Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 5, 28 May 1897, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A most interesting lecture on " The Irish Brigade

THE in the service of France," a full report of which IRISH BRIGADE appears in the London Catholic Gazette, was deIN the service livered recently at London by Dr. Conan Doyle. OP prance. The lecturer prefaced his remarks by saying that

he was acquainted with few more interesting incidents in history than those which led to the formation, and the existence for a hundred years, of the Irish Brigade in the service of France. During a century the history of the Brigade was entwined with the military history of France. For a period which exceeded three generations they kept themselves well officered by Irish gentlemen of the best Catholic families, and their ranks were filled with the best fighting material of Ireland. They had burned powder in no less than eighty-nine engagements. They covered the French retreat in three continents, and again and again their presence turned defeat into victory for their adopted country. The following is a brief sketch of the history of the Brigade. After the raising of the siege of I imerick in 1691, which terminated the Jacobite war in Ireland, 24,000 men, all good, trained soldiers of great endurance and hardihood, with an experience of several campaigns, passed out of Ireland. The W.ir Minister of Louis XIV., the French monarch, seized elderly up >n this body of men, and proceeded to break them up into twelve regiments to fit them into the French military establishment. This was hard upon the officers of the old Irish regiments, who found themselves deprived of their commands, or very often, at any rate, reduced to a lower rank. It is interesting to look over the names of the original officers of the Irish Brigade. There were, for example, the Prendergasts, Butlers, and Lacys ; but the vast majority were O'Carrolls, O'Haras, Murphys, Burkes, McCarthys, Powers, O'Neills, McMahons, and Mahonys. The waste of the men of the Brigade during the great campaigns at the end of the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth centuries was made up by having special recruiting agents in Ireland, who were liable to be hanged if detected by the Government, but who were handsomely paid for their work. As to the language of the Brigade it was usually Gaelic. Up to 1745, when it was to a Gaelic war-cry that the Brigade broke into the English column at Fontenoy, Gaelic was the Bpeech of the soldiers and the officers spoke English and French, but after a generation had passed many of them were practically Frenchmen, and spoke no Engli&h at all. The uniform of the Irish regiments was a red coat with different coloured facings and knee-breeches. As to the view whijh the Irish regiments took of their own position, though no doubt they became embittered later on, in the early years of their existence there appeared to have been no strong national feeling as Irishmen against Englishmen. They looked upon themselves as loyal British subjects, who were supporting what they believed to be their rightful king against their enemies. In 1814 an attempt was made to reconstruct the Brigade, but it necessarily failed, because the conditions which had produced the Brigade had happily and finally passed away. With Catholic Emancipation the struggle between Britain and Ireland passed from the camp to the Senate House, and a long succession of successful attacks upon bigotry and prejudice has at last opened some prospect of an enduring and natural bond between them.

An Order of priests whose mission it is to labour A NEW ORDER exclusively for the interests of the working classes OP PRIESTS for has been canonically founded in Belgium and is THE workers, now engaged in active work on the lines laid

down for the Order. The Order took its rise out of a suggestion made at the Social Congress held at Liege in 1886, when Mgr. Doutreloux, Bishop of the diocese, insisted on the necessity and importance of establishing a congregation of priests

who should devote themselves entirely to social activity among the workers. It was not till eight years later, however, that the project was realise!. A few zealous priests, desirous of engaging in this form of apostolate, became the nucleus of the new society and in 1894 the Order was formally and canonically established under the title of Aumoniers dv Travail. The object of the society is to labour for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the working classes, in strict accordance with the teachings of his Holiness Leo XIII. Exclusive of lay brothers, the new society reckons already a dozen members, and as the usefulness and advantages of the Order become apparent the roll of membership will no doubt ba rapidly increased. The means by which the Aumoniers dv Travail intend, to carry on their work are, first, the erection of establishments in the great mining and manufacturing centres where the working man will finl, at a minimum cost, suitable board and lodging, and where harmless recreations will be provided for his leisure hours. An office will be attached to each establishment where working men can have legal and other advice gratis, and every effort will be made to procure places for well-conducted workmen temporarily out of employment. Lectures, missions and retreats for the working classes, visiting the sick among them and the circulation of good books and newspapers, are some of the means by which the spiritual interests of the masses are to be promoted. Notwithstanding the smallneas of their numbers the efforts of the Aumoniers dv Travail have already borne excellent fruit. At Ser.iing, the well-known industrial centre near Liege, they have erected a splendid building, where workng men and their families can attend concerts and lectures without any charge and where men can obtain comfortable board and lodging, with washing included, for less than X l 7 a year. Although opened little more than a year ago, the Maison des Ouvriers as it is called, has now a membership of nearly 2000. Even in this short time too, the spiritual condition of the labourers is also reported to have undergone a vast improvement. They are much more sober and iudustrious than formerly, more regular in their attendance at the Sunday services, and more frequent in their reception of the sacraments. A few years ago a priest could hardly pass through the streets of Seraing without being jibed at or ins llted ; now almost every working man greets the Aumoniers with a respectful salute, and not long since a deputation of Socialists waited on the Superior to thank him for his successful intervention when a strike was imminent. The activity of the Order is at present somewhat handicapped by the fewness of its members, but this will soon be remedied as a novitiate has been recently opened near Charleroi where a number of candidates are being trained. The work done by the Aumoniers is most practical and valuable, and it is certain that the new Order has a great future before it.

An extraordinary amount of interest and excite* the corbett- ment was aroused in America over the recent fitzsimmons prize-fight between Corbett and Fitzsimmons. exhibition. There were legal difficulties in the way of holding

the contest, but in order to let these men hit each other the Legislature of Nevada obligingly passed a law making prize-fights for the time being perfectly legal. The men met on St. Patrick's Day near Carson, the capital of the State, where preparations on quite an elaborate scale had been made for the event. The principals were escorted to the arena with great pomp, and there was an imposing procession of civil organisations, accompanied by bands, the Governor of the State marching at the head of the procession. It was of prime importance|that the day should be fine, for every incident of the fight, every blow, and, indeed, every movement was reproduced by the kinetoscope, and it is expected that a considerable sum will be realised by the exhibition of these pictures. Prodigious efforts were made by the papers to meet the wishes of their readers in the matter of supplying full details of this edifying 1 exhibition, and one enterprising journal, the New York World, had outside its office, in addition to an enormous bulletin board, two huge marionettes, who automatically reproduced every blow in the fight as it proceeded 3,000 miles away. The contest itself was wit-

nesaed by a crowd of 5,000 spectators gathered from all parts of the United States, and, to their disgrace be it said, including a number of women. The fight, which lasted for 54 minutes, was a thoroughly brutal one, and the good temper which is often supposed to characterise boxing men was conspicuously absent. The fury of Fitzsimxnons, who had at the outset refused to shake hands with his opponent, told for instead of against him, and at last in the fourteenth round he dealt his adversary a blow in the region of the heart which doubled him up in such agony that he was unable to answer at the call of time. When he did recover he was temporarily blind, and rushed round the ring striking all he met in the vain attempt to find his enemy. The exhibition from beginning to end was a most degrading one, and well merited the indignarit protest and condemnation which it called forth from Father Tubman. A newspaper correspondent writing from the scene of the contest proudly said :—": — " The day will be the greatest day in the history of Nevada." Much more truly might it be described, in the words of Father Tubman, as the day of " Nevada's shame."

The first effect of the Pope's decree on Anglican THE BULL AND Orders was to produce a feeling of intense irritation ITS RESULTS, throughout the Anglican body and especially among

members of the High Church party. Their hopes had evidently run high on getting a favourable verdict from the Holy Father, and they could not c >noeal their disappointment and vexation when his Holiness found himself constrained to declare their Orders absolutely null and void. Now, however, that the first feeling of irritation has passed away they are able to look at the matter more calmly and to realise that the deliberate and solemn judgment of a Bkilled and impartial commission and of the Holy Father himself deserves the most careful and serious attention. Already there have been a number of important conversions and there is every indication that the final and permanent result of the Bull will be a large influx into the Church, especially from the ranks of the High Church clergy. We chronicled some weeks ago the conversion of Rev. J. H. Paine and Rev. A. S. Barnes, both Anglican curates, the latter of whom has just been ordained a Catholic priest. Then came the conversion of Rev. B. W. Maturin, the ablest and best of the High Church clergy, whose " secession " has occasioned so much "distress" to the Churrh Times and its readers. The Rev. Mr. Maturin has received the tonsure and is now at Rome. Another of the Cowley Fathers, of which Mr. Maturin was so distinguished a member, has followed his example, and the Rev. H. Black, an old friend and colleague of Mr. Maturin is to be received into the Church in the course of a week or two, after which he too proceeds to Rome. Another important conversion is that of the Rev. F. H. Vaughan Mather, B.A. (Oxon.) who was curate at St. Bartholomew's, Brighton, and whose reception into the Church has just taken place. In addition to those whom we have enumerated, several clergymen have entered the Church who have begged that their names should not, at all events for the present, be made public. Such results are highly gratifying, and we are persuaded they are but a foretaste of the large influx that may be expected in the not very distant future. It only remains for Catholics to make fervent prayers for those who are Btill outside the Fold. The controverbial aspect of the questions involved has been clearly placed before tho^e interested by the Pope's Bull on the one hand, and the Archbishop's reply on the other, and all that is wante i now is heavenly guidance to discern the truth. There is only one way to obtain that, viz., by earnest prayer, and we are bound in charity to pray that light may come to those in doubt or difficulty, and that with it they may receive grace to follow wherever that light may lead.

The mission which the Vincentian Fathers have ▲ SUCCESSFUL been conducting for the past eight months throughMIBBION. out the diocese of Dunedin was practically brought

to a close on Sunday night. From every point of view the mission has been a wonderful success. Wherever they went the gifted missioners infused some of their own earnestness and fervour into the hearts of their hearers, and from one end of the diocese to the other the people nobly and faithfully rallied round them. The mission made a most successful and auspicious opening at St. Joseph's Cathedral some eight months ago and the good example of the Dunedin parish was followed by every parish —without a single exception — throughout the diocese. In the course of their apostolic labours the devoted missioners penetrated to the very remotest parts of the large and scattered diocese and wherever so many as even twenty could be gathered together a mission was held. The people in the back districts showed themselves most eager to make the most of these opportunities and at the renewal of the mission held last week in the Cathedral the Fathers recounted many most edifying instances of the earnest and self■aorificing spirit that was shown. Father Hanley mentioned, for example, the case of one young woman who had ridden fifty miles, alone, in one day in order to attend the mission. Father Boyle told

of one man who had walked twenty miles in order to be present, and referred to several instances in which man and wife had shut up the house, stopped work, and left the farm to itself for several days at a time in order to reap to the full the advantages offered by the mission. These are only a few out of the many instances that might be given to show the great earnestness of the people ; and, met as they were everywhere in such a noble spirit, little wonder that the Fathers returned to Dunedin, as Father Hanley expressed it, '• dripping with the fragrance of the mission." Where ever they went the Fathers left behind them a lasting memorial of their visit in the shape of a branch of the Association of the Sacred Heart — an association formed in the interests of a devotion which has been received with signal favour and has spread with extraordinary rapidity throughout the whole Catholic world, and an association moreover which has already established its position as one of the strongest bulwarks which the Church possesses against the inroads of infidelity and irreligion. The wholesome lesson of temperance has also been earnestly and eloquently inculcated upon the people, and flourishing branches of the League of the Cross have been everywhere established. A few days' mission is to be given at the North-East Valley church during the week, but, as we have said, the mission was practically brought to a close on Sunday night, at the end of a week's renewal of mission. Every evening during the week the Cathedral was crowded and an immense throng was present on Sunday night to receive from Father Boyle the Papal blessing. The dominant feeling in the minds of all at the close of such a mission should surely be one of deep gratitude. The people should be grateful to God and to their Bishop for the opportunity to profit by the inestimable graces of mission time. His Lordship the Bishop should be grateful because, in the words of Father Boyle, he can " look over the whole of his wide diocese and enjoy the consoling thought that the great majority of his people are in the favour and friendship of God." And the missioners themselves should be, and we know are, grateful, 'irst, that such an opportunity to labour should be given them, and, secondly, that their labours should have been so wonderfully blessed. The Rev. Fathers have very greatly endeared themselves to the people throughout the whole diocese, and they may feel assured that wherever they may next go good wishes and earnest prayers will follow them that they may carry to other parts of the Colony the rich blessings they were the means of bringing to the people of the Dunedin diocese.

If one is saddened (says the Aye Maria) at the odds and ends, thought of the great number of historical fallacies

that are current against the Church, there is consolation in the fact that many of them are being exploded. It used to be believed that John Wyclif was the first to translate the Bible into English. Of course there was Sir Thomas More's testimony to the contrary :: — '• The whole Bible was, long before Wyclif a days, by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read." The sainted Lord Chancellor of England was a Catholic, however, and so his testimony counted for nothing. But now comes a Protestant, George Haven Putnam, who in his recently published work, " Books and their Makers During the Middle Ages," states (as calmly as though the contrary had never once been asserted) that there were translations of the Bible before Wyclif took up his quill ; and, furthermore, that his translation was probably made up in some degree from " those " previously existing (page 130, vol. ii). In the notice of Wyclif in Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary it is asserted that until his time it was regarded as an act of heresy to translate the Bible, and that Wyclif 's version of it became "an engine of wonderful power against Romanism." It would seem that historical research is becoming a powerful engine against Protestantism.

A writer in the Puritan, a new publication for women, classes among the noted women of the age the foundress of the order of American Indian nuns, and says : " The American Indians, with their symbolism and mysticism, are more in sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church than with any other Christian body. The solemnity and the beauty of its services impress them, and many of its beliefs are already theirs in a different form. These, it may be, come from a common source, so far back in the history of the human race that it is lost. When Father F. M. Craft, who boasts he has himself a strong trace of aboriginal blood, became a missionary to the red men. he found the Indian princess, Sacred White Buffalo, daughter of Crow Feather, a famous war chief of the Dakotas, had been set aside as the tribe's sacred virgin. It was not difficult for Father Craft to teach her Christianity, and to make her ready to become a sacked virgin of the Church. Her name was changed to Mary Catherine, and in 189', at the age of 24, she founded the first order of Indian nuns, for work among her own people. The Congregation of American Sisters, as the order is called, is stationed at Fort Berthold, North Dakota, where it conducts a hospital, giving the Indians, beside spiritual care of the young ard sick, the scientific aid of trained nurses. Mother Mary Catherine worked so hard

among her people, in all sorts of weather, that she contracted consumption. When she felt, in 1893, that her death was close at hand, she had four of the sisters carry her into the nuns' chapel. It was a most impressive and picturesque sight. She was a princess of the Dakotas, and although she was vowed to poverty and meekness of life, they could not forget it. They draped her couch with embroidery and scarlet cloth, and upon these they laid her wasted figure in its nun's habit. As they put her down before the altar the sisters eang the 'Te Deum.' Then, lifting herself for a last look at them, she fell back — dead. She was succeeded in her office by Mother Mary Liguori, whose Indian name was 'Sound of the Flying Lance.' "

Enormous prices are being offered for seats along the line of route arranged for the Queens's procession on June 22 next. Scores of syndicates are buying sites, and now (says the London Daily Mail), a company has been registered — the Diamond Jubilee Grand Stands (Limited) — to deal on a wholesale scale in beats to view the procession. The capital of this company is fixed at £10,000 ; and, in addition to dealing in seats, the concern hopes to do business in illuminating and decorating, and in catering for the customers for whom it finds accommodation. Mr. J. E. Rivett, of Messrs. Oetzmann and Co., informed a Daily Mail reporter, to whom he showed the correspondence which had passed in the matter, that he had had offers of all sorts of seats, ranging from 3s to £2000. For three houses in Pall Mall and James's streets he had had offers of £1,500, £1,700 and £2,000 respectively, and the negotiations were still proceeding. Here are some of the latest quotations at which Messrs. Oetzmann have done business: — Lombard street, £150 (two windows) ; Westminster Bridge, £50 (shop window) ; Cheapside, £400 (four windows) ; Fleet street, £ 1 ,000 (whole premises) ; Pall Mall East, £500 per floor ; Strand, £2">o (shop window) ; St. James's Btreet, £150 (shop window and doorway). Messrs. E. and H. Lumley, of St. James's street, have also started an agency, and their prices for West End Houses are something to be marvelled at. They have already let one room at 88 St. James's street for £250,

another at No. 21 for £150, and the roof of White's Club at £5 ."is. a seat. Among the premises available in their books are those of Messrs. Allen, in the Strand, for which £1,000 are asked ; and any millionaire deairiousof obtaining twelve windows in the second floor of a building in Queen Victoria street can get them for £3,000 by taking the quantity. It is stated that Messrs. Pawsons and Leafs, of Paul's churchyard, let the whole of their windows for £4,500. and these were immediately relet by the speculative purchaser at a profit of £4000, making the whole of the windows worth £8,500. A member of Messrs. Lumley's firm said that if everybody gets what he wants in the way of seats, from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's and on the return route, the sum of £30,000,000 will be spent on seats for the 22nd of June alone.

A very remarkable story is published in the London Daily Mail to the effect that Lieutenant A. St. Leger Glyn, Third Battalion Grenadier Guards, has seen Queen Elizabeth's ghost in the library at Windsor Castle. The following statement was made by the Lieutenant's mother, the Hon. Mrs. Carr Glyn, to the Mini investigator :—": — " It is perfectly true that my son has witnessed something 1 abnormal. He was, he tells me, sitting- in the library of Windsor Castle reading a bjok, 'The History of Dorsetshire," to be exactAs he read, he became aware of boine one passing in the inner library. He looked up and saw a female figure in black, with white lace on the head, falling on .to the shoulders. The figure passed across the library toward a corner which was out of view as my Bon aat, and he did not take much notice, thinking it was somebody reading in the inner room. This was just upon four in the afternoon, and an attendant soon afterward came up to clo&e the place My Bon asked who the lady was who was at work in the inner room and the attendant replied that no one else was in the library. My son assured the attendant that a lady had just before walked across the inner room. ' Then, where could she be ! ' asked the attendant, having ascertained that nobody was in the inner room.

' She must have gone out of a door in the corner,' said my son, J indicating a corner to which the figure had passed. ' But there is no door,' said the attendant. My son said nothing about this incident and did not think much about it, I understand, until Mr. Holmes, the librarian, asked him about it, the attendant having mentioned the matter to Mr. Holmes. Asked by Mr Holmes to describe the figure he had seen, my son did so, and Mr. Holmes replied that my son had seen the apparition of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Holmes added that there were records that this apparition haunted these rooms, but Lieutenant Glynjjwas the first man in our time who had seen it. The Dean of Windsor also asked my son about it, and several members of the royal family have interviewed him on the subject. As for Mr. Holmes, lam given to understand that he has spent nights and days in the library since in the hope of being vouchsafed a visitation.' The Hon. Sydney Carr Glyn, the famous Crimean veteran and father of Lieutenant Glyn, said : " If my son says he has seen anything, you may take it from us that he has seen it. He is a fresh, honest English boy and he wouldn't exaggerate anything a hair's breadth." The representative of the Daily Mail next saw Mr. R. R. Holmes, F.S.A., the librarian of the Castle, and writes : '■ Mr. Holmes conducted me to the scene of the alleged apparition. He says that this gallery has had the reputation of being haunted by the ghost of Queen Elizabeth from time out of memory. He has heard some rumour to the effect that the Empress Frederick had, when a child, seen an apparition in the gallery."

The Papal Year Book, '"Gerarchia Cattolica," estimates the present number of Catholics at 240,000,000. Of these, over 164,000,000 live in Europe, 10,000,000 in Asia, 2,000,000 in Africa, 50,000,000 in South and Central America, 10,000,000 in North America, and nearly 1,000,000 in Australia and Polynesia. The head of the Church, Pope Leo XIII., was born on March 2, 1810 After him come the cardinals, now numbering 59. Of them, 32 are Italians and 27 non-Italians, the latter including 4 Germans, 4 Frenchmen, 4 Spaniards, 4 Austrians, 2 Hungarians, 2 Portuguese,

and one each of Englishmen, Irishmen, Belgians, Rutheniana. Australians, Americans, and Canadians. The patriarchs number 14, the archbishops 192, the bishops, 7(57, the apostolic delegates 10, and the apostolic vicars 136. The Catholic Church in Australia consists of five provinces, with five metropolitans and 13 suffragans. The Catholics number about 800,000, being roughly estimated at about 25 per cent, of the white population. The first Catholic went to Australia in 1798. In 1830 Australia was made an apostoliovicariate. The first Bishop was Mgr. Polling, elevated to the rank of Metropolitan in 1842. Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, is the seat of His Eminence, Cardinal Moran, the Archbishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia. There are 777,914 Catholics, 248,579 Protestants, 2,729 are unclassified, and there are 27,570 Jews

Myers and Co., Dentists, Octagon, corner of George street. They guarantee highest class work at moderate fees. Their artificial teeth give general satisfaction, and the fact of them supplying a temporary denture while the gums are healing does away with the incon\ enience of being month* without teeth. They manufacture a single artificial tooth for Ten Shillings, and sets equally moderate. The administration of nitrous-oxide gas is also a great boon to those nseding the extraction of a tooth. Read [Advt.l

Mr Gawne, of Dunedin (says the Southland Times of April 13, 1891), has just been on a visit to Invercargill to push business a little. Not that it wants much canvassing, tor since he commenced the manufacture of his Worcestershire Sauce, the demand has kept pace with his capacity to supply it. He makes a really good thing, indistinguishable from the famous Lea and Perrin's, which he places upon one's table at a much lower price, and trusts to that to secure a steadily growing trade. Those who have not yet tried the colonial article should put their prejudice aside for a time and test the question with a bottle or two. — Advt.