Colonial Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 13, 25 July 1890, Page 2

Colonial Notes.

The funeral of the late Very Rev. Dr. McDonald took place on Friday, the 11th inst. The body was brought from Hokianga to Auckland, and, after the celebration of a Pontifical High Mass of Requiem in St. Mary 'a Cathedral, was taken for interment to Panmare.

Colonel Hume's report on the Volunteer officers of the colony deals rather severely with the gentlemen in question. They are described, in effect, as fulfilling their duties nervously, and failing to maintain discipline through a fear of giving offence. The position, however, is a difficult one, and men of more than usual moral courage are needed to fill it. It is, nevertheless, imperative for the efficiency of the force that it should be properly filled. Colonel Hume's recommendation that the force should be commanded by an officer of the Imperial army, periodically relieved, so that it might be kept abreast with the military improvements of the day, strikes us as a particularly wise one.

When will our Change friends become sufficiently civilised to take example by the better manners of the times. The United States, for instance, have obliterated all bitterness arising from their civil war by refraining from insulting commemorations, and showing instead moderation and sympathy towards the party defeated. Our Orange friends, on the contrary, year after year, take the opportunity, recalling the memory of a victory gained as a matter of course by tbe greatest captain of his day, aided by the most powerful artillery, over inferior forces and an inferior armament, commanded by an alien poltroon, to warn their Catholic neighbours that all they need to clutch their throats and straDgle them, in all the murderous spirit of the past, is that the arm of the law should loose its control over them. Such conduct, we say, is un-Ohristian and uncivilised. Commemorations, then, of the glorious Twelfth have been made as usual in various parts of New Zealand. That at Napier may be taken as a fair sample. The chairman, a reverend man named J. C. Eccles, in the course of a speech worthy of the occasion made by him, Bpoke, for instance, as follows. Alluding to the late visit to the city of Mr. John Dillon, he said : " The day he would shake hands with John Dillon or any of bis infernal crew he would like his right hand burned in the fire." — The rev. speaker also said that because of his refusal to shake bands with Mr. Dillon a certain " Catholic celebrity of Waipawa " called him a " hound." For our own part, we do not know how a hound under the circumstances yelps, but the utterances of the rev. gentleman fare undoubtedly suggestive. —What, however, is surprising ib to find that clergymen of the Church of England take part in sucb demonstrations. Dean Hovell, for instance, who was present on the occasion, is evidently a Church of England minister. Doeß Dr. Jessopp, for example, explain tbe matter to us 1 Ia his recently-publisbed book, " The Trials of a Country Parson," he writes thus: " Ibere has been a large incursion of young men into tbe ministry of tbe Church of England who are not gentlemen by birth, education, sentiment or manners, and who bring into tbe profession ... no capital of any sort ; no capital, I mean, of money, brains, culture, enthusiasm, or force of character."— What capital, therefore, besides a vulgar bigotry, has Dean Hovell brought into the profession ? — The capital, meantime, needed by the Orangemen ia decency enough to copy the example set them by respectable, honest and prudent men, and to enable them to conform themselves to the usages and good manners of civilisation.

It would be interesting to know at what particular period a certain man named M'LeaD, who was arrested the other day for burglary at Auckland, paid the visit, which he says he paid, to Dunedin. As M'LeaD, we are told, ia not only a burglar but a philosopher as well, the question has its interesting points. A good deal we know, has b<en done from time to lime towards making philosophers of the people who live in Dunedin, and an acquaintance with the results obtained cannot fail to be of interest. A letter, we are informed, was found on M'Lean, in which, among the rest, he gave utterance to some of the teachings of his philosophy— sucb, for example, as : " There is no such thing as death. Death is only an organic change." He aIBO expressed a wish to know the name of the fellow who coined the word " death." Well, that we do not know ourselves. Here, perhaps, it would be Decessary to consult some authority on the Anglo-Saxon language. Whoever coined toe word, the thing itself remains, and we do not remember that even our Dunedia philosophers did much towards its removal, although they boasted of finally and completely removing the devil, with whom death is generally associated. Facts, however, are stubborn things, and are not always so easily disposed of as are persons. Meantime, if our Dunedin philosophers have comforted the boul of any one, even of a burglar, by the contemplation that he is not to die but merely to suffer an organic cbange, let them obtain all tne credit due to them from the feat. If, while awaiting the organic change m all confidence and comfort, the disciple makes an occasional mistake between meum and tuum, or otherwise behaves in a manner not inconsistent, our philosophers should also obtain their due in the matter. M'Lean's antecedents, then, as we have Baid, are not altogether void of interest,

We (Hobatt Cathalw Standard,) rejoice to see that our Catholic Convent Schools have taken a prominent position in the recent examinations conducted by the Council of the newly established Tasmanian University. The Presentation Convent Schools, Launceston, have well deserved the high eulogium passed on them by the examiners for exhibitions under 16 years of age, and the fact that all the girls sent np secured the requisite number of marks qualifying them for exhibition, whilst two of them carried off two out of the five exhibitions, speaks volumes for the excellent education imparted in those schools, and is an earnest that among those who will in the near future matriculate with honours in the University Examinations, will be numbered several of those attending the Presentation Schools. We have aleo to congratulate Mr. Henry Keating, a sacceseful student with the Jesuits at Riverview, Bydney, who passed third in the Examination for the Degree of Associate of Arts after a residence of only six months at Officer College, Hobart, and would have stood second on the list, but for illnesß during the examination.

Father J. Milne-Curran, F.G.S., of Dubbo, the friend of the late brilliant scientist, Father Julian Tennison Woodß (says the Freeman's Journal), has had a lather remarkable tribute paid to his skill and accuracy as a geologist. Seven or eight months ago Father Curran reported on the Peak Hill goldfield, defined its character, and set forth its probabilities. Since then private syndicates have got reports from experts, the Minister for Mines has at intervals sent np Messrs, Slee, Anderson, Pittman, David, and Thomas, and their views have been given to the public. Only the other day Mr. David made a second or third report, and it has been followed by a couple of columns in one of the Sydney papers from the pen of Major Parrott, C.E. All the reports go to show the accuracy of Father Curran's judgment, while it iB remarkable that nothing new has been revealed. The Dubbo Dispatch points out that all the experts have simply adopted Father Curran's original views and opinions, and it is shown that the assays given by Father Curran and those since made at the Mines Assay Branch agree to a nicety. Father Curran's report of seven months ago has, therefore, held its ground since its publication, and the local paper congratulates him upon thus haviog verified his opinions, and congatulates the district upon possessing as a resident so accomplished a gentleman.

Father Damien's example (says the Fort Beaufort Advocate') has led to an offer made by a Roman Catholic lady and trained staff to take charge of Robben Island leper patients if the Cape Government will only accept their services, making, of course, the usual grants in aid of the establishment.

Here is a paragraph, taken from the Transvaal Observer, which does due honour to the spirit of the Reformation. "At Wednesday afternoon's sitting of the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church the report of a committee on a memorial presented from Pretoria with reference to Roman Catholicism was submitted. The substance of this report was that considering the Transvaal, as a nation, holds, and that the Dutch Church is based upon, Calvinistic principles, it is advisable for the Synod to at once present a memorial to the Volksraad praying that honourable body not to extend to Roman Catholic persons or bodies the same privileges as to members or bodies of the Protestant Church organisations." Will it be believed, moreover, that the same spirit extends even beyond the members of this Synod ? Certain members of the Stock Exchange Committee, for example, as we learn from another South African paper, although we might take them for sensible business men have refused to sign the peiition referred to. The petition is simply one praying that Catholics and Jews may be admitted to the civil privileges enjoyed by Protestant citizens, and from which in some important respects they are excluded. Primitive Protestantism, however, still survives among the Boers, and such are its results. The intolerence of the sects has only been moderated, in fact, by their indifference to religion. Whereever they remain fyrvert there also are they intolerant and bigoted.

A storm of bigotry has also broken out in Mauritius. The cause has been the daring of the Catholic population in demanding that, in the Budget of Worship, consideration should be given to their greater numbers. The scene of the denunciations made of their presumption has been the Diocesan Committee of the Church of England. The following paragraph, taken from their protest, sums up the character of the transactions :: — '• In fact, the Church of Rome in Mauritius seems to have sworn not to stop until she has realised her intolerable pretension of exercising supreme authority over politics, education, and religion, and of suppressing liberty of every kind." All this unjust and violent protest has been occasioned by a claim for simple justice. Considering, meantime, that Catholics form Borne thirty per cent, of the population while Protestants furnish ecarcely three, the claim of the Catholics can hardly be thought extravagant. In fast, the Press of the island supports it and condtmns the Anglican committee. An intolerant; spirit, then, is not altogether confined to the Dutch Boers.

Not for many years has there been such a quantity of drift ice reported in tee North Atlantic as at the present time. Almost every ocean steamer arriving reports icebergs. The Lord Gough arrived at Queenstown on Sunday, and reports that during the previous Wednesday she sighted during the day no less than fifteen icebergs.

The Indian trouble at Tongue River seems to be occasioned by religious hallucinations An interpreter who investigated the subject reports : " The Indians say Christ is in the mountains, and that He wants all the Indians to come to Him. He will put them behind Him, and having all the whites before Him, will roll the world over on the whites and destroy them. He is a white man." When the definite teachings of the Catholic Church are displaced by the vague notions of the sectaries, crude intellects are very apt to adopt such vagaries as theße. The same thing has happened among the ignorant whites of rural regions, not to mention the coloured people of the Boutb, — New York Freeman's Journal,