THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 51, 21 December 1899, Page 3

THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.

A CATHOLIC AND NATIONAL CELEBRATION.

The Requiem Mass at the Pro-Cathedral for the fallen in the Transvaal war (says the London Tablet) was a particularly National as well as a particularly Catholic, celebration. The Union Jack gams its full significance in that environment of Catholic ceremonial and is seen to be most affecting when draping a catafalque before an altar. With its three crosses of St. George, St. Patrick, and St Andrew, the flag does not in itself present any incongruous sight among sacred objects. The congregation present included some who had seen the colours obscured ie the smoke of battle with leßs emotion than they then saw them obscured by the smoke of incense. The absolutions were given by Cardinal Vaughan, of whom it was not inappropriate to the moment to remember that he came of a family who were near? y all soldiers if they were not priests, from the days of Agincourt to those of the Crimea, where his own father served as a volunteer. The figure of Bishop Brindle, the muchdecorated soldier-priest, who sang the Requiem, added completeness to a fcene in which piety and patriotism united—' the kindred points of Heaven and Home.'

The atmosphere was charged with emotion, as well it might be with the almost hourly bulletins of death from the battlefield : and the appeal to prayer for the known dead— and for the possible dead —had sounded as a solemn invitation to others besides Catholics A eingle indication will suffice. One of the Catholic worshippers, the wite of a very distinguished Commander, after the last prayer had been said, felt a hand upon her shoulder. She turned round to recognize the sister of an officer whose name has been printed among the most gallant of the fighters in South Africa, and who now lies there disabled by wounds which, as the fears and affections of his family at home insist, may mean death. One lady looked at the other with an exclamation of surprise : ' WLat, are you a Catholic V ' No, wan the response ; 'but I mean to be.' For the sister of a wounded soldier of the Queen there could be no doubt at tbat solemn moment, when sophistry had no standing-room, and there was silence about prayera for the dead at Westminster Abbey and silence at St Paul's, as to what ia in deed and truth the National Catholic Church of England.

CATHOLIC OFFICERS AT THE FRONT,

Among officers in the Boers' great take of prisoners at Dundee is Captain A. L. Kelly, of the Royal Rifles, a nephew of Father Miller, of St. Charles's College, North Kensington. He and other Catholic prisoners had with them their Chaplain, Father Lewis J. Matthews, who left Alexandria to join the forces in South Africa. Father Matthews, found in the front, was following the fine tradition of Catholic chaplains : a tradition conspicuously associated with the career of Bishop Brindle ; with that of Father Bellord, who was wounded at Tel-el-Kebir ; and with that of Father Collins, who, caught in the front rank at that same fight, bad to explain— what was quite obvious, after all— that his horse had carried him thither.

Every day brings forward names of Catholica (says the Tablet) who have gone, or are about to go, to the front. Their name is legion. Major-General Clery will have a Catholic comrade in command m Major-General Francis Howard, C.8., A.D C , son of the late Sir Henry Francis Howard, of the Diplomatic Service, and nephew of the late Mr. Philip Howard, of Corby. General Howard reached Durban last Sunday. Captain John A. Bell-Smyth, of the King's Dragoon Guards, who is aide-de-camp to General Lord Methuen, will find among his fellow old-boys from Edgbaston Mr E. Longueville of the Coldstream Guards, Mr. A. Macnamara of the Royal West Surreys, Mr. C. Berkeley of the Welsh Regiment, Mr. W. Butler- Bo wdon of the Lancashire Fusiliers, and Mr. E. Bellingham, to name no more. Indeed, the connection between Birmingham and the war— already noted in the coincidence that the General who fell first in « Mr. Chamberlain's war ' was connected by marriage and otherwise with the capital of the Midlands— seems to have a further illustration in the large number of Catholics gone to the wars from the Oratory play-ground. Indeed, a present boy writes from the school to say that it can boast of fourteen old boys in the campaign. ' Let us hope,' he adds, ' that an Oratory boy may win a Victoria Cross out there now that he has got the chance.' Other names occur, but we need not now do more than mention those of Mowbray Berkeley of the Black Watch, whose cousin has been already quoted, and Lieutenant Maxwell-Scott, of Abbotsford, with the Gloucester, whose fate has for days been enshrouded in an uncertainty that means fierce suspense for his friends.

COLONEL SCOTT CHISHOLME.

The death of Colonel J. J. Scott Chisholme at Elandalaagte throws into mourning many members of a Scottish family adhering to the Catholic faith. The son of Mr. John Scott Chisholme. of Stirohes, Roxburghshire, he was born in 1851, entered the army when he wa6 21, serving first in the 9th Lancers, of which he had become major when, 10 years ago, he was transferred to the sth, acting at first as military secretary to Lord Connemara in Madras, and reaching the rank of colonel in August of last year. Less than three months ago he vacated his command of the Lancers to raise the company of Imperial Light Horse in South Afrioa, which he commanded, and at the head of whioh, fighting with almost reckless daring, he died in the prime of his strength at the age of only 48.

ANOTHER CATHOLIC SOLDIER.

Another Catholio who gave his life for his country in the same action was Hubert Joseph Wolseley. If his name did not appear in the first list of the gallant dead, that was only because he had gone so far afield to meet the foe that his outlying body was not found until some six days after it had fallen. The Becond son of Mr. Edward Wolseley, of Weybridge, and nephew of Sir Charles Wolaeley, he

was a kinsman of the Commander-in-Chief of the British army. He had wisked for the navy as £ career, but a touch of asthma disqualified him, despite his tall figure and the habits of an athlete. He was educated at Fort Augustus, and — after trying his hand ' in the city,' where he bpgan by graduating in finance at the office of Mcsrs. Lescher and Stevens, in Clements-lane — he went ont to Souih Africa. There a position in the mines left him more opportunities than he had at home for the exercise of his capacities as a capital horseman and a capital shot. When trouble came he was keen to take arms, and his enthusiasm did not fail him on the battlefield as one of the bravest of a band of brave volunteers under Colonel Chisholoie — the Colonel and the trooper going together to that death which it is ' sweet and decorous ' to endure for the fatherland.

STONYHURST BOYS AT THE SEAT OF WAR.

Among the Stonyhurst boys ordered out to South Africa (says the New Era) are Colonel T. J. Gallwey, C.8., Royal Army Medical Corps, as principal medical officer of the Second Division of the First Army C"rps ; Captain P. A. Kenna, V C , 21st Lancers, Assistant Provost Marshal of the staff of the Cavalry Division, graded as Deputy- Assistant Adjutant General. Captain Ellis and Lieutenant Creagh go out with their respective regiments. Captain E. S. Bulfin, Yorkshire Regiment, who was A.M.S. and A.D C. to Sir William Butler at the Cape, will for the present remain in South Africa on special service. On his return home from Egypt Colonel Gallwey had been appointed principal medical officer for the Home District.