AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 31, 26 November 1886, Page 1

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

In those statistical figures so frequently produced KACTB fob by the Protestant and Freethinking foes of the OEBTAIN Church, for the purpose of proving that crime and statisticians, immorality among Catholic communities are much more rife than they are in those regions where the results o the so-called Reformation obtain, there is at least one kind of|crime that we find most carefully avoided. Mere figures, neverthe less, "ove very little as to the true condition of a people, so far as they are affected by any system of religious or moral teaching to which they are submitted. Nothing can be more difficult in fact f than to compare the people of one race or country with those of another, so as to arrive at any just conclusion as to their relative vice or virtue. Different circumstances of many kinds have to be taken into account, different temperaments, different raceß, different degrees of poterty or wealth, different customs and traditions, and innumerable other considerations of one sort or another. It would for example, be manifestly absurd to compare the Corsican, in whose eyes the vendetta is a virtue and an attribute of heroism with the man belonging to any of those peoples among whose traditions no such belief exists, md no fair-minded person would enter into a calculation based 80' ely upon acts of violence done by the passionate people generally of Southern Europe as contrasted with those of which the more phlegmatic races of the North are guilty. In those countries moreover, which for long years, or for ages rather, were the scene of constant warfare, and into which the scum of Europe continually flowed, we should naturally expect to find a population more or less affected by their past. We may take Belgium as an example of this, the high criminal returns of the country being almost certainly due to Buch a cause. Wherever a people may be compared with itself, which comparison is the only approach to a fair test that can be found, the result is favourable to the effects of Catholic teaching, it W as the complaint of Luther and his confreres themselves that those parts of Germany which had abandoned their fidelity to the Church had become immoral and wicked beyond all belief. The Scotland of King i James IV. again, contrasted admirably with the same country durinothe Interregnum when vice bad reached almost incredible dimensions And in our own day the progress of irreligion goes hand in hand with the increase of vice and crime, as in France and Italy, while on the contrary, as the Catholic faith revives immorality decreases. The returns of illegitimacy for the last few years in Scotland, for example, although still far higher than is by any means creditable to the population, show a decided tendency to fall. The particular crime, however, to which we have alluded as invariably left out of calculations hostile to the Catholic Church is that of suicide, which like uncleanness, may be said with justice especially to characterise ±he Protestant peoples of Europe. — Not, that we would be understood to accuse Protestantism as a religious system of producing either suicide or ancleanness. We leave such accusations as this to those foul-mouthed libellers of the Catholic Church who seek their champions in the sewer or the bagaio, and fight their un-Christian battle with weapons of filth. We certainly know that if the religious teaching of Protestantism were faithfully followed up, the populations so acting would be moral and free from crime. All we Bay is that such teaching, not having the fulness of the Divine sanction is comparatively powerless over the masses, and leaves them in a great degree unprotected against their natural inclinations. Hence one Proteatant population is unclean, and another is addicted to Belf-murder, as the nature of the particular people inclines them But to return to the statistics of suicide ; the last returns for Germany give us the following for three Protestant and three Catholic Provinces respectively — the percentage being per 100,000 inhabitants Saxony, 35.5 ; Schleswig-Holstein, 34.7 ; Brandenburgh,32.B ; Westphalia, 12 9 ; Bhineland, 10.2; Posen, 10.1. — The contrast is very striking and presents to our anti-Catholic champions an obstacle not easily to be surmounted.— The difficulty, nevertheless, is not so great for the Freethinker as for the religious Protestant, because certain great lightaof Frcethought have glorified the suicide as a hero

whereas no man who adheres to a Christian Church can do otherwise than condemn and detest bis crime.

The Freethinkers of New York lately held a A candid Convention at Saratoga. They boasted great things reply. concerning this convention which, amoag the rest, they declared was about to determine the future religious destiny of hundreds of persons, and they invited Fathe T Lambert, author of the famous reply to Ingersoll, to be present as a disputant at their exhibition. Father Lambert, however, took quite a different view of matters. He did not look forward, he said, to any stupendous results as following from the meeting in question. They h^d nothing to say, he affirmed, which could not be learned as well from the current literature of the day, or which had not already been said hundreds of times and answered as often as it was said :—: — " When you meet," he wrote," you will under pretence of seeking the truth, repeat the laughs, jokes, derisions and smart things about Christianity that hay" been the refrain of infidels for the last century) just as a Swiss music-box repeats the tunes it has been constructed to play. And you expect Christians to go to Saratoga to listen to jour repetitions of the old objections, as if they had never been refuted— as if your convention were a congress of the world, at which the destinies of the race were to be determined once for all. The fly lon the carriage wheel said : My, what a dust we make.' One | would think that the logical outcome of ' Freethought, 1 as preached I by you and Ingersoll and seen in the anarchist riots and bloodshed ia Chicago, with seven scaffolds looming in the near future, should sober you gentlemen somewhat, and cause you to ask yourselves : — Whither are we drifting ? The only difference between you and the anarchists is that you preach and they reduce your doctrines to practice, and get their necKs into the halter for so doing ; you, under the pretext of free thought, attack the foundations of social order ; they, under the pretext of benefiting their fellow-men, attempt to abolish law and intioduce the reign of anarchy by bloodshed. They deserve more respect than you, because they are at least logical, and take the consequences of reducing your doctrines to practice while you talk, talk, talk."

The Freethinkers, moreover, told Father Lambert ON THE in their letter of invitation that their motto was contrary. " Seek your own happiness by promoting that of others." " You say your motto is 'to seek your owu bappioess by promoting that of others," he replies, " Well, in what way have Infidels or Freethinkers — they are synonymous terms — acted to promote the happiness of others 1 Have they ever established a school or an hospital, or an asylum for the aged poor, o r for the children of the dead 1 Have they ever consoled the afflicted, or wiped the sweat of anguish from the brow of misery 1 One little Sister of Charity by the unostentatious devotion of her life to the happiness of others will put to shame all the loud, pharisaical Infidels that ever lived. Ask the soldiers who were wounded or sick during the late war, who consoled them in their gloom and anguish) and they will tell you that the angels of mercy came in the form of Christian men and women. How, then, have you promoted the happiness of others ? " He then goes on to give a sketch of what Infidels did m the way of promoting the happiness of others during the only time when they had full control and could do as they pleased, that is, in France from 1793 to the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte. As we have however, frequently reviewed the period in question in our columns, it is not necessary that we should now quote Father Lambert's sketch of it. His conclusion is the following. — " Such is the way Infidels sought ' their own happiness by promoting that of olbers,' when they had the power to reduce to practice the logical result of their principles. Is this atrocious record of the only time in all history when Infidels had full swing, such as to inspire confidence in their professions, or hope in the future , if their principles should ever prevail? Ido not mean to say you and those eccentrics who will meet at Saratoga would sanction or intentionally encourage a repetition of such atrocities, but I do say most emphatically that the horrors of the French Reign of Terror were the legitimate result of the principles maintained by latter-day anti-Christians I whether called Infidels or Freethinkers."

Thb Auckland Evening Hell, a strictly non-Catholic MOBE PLAIN paper we may say. for the information of our readers, AND honest outside of NTew Zealand, in replying to a letter talk. writttr in defence of the Orangemen by a well

known local bigot, speaks, among the rest, as follows :: — •' Dr. Maunsell says, ' What we want now is protection for our present liberty of di-cussion. Which is more tolerant, the Protestant, or the Roman Catholic ?' la reply to this we would emphatically say, tbat so far as our experience ijoes in those colonies, it is the Roman Catholic. For we do not hesitate to say that if any Priest had gone about lecturing and saying about Protestant wives and daughters what that clerical ruffian Father Chiniquy said about Roman Catholics he would have been killed — and deservedly. That Father Chiniquy has been allowed to live, and that he has been neither shot nor bludgeoned to death, shows an amount of forbeaiance on the part of Roman Catbolici that under other circumstances we would have called cowardice. And as for that ' religious ' prostitute ' The Escaped Nun,' for whose libidinous nature the pure atmosphere of holy convent walls was too cold, and arounl whose skirts men gather, incited in the niai'i by the pruriency of hei alleged experiences, and the sensation of holy converse with a sanctified lustful woman, if she had her deserts for abusing the privilege of Anglo-Saxon liberty she should be liung from the window, like Jezebel at the command of Jehu, and dogs shauld eat her foul carcase. ' Let some one,' says Dr. Mauns-ill, ' whether Roman Catholic or Freethinker, start up to expose abuses in the Church of England or any other Protestant denomination, he will return to his lodgings at any hour of the night without thinking of bin? mil's'ed.' li saying so the Venerable Archdeacon shcvs the <; -ntkness and guile' lessness of his own hear', and not his knowledge of the spirit that animates bis Protest int fellow-citizens. On the other hand, from, we think, a batter acquaintance with human nature, we declare that if he eaid abjut our wives and sisters wait f ithe • Cniniquy and that she-devil, Miss O'Gorman, said, he would have been beaten, if not killed, assure as the sun shines in heaven,"

Let us illustrate (continues tne writer in the Hell). A striking The well-known J. G. Grant, of Dunedio. in his ILLUBTBATION. usual venomous way, once took on him, in his pamphlets, to call the Freethinkers of Dunedin to order. He intended to reform them as the above two apostles of Satan meant to reform the Boman Catholics, by reviling their women. He spoke about the ladies prominent at the freethought assemblies in a manner we need not de-cribe, except by saying that it was after the fashion in which reference is made by the aforesaid apostles to Roman Catholic ladies attending the Confessional. A young gentleman — connected, we may add, with one now very high in political Bphcres — felt objections to this kind of conUoversy, and took on him the duty of rebuking Mr. Grant, and interfering with his "freedom of discussion." He met Grant at the corner of a private street one evening and rebuked him. We have an idea of the manner of it, fo r Mr. Grant called on the writer immediately after to explain. His two eyes appeared to have merged in one, and his nose was hardly visible becaus-e of the swollen condition of bis cheeks and the profuse extravasation of sanguinary fluid which also streamed down bis white waistcoat and shirt-front in a manner terrific to behold: his arm hung helpless by his side as he staggered into a chair, and we could not help thinking that his " freedom of discussion "' had been very seriously inteifered with. At the Police Court the young gentleman who had interfered with " liberty of discussion " was "fined a shilling, softened by some complimentary words addressed to him by the Bench, ard outßide he was chaiied by the crowd. In our opinion this is the manner in which such " liberty of discussion " should be regulated. If we meet a man in the street and tell him that hn wife is one thing and his daughter is another, and that he is himself a liar, be knocks us down forthwith, and serves us perfectly right. And if we say the same 10 him on the platform he should do precisely the same. Freedom of discussion, which means freedom to pour out the venomous and lying bitterness of a murderous heart, is a fieedom of discussion which is not compatible with our ideas of civil liberty, and as the law is negligent in rcstiain ing it, the best way of treating it is with tho bludgeon. It is a way to be regretted, if there is any other ; but m the absence of a better it does very well. As Father Chimquy is still a living man. and the infamoua O'Gorman is still gathering in her unholy gains, we do not hesitate in saying that the Roman Catholics of the colonies have exhibited an amount of forbearance for years that Protestants would not bare shown for a day.

Father Lambert, nevertheless, need not have still THE restricted himself to the Great I evolution for an SAME. illustration of the manner in which Freethinkers act upon their motto of promoting the happiness of other people. The present French Republic, for example, so far as it is possible, follows in the path of that which first preceded it, and ; furnishes us with more than one picture of a peculiar humanity. Take for instance, the kindness that is shown tuwaids the sick who are

thrown upon the tender mercies of the State. Their happiness has been especially provided for by a fatherly GoTernment in the if moval of the nune,who devoted themselves as nurses in the hospitals of Paris' And what is the consequence ? The fair ladies of more advanced views who have replaced the Sisters, devote themselves also, but chiefly, if not altogether, to themselves. The doctors complain, and even certain of the advanced newspapers sustain the complaints. La Liberte, which is of Republican principles, and Le Ori dv Peuple whose principles are Socialist, cry out for the restoration of the nuo8 ) The lay -nurses are in some cases women of immoral life, bearing relations towards the medical students that are wholly inconsistent with their calling- They are uncleanly and dishonest, negligent, and incapable ; they manipulate the food provided for the sick so as to serve their own purposes rather than that for which it is intended ; they extort presents from the dying. Promotion of happinesses they understand it, there may, indeed, be among these hand-maids of Freetbought, but it is the happiness of anyone rather than the unfortunate patients that is promoted by them, and these are treated in a scandalous fashion. Take, again, the following instance : Itoccnrred at Figeac on the night of the Republican fete, the 14th of July. A nun lay dead in the convent of the Dames de Nevers. But what of that ? The Republic was in festivity, and death itself must yield precedencp. A ball was to be given in celebration of the feaat, and the convent possessing a hall sufficiently roomy, the authorities ordered the nuns to admit the dancers with their band. The house was an orphanage, and the orphan children were sent away to seek a night's lodging in another place, but while the community were at prayer around the dead body of their departed Sister, the sounds of riotous merry-making were loud in an adjoining room. And so did the Freethinkers of Figeac promote the happiness of others on that pleasant night. Father Lambert, then, as we said, need not have confined himself for an illustration to the Great Revolution. The epint of Freethougbt is still the same and its manifestations, although or the time necessarily less in degree, are not different in kind.

Of the moral condition of France under the fruits of vtgime of modern enlightenment as represented by godlessness. the anti-Catholic Republic, and in which we may most clearly see the results of an undiluted secularism, such as it is the object of the tools of the Secret Societies to promote among ourselves, and which they are in fact making much progress in promoting by means of their great organ the godless schools, we obtai i two striki jg views — one given us by a correspondent of the JVem York Sun, and the other taken from the Paris correspondence of the London Times. The Sun's correspondent describes the inordinate luxury of society under the Republic, and the degradation attendant on it. " The example of complete demoralisation, of foigetfulness of all dignity and reserve," be says "com<s from the higher spheres. Women bearing the oldest names of France wluse escutcheons, were on the banners of Crnsaderg (though not all of French blood, peihaps), lead the van of tbat everiucreasing army whose only aim i= pleasure. "-—He then goes on to quote several instances from the world of fashiou that illustrate hii argument, and which while they pi jvc the demoralisation of the aristocrat, seive likewise to throw doubts on the sincerity of the democrat, and to exhibit him, even under a form of government favourable to the system of equality he pretends to uphold, only anxious to gain a leading place in the higher world he has condemned, and to change places with his masters.— ''Money," continues the writer, " and consequently the Jews, who have almost the entire monopoly of wealth, reign omnipotent in France. Elsewhere their influence is felt ; there it asserts itself wita boundles3 audacity. The Bambergers, Hirshes, Rothschilds, etc., can command and possess all they desire ; they rule not only the world of finance and politics, but the world of fashion ; they aie the real makers of kings temporal and social, and none dare dispute their sway or rival it.'' His con" elusion is this : — '' Never during the period of the much-accused second empire, whose greatest crime was p rhaps to have paved the way for folly and extravagance, lias there been witnessed such subversion of all established laws of propriety, such disregard of the fitness of things, such reckless expenditure aud waste a,* in these days of the Republic. Instead of sweeping away abuses, it has intensified and magnified them ; instead of purifying and elevating French society, it has made it more corrupt, alike in its higher and lower strata ; or, to speak more correctly, all clafeses uuue aud mingle in one indiscrimiDate and colos3al orgy.''

Stjch then are the results of godlessness in life. THE LOGICAL The correspondent of the Times furnishes us with end. a picture of thorn at the hour of death — of a death, moreover, that is a fit result of such a life. Two criminals, he tells us, were executed, lately in Paris for murder — a man of 30 named Riviere, and a boy named Frey. — Riviere, in response to the chaplain who attends him to the guillotine, calls out that there is no longer a God and desires to be left in * peace. ' Hiß last words are a mewage to the President of the Republic— " Father Grtvy,"— that he

too, is a murderer. The conduct of the boy, Frey, is if possiblemoe | horrible. He roughly pushes back the Abbe Faure who attends hun. "Chaplain he says, "leave me in peace. Do not speak to me of your Bon Dieu ; I have no need of Him." Afterwards, wheu the priest mercifully tries to hide from him the execution of Riviere who is guillotined first, " Oat of the way Abbe," he cries; "there is no room for you here." And his last words are, " Good day to all." Such are the true disciples of godlessness, those in whom its teachings reach their logical conclusion, hardened ruffians to the end, going in the recklessness and brutality of unbelief before the awful Judge, without & word of sorrow or a repentant tear . But executions must fail in their deterring effect if such be the attitude of the criminal at the hour of death, and godlessness must also encourage murder by he example it thus affords.

We want to know, you kn»w. But as the matter BBTOND is altogether on the very top of the cream of the OUB reach, aristocracy, we shall probably be obliged to remain in our state of original ignorance. It is not for the likes of us to inquire into the inner doings of the quality at Wellington. But when it falls to our lot, as in the interests of justice, fair-play, and common-sense, it sometimes does, to meddle with affairs in which Captain Hume, the Inspector of Prisons, is concerned, we actually are obliged to poke our noses into the very sanctum sanctorum of the quality. The refined air of the locality however, is rather above our appreciation, ?s it might doubtless be expected, and we are unable wholly to rejoice in the savour wafted to our nostrils. Captain Hume, for reasons best known to themselves, or at least to some of them, is the pet par eacdlence of the quality at Wellington, and, although it is rumoured about that owing to certain remarks made by the gallant gentleman as to drafting the prisoners off for unknown purposes to Steward's Island, or concentrating them on the cultivation of flax at Timaru, the Premier lately expressed an opinion to the effect that the superior mind of the Inspector could hardly ever descend to the level of thieves and pickpockets, and that a trip back to the Old Country would do neither himself, his charges, nor the Colony any harm, the Captain remains as immovable as the very firmest ornamental fixture. For let us not forget that among the sweets of office are social distinctions, and even a Premier cannot afford to brave the frown of good Society. The statesman and the knight has his drawing-room aspects as well as the others belonging to his condition, and it will never do for him to compromise them . The " Gentleman of ' Position " has claims upon him that he dare not violate — and bold mnst be the personage who, in any question relating to the citil service should overlook such claims.

Political influence, however, has also a good deal ANOTHER to do with the matter, and a proof that it is so is influence. said to be furnished by the fact that at the present moment, the Minister of Justice being an Auckland man, those gaol officials who hail from the locality in question have all the chances of promotion or consideration. The leniency, in fact, lately shown to the chief warder in the Dunedin gaol, as contrasted with the condign dismissal of Warder Morrison, in con nection with the recent escape of the prisoner Fisher, is supposed to be a case in point. But the political ticket is that which, for some reason or another, seems to have prevailed during the whole term so far of Captain Hume's supervision, and a good deal of dissatisfaction has been the result in the prison-service generally. A Civil Service Board, in Bbort, like that of Victoria, is much required for New Zealand, so as to prevent the interests of Ministers and Members o 1 Parliament from clashing with the rights of officials in the employment of Government, and driving them to the bottom.

We have, however, wandered a good way from the ova question we were about to ask. Why, then, did it QUEBTION. happen that when Principal Warder MacNamara was reduced to the rank of warder on a totally inadequate complaint,— this reduction was immediately gazetted and telegraphed to all the newspapers in the Colony, whereas now when, x n Fisher's case, a warder has been dismissed, and a principal warder reduced, neither gazette nor newspaper gives the public a word of notice concerning the matter ? Did Captain Hume, indeed, in MacNamara's case, find it necessary to bolster up a frivolous charge by creating a popular prejudice against the officer dealt with ? Principal Warder MacNamara was known as one of the most efficient officers in the Colony ; and he had received rewards and special thanks for meritorious services rendered. And yet for a mere peccadillo it was thought proper to disgrace him publicly, as -well as to punish him severely, while now a really serious offence, implicating the whole discipline of the prisons, is treated with comparative consideration. — Fisher had disappeared for two hours before his FAULTY escape was discovered, and even then discovery was DISCIPLINE, the result of accident. The prisoners had left off their work when it appeared that there was a iacket «m»ng thoie belonging to them for which there wag no owner—and

thus the absence of the escapee was found oat. When the principal warder relieved Warder Morrison he neglected to see whether or not Fisher was present, and Warder Morrison relieving him in turn was guilty of a like neglect. We have already alluded to the significant fact of Warder Morrison's discharge as con trasted with the chief warder's reduction, and the probable cause of the leniency shown in the latter instance. But if it be urged that there were previous offences recorded againßt Warder Morrison does not that go to strengthen the evident appearance of faulty discipline in the prisons ? For surely an officer placed in so responsible a place should be able to show a clean record. Sereral other circumstances, moreover, point to a fanlty state of discipline. There is, for instance, the large number of discharged prisoners who are recommitted, and the facility with which, as narrated in our daily contemporaries of last week, tobacco is surreptitiously supplied to the prisoners. The large sums, in short, expended on gaol buildings since Captain Hume's arrival have been wasted so far as an improved discipline is concerned — for no such thing exists.

We are juBtified,then, in suggesting that exceptional the measures, for exceptional reasons, were taken in the answer. case of Principal Warder MacNamara, and those reasons could only have been the necessity of prejudicing the public mmd in preparation for the inquiry to be made in the case of Mr. Caldwell But as to that inquiry itself, wejhave never failed A to expose and condemn it, and time as it goes by disgraceful strengthens all that we have said. What, for peoceeding. example, has become of Captain Hume's principal witnesses ? For the most part, we believe, those Of them who were officials have since been either fined, reduced, suspended, dismissed for gross irregularities, or changed to other gaols for purposes of discipline. One of the warders who waa most prominent as a witness for the prosecution, conducted by the department of Justice before a judge belonging to itself and of its own appointment— a most "un-English" affair altogether— one of the warders is since dead, having repented of the part taken by him, and hia widow declares that he died of a broken heart from the treat> ment bestowed on him by those whom he had served. Of the prisoners examined all who were subsequently discharged have been again arrested aud convicted and are now undergoing long sentences in either this, or some one or other of the Auitralian colonies. A creditable and reliable lot of witnesses they certainly were, and quite as creditable, but no more so, was the inquiry taken as a whole, Nothing in short more grossly unfair ever disgraced the Colony.

I And, again, as to the results of the enquiry, the Brilliant final discharge of Mr. Caldwell and supreme rale results. of Captain Hume, we emphatically deny that the rhange has been for the better. The falling off in the character of the labour performed by prisoners is itself a full proof ' of this. In Mr. Caldwell's day, and under the supervision of Warder McNamara, for example. Mr. Simpson, the Harbour Board Engineer i at the time, reported that, were he a contiactor, he would be glad to secure such labour at the current rate of wages — that is 9s and 10s a day. The frequent and numerous applications for the labour, many of which were necessarily refused, were, besides, of themselves, suffii cient to show the value juatly placed upon it. But, now, what do 1 we find ? In direct contradiction to Captain Hume's report as to ' the equality that exists between free and prison labour and the abolu i tion of the Government stroke, prison labour at the Otago Heads proves so bad that the Harbour Board has notified Government that ) the services of the prisoners will be dispensed with at the end of the current month. As to that famous result of the disgraceful Caldwell enquiry, again, the trial of prisoners in open court for breaches ot the 1 prison rules and offences committed in gaol, a thing, with one partial I exception, unheard of outside New ZeaHnd, and which among the I rest, casts a slur on the integnty of the colonial magistracy, especially on any of that body who had previously filled the office of Visiting \ Justice, an illustration of its benefits was witnessed the other day, j when the prisoner Fisher, already referred to, misconducted himself infamously, and insulted the Resident Magistrate by the use of language incredibly foul, so that the gentleman in question wm obliged, in the interests of decency, to order the court to be cleared. It is plain, too. that gaol officials must be inclined to pass over many offences that if complained of would make it necessary for them to put in an appearance as witnesses at a police court. We may, therefore, understand without difficulty the frame of mind of an ] experienced prisoner, who, on being released once more the other I day, declared that he would rather do 12 months under the present | system than three months under that which obtained in Mr. Caldwell's | time. All this indeed, may be very nice bo far as concer the ' prisoners, and in accordance with the elegance of C ai

Hume's antecedents. But what effect is it likely to produce upon tbe criminal life of the Colony ? For that also is a rather important question, even for the quality at Wellington.

The cream of the jok-^ is, moreover, that while, as the cbeam OF we see, the results of the new management are TUB joke. much less satisfactory on the whole than those or the former system, the cost is largely increased. 1^ may, indeed, very fairly be questioned as to whether the centnlization now obtaining is worta the additional money expended on it. Under the old rule, for instance, the Visiting Justices would have carried out the investigatiou made in ihe case of Fisher's escape — which now, on the contrary, has necessitated the journey of the Inspector from Wellington to Dunedin and his stay in this city for several days, at a heavy expense to the tax-payers of the Colony. Is there anything to show that Captain Hume is more capable in bis arbitrary exercise of the magisterial powers tomewbat anomalously conferred upon him by the Gaols Act than are the regularly appointed magistrates of the Colony in the peiformance of their proscribed duties? Something at least theie should be to clear hon. Members from the imputation of having passed a foolish or deleterious Act by proving the benefits arising from it. The only benefit hitherto apparent, nevertheless, is that derived by a solitary official, who enjoys a snug berth at a considerable cost to the public at large, and who produces nothing worth speaking of in return. But the times are hardly such as justify the Colony in indulging a taste for expensive luxuries — even could it be shown that they were otherwise harmless.