MR. PARNELL AND HIS MOTHER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 46, 7 March 1890, Page 19

MR. PARNELL AND HIS MOTHER.

Mb. John Ferguson, of the well-known Glasgow publishing hoaso of Cameron and Ferguson, writes as follows to several English and Irish journals :

" Though Mr. Parnell will not probably condescend to no' ice the public discussion of his mother 'a private afiairs, yet his friends a^e not bound by the same feelings that direct his actions to permit unchallenged reflections upon him for neglect of filial doty.

"Upon one occasion I hai organised a most important meeting for him. He wired the committee in the morning from a station 200 miles off that he could not attend. A good deal of ill feeling wr 3 created, and I wired the necessity of his keeping faith with th« public. He replied, ' Keep the meeting going till eleven o'clock.' It was to begin at eight o'clock. At eleven p m., Mr. Parnell arrived and delivered the address as announced. Now, what happened was this :— A telegram from America the night before obliged him to rush off at 5 a.m. to Dublin, where he arrived at 11 15 a.m. In an hour he hid arranged £3,000 by wire to America to save hia mother's credit. He then caught a train and arrived at the meeting near midnight. Ha told me of his mother's affairs privately — how she was a very able speculator in stocks, often won, and conseqaeatly wps often lured on too far. Ido not know bow often Mr. Parnell may have aided ner.but before p ople get up a cry about hia ' want of feeling,' let them ponder the little incident I relate. It is likely Mr. Parnell won't thank me fur telling this, but I don't much mind that. I consider it a duty to him to let this act be made known, and, what is much more important, it is a duty to the noble and all-conquering cause of which Charles Stewart Parnell is the honoured leader."

A national convention of Catholic schools is to be held ia Washington.

The Capuchin missionaries at Assab Bay are founding a Christian colony for liberated slaves on land granted for the purpose by the Italian Government.

Bißhop Qrandin, of St. Albert, in the Northwest Territories, has sent a letter to Cardinal Taschereau, in which he declares that an effort is being made to drive the Catholics from the Northwest.

In Madagascar, the Vicar-Apoatolic reports that there were 1,649 baptisms of adults, 4,229 baptisms of children, and 46,111 communions during 1888. The number of children attending the Catholic schools is 15,819. In all Madagascar there are 28,571 Catholics and 80,563 catechumens.

The London Dockers have resolved to express their gratitude for Cardinal Manning's interfereuce on their behalf by subscribing to hi 9 Silver Jubilee Fund.

Joseph Brentano, the architect who obtained the first prize in the international competition for the reconstruction of the facade of the Cathedral of Milan, died there a few days. He was only 27 years of age. " Workingmen and employers together proclaim Leo XIII. the father of the workingmen, the defender of the weak, and the pacificator of the people." Such was the expressive telegram sent the other day to the Holy Father by Mes3rs. Harmel, who were at the head of the recent French pilgrimage to the Eternal City.

In reply to an address from the Catholic citizens of Ottawa in favour of the restoration of the temporal power, the Holy Father baa forwarded to Archbishop Duhamel a letter of thanks, in which he says : " Most gladly do We perceive the resolutions from Ottawa concurring with others throughout the Catholic world in gravely condemning the unhappy and undoubtedly intolerable condition of tne Holy See and the Church itself." The Rev. H. B. Chapman, Vicar of St. Luke's, Camberwell, writes : " I have been asked to refute certain libeJs on the character of the late Father Damien, published in some obscure party journal, but my only answer is a reference to his life and a respectful suggestion that his detractors might do well to imitate the same."

Mr. Stead's editorship of the Pall Mall Gazette came to a close on Tuesday. Tb.p staff of the paper are going to present Mrs. Stead with a portrait of her husband, painted by Mr. Thaddeus, the wellknown painter of the popular portrait of Leo XIII. Mr. Thaddeus, despite his foreign sounding name is a Corkman, and a pupil of the local school of art. Although an Irishman and portrait painter to the Pope, he is not a Catholic. At a recent meeting of a " souper " association, known as the " Bib c and Colportage Society of Ireland," held in Hanbridge, the Rev. C. T. P. Grierson, rector of Seapatrick, indulged his listeneia with a fable about certain proceedings which, he said.Jhad occurred in New Ro?s. According to this credible chronicler, the people of the thriving Wexford town had been presented by a benevolent lady with a public fountain in the form of a cross, on which was engraved the text, ' Whosoever drinketb. of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." The people were so taken with the inscription, that the local booksellers were obliged to import large numbers of the Douay Bible from Dublin— they, as Catholic*, of course, having never before had an opportunity of reading a verse from Scripture! However, this didn't puit the lncal Catholic clergy, and a ma. an was, therefore, engaged to obliterate 'he text, " for fear the word of God should contaminate the minds of the people '' I It is scarcely necessary to say the stnry was an absolute and brazenfaced falsehood, and the Town Commissioner'! have properly and promptly branded it as such. Their resoluti m declares : " The truth or falsehood of the statement made by Mr. Grierson can be tested by anyone. The fountain is standing as it stood on the da" of its erection. It is not in the shape of a cross, and the inscriptions remain as they were from the first." If Mr. Grierson confined his attentions to the doings of the Vandals who were fined in Ballyshannon last week fu- c'efacing the cross erected to the memory of District-Inspector Martin he would surely find sufficient exercise for his zeal, without going about the country vilifying those with whom he can have no concern. — Liverpool Catholic limes.