which so determined an effort is continued to force the children of Catholic parents. Verily, Mother Jefferies has her followers in high and influential places, and under most respectable appearances Mean time, social purity meetings are held, and a great fuss is being made about beginning at the wrong end. The children are firs let go to the devil, and then an attempt is made to reform the men and women. We may remark, again, that such cases as those referred to, not entering into the statistics of colonial vice must not be taken as in any degree affecting the character of the population among whom they occur. The thunderers and penny pipers of our lyceums would never consent to consider them in their calculations, and these are the great authorities on all such matters — Figures, published figures, and those alone are what they rely upon —and without them the patriarch of the sect, Mr. Stout himself would almost reach his natural level and be nowhere at all Catholic parents will once more see the wisdom of those who have warned them against the godless schools, and will feel that they are repaid for all the sacrifices made by them in maintaining Catholic schools Th . Illustrated New Zealand News for October contains a very pretty view of Akaroa, from a photograph by Burton Brothers, the amusing Experiences of a Boundary Rider, and other interesting illustrations. B Another illustration of the devotion to the rights of the mdi. v,dual felt by our Minister of Education is furnished by the circular lately issued to the Boards of Education, and io which they are told that school districts must ere long pay a special tax for repairing or erecting such school buildings as they may need. In addition, then to the general taxation for education, which must still grow heavier every year, the Catholics of any given district may be called upon at any time to contribute handsomely towards providing accommodation for their neighbours' children, and which their own children cannot possibly make use of. Fortunately for them they do not live among a very generous or open-handed people who would be likely to desire extravagant outlays ia which they themselves must take a part-and in the meanness which has always characterised our neighbours in educational matters, we may find some hope. We see, nevertheless what we have to expect from the liberal principles encountered by our Minister in the course of his studies, and the manner in which he puts them into practice. An entertainment will be given at the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, in aid of the Christian Brothers school building fund on Wednesday next, November 4th. The performers will consist of pupils of the Brothers' school assisted by girls of St. Joseph's convent schools and the performances given by them will include Irish national music and recitations, together with the amusing farce of the " Sudden Arrival/ The occasion will be the more interesting since it is the first time that the boys have undertaken to produce a play and it is to be hoped that the friends of the school will give them all the encouragement that their enterprise deserves.— They on their part will do their very best to entertain and amuse their supporters —We need not allude to the nature of the object for which the entertainment is to be given. It is admitted to be most deserving and all will be anxious to aid in its promotion. ' The compilation made by the Boston Pilot in great part from the JVerv York Sun and other non-Catholic sources respecting the career of a miserable woman who calls herself '■ the Escaped Nun " has now been issued in pamphlet form, and should be in the possession of every Catholic, so that an exposure may be made of the charact r of those unfortunate people prostituted to the vile tastes of the lower world of Evanglic lism and Freethought. We do not suppose that any exposure will do anything towards robbing these lecturers of their audience or discrediting them in the eyes of their supporters. Toe pious world of prurience at Dundee, for example, were hardly driven from beneath the platform of Widows, the false'monk, when it was published to the world that he had betn just released from imprisonment as a foul unnatural criminal in San Francisco. And even with such a knowledge they rejected bis valued testimony reluctantly. The world of prurience and dirt, in spite of everything, must persevere in the gratification of its obscene propensities, and it will continue to, outrage decency in the name of religion, and call down

the blessing of the God of purity on the slough in which it wallows and swelters. Such lecturers as we said before, are the creation of Evangelicalism, and of that portion of the Preethinking world which, like those sections that abound in these colonies, are merely Evangelical communities grown profane and coarser in all their ways The ranting preacher stripped of his piety but preserving all his hypocrisy and vulgarity is now the type of the Freethought lecturer as we commonly see him. We must not expect, then, that any effect will be produced on the prurient world by such revelations as that we refer to, and whose contents will of course be indignantly denied by the subject of them, to whom a lying tongue must make every falsehood easy or even preferable to the truth. Tbe truth should, nevertheless, be published, and the pamphlet to which w refer deserves a wide circulation. Catholic booksellers and other 8 desiring to obtain a supply of the pamphlets will have their orders attended to by forwarding them to this office.

The usual meeting of the Dunedia Catholic Literary Society was held on the 22nd inst., when Mr. E. CNeil read a paper on •Decision of Character," which was criticised by Messrs. Dunne. Columb, Hayes, and Carolin ; and recitations were given by Messrs Pearson, Drumm, and Hayes. A debate on the « Republican and Monarchical Systems of Government" was opened by Mr. Gilfedder, on behalf of the republics, and by Mr. Dunne, on the side of the monarchies, and was then adjourned to November 6, when Messrs. Hall and Carolin will take up the discussion. It was resolved to hold the social meeting of members and friends on tbe 30th. Consequently it will come off this evening in the Christian Brothers' schoolroom. Several ladies will assist in the musical portion of the entertainment, and among the items by the members of the Society will be the reading of an original story by Mr. Haughton, and a reading by Mr. Callan.

A cobbebpondent of the Pall Mall Gazette who givea a frightful description of the cholera hospital in Madrid is another who bears testimony to the angelical devotion of the nursing Sisters. " In this ward," he says, "I had a chat with one of the Sisters, a bright, bonny, woman, whose very presence must have been of— one would think— as much efficacy as the physic. She told me that the Sisters, come from Navarre, Cataluna, and Valencia. They are ladies by birth and give their services In an ordinary hospital the duties which fall to a Sister's lot are unpleasant enough, but here one shudders to think what a lady must go through with the always dirty ignorant peasants who form the patients of a cholera hospital. All honour to these noble women who every moment place their lives in jeopardy for the benefit of their fellow-creatures ! No reward could be too great for them."— Still we see how in some instances they are rewarded, at least by tbe world of dirt, prurience, and rancour .

The first concert of the Dunedia Choral Society took place on Wednesday evening, and proved most successful. Tbe musac given was Burnett's " Paradise and the Peri," and Mendelssohn's " First Walpurgis Night "—the solo parts in the first being taken as follows :-Sopranos, Hiss Mollison. Mrs. Israel, Mrs. Hislop, and MiBS Norman ; contraltos, Mrs. Klingenfeldt and Miss Marchbanks ; tenor, Mr. Stockwdl ; basses, Mr. Forbes and Mr. H. Smith. Inthesecond piece the solos wera sung effectively by Miss Coventry and Messrs. Fraser and Jago. The chorus and orchestra also performed their parts in a very praiseworthy manner, and on the whole Mr. A. J. Barth the conductor may be congratulated on the results of his labours.

The great eveDt of the week so far as Dunedin is concerned will be the Cavalry Sports to take place at Tahuna Park on Saturday. Present appearances seem to bespeak a continuance of fine weather which is the only thing required to ensure the perfection of the day. The Bey. Father Keane's able pamphlet on Freemasonry ip now published and should be read by every one who desires to understand the subject with which it deals. We shall give a review of the publication in an early issue.

Messrs. Simon Brothers' great clearing sale of boots and shoes i is now being tald at their establishment, George street, Dunedin. ' Mr P. Bute's Southern Cross Hotel, Addington, Christchurrh is very conveniently situated on tbe Junction and in close proximity to the Canterbury sale yards, the Agricultural Society's new grounds and the Government workshops. There is first-class stabling attached to the hotel, and the accommodation generally cannot be surpassed. Mr. James Jones, High street, Timaru, has special facilities for supplying monuments, tomb-stones, and ornamental stone work of all descriptions at extremely low rates.

Mr. W. O'Shaughnessy, South Belt, Sydenham, Christchurcb, is prepared to execute in a most satisfactory manner all orders given to him for coal and firewood of every description. Mr. O'Bhaughnessy also supplies bricks, pipes, and ules at tile shortest notice. Barrett's Hotel, High and Manchester stieets, CLristchureb. will by found in every respect a most de&iiable house by visitors and residents— occupying, as it does, a most convenient and healthy situation and affording every convenience. Persons intending to visit the approaching races especially, will do well to secure accommodation there, as they will fiud it ample and comfortable.