Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8, 22 February 1900, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THEY IUNISHEI) THE SHAM NUN.

They do some things better in America — at least in Richmond, Pa. And the Aye Maria explains the reason why. ' Women,' says the Aye, ' are better than men, which nobody can deny ; but the women of Richmond are better than most other women, which everybody must admit.' The editor of our American contemporary is referring to the Protestant ladies of the Virginian capital. Their action will be, at the present moment, of interest to their New Zealand sisters. ' A notorious creature,' says the Aye Maria, ' who has travelled all over the country and lectured in many places against the sisterhoods of the Church, lately made her appearance in the capital of Virginia and announced a series of revelations of convent life " for women onl) ." The ladies of Richmond are not that kind of women. They would not listen to her, and took steps to rid the city of her unwelcome presence. The newspapers refused to insert advertisements of her I ectures, as they were called ; but the announcement that the chief of police had warned the creature to take her departure was published as a prominent news item. We reiterate our praise of the ladies of Richmond. On the principle that " handsome is as handsome does," they deserve to be ranked among the best and fairest in all this broad land.' And so say all of us. Here is an example tor the Protestant ladies of New Zealand.

LETTING HALLS I OR ' EX-PRIEST' LECTURES.

A \\ ord to the wise is, or ought to be, sufficient. If all the proprietors or lessors of public halls were as careful as the respectable secular Press, public nuisances like the Slatterys would soon find their occupation gone. The point of view taken up by respectable papers everywhere with regard to the Slatterys found vigorous editorial expression in the Hull Eastern Morning News when it said . 'We shall defend free speech and free controversy , but we will not open our columns to free lying, free slander, and free obscenity.' This was the view taken by the Town Councils of Hawthorne, Brunswick, Oakleigh, etc., by the V.M.C.A. of Auckland, by the proprietors of the Theatre Royal, Napier, of the Opera House, Wellington, and by many others in Australia, England, Scotland, and the United States. We have been assured that the proprietors of the Foresters' Hall in Auckland and of the Gaiety Theatre, Napier, would have likewise refused the use of their buildings to the dismissed inebriate and the sham nun had they known the disgraceful character of the lectures that were to be delivered by this wretched pair of roving slandermongers. Well, for the comfort of hall-proprietors generally throughout the Colony, we can assure them that the law of the land will support them in acting upon such change of heart as may come to them with fuller knowledge of the antics which this low ' combination ' play before high heaven. Contracts for the letting of halls to lecturers of the Slattery class may be cancelled at any time. At least two judicial decisions on the subject have been recorded in England. The latest ruling was given by Judge Wilmot under the following circumstances: On September 4 of last year (iScjg) the Oddfellows' Hall at Gorleston (England) was let by Mr. A. W. Riches for an antiCatholic lecture which was to have been delivered on the third following day (September 7) by the notorious convict and sham monk, Nobbs, alias Widdows. The hiring fee was duly paid in full and a receipt obtained in due form. Like Slatteiy, Nobbs has had a bountiful acquaintance with the prison cell, he lectures in priest's vestments, and pours out a tide of venemous and malignant falsehood against the Catholic Church, her ministers, and her practices. At Gorleston the sham monk had his tickets out, his handbills posted, and his cheap *iow duly advertised. Things were moving gaily for the exconvict when his true history and the nature of his crusade at Gorleston dawned upon the trustees of the local Oddfellows,

Hall. Then — at the dinner hour on September 7 — the bocrus ' ex-monk ' received a brief and peremptory written notification that he could not have the hall. Knots of the usual class that favour such degrading exhibitions gathered around the hall between 7.^0 and 8 o'clock. But the doors remained locked and barred ; there was none to pronounce an effective ' open sesame ' ; the groups dispersed ; and the announced lecture never came off. • • • The next and final act in the little drama took place in the Yarmouth County Court on Friday, November 10. His Honour Judge Wilmot presided, and Francis George Widdows (<i/ias Nobbs) sued Alfred William Riches, of Gorleston, to recover Is 5s5 s ior breach ol contract by refusing to allow plaintiit possession of the Oddfellows' Hall, Gorleston, which had been hired for a lecture. The proceedings were reported in full in the Eastern Daily Press, of November v, and in the London Tublet of November 18. The contention of defendants was that they had let the hall in ignorance of the lecturer's i antecedents and of the nature of his discourses, and that they cancelled the agreement as soon as they became acquainted with these. Nobbs contended that the engagement once entered into could not be broken. Judge Wilmot held that certain matters referred to above, which were ' elicited in crossexamination,' 'quite justified the cancelling of the contract.' He, moreover, held that there had been no unusual delay in doing so. ' Defendant/ said he, again, ' rightly cancelled the contract, believing that the lecture might lead to very unpleasant discussion, and probably a breach of the peace.' Judge Wilmot went even farther than this. 'If you take a hall,' he said, 'and the letter of the hall does not know the nature or character of the lecture you are going to give, he is justified in cancelling the contract, and you have no remedy against him for bre ich of contract. If the letter of the hall thinks the lectute will lead to a breach of the peace, he is justified in breaking the contract.' And again : 'If this lecture was likely to lead to an acrimonious controversy, defendant was within his rights in cancelling the contract.' Nothing could be plainer than Judge Wilmot's decision. He gave judgment against Nobbs, with costs. And Nobbs did not appeal. A New Zealand solicitor of long experience has assured us that the law is the same in this Colony. In the course of a trenchant comment on the Gorleston case and a further exposure of Nobbs's disreputable character, Truth lays down two useful principles which hall-proprietors and newspaper men and decent Protestants of every position and calling would do well to paste in their hats- (1) that ' free speech in public must be subject to the restriction that public decency shall be observed ' ; and (2) that ' it is as much in the interest of Protestantism as of Roman Catholicism that such performances should be curtailed.' The notorious gaol-bird and sham e\-priest Riordan (alias Ruthven) secured the use of the Derry Guildhall (Ireland) for his scurrilous lectures in January, 1899. The facts ot his infamous career and the offensive character of his handbills were thereupon placed before the Mayor by Mr. W, O'Doherty, Town Councillor, in a letter dated January 7, 1899, which was published, together with a report of the subsequent proceedings, in the Dublin Freeman's Journal and in the Edinburgh Catholic Herald of January 13 or the same year. The Mayor and the Councillors — -the majority of these are Protestants — decided, after consultation, to cancel the contract for the use of the Guildhall. This was accordingly done, and the wrathful adventurer and impostor speedily rid the Maiden City of his unsavoury presence. The examples ot Gorleston and Derry well deserve the flattery of imitation in New Zealand. The South African campaign has wrought they cannot red ruin with the scarlet tunics and the gold censure lace and the brass buttons and the milk'scape. white steeds and the Hashing steel that have hitherto added such an external glory to the trappings of war. Such bright objects offered too good a mark to the Boer riflemen. Therefore were they discarded. And now horse and foot and royal artillery court the chances

of battle in a uniform of brown khaki that isalmost undistinguishable in colour from the sun-toasted veldt over which they march and fight. Armies have at length learned the lesson of ' protective colouring ' which the great Creator taught long ago to the quail and the skylark and the hare and the polar bear and thousands of others of His irrational creatures. 'Twas ever thus in life. The dull mediocrity of intellect or of virtue or of energy that never shines amidst its surroundings offers a poor mark for the steel-tipped bullets of envy, hate, or calumny. It therefore generally plods its weMry way across the rolling veldt of life with little molestation, and comes at last to its final halting-place without having attracted much of either hostile or of friendly notice. In this dull, khakicoloured world shining intellect is the best mark for hostile criticism and shining virtue for calumny— just as the scarlet tunic and the glancing steel were the best targets for the levelled Mausers of Oom Paul's burghers. In ancient Greece there were street-corner politicians and mugwump ' lecturers' who could not tolerate hearing the noble-minded Aristides j surnamed ' the Just.' They hounded him down and kept hounding him down till he was sentenced to 10 years' banishment — solely because of his too conspicuous domestic and civic virtues. Joan of Arc had her detractor^. So have had most of the great saints and servants of God from the days of the prophets — who were stoned to death, sawn in twain, etc. — even down to Father Damien, whose spotless character was aspersed by one Dr. Hyde, who was small-minded enough to envy and hate the simple Belgian priest whose heroism he did not dare to imitate. And this, too, explains why roving impostors, from Maria Monk down to Joseph Slattery's female companion, have selected the noble and devoted band of Catholic Sisterhoods — who have given up all that the world holds dear to serve their neighbour for Christ's dear sake — as the target for calumnies the commercial value of which is in direct ratio to their foulness and obscenity. So true are Shakespeare's oft-quoted words :—: — Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. And again :—: — No might nor greatness in mortality (Jan censure 'scape ; back-wounding calunmy The whitest virtue strikes. What king- so strong Can tie the pall up in the slanderous tongue 1 Bit the conspicuous boycott of Slattery and i\W) his sham nun by decent Protestants and by (■oon clergymen of every non-Catholic denominatXAMPLhs. tion iurnishcs us with fresh evidence — if such were needed — that this sort ot crusade is being fast conhned to the tag rag-and-bobta.l ot the populations of big cities. In due course it will be beaten back to the quarters from whirh it originally emerged — the house of illfame. There is no more pleasing sign of the times than the growing readiness, and even enthusiasm, with which enlightened non-Catholics recognise the wealth of virtue and self-sacrifice-even to the farthest verge of utter heroism — which exists among the religious Orders of women in the Catholic Church. The reckless bravery of Catholic nuns in the Spanish-American war, and more recently still in shell-riven Kimberleyand Mafeking, are not merely isolated instances of their devotion to duty. They are merely fresh links of gold added to the long chain that extends away through the ages back to and far beyond the days of Fabiola, and lead us up at last to the feet of Christ the Consoler. A recent and conspicuous example of high appreciation by Protestants of the work of Catholic nuns comes to us from Aberdeen, in the land of John Knox. An annual grant had been made to the Sisters of Nazareth for the schools which they conducted in the Granite City. One fine day news got about that the local County Council proposed to discontinue the grant. Thereupon a number of leading Protestant citizens generously came forward of their own accord and unsolicited, and promptly laid down before the Superior a sum equal to the full amount of the withdrawn grant. ' The County Council,' says the Aye Maria, 'experienced a change of he.ut : the grant was allowed, and the Sisters returned the money to their Protestant friends with a gracious note of thanks. Honour to the Protestants of Aberdeen !' • * • * The Aberdeen incident recalls to our minds a similar attempt that was made by the Washington Orangemen (or A. P. A.) to exclude the Providence Hospital from any share in the district charitable appropriations. The attempt failed, owing to the manly speech of Speaker Henderson in favour ot the nuns — and such failures add to the happiness of human existence. The S. H. Review, of December 10, gives the Jollowing extract lrom Mr. Henderson's speech. At the present juncture it is well worth republication in New Zealand :—: — Gentlemen may think that I feel deeply on this (jueition. I do. It is well known that lam no Catholic. i'erhaps lam in big luck if I can be regarded as a thoroughbred Protestant. Ido not wear any religious Bhackles. The religion of God is unfettered. I

realise the claimH of humanity, wherever I find it. in health or in suffering. But I can remember the time in 18(51, when, in the Good Samaritan Hospital of St. Louis, these ' Little Sisters,' with their white bonnets and their pure, innocent faces, received into that institution my comrades who had measles and smallpox, and nursed them as only wives and Bisters nurse. And from that hour in 18tfl I swore that I would defend them in their works of mercy. And L have done so on the floor of this house, with the A.P.A. organised^ in my city. And Ido is to-night, defying those who would throttle an orphan child and bow the supple hinges of the knee to worne than 'sectarianism' — to more bitter tyranny than 'sectarianism.' No cross or crescent is more dangerous to this republic than thete men who meet in the street and try to intimidate Congress from the discharge of a sacrr-d duty to the fntherless and motherless. 1 have discussed this question before. I feel all that a man can feel in my earnestness about this mater. I feel the impulses of a man who should do his duty even if a Damascus blade in the hand of some secret organisation is held over him. A wholesome and manly speech ' And the moral of it all is this . It is manifestly easier and cheaper to vilify Catholic nuns than to imitate them.

It has been a ruinously lainy summer down the Pori. South. And the knight of scissors-and-paste and who conducts the religious column in the the twentieth Dunedin Evening Star probably goes to century. his cucumber patch to extract therefrom stray sunbeams with which to cheer the drizzling and melancholy hour 1 -. At least we should not be surprised if he did so. I- or docs he not habitually go to equally unlikely sources for practically all the light he throws on Catholic happenings ' He apparently never dreams of referring to Catholic sources lor Catholic news, and avoids the ' Romanist' Press as if every square inch of it were peppered over with germs of the bubonic plague. His latest exploit is to make Pope Leo XIII. declare the present year of grace, 1900, the beginning of the twentieth century. This was in the Evening Star of last Saturday. In our issue of February 8 there appeared an editorial note which, for those who read it, ought to have clinched the matter and placed it beyond the reach of further discussion. But the religious editor of the Star neither ' found ' nor * made a note of ' this item of Catholic news. As a matter of fact, the Pope has issued no special decree whatever regarding the question, but incidentally accepts the first instant of the year 1901 as the beginning of twentieth the century. Thus, 'in the course of the Universal Decree regarding the Jubilee (dated November 13, 1899) tne Congregation of Rites expressly states that 'at midnight of the last day of December of the coming year [1900] the present century will come Lo an end and a new one begin.' The Church of all the ages which reformed the Calendar, ought to be a good judge of such matters as the opening and close of the centuries. The wcrds of the Universal Decree will, therefore, carry due weight. In the course of a recent interview on the subject, I'ather COl mack, of Cardiff, quoted a circular letter issued by Bishop Hedley on December 16. The Bishop says : 'At midnight on December 31, 1900, the nineteenth century ends, with all its good and evil, and the new century begins, with all its hopes and fears.' Continuing, Father Cormack said : ' The National Committee of England for the regulation o!" the different e\ents by which the Holy Year or Ye ir of Jubilee 1900 is to be celebrated, also treats the year 1900 as trie last of the nineteenth century. This committee is presided over by Cardinal Vaughan ; and his Holiness the Pope, in his encyclical letters and communications to the clergy and faithful, accepts, as a matter of course, that the nineteenth century ends with December 31, 1900, and that the twentieth century begins with January ], 1901.'

H\trh) is, perhaps, of all passions, the one THvr that lives longest and dies the most lingering resolution de iih Henceall of us that are acquainted 01 with the bot'omless depth and intense bittercondolenck. nes^, of ihe Orange Society's hatred of the ( atholic clerg) — unless when they are cashiered for bad conduct — received a mild shock of pleased surprise on reading our Auckland correspondent's statement that the local Grand Lodge hid expressed its regret at the demise of the Ute Monsignor Macdonald. The same Grand Lodge had eight or nine months previously invited to our shores the dismissed inebriate, Joseph Slattery, and the female impostor that accompanies him. Singularly enough, on the very same day ( January 5; that the New Zealand Grand Lodge passed tins resolution of sympathy, it concluded arrangements with this unhappy pair ot vagrant disturbers and sent instructions to all the lodges in the Colony to receive them with open arms and accord them their utmost support in a campaign of abominable calumnies which represents the priesthood of the Catholic Church as monsters of vice— as diabolical Frankinsteins who, every moment that they cumbenJ and blight the earth with their presence, are robbing the hangman and the devil of their due. At least two of those who assisted in passing the vote of condolence on the death of Monsignor Macdonald stood by the side of Slattery on the platform of the Foresters' Hall ten days later, on January 15.

We have a suspicion that the feeling of the Auckland brethren on the death of the beloved and saintly old Father Walter was less correctly represented by the Grand Lodge than by the indignant Orangeman who writes in brief but blank amazement to the Victorian Standard of January 31 to protest against the resolution of condolence on the deatli of 'a priest.' It was, of course, to be expected that the thklodgk same Grand Lodge would raise its voice in and angry protest against Dean U'Keilly's reTHE cathoih que^t to the local F.ducation Board for the schools. inspection of Catholic schools. And — also of course, — the Lodge expressed no objection, on principle or otherwise, to the inspection of private schools that are not Catholic. Its protest, briefly, was directed against the Board doing that which an Act of Parliament, in express terms, authorised and empowered them to do, and which is actually done at the present time by the great majority of Education Boards in the Colony. The protest of the scarved brethren was not made on grounds of public polity. It is simply part of the Orange Society's century-old campaign against the rights and liberties of the Catholic body. Orangemen carried on so violent and rebellious a campaign against Catholic Emancipation that the Society was suppressed by Act of Parliament in 1825. It was likewise suppressed eleven years later for the Cumberland Plot, which was a set attempt by the leaders of the organisation to prevent the accession of the Princess (now Queen) Victoria and to place on the throne in her stead their ' Imperial Grand Master,' the infamous Duke of Cumberland. To this day the Orange leaders, in their speeches and writings, deplore the passing of the Emancipation Act. Their 'accredited organ,' the Victorian Standard, referred to it as 'a fatal error ' in its Lsue of May, 1893 ; and as recently as last November 5, a noted lodge chaplain in Toronto (reported in the Toronto Sentinel of December 21) denounced in flowing speech the repeal of the penal laws and the melancholy fact that ' Atheists, Jews, and Romanists are now permitted to share in the Government of the British Empire.' In Belfast, Derry, and Armagh — those strongholds of the fraternity — Catholics were systematically excluded from every public position of emolument and trust and deprived of many of the chief benefits of the Emancipation Act. At length the scandal reached such dimensions that the British Parliament was compelled a few years ago to protect to some extent the Catholic body in the three places mentioned by passing the Belfast Corporation Act, the Derry Improvement Act, and the Armagh Provisional Order, with the Healy clauses attached. All this was done amidst considerable uproar on the part ot the lodges and with much fiery denunciation from their organs in the Press. * * * It is not generally known that every Orangeman, even on initiation to the first degree, takes an illegal and unconstitutional oath which, among other things, binds him to never vote ior a Catholic at municipal or parliamentary elections. His oath likewise binds him to support members of the lodge, however disreputable their character may be, against decent Protestant candidates who are not members. This oath is made still more rigid during the blasphemous ceremonies and the coarse horseplay which the Orangeman has to pass through, almost quite naked, on initiation to the ' two-and-a-half ' or ' purple arch ' degree. Walking with or marrying a Catholic girl, attending a Catholic ceremony, presence at a bazaar or entertainment in aid of a Catholic institution or charity, are all matters for expulsion from the Order. And in the case of business men or employes of business firms expulsion generally carries with it a degree of great and petty persecution which makes forced severance from the Order a very serious penalty indeed. Members are constantly warned that any sort of dealings with Catholics is a violation of the bed-reck principle of the society. It is, in the eyes of the Order, a serious crime indeed ior a member to purchase a ticket lor a Catholic concert, for an Orange cyclist or athlete to compete at Catholic sports, for an Orange shopkeeper to exhibit in his shop windows the handbill or placard of a Catholic entertainment, or for any member of the Iraternity to be intimately associated with an individual Catholic in any private or public enterprise. Mr. Lewis, a former chaplain of lodge 130 (Melbourne), sums up as follows the attitude of the ideal Orangeman towards Catholics, and the whole history of the organisation furnishes an overwhelmingly abundant justification of his words : ' The ideal Orangeman must wage a relentless and unscrupulous warfare against his Catholic fellow-citizens, giving no quarter or fair play, stopping at no injustice or even treachery to inflict a foul blow upon the character, business, or social position of any member of the hated creed.'