Untitled

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 40, 10 July 1891, Page 18

We have again to remind our readers of the concert in aid of the building fund of the Dominican Convent schools, which will take place in the Garris jd Hall, Dunedin, on Wednesday evening. As the ■access of the uudertaking is very much to be desired, it is hoped that a liberal patronage will be bestowed upon it. Every effort has been made to provide for the pleasure of the audience, and, bo far as the music is concerned, the best results may be expected. Reference to the programme, which will be found elsewhere, will prove to our readers the pains that hive been taken to ensure success.

Thb report of the commission on the Public Trust Office is •bout as carious an utterance of the kind as one might easily find. A public offioe, or indeed a private one either, in such a condition it is to be hoped may be a rare phenomenon. The arrangement of Aunt Dinah's kitchen, n described by Mrs Beecber Btowe, alone could give any idea of the method of book-keeping observed. The difference, however, seems to be that, whereas Aunt Dinah managed to tarn out from all her confusion an excellent dinner, the results obtained in the Trust Office had little to recommend them. Again, the Circumlocution Office was not more tardy ia replying to questions or ia giving information, and fellows wanting to kuow were hardly treated there with a more lofty disdain. It is not surprising that, under the circumstances, a good many people have bean deprived of what rightly belonged to tbem, as the commissioners also state. Bat as to the fact that the Consolidated Fua 1 has become so much the richer, it may perhaps be variously appreciate!. There caa, however, benoqaebtiontbat the mal-aimiaistration, especially of the property of lunatics— of which the Office has baen also convicted was a most serious grievance. Ia short, as pretty a mesa of mismanagement

and misrepresentation has been revealed m the most rialMer-mtnded caviller in the world could -desire to see. That the Aaditor-Oeneral hM been somewhat pat out bj the revelation.is natural ia proportion as this gentlemen ia aeooantable for the state of affair* revealed, or, at least, for haying been ignorant of its existence. It may be, of coarse, that there are officials so high and mighty and so distin* guisbed as to be placed above the performance of the ordinary dnties of tbeir calling. It seems to us that only those who enter deeply into the feelings and prejudices of such officials can sympathise rery tally with Mr Fitigerald's disgast.

Tne schooner Janet Bamsay has oonveyed from the Auckland Islands to the Bluff the crew of a barque named the Ootapadre, who relate a thrilling tale of shipwreck. Their ship caught fire in the hold, a-d being unable to launch their boats in a strong sea, they ran her on the rocks in an attempt to save thsir lives— in which thsy were fortunately successful. With the exception of dbe sailor, lost in the bush, all have been brought off safe after a stay of 103 days on the island.

A fatal gun explosion reported at Sydney as having occurred on board H.M.S. Cordelia, cruising in Fijian waters, is of serious, import under more than one aspect. That a gun should explode sacrificing life— six men being killed and twelve wounded, is a lamentab.e matter. Bat that doubt should be thrown on the weapons of defence necessary under certain cirenmstances for the protection of the expire, adds gravity to the cats. The gun had been tested at Sydney and pronounced safe, and yet at the first practice it was shattered into bits. Such an accident as this certainly gives grounds for ominous reflections.

Some little time ago a murder, reproducing some of the features of those committed at Wbitecnapel, took place in New York. The cable now informs us that a man nicknamed " Frencby " has been convictel for it, and sentenced, strange to say, to penal servitude for life. The man " Frencby," as we know from othei sources, isaa Arab, and thi» fact, coupled with his knoweldge of the methods of " Jackthe«Hipper " may, perhaps, furnish some clue to the discovery of that monster.

Thb success of the • labour party in the elections for the Parliament of New South Wales has occasioned a good deal of antaslneaa in other quarters throughout the colonies. The Melbourne Arjui, for example, sounds the note of alarm aad declares the issue at stake to be the subjection of the community to a reign of terror maintained by the unions. The Argus summons the other classes to take measures to prevent this. It is openly mooted in fact at to whether the unions should be permitted any longer to exist. Ia the old country also alarm seems spreading because of the growth of Socialism among the workingmtn, a matter made particularly plain by evidence given before the labour commission and tha demands preferred there, some of which belong to the extreme Socialistic programme. What seems clear is that.so far from any (promise being giren of an easy settlement of the question, and more particularly from the collapse of recent strikes, a serious straggle is looming in the near future, and none the less gravely, because the classes whose sympathies are with cipital seem inclined to take the initativt in a resort to strong measures.

Thb half-yearly meeting of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, Bt. Joseph's Bronch, was held on Tuesday night in the Christian Brothers' Schoolroom Dunedin. There was a large attendance of members. The balance sheet for the quarter ending Jaoe 23 was read and adopted j it showed the society to be in a very satisfactory condition. The following officers were daly elected and installed :— President, Bro. Jamea O'Neill ; vice-president, Bro. Simmonds ; treasurer, Bro. Maboney (re-elected) ; secretary, Bro. W. H. M'Keay, jan (re-elected) ; warden, Bro. Wells ; guardian, Bro. O'Brien.

German Socialists, nevertheless, do not look for any immediate success. Their plan is to let things quietly develope themselves. They have founded, meantime, in Burlin a kind of workingmen's university, of which, however, another had already existed at Leipsig, •—and where, to quote a French writer, workingmen will be famished with intellectual arms, broken- in to politics, and trained in agitation, by a methodical aad doctrinal teaching of political economy, natural soiences, and history. In April last the institution, opened in January, numbered tome 4000 students. The chief plan is, to allow the party to gather strength from the still greater accumulation of property in the hands of a few, always in turn diminishing, by which the proletariat mast necessarily became more numerous. In this way they hope to be ereotually placed in such a position as easily to gain their ends.

Gbkman Socialists, moreover, hare been sharp enough to take a lesson from experience. Though detesting Christianity and bent on the propagation and enforcement of a universal atheism, they con. demn the active persecution of the Church. They even decide the

expulsion of the Jesuits. The Parisian Commune, tbey say, for example, by the slaughter of « few ecclesiastics, gained hundreds of adherents for Catholicism. They have perceived the truth of the old adage, " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Charon." Their weapon of destruction is secularism. The godless school is what they | look to for the success of all their undertaking. If that be once exclusively established, they rightly conclude that all the efforts of religion will be vain to counteract it, and the death-knell of Christianity, as they ardently desire, will be rung. The lesson for Christians to derive from this is obvious.