CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 27, 26 October 1888, Page 5

CHRISTCHURCH.

(From our own Correspondent.)

Christchubch, after hating outdone Wellington in the matter of earthquakes, is evidently bent upon beating Auckland's record ia regard to fires. " Alarming conflagrations " until lately were almost unknown sensations in this city. During the past few weeks this order of things has been very much reversed. The sound of the fire bell and the rattle of the engine* along the streets are becoming unpleasantly frequent. People were just beginning to recover the shock of surprise caused by seeing Hobday's corner reduced in a few minutes to a heap ot cinders, when they have been again startled by the destructive fire at Sunnyside. Hobday's fire was borne philosophically by the public, because it was a private property and was well insured. With Sunnyside, however, it is a very different matter. The Asylum was public property, and was uninsured. These facto

make its destruction everybody's business, as it will be the unfortunate taxraver who will be mulcted in the cost of repairing the damage. The papers hers generally unite in saying that somebody is to blame, though there is much general congratulation that the fire occurred in the day time. Had it taken place at night there is only too much reason to fear that the lives of many of the inmates would have been sacrificed. The female patients are all safely housed in tne Immigration Barracks at Addington, and their friends at a distance may feel quite satisfied as to their safety and comfort.

Father O'Donnel's many friends in Canterbury and elsewhere will be pleased to hear that there is a very good prospect that this very popular and energetic youog priest will soon have a habitation of his own at Darfield. Since Father O'Donnell was appointe t to tkis scattered parish he has had a great many difficulties to con'end with and a great many hardships and discomforts to end me. Not the least among these was the lack of a dwelling-place of his own. This defect the Darfield people, with admirable geoerosity, have, I believe, resolved to remove. To that end a subscription was started at Darfield a week or two ago. The readiness with which the project was taken up by the people of the district, and the amount of the donations afforded excellent testimony to the extent to which Father O'Donnell has succeeded in winning the affection of his parishioners et Darfieli. The times are bad there as elsewhere. The returning tide of prosperity has not jet bad an appreciable effect upon the pockets of Canterbury farmers, but I believe the Darfield people rose superior to waves of depression, and contributed handsomely towards the fund for the erection of Father O'Donnell's house. Actions like this on the part of the people show that the bond of union between them and their priest is perfect. Where such union exißts, devotion on ode side and liberality on the other become very easy to priest and people, and religion is sure to nourish. I am pleased to find that the Darfield people so well appreciate the blessing which they possess in having Father O'Donnell for their pastor, and I congratulate them most heartily upou the fact of his having decided to establish his headquarters in their midst.

Mr. Robert Lonargan, upon behalf of the bazaar committee, has concluded arrangements with Mr. Donnelly, for the hire of the Palace Skating Rink lor a fortnight in January. The ball has been secured upon very reasonable terms. It is just the place in which to hold a spectacular entertainment. It is large, Iwht, and airy. It in wellappointed, 19 already very popular with the public, and is most centrally situated. The prospects of the success of the bazaar, or rather the Shakespearean festival, as I believe it is proper to call it, should be materially increased by Mr. Lonargan's enterprisa in securing this palatial building. I forget if I said before that the forthcoming bazaar is to be upon a most magnificent scale and that til the stall-holders and attendants are to be arrayed in the costumj of some Shakespearean character.

Mr. R. Lonargan goes to Melbourne next week, but only fora trip. lam glad to say. He will be absent a few weeks. Apropos of Mr. Robert Lonargan, I have heard some rumotrs during the past week about the Literary Society. I have been told that Mr. Lonargan contemplates resigning his position as President of the Society. I will not at present enter fully luto this matter or cay what I might about it, beeausa it is Air. Lonaigan's especial wish that I should be charitably bilent in regard to the matter, and to certain aspects which it presents to me. TbH much I will say, that, should Mr. Lonargan inde«i resign the Presidency, it docs not require a prophet to foretell what will be the fate of the Societj-. Without its present President it would speedily drift back into the half-dead condition in which Mr. Louargan found it. Mr. Lonargau has been the back-bone of the Society. He hai kept it alive. In this opinion the Rev. Fath-r Briand coincide*. Persons wlo w^re piesent in the hall on the night cf the B shop's lecture will rencemtier the warm and well-deserved compliments which the rev. chaplain paid to Mr. Lonargan upon the management of the Society, In fact, everybody knows that only for the manner in which llr. Lonargan has continually poured his spuit iato the Society it would have ixpired long ago. aud that it would not have retained a Biogle Bpark of national feeling in it. Indeed, I have very good grounds for supposing that it has been Mr. Lonargan's efforts to keep alive in the Society some faint flame of nationality which has led to the present complication. However, as I siid, I will not now entvr into this matter, because I am in hopes that the numbers of the Society will recognise their error and will have sufficient manliness to go and apologise to their President for tbeir petty conduct. Presumably in obedience to the new departure which I befoie intimated that the Society was about to take under the literary aDd scientific renaissance instituted by the Rev. Father Briand, a dobate of a most interesting: character is to come off ia the Society's rooms ou Tuesday night next. The momentous question to be decided is, " Is it desirable thit women should be employed as journalists?" A very great friend of mine, a young Irish gentleman, who informed me of* the Fubject for discussion, has jusc told me that he means to bo present antt to take part in the debate, and to maintain the affirmative of this proposition. I hope he may be there. He is a very good speaker, and has the reputation of btin^ able to give some very hard knocks to opponents in a debate. Besides, he is always to be relied upon to uphold the honour of his country and of his countrywomen wherever and whenever ei'her is meanly assailed. But in case any accident should prevent him fiom being piesent on Tuesday night, in the interests of your readers I have obtained from him a forecast of his speech, which is eminently to the point. I feel sure, whatever may be the verdict given by the Society on Tuesday night, that after realinp my young friend's speech the verdict of your readers will be that "the ayes have it." The following is a condensation of the speech :— "Rev. Chaplain, Mr. President, and gentlemen,— ■ Woeiher or not a woman should be employed as a journalist " is a question which, I maintain, wholly depends for its solution upon the woman who is in question. If, for example, you could find a woman in Christchurch who could write better than — well, say some members of this Society, a woman who is able enough and brave enough to uphold any great cause, for instance the character and independence of that

conntry which many of us hail asour birthland-should we meanly deny to such a one the right to be employed as a jo«rnaliat f Surely not. In the darkest and most sorrowful days of our country, when famine and persecution had driven hope from Ireland, when the whole Und lay desolate, come of the true-hearted womea of Brin, by th-jir iournalistio (Sorts, did much to fan once more iato flame the embers of hooe and of national life in their suffering country. Who am >ng v«, with the memory of the stirring words of • Speranxa ' and, of • Eva ' and ' Mary 'in the Nation in their memories will find voice to sar 'no' to the proposition before us f Any man here who can utter that negative must have first unorra^efally forgotten how tench the brave sisters of oar Irish leader, Fauny aad Anna Parnell, have done in our own day by voice; and pen to set Ireland fr.e. The patriotic daughters of Ireland h^ve ever been to the front in aivaming the national movement which is now about to result in Üb3rty for oar countrymen at home, and in r rising the status of Irish people abroad. The latter, is a point of some importance to us in Chrinchurch, rev. Chaplain and Mr. Chairman. Let us remember Jwhat women bava done and suffered for our country. Let us remember tin honour which they have conferred upon it, for I maintain that the women of Ireland are among the purest and noblest of their sex. Their devoted love for their country has evei been ona of the brightest gems in that crown of virtue of which even the calumnious pen of their enemies has never been able to rob them. If in the htppier circumstances which exist in this Colony an opening exists for women, and especially for the women of Ireland, to be employed as journalists, or in the higher walks of life, let us hail with delight their ability to adopt such pursuits. Let us assist them if we c»n, let ua be proud of them, but let ua not meanly envy them, let us not basely desire to see them remain in inferior positions. Let us not forget that, owing to tha terrible injustice which was inflicted upon our couatry ia the past, many of the women of Ireland, alas, like too many of the men of Ireland, in this country and elsewhere, are even at the present day little else than bo id slaves and drudges of the hereditary enemies of our country. If in soms instances a change is coming over the scene and we find here and there a woman of our country rising superior to the legacy of the penal days, is it our place to challenge her right to do so / Let us not degrade our Society ; let us not give the lie to those who have credited Irishmen with the possession of a spirit of chivalry by saying to any of our countrywomen who may suceeel in regaining the social status of which the penal laws robbed them, go bick to drudgery, go back to the inferior station which Koglish law assigned you ; we, your countrymen, like your Stxon oppressors, hate to see you rise. I know quite well that any member of this Society, or of any society, who haa had the national spirit squeezed out of him, will not take my view of the question, but such a one I consider to be biyond hope. The opinion of a denationalised Irishman is something about which no brave and honourable Irishwoman need concern herself. She will never have such a one jostliDg or rivalling her in a journalistic career. Tnere is no fear of that. I hold, rev. chaplain, Mr. President, and gentlemen, that such a question should not have been brought up for discussion in this Society ; good taste should have excluded i. We should have remembered what Irishwomen by their pens have done for our country, and common gratitude should have chained every tongue in this room from speaking one word against tne adoption by women of the profession of journalists. Wa sh .uld have remembered the chivalry of our dujtrymen, and above all we should not have forgotten that wo are suppo-ed to be gentlemen. Wa should have remembered too, that in speaking depreciatingly of women we were insulting tha sex of the glorious patroness of the Order of which our rev. Chaplain is a member. For those over whose mmdd these considerations have no influence, prudence should have had a salutary effect which should have deterred them from entering upon this discussion. It would have been wiser and s^fer for ua to have gone on analysing time, space, the p=ychology of the soul, the laws of relativity, association of idea", the theories concerning the universalui ante rent and the universalia in re, and any other of those points with which our stupendous intellects are able to grapr le-to have stuck to abstractions, and to have let the c ncrete alone, especially the concrete in tha form of woman. Women are too Rubtle for us. Th«y are too shtrpwitted for us to hope to come off anything but second best in a discussion of thi6 kind. Some of us have found this out before: some of us are likely to find it out again. No glory will result to ua from debates of this kind. Of that, rev. Chaplain, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am firmly convinced ; and I think, upon reflection jouwill all agree with me." — I think it will be generally admitted that my young friend speaks fairly well, and that he is none the worse KB an orator, a logician, and a philosopher because Lia heart is still true to the brave dear land which all Lishmen ought to love, but which some Irishmen, I am sorry and ashamed to say, eeem disposed to forget.

On Sunday, at 11 o'clock Mass, Father Cummings preached a charity sermon on behalf of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He briefly sketched the life and work of the great St. Vincent, who to loved mankind, and concluded with an eloquent appeal to all persona to assist iD forwarding the noble work to which St. Vincent de Paul devoted his life. The appeal appeared to be fairly responded to, but, considering the excellence of the sermon and the object lor which it was given, I was sorry to see so many meant places in the church.

From Germany come tidings that Prince Lichnowsky, immediately ou his return from Rome, had audience of the Emperor, to whom he consigned tne autograph letter of the Sovereign Pontiff. It is further declared that the ecclesiastical legislation will continue to undergo modifications in a sense favourable to the Catholic Church ; likewise, it is asserted that tha late Emperor Frederick 111 , iv recognition of the part taken by Jlonsigaor Galimbeiti, Apostolic Nuncio at Vienna, in the conciliation between the Roman Curia and the German Government, has bequeathed to him, by will, artistic ai tides of considerable intrinsic value.