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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 41, 3 February 1888, Page 18

The gentlemen who have inaugurated at Christchurcfc' the collection in aid of the Irish Tenants' Belief Fund have requested the Most Rev. Dr. Moran to act as Hon. Treasurer to the Fund, and his Lordship has kindly consented to do so. We hope, meantime, that the matter will be generally taken up and made a thorough success, so that the Bishop may have a goodly sum confided to him to be forwarded to its destination. The object is a most deserving one, and the need pressing. We may add that the sums sent to us during the last month or two for transmission to Dublin have been forwarded by us to His Grace Archbishop Walsh. We delayed a few weeks in uncertainty owing to the brisk working of the Coercion Act, and doubtful as to whither we should forward the money. Finding, however, that the great policy of imprisonment was being generally carried out, and showed no signs of an abatement, we resolved to apply to his Grace to perform the kindly office required, and hand the money to the responsible authorities of the League. It has, indeed, been suggested to us that our letter on arriving in Dublin might find the Archbishop also in a prisoner's cell, and we are not inclined to question the possibility of the matter. But as aa entire and violent state of confusion must be involved in such an event, we could hardly expect even here not to feel something of its effacts. We believe that, everything considered, it will be acknowledged that we have acted for the best. And now, once more, let us recommend the Irish Tenants' Relief Fund to the earnest consideration of our readers.

The Rev. Father Donnelly has been transferred from Dunedin to Oamaru, wtere he will assist the Venerable Archdeacon Coleman in tne work of the mission. Father Donnelly, during his residence of about a year and a half in Dunedin, has become very popular among the members of the Catholic congregation, and many regrets, with warm wishes for his happiness and welfare, are expressed at his departure by his numerous friends.

It is extremely creditable to the very rev. Rector and the rev. Professors of St. Patrick's College, Wellington, and speaks highly of the success of their labours, as well as for the character of their institution, that of seven students sent up by them for matriculation at the University of New Zealand, not one has failed. The names of the young gentleman who have passed are as follows : — Bernard P. M'Mahon (Ohristchurch) ; John B. Lempfert (Westport) ; Alexander M'llroy (Dunedin) ; Alfred Mally (Christchurch) ; John Sheridan (Wellington) ; William Wixcey (Wanganui) ; Thomas O'Shea (Hawera).

ISjjjjuTHE Catholic congregation of Chustchurch are to be congratulated on obtaining as principal of their boys' school the Rev. Brother Joseph, who has gained for himself so high a reputation and so much respect and regard in a Bimilar position at Napier. The school at Christchurch under the good Brother's care ia certain to make striking progress.

It has occurred to us, apropos of nothing of course, that as revolutions are not made with rosewater, neither is a national cause to be supported on pap.

His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne, who promised the Most Key. Dr. Moran a few months since that he would soon pay a visit to Dunedin, may be expected to arrive here, if we are rightly informed, in the course of the next week or two. His Grace, we understand, means to come to New Zealand from Sydney, where he haa taken part in the celebration of the Centenary.

The pupils of the Jesuit Fathers still continue to merit for th illustrious Order the reputation it has enjoyed from time immemorial as ' 4 the first and most successful of all the teaching Orders of the Church. In the recent examinations, for example, at the Melbourne University, all the pupils sent up from St. Francis Xavier's College* Kew, passed for matriculation without one failure, distinguishing themselves besides by obtaining several honours. The College occupies a beautiful and healthful situation in the suburbs of the city.

The Dunedin Irish Kifles intend to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by a concert and entertainment, to be held on Friday the eve of the feast. The programme wiil be an excellent and an attractive me, introducing much of the music, for which the children of Erin^-e famed. The company are determined to use every effort so as to make it a thorough success, and they have secured the Garrison Hall for the evening. It is to be hoped that they will meet with the hearty aMistance of every Irishman in the city, and that they will have a

large and enthusias ie audience to assist them in their celebration of the National Anniversary.

Bishop Thobnton, of Ballarat denounces the prominent part' given to the Catholic prelates in celebrating the Centenary at Sydney and declares, as we gather, that he himself would walk about in peagreen if it advanced the interests of his diocese. Well, pea-green is as good a colour any day as orange, in which the Bishop now appears, but, perhaps, on the whole, the most suitable wear for his Lordship would be the traditional motley.

A meeting o« ladies will be held at St. Joseph's Schoolroom, Dunedin, on Tuesday next, the 7th inst., at 4 p.m., to elect a committee and make other arrangements in connection with the approaching bazaar and art-union in aid of the Dominican Convent Building Fund. As the business to be transacted is of much importance, it is hoped that there will be a large attendance.

A suspicious case has occurred at Tralee where a man under police protection has been found murdered. This, «t first sight at least, has something of the aspect of the case in which Whelehan and Cullinan took so conspicuous a part a few months ago, and we shall not be surprised to find that it is of a similar nature.

The Duke of Norfolk (says Truth) is, in private life, a harmless and amiable young man ; in politics he is an absolute nonentity, only remarkable for being in the habit of sending his carriages to carry Tory electors to the poll whenever there is an election in London. He has been selected as the Envoy of Her Majesty to the Pope because he is one of the few Catholics in the British dominions who' is opposed to Home Eule in Ireland. The Pope is no longer a temporal Sovereign, and the Duke's mission can only be to be the bearer of the abject prayers of the Tory Government to His Holiness to come to their aid in Ireland, and to insist upon Cardinal Manning and the Irish hierarchy renouncing the errors of their ways. The Pope is far too well informed of the real position of affairs to be likely to comply with the Tory prayers.

In one respect (says the Pall Mall Gazette) the Presidential crisis new closed is a compliment to Ireland. A week or two ago it looked as if there would be no getting rid of M. Grevy, except by th 6 old method of street fighting. He was standing on his constitutional rights, it was said, and there would be nothing for it but aooup d'6tat. But the present leaders of the Irish people have invented a better way. The engine employed to make M. Grevy bend to the popular will was of Irish manufacture— being merely a form of boycotting, against which Constitutions are as powerless as Crimes Acts.

The Irish landlords (says the Pall Mall Budget of Dec. 15), are meeting in solemn conclave at Dublin, and declaring that they are entitled in justice to a direct pecuniary grant from the State ! Don't they wish they may get it ? Not even Mr. Goschen dare propose such a vote. Just imagine the House of Commons discussing a proposal to tax the labourers of Whitechapel and the owners of rentless land in our wheat districts in order to make a direct pecuniary grant to Lord Clanricarde I Such a proposal at such a moment is an excellent illustration of the blindness and ineptitude which have brought Irish landlordism to its present evil plight.

Pbbhaps the most outrageous arrest that has yet been made in Ireland (says Truth) is that of Mr, T. Harrington . He is Secretary of the National League, and an exceedingly able administrator. The Castle hesitates to suppress the League, for it would find it difficult to assign a plausible reason for doing so, and it, of course, has n 0 legal right to arrest its Secretary. But Mr. Harrington happens to be a part proprietor of the Kerry Sentinel, which is edited by his brother. This newspaper published an account of a meeting of the League in a proclaimed district. For this Mr. Harrington has been arrested. It would be equally absurd were every shareholder in the Freeman's Journal arrested, were that journal to Dublish an account of a National League meeting.

The address (says the Nation) which the Marquis of Ripon and other distinguished English Catholics have prepared for presentation to Monsignor Persico is a well-timed and a gratifying documentEverything points to the making of another effort at " humouring the Vatican " and inducing it to believe in the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union. The Queen's selection of representatives to present her felicitations to the Pope has fallen on members of that distinguished body. It is well that it should be unmistakably declared %^t they do not represent the English Catholic body, and the address t& Monsignor Persico makes that fact known. The address, moteover, will do much to destroy the feelings of anger and suspicion which the attitude and action of those who presumed to speak for English Catholicism had generated in Irish breasts, A frank and

!S2?i ackQO 7jfto?? Nt i8 "««*e in the opening, paragraph^ the indebtedness of English Catholics to their Irish brfeThren^lt^to them, the address declares, « under Divine Providence, that we off* the liberties we enjoy at present i q:O ur country, after; centuries <»* persecution. \ Strange as it mayseem, this, note: of thankfulness 4tr almost altogether new in the declarations, of. English Catholic feeling towards Ireland. Farther on it is affirmed that. tbeUenialrof th* national aspirations is the main cause of all the misery and .distress which is the chief material, characteristic of the country. Fjnaljfs the address repudiates the action of such English Catholics as. dto parage and censure the character and conduct of' the Irish episcopaoi and priesthood, either in speeches from English platforms or iv private representations to the Holy See. This public repudiation' makes it altogether impossible for any of the slanderous whispeabg' in which such men indulge to prevail at Rome! It will also generate a more becoming sense of fraternity between two bodies whose «h operation and sympathy could do much for interests supreme in tlie minds of both.

A notable specimen (says the Nation ot December 17)Tof the instruments upon whom our so-called rulers rely for the furtherance of their diabolical policy was brought prominently into view at Wicklow last week, in connection with the trial of the men charged with attacking Sexton's house in Clare. This is the informer Oil' 1 linane, whose coadjutor in the instigation of crime, Head-Constable* Whelehan, was killed on the occasion of the raid— a raid Which, ''& Mr. T. Healy, M.P., remarked, and no one doubted', had all the appearance of a » put up joo." The history of Oullinane's infambu career had been already made public, and he dared not deny its substantial accuracy in the witneas-box at Wicklow. He stood there a self-confessed villain, one who would some years ago in consequence of his crimes have ended his career on the gallows. Yet this feloniS found to have been a trusted agent of the Oastle. It came oat in cross-examination that for some years past he has been paid for giving private information, that he has been a welcome guest at police-barracks throughout the country, and especially in Clare, and that he received various sums of money from the police there shorfly before the perpetration of the raid in which Whelehan met his deatfc How eloquent as to the crime-creating Hgv>ne established in Ireland by the moral Unionist combination.

Newmabkbt, county Cork (says the Nation of December lH) has been selected for the honour of Mr. Balfour's freshest experiment in coercion. Five respectable men have been sentenced to a month's imprisonment on suspicion of having attended a meeting which two of Mr. Balfour's emissaries chose to Buspect was a meeting of the National League. There was simply not a particle of evidence to warrant the conviction. So far Balfour has been no gainer, for the very day after the men were sentenced in Duhallow, the gallant men of that barony gathered in thousands at Lyre, and, free from police espionage, renewed their vows of abidiDg attachment to the principles of the National League.

The men (says the Nation of December 10) arraigned at Wicklow Assizes on a charge of murdering Whelehan, the Castle outrage manufacturer, have been acquitted through want of any evidence connecting them with the death of the policeman. They are, how ever, to be tried again on the less grave counts of the indictment" It is a curious fact that it is the misconduct of a policeman, an informer, and Emergency men, that supplies the only important business to be transacted at the Leinster Winter Assizes.

The apology (says the Nation of December 10) which Mr. T Harrington, M.P., has compelled Mr. Bentinck, Whitehaven's truthful member, to make for having indulged in slander concerning him will have a beneficial effect on the mind of audiences in England. On several occasions tbis " English gentleman " solemnly asserted at public meetings that " in September of last year three Gladstonian members obtained from Mr. Harrington, secretary of the Rational League, a letter of introduction to the chief of the Moonlighters in Kerry ; that they saw him, and through his means were shown all those who were carrying out outrages at that time in the county.' This grotesquely false story was first related by Mr. Bentinck in theDecember of last year, and on four or five occasions since he repeated it, and every time with increasing success. But he told it once too often. On the 12th of last month it was trotted out once more, and brought under Mr. Harrington's notice. A retraction of the slander was forthwith demanded, and, that not having been made, Mr. Harrington commenced an action. This brought the honourable Bentinck promptly to his senses, and he tendered a full apology. Its publication has raised quite a storm about the slanderer's ears in Whitehaven, and the moral of his story and its result is well pointed by the local Gladstonian Press.

Unitebsal charity and benevolence, says Truth, were salient features in the character of the late Catholic Primate of Ireland and

Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. McGettigan. In Ulster, the supposed stronghold of religions intolerance, the two heads of the. Protestant and Catholic Churches in Ireland, lived side by side in peace and friendship,, On tbe occasion of Dr. McGettigan's funeral, last week, the Protestant Primate and Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Knor, with Dean Chad wick, walked in the procession of mourners to the grave, adjacent to the burial-ground of the poor, where, at his dying request Archbishop McGettigan was buried. Most of the leading Protestant gentry, together with all tbe Catholic gentry of the neighbourhood, were also present. A seasonable example of peace and good- will amongst all men I

With regard to the sentence on Mr. Sullivan, says Mr. Laboucbere, I think two months far two much ; but I am glad that the magistrate bad the good sense and humanity, to refuse to pass cnmnlative sentences, and to order the " criminal " to be treated as a first class misdemeanant. As for the " criminal," he is a man for whom everybody who has ever come in contact with him entertains the highest possible opinion. He has performed the part of a politician in this rongh-and -tumble world very creditably, but nc ode can have the most casual acquaintance with him without perceiving that for tbe stormy career of politics he has no natural vocation. He is by nature a literary man— a poet. If he had been an Englishman, he would probably never have mounted a platform. The system which makes " agitators," " firebrands," and " criminals " of men like T. D. Sullivan, is self-condemned.

It is a favourite phrase of the I rich landlord (says Truth") that the Irish peasant is impoverished because he is idle and dishonest No more effective repudiation could be desired than was given at the* private' view of the exhibition and' Christmas sale of Irish handwork in embroideries, laces, and home-spuns 'at the Donegal Industrial Fund, 43 Wigmore street, on Saturday. It is only four years since Mrs. Ernest Hart, finding the Gweedore peasants starving, set herself to improve their skill in spinning and weaving, and to teach them the arts of vegetable dyeing. Within that time she has developed what was a private shanty into an important public enterprise, and now the Kells embroideries, the H.H. home-spuns, and the all-wool underwear of the Fund make their own way in the wholesale markets. The Irish peasants have shown themselves " deft, skilful, laborious, and honest." Eight hundred persons now find a living in these delightful hand-wrought stuffs, amongst whom some eighty "distressed Irish ladies" are employed.