NOTES ON THE WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 10, 8 July 1898, Page 20

NOTES ON THE WA R.

(From various sources.) IK CAMI' : BOUCSHING IT. The Commissariat Department has evidently broken down at the great camp at Chickamauga. According to the Pilot, four 1 hous.ind men, foot and hort-e, came into onr camp the first wtek in May with not one tent-peg among them. The four thousand which preceded them had tents but no tent floors, and about half as much straw as they should have had if the ground hud been dry, in-tead ot being drenched with rain. One regiment, sent to State fair grounds to camp, had to clean stabler fur sleeping quarters, having no tents at all ; some camps had no fuel, some, no water, and many a regiment which left its armory immediately after breakfast had nothing warm to eat or drink until the next morning. These things happen to the soldiers of almost every nation. No countiy seems able to find quartermasters and commissaries as clever as an ordinary hotel steward, for the civilian feeds his employer's quests promptly and regularly. The Sisters of Charity contrive to find proper clothes for regiments of orphans every season, and to give them out at an appointed time, but the regular army goes to Chickamauga, dressed for winter service on the Plains, and volunteers go to Hamp&tead in chilly spring days with never an overcoat among them. A MARE'S NEST OF JESUITS. Under the heading • Suspect Spanish Jesuit?,' we find in recent Press despatches from Washington. D.C.. the following in regard to the powder-mill explosions in California :—: — ' The first occurred in the California powder-mills near Santa Cruz. Near this place is an immense monastery full of Spanish Jesuits. In looking into the cause of the sudden destruction of the mills, the war department got the strongest circumstantial evidence that the explosion was the work of two of the inmates. The closest watch is now being kept upon the monks, and it is not improbable that some steps will be taken to send them all out of the country.' There are no Jesuits in or near Santa Cruz, Cal , says the Boston Pilot, and no monastery of any order. The parish church in that place is sgrved by two diocesan prie-ts with the exceedingly Spanish names of Hugh McNamee and Peter O'Reilly ; and the Franciscan Orphanage for boys in Santa Cruz County i^ governed by two Franciscan priests named Lampe and Wirtz— equally Spanish The above, which evidently emanated from A.P.A. sources, is of a piece with the discredited Rev. Fulton's suggestion, that Father Chidvvick, the chaplain, blew up the ' Maine.'