Current Topies. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 26, 22 October 1886, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

It is interesting to find an Anglican newspaper, MELANCHOLT the publication named Church Hells— explaining BESULTB. the immorality that of late has been made so prominent in England as resulting probably in great part from the distribution of Evanglical tracts and leaflets. The result is, says our contemporary, that people gain a notion that the pardon obtained by the true believer is so completely unconditional that he may indulge himself as he pleases, and yet be quite safe in the end.— The formula, Believe and be saved, in fact, has all the effeot on the Evangelical that the indulgence, as falsely explained by anti-Catholic controversialists should have, if any such thing existed , on the Catholic. " Let any earnest-minded man only go amongst such people," says our contemporary, " and he will find them living in very unsatisfactory ways, and withal quite easy in the persuasion that through Christ all will be forgiveD." — But this is stale news to ub Catholics, whose authorised teacberß from the very first outbreak of the heresy in question have warned their people that the false doctrine of justification by faith alone must have juat such resulte.-And did not Luther himself, the great teacher of the heresy confess as much ; did he not openly acknowledge it when, for example, he called out Pecca fortiter, and gave undisguised license to bis followers ?—? — Church Bells proposes as a remedy the teaching of the Anglican Church — but, as the Anglican Church also confers the right of private interpretation, the remedy seems somewhat doubtful. — A Church that gives its members permission to search the Scriptures and determine their meaning for themselves, acts absurdly when it makes an authoritative attempt to place any particular meaning on those Scriptures, or gives any set explanation of them. It has the right only of submitting its opinions, if as a body it has any opinions, to the judgment of its members, who in turn are authorised to refer them to their own private interpretation of the Scriptures, The position is manifestly absurd, and inconsistent in the extreme.

One of the most remarkable utterances made in A PALTRY relation to the condition of the Irish tenant-farmers fkllow is that which Mr. J. C. Pounden of Ballywalter Gorey, has lately published in the Dublin Express. We all know Carleton's description of the manner in which a taste for tea developed itself among the women of the class in question and how the gratification of so criminal a thirst was carried on with much mystery. Mr Pounden is of the opinion that a taste for wholesome victuals among both men and women is of an equally criminal nature and he holds that landlords have an undeniable right to complain Decause the people refuse to starve themselves as of yore in their support. Mr Pounden remembers that fortunate time when farmers were jubilant if they found themselves able to change their ordinary breakfast of " Indian meal " for one of oaten meal, and whea a morsel of bacon on Sunday was the utmost indulgence in the matter of flesh-meat that any of their class dared aspire to. But now the golden age is forgotten : — farmers demand tea for their breakfast. Nay, they even go so far as to require that a cup of that beverage shall be served to them, from a " hot teapot," says the indignant Mr Pounden, in the fields at four o,cloek of an afternoon, and a 9 to flesh-meat they demand it for dinner on four or five daya in the week ! Is not the demoralisation of the situation apparent even to the dullest mind? But that is not all, harrowing though it be to the landlord's mind, there is something still that adds the last Btraw to his burden. The women of the farmer's family, in addition no doubt to their share in running riot in a sufficiency of plain food, have developed a taste for decent clothing. Mr. Pounden remembers the time when the produce of a single hen was> sufficient to put rags upon a woman's back, and we ourselves remember the time when eggs were sold at five for twopence, so that the description of the rags thus acquired may easily be guessed. But now, laments this Jeremiah, "it would take six hens to dresa them out.' Are not the marks of degradation, and greed, and all that is vanity, that i 8i 8 everything, says the Preacher, all too plainly manifest? Who, indeed, would not commiserate these landloids who nee the money

that should be spent on their rents expended in so reckless, dishonest, and extremely selfish a fashion ? Who can ref aee to condemn an abandoned class of people that will not continue to toil in starvation and nakedness, so that the task-masters who stand by whip-in-hand may rest in luxury and superfluity . Let there be no question as to the nature of the men who count the garments on a woman's back, and number the mouthfuls the people consume, lest any class of Irishmen—even Irish landlords — stink in the nostrils of the world with a stench that cannot be endured. Let us hope that this fellow Pounden is even among his clasß, of exceptional baseness— a snob'surpaßsing all snobdom.

Although the No- Popery cry has been made use befooled, of in the attempt to overthrow the Irish cause> and has done a good deal towards maintaining the monoply of the landlords, it must not be believed that the class referred to have any particular tenderness towards the Protestant portion of their tenantry, or the slightest desire to make concessions to them one bit more than to their Catholic neighbours. We have seen several instances of this during the agitation, and now again a case is reported in which a respectable Presbyterian family named Bingham, residing in Castlewellan, have been treated with the utmost rigour by their landlord, Lord Annesley. The family, now consisting of a widow-woman and her children, had occupied the premises from which they have been evicted for forty six years, the rent during all that time having been regularly paid, but, notwith standing, they have been ruthlessly turned out without so much as & word of explanation vouchsafed to them. The fact is, that Protestants of the lower ranks, wherever the occasion offered, have been dealt with to the full as hardly as Catholics, and if they could only open their eyes to the truth, they would perceive that as a class, they have been treated in even a more contemptuous manner, for their prejudices and passions have been worked on to make them the toola of selfish people, and to hinder their own true interests as well as those of the Catholic masses.

According to Engineering a discovery has been A sinister reported from Vladivostock which under some discovery, circumstances might seriously affect our own Colony.— Hitherto Russia had depended for her men-of-war in the Pacific on supplies of coal obtained from England and Japan, And in consequence of the failure of experiments lately made with coal obtained in Saghalien, it was believed that there was no remedy for this .—lt is now, however, reported that large deposits of petroleum have been found by which an abundance of fuel will be yielded. "Such an alteration in fuel " says Engineering" would be no revolution for the Russian Admiralty, because since 1873 the gunboats of the Caspian fleet have used nothing else but petroleum refuse, and the authorities possess types of furnaces which would give equal satisfaction in the Black Sea and Pacific. Hitherto the Rusßian Admiralty has not adopted liquid fuel in the Black Sea owing to the inadequacy of the transport arrangements between Baku and Batoum and the absence of a petroleum supply in the Far Bast. Now, how" ever, that Saghalien, which was seized from Japan solely for the sake of its coalfields, has developed a petroleum supply, the temptation will be strong on the part of Russia to rid herself of her dangeroua dependence on English and Japanese coal and rasort to liquid fuel." — It is evident, meantime, that a discovery which must strengthen in no light degree's Russian position in the Pacific is also of much interest to the Australasian Colonies.

Lord Randolph Churchill is not very happy well. in the results of his jokes so far as Mr. Gladstone answered, is concerned. — Indeed, it may be questioned as t o whether the noble Lord is to be congratulated on the unmitigated spirit of impertinence that makes him choose Mr. Gladstone for a butt. Flippancy, however, that evokes in reply grave and pregnant utterances which must arrest the attention of thoughtful men is injurious only to the party in wboae interests it is made use of. Lord Randolph, then, in an attempt to overwhelm Mr. Gladstone with brilliant satire compliments him on the cessation of crime in Ireland that is sure to follow immediately now that he has assumed the leadership of the Irish Nationalists.— Mr. Gladstone gravely replies that nothing can please him better than to have hie

share in anything tending to appease the Irish peoplejor encourage their hopes of obtaining their rights. But, adds he, •' at the same it is not in bis power or that of his fiiends, to answer for the state of Ireland as loDg as a sy&tem is continued under which they are face to face with the sad fact that, whereas law in law in England is administered in an English spirit, and in Scotland in a Scottish spirit, it is not administered in Ireland in an Irish spirit."

A correspondent of the Dublin Freeman writing A pekiodic from Liverpool mentions that the canvassers in the dkpeat. late elections were much helped in their work by the cartoons issued weekly by the national newspapers, and for which the experienced canvasser looked on the walls of any house concerning whose inmates he was doubtful — people of national leanings almost invariably pasting them up. "In this way," says the correspondent, " much preliminary inquiry and ex' planation is rendered unnecessary, and the canvasser's task is much lightened. It rarely happens that he comes across such a case as one I heard of the other day. One of the canvassers in Scotland Division, pursuing his investigations in a well-known Orange street at the north end of the town, found himself in a houße, the chief pictorial adornments of which were portraits of King William and Pope Leo XIII. Bmiling at one another from opposite walls. It appeared that the man of the house was an Orangeman, while his wife was an Irish Catholic of patriotic tendencies. She related with much emotion gome of her troubles to the canvasser. Occasionally, it seems, her husband comes home exhilarated after a lodge meeting, and them when his spirits are up, he proceeds to demolish the likeness of the Pope. To this practical exposition of Orange principles, his wife retaliates by putting the portrait of his late lamented Orange Majesty in the pawnshop, and purchasing another picture of the Pope with the proceeds. She feels quite safe in so doing, for, as she herself says, her husband would rather go without bis Sunday dinner than see King William missing, and before the week is over the latter is rescued from durance vile and replaced in his former position. 1 ' She evidently has him there. But is not this a case in which an Orangeman may be honoured for taking his defeat with meekness 7

The Rev. Canon Mac Coll writing in the Pall Mai ' A contrast Gazette contrasts in a very striking manner the conduct of the Oiangemen with that of the Catholics :—": — " Your readers," he says, for example, " will remember the tragic episode of the old man Walker and his son who were rushing with loaded revolvers towards some Roman Catholics, and who shot down a soldier and a policeman who barred their way. An Orangeman, when his blood is up, is like a mad Malay running amuck." But the Orangeman's blood is up only in the hour of victory ; in the hour of defeat he is meek although sullen, as in the case of the disestablishment of the " garrison church." '• Compare the conduct of Protestant Belfast in the hour of its tiiutnph," says the writer, '• with tue conduct of Roman Catholic Dublin in the hour of its defeat. I have already remaiked on the singularly good-humoured and orderly behaviour of the vast crowd, gathered from distant part 8 of the countiy as well as from Dublin, wtiich assembled to do honour to the representative of the Queen. There were serious misgivings among some officials and some Protestants as to what that crowdmostly Roman Catholics— might do before it disappeared. The Protestants of Dublin are a very much smaller minority than the Roman Catholics of Belfast, and there was considerable uneasiness among them lest the multitude which filled the streets should aveng c in Dublin the persecution of their brethren in Belfast. I did not witness the close of the demonstration, for I left Ireland that evening ; but from all accounts the crowd dispersed quietly to their homes after bidding good-bye to the Viceroy. Not a single Protestant was molested, and not a single police case, as far as 1 can gather arose out of the demonstration. Yet tha multitude who formed that Bplendid spectacle were cndunug a very keen disappointment. They had expected that Home Rule would have tiiumphed at the polls, and were beginning in many places to make preparations for a native Parliament. But never did a disappointed people exhibit more admirable self-restraint and good feeling." The only adverse explanation that can be given of this, says Canon Mac Coll, is the assertion that the National League controlled the crowd. " There are some things which cannot be done to order," he replies, " and one of these is the good conduct of a hu fa c crowd gathered promiscuously on very shoit notice." But even had the National League controlled the crowu. we may add toi our owu part, their conduct would ha\. contiasteu buihciently with that of the Orange leaders to show how much more reliance might be placed upon them, as desirous of sustaining the cause of 1r .\\ and ordei.

bi'KAKING at Hlough thoothei day, the ltev. Father THE SPREAD OK Clement, founder and rector of the mission, gave CATHOLICISM, some verj interesting details concerning the condition of Catholic education in Great Britain, — and ttie spread of Catholicism generally : " The number of Catholic.

schools, "he said," is every year increasing ; last year there was an increase of twenty-nine departments. The total number of children on the Catholic school registers for the whole of Bngland, Wales, and Scotland is at present 236, 176. The annual grant in the year 1885 to Church of England Schools was 16s 6Jd per head, and to Catholic schools 17s lfd, according to examinations. The conclusion to be drawn from this ie, that the Catholic schools are more and more sought after every day, and that they hold an honorable place in England as elsewhere." — As to the increase of Catholicism, he continued, it was most remarkable. — " In 1833 there were in England 423 Catholic churches and no schools, whilst now there are 1,560 churches, and a great number of schools and colleges and other Catholic Institutions. The number of Catholic members of Parliament has, during the last election, reached 82 ; that is to iay, five more than the proceeding years, In short, in England and Scotland there are at present over 1,700,000 Catholics besides the thousands in England's numerous Colonies." — Like marks of progress moreover are to be seen in every part of the world." "In Africa, where, in 1822, there was not a bishop, and but a few priests, there are now several bishops, a Cardinal Archbishop, and several millions of Catholics. In the same year, Asia had but 12 bishops, whilst now it possesses 26 with 50 apostolic prefects, and over 10 millions of Catholics. North America, in 1822, contained 9 dioceses with about 12 priests in each ; last year the number of dioceses there waß 77 with 7,U00 priests, and over 8 millions of Catholics, besides the 28 millions of Catbolicß of South America. Lastly, in Australia and Polynesia in 1822, Catholicism was in a most backward condition ; at present there are 22 Episcopal Sees, and 700,000 Catholics. In a word the number of Catholics in Europe is no less than 153,837,535 out of 300 millions, which constitute the population of that continent, that is to say, the half of the whole population of Europe is Roman Catholici and in 1875 we numbered throughont the world over 200 millions according to Gotha's Diplomatic Almanac, and the whole divided into 1,159 dioceses."

It may be of interest to our readers (says the fbuits of Bombay Catholic Examiner}, to mention the result SECULabism. of recent inquiries into the effects which have been already produced by the system of irreligious education which was some years ago introduced into France. In the year 1870, before laicisation had come into fashion, the number of persons under 16 years of age who were convicted of criminal offences in the French capital was 2658, while of those between 16 and 21 years of age the number amounted to 6982. In the year 1885, when the lacisation of the schools had been allowed time to show what results it was capable of producing, these numbers had risen respectively to 6587 and 23,319. It is thus plainly evident that crime increases in proportion to the progress made by godless education, and that a system of training which is purely secular and dispenses with the restraints upon the passions which religious education provides is far from being condutive to public morality and public tranquillity. Even infidel writers have begun to recognise this fact, and so unprejudiced an authority as the Crl dv Peuple is loud in its condemn ation of an educational system which teaches that " there is nothing after death," and that the whole duty of man consists not in serving God but in seeking by all possible means to procure the gratification of his passions.

Mb. Matthew Aknold, who caunot be suspected valuable as a partisan of denominationalism, and who, testimony, indeed, does not enter directly into the subject of religious education, nevertheless, in his report to the Education Department on Continental schools gives us a passage or two in which he plainly acknowledges the benefit of religious teaching.—" No one will deny," he says, " that leligion can touch the sources of thought, feeling, and life, and 1 had not been prepared for the seriousness with which religious instruction is given io Germany -even in Protestant Germany-and for the effect which it produces. No one could watch the faces of the children, of the girls particularly, without feeling that something in their nature responded to what they were repeating, and was moved by it." — Of the French schools he says, on the other hand, and the contrast is worth noticing. — " All direct religious instruction, Catholic or Protestant, is entirely banished from them, and the novel and civic instruction which is the substitute seemed to me, so far as I could judge from the manual o f it which I perused, and from the lessons in it which I heard of little o r no value. What I heard was in general decorous and dull ; the mosts t effective thing I heard owed its effectiveness, perhaps, chiefly to the shock of surprise which it occasioned."

The Archbishop of Dublin in his interview with ARCHBISHOP Mr. T. P. Gill, M.P., also expressed himself aa WALSH on the strongly in favour of that form of land-tenure land known as the nationalisation of the land, but question. explaining that he favoured the views of Mr. Davitt on the matter rather than those of Mr. George, and held that the change should be effected only on the basil

of fair compensation to the owners or actual holders of the land. His Grace refused to receive as absolutely final any other system, but admitted that that referred to was not as yet a question of practical politics. The paricular point under discussion, meantime, was as to the terms on which purcha&es should be made under the Land Purchase Act — commonly known as Lord Ashbourne's Act, and passed by the Tories when last in office and by which they pledged the credit of the British tax-payer to the extent of five millions for the purpose of buying out the Irish landlords. His Grace says that the difficulty to be overcome with respect to taking avantage of this Act is that of fixing the yearly value of what the landlord has to sell, and the tenant desires to buy. His plan being to knock off the landlord's half of the poor rates and all the other charges on landed -property for which, since the landlord is getting rid of them, the tenant has no right to pay. His Grace gives as an illustration a case in which he himself acted as the seller, and in which it was found, when his plan was acted upon, that the 14 or 15 years' purchase offered by the tenant amounted to more than the 20 years' purchase demanded by the landlord. The Archbishop thinks that, if landlords and tenants would meet and discuss the matter on the lines he proposes, the Irish land difficulty in its present phase would soon be disposed of.

The Archbishop of Dublin in, the interview already A REASONABLE referred to, also dealt with the question of the exscheme, elusion of the Irish members from Westminster. His Grace asserted that the opposition made on that account was a mere pretence, and that had the Bill proposed to retain the Irish members, it would have been opposed on that score instead. He referred his interviewer to the article by Dr. Dale of Birmingham in the Contemporary Review for June, which he said represented his opinions very fairly. " Dr. Dale," he said, '• to begin takes Mr. Gladstone's Bill as his starting point. He seems to accept loyally and unreservedly all the provisions of that bill, setting up the statutory Parliament in Dublin, and fixing the extent of its legislative and administrative powers. This, then, being so, he would set up in London a corresponding Statutory Parliament with corresponding powers for the local affairs of Great Britain, leaving it, of course, an open question, as in such a scheme it would manifestly bei bat a mere question of detail whether there should be but one such Statutory Parliament for the local affairs of the whole of Great Britain, including England, Scotland, and Wales, or two, or even three, such statutory Parliaments, as the people of England, Scotland, and Wales might themselves deem most advisable." The only change to take place as regards the Imperial Parliament would be that of confining its sphere of action to Imperial affairs, and British members would control the affairs of Greit Britain, and Irish members those of Ireland. The scheme, however, could not justly be described as Federation, which is the combination for certain purposes of States previously independent into a union having a central authority The central authority, on the contrary, already exists in the Parliament at Westminster, and the question is as to the delegation or devolution of the exercise of a certain portion of its authority An additional advantage mentioned incidentally by Dr. Dale would b e that the House of Lords would thus in a moßt peaceable way lose their power over the domestic affairs of Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone's scheme, meantime, says the Archbishop, is the only possible basis of the settlement to be made. •' Whatever else may now be secured for us in addition to what Mr. Gladstone proposed, will be so much gained by the delay. But Mr. Gladstone's bill henceforth marks the minimum, ' the low water mark,' to use a phrase once effectively used by Mr. Parnell, of the Irish National demand."

The Archbishop of Dublin, in concluding hisintersettled once view with Mr. Gill, replied as follows to the fob all. question as to whether the constitutional character of the Irish movement was now thoroughly underBtood in Rome :—": — " It is. And I may mention to you in illustration — not to touch upon other matters of which I have intimate personal knowledge, but on which I do not feel myself quite at liberty to speak very explicitly on such an occasion as this — you have only to read from day to day the sympathetic comments of such organs of ecclesiastical opinion as the Monitevr de Home and the Osservatore Rovmiw to see that in the very highest quarters our cause is safe. But, take my word for it, that victory has not been won without a long struggle. We have with us now the sympathy of all those on whose sympathy we should set the highest store. And let this be my last word to you — it is in our hands to keep that sympathy with us to the end." — His Grace added that the way to do so was by keeping steadfastly to the present lines. '• Nothing," if we are only true to ourselves, can dislodge us from them. And while we stand upon them the Irish cause is safe."

The nature of the opposition given by the OrangeWHOLLY men to the national cause is well described by a UNNATURAL, certain Frenchman whose Buggestive sentence a correspondent of the Dublin Nation reports to us, — " Now, I undeistand," said this Monsieur, "It ie as if all tht

Protestants in the town of Tulle (where they are moat numerous) were Germans and not good Frenchmen, aa they are."— That precisely hits the nail on the head. It is not attachment to their religion, or fear for its interests, but their innate hostility to their native land that excites these people. They are in spirit the foreign enemies of their fatherland, men of another nation, of another century, and altogether monstrous and phenomenal.

It would appear that Lord Randolph Churchill A gentle occasionally finds opportunities for the lawful use bemonstbance of the sharp tongue with which nature has gifted him, but which he does not always wag in a becoming manner, His Lordship has evidently given a well-deserved reply to certain Scotch bigots, who protested against the appointment as Home Secretary of Mr. Henry Matthews on the grounds of that gentleman's being a Roman Catholic— We have not had the advantage of seeing the protest, but the answer to Lord Randolph's reply penned by a godly man called the Rev. Jemea Patten, is enough o' show us what its character must have been, as well aa to prove the fitness of the Rev. James and his comrades to pass a sinister judgment on the decency of any man's manners. The gentle Christian speaks as follows :—": — " You have penned an insolent reply to a respectable public document. Although you are now a Cabinet Minister, we observe with astonishment and regret that you have not laid aside those weapons of abuse with which you tomahawked your way to power. It is a national calamity when men pitchforked into high positions are destitute of decent manners." Bat is it not well for the public generally that the Rev. James himself remains beneath the prod of the pitchfork ? Hie manners likewise are some what doubtful.

Accobding to a writer in the Figaro the designs busbian of Russia with regard to Turkey have a very importdesigns ant significance for England :— " There is en the part of the Czar " he says, " the manifest intention of separating Austria, not from the German alliance, but from that coalition that England organises whenever the eyes of Russia turn towards the East. The rivalry between the two nations, which para. lyses both, will subsist until a settlement for the domination has been fixed by them. If Turkey refuses or hesitates too long to accept, with regard to Russia, the situation of Austria towards Germany, her end is certain. The two Emperors of the East agreeing one day not to take Turkey but to make the Sultan vassal of a Power she can no longer resist. That day the Czar, tranquil in the possession of the Dardanelles, will fear no coalition, and will then open the great game against England, which will cause the dismemberment of that Power in a colonial point of view. All this was foreseen, weighed, and judged at Gastein, and Germany offered no objection." The policy of England towards Turkey , moreover, has of late years been such as might incline her to save herself from complete destruction by Bubmission to the suzerainty of the Czar. England having first taken possession of Cyprus, has now to all intents and purposes annexed Egypt, and intentions on her part of further annexation are rumoured in the Continental Press, by which also it is cynically remarked that Bhe aims at the preservation of the Turkish empire by making her

wn of it piecemeal. We can understand, then, what may have been the reasons for the comparative equanimity with which it was lately rumoured that the Sultan was disposed to look upon the threats of Russian aggression, and, on the whole, there are not wanting tokens or suggestions that this far from pleasing forecast of the writer in the Figaro may be tolerably well grounded.

A pabagraph has been published among the news as usual ? received by the San Francisco Mail giving an account of riots which again took place in Belfast on September the 19th and 20th, and which in substance accuses the Catholics of the town in question of having been the agressors; A like attempt, however, had already been made to place the blame of the riots that had previously occurred on the wrong shoulders, and we may conclude that in this instance to which we refer also the Orangemen as usual began the fight. Nothwithstanding the efforts made to shield them and to deceive the public in this matter the truth has been fully made known, and there are many newspapers in England to whom the Irish people are indebted for their impartial and upright action in this matter. Let us take, for example, the following from the Pall Mall Gazette :—": — " As so many references have been made to the Belfast riots of 1864 and 1872 during the last few days, it may not be amiss to turn back to the records of those two years. How were the passions of 1864 and 1872 stirred up ? By projected surrenders to Separatists ? No more than the riots of 1886. One is at once struck by the fact that in all three cases the initiative has been taken by the Orange mob. In 1886 the disturbances began with an attack upon a handful of Catholic navvies by a large and powerful body of Protestant shipbuilders. In 1872 the Orangemen attacked a procession of Catholics on their way home from a meeting, in 1864 they had their origin in the ceremonial of inaugurating a monument to O'Connell in Dublin, This ceremony, in which over 50,000 peopla

took part, passed off in Dublin with remarkable quiet. No one ever thought of a disturbance ; there never was any fear of riot ; in the evening thej even had a great banquet, and the people went quietly to bed. That was in Dublin. But the zealous Protestant rioters away in Belfast could not rest. It was iron to their souls to hear of this peaceful and rather dull demonstration to the memory of the great Irish patriot pass into history as successful. No. The Belfast Protestant had his riotous character to sustain, and his bitter sectarian prejudices to satisfy, so while the Catholics in Dublin were feasting, the Protestants in Belfast were preparing to burn the effigy of O'Connell. ' Let us have a counter-demonstration,' they said to each other. Hence all the mischief and the bloodshed that ensued." In 1872, the Orangemen not only began the riots, by making an unprovoked and savage attack upon a peaceable Catholic procession, but, after the Catholics had withdrawn from the fight and refused to meet them again, they attacked their shops and public houses, as they also did this year, added to their fury by drinking to excess of the liquor they had carried off. We have ample grounds then for our suggestion that the Catholics have been unfairly accused of beginning the riots of September 19 and 20.

We do not know any reason why he who laughs SARDONIC should not also say what ia true — according to the LAUGHTER, question asked by an old writer. We do know that when people, with a cynical guffaw, make a promise which they have no intention of kee ping, they say what is not true, There is our friend " Puff "of the " Cigarettes " fo r example — who promised the other day in a mostfeßtive and giggling fashion that he would drop a line to us fellows down here at the Tablet Office and get us to put the thing in shape for him, when next he was about to discuss Irish affairs. — We are sorry to think that " Puff " must now have a blister on his tongue, for, in spite of his promise, be has since discussed a whole chapter of Irish affiirs without getting us, or any one else perhaps except Mr. Froude, to put the thing in shape for him.— But our hilarious friend does not need anyone to perform such an office for him. — The map of Irish affair g lies open to his view, and there's not a Pat in the whole conntry whom he cannot instruct as to the very lining of his heart giving him a perfect and unprejudiced interpretation of his feelings. He is the boy to guess eggs, as the saying is, if he only sees the shells— and he need but hear of that scheme of provincial Government to know the whole ins and outs of the matter in the twinkle of a shillelagh. — Toe Parnellita press argue indeed,— ccck them up with argument.—" Puff " who laughs with the right side of his mouth only — and wants them to laugh only with the wrong one of theirs— knows that there has never been a line of argument in any of their paper 3. — Ridicule he knows, in all cases excludes argument, and the laughing philosopher is a very sorry fellow — as indeed, for our own part, with the evidence before us, we must admit him in some instances to be. — But even to please our " Puff," as his omniscience and completely unprejudiced penetration should teach him, there has been laughter enough on the wrong side of the mouth in Ireland, and very melancholy music it is — a matter mostly of wailing, and groans, and the cries of the faminestricken and dying. — It may be heard there even at thi g moment, — some poor woman is crying most likely at thi s very moment by tie side of her ruined cabin, and among her little helpless, hungry children — some old bed-ridden creature is calling on God for the mercy that my Lord Clanricarde, my Lord Ely, or my Lord Sligo, or some other of them refuses to him — and myJLords are they who represent the " great bulk of the Irish population" for our " Puff.'" My Lords have caused much laughter on the wrong side of the mouth in Ireland, and, should the Parnellite Press be obliged, as our " Puff " would have them, to laugh in such a fashion, laughter of the kind must long continue throughout the land. We have, nevertheless, to thank our " Puff 'i lor a suggestion. He ascribes the arrest of the " Moonlighters,' 1 whom he slyly associates with the Parnellites— for our " Puff," sir, like Joey 8., is devilish sly, though, let us hope, he is not tough as well — to the change of Government — and perhaps without seeing the shells this time he has arrived at guessing the eggs. Thos c unargumentative Parnellite organs, at least, made of late frequent inquiry as to why the police were so dilatory and unsuccessful in dealing with the Moonlighters, and in their poor, foolishi illogical, way gave us to understand that there was some reason why permanent officials were not anxious that Captain Moonlight should be interfered with. The advent of the Tories to power has probably changed all this, and removed the impediments that existed. But the " great bulk of the population \ can hardly be accredited with the altered condition of things — that, is, the bulk of the population not represented by my Lords. My Lords themselves, and the system that supports them, have probably a great deal to say to it. We do not, meantime, venture to put the thing in shape for our " Puff." We have no pretensions to enter into' competition with Mr. Froude, who, of course, whatever he may be detected in doing with respect to New Zealand, so far as Ireland is concerned, is to be held a most reliable authority, and one to follow

whose inspiration need not shame his severest castigator. Still scandalous misrepresentation and calumny can hardly be carried off with a laugh, even on the right side of the mouth.

There is no doctrine, however evil, we are told, more is the which cannot be approved by a text. There is pity. no utterance so palpably gross as not to find some one to defend it. There was Mr. Wakefield, for example, the other day, who took Mr. Froude's " Oceana " all to pieces and gave the renowned author a castigation which, as it seemed to us, he richly deserved. But, here again, is Mr. B. R. Wise who writes in Macmillan" s Magazine for August, and, so far as he is can, undoes all that Mr. Wakefield has done in the Nineteenth Century . "It is impossible," says he, " for an Australian to lay down ' Oceana ' without a sense of pleasure and pride. It is the best book upon Australia which has yet been given to English readers, and this for a reason which must excite the special gratitude of Australians. — But, Mr. Wakefield, as a veteran journalist, must know that those who pretend to literary talents may in some degree dispute with the fair sex the privilege of being " kittle cattle," and, perhaps, he himself can hardly be acquitted of having hia share in that unredeemable quality which our Yankee friends call " cussedness." — If rumour speak the truth there is a subject or two in dealing with which he shows himself so gifted in a very remarkable manner, and little else than that.