Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 19, 12 May 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

A Gentle Hint

Qur clever contemporary, the Boston ' Pilot,' gently jogs the memory of its subscribers in a recent issue. With slight verbal alterations to suit the circumstances of New Zealand, we repeat it for the benefit of those : of our readers whom it may, concern : ' Again the warning is raised that bank-notes are dangerous because they transmit microbes of disease from hand to hand. Perhaps it is solicitude for cur health which keeps some tardy subscribers from sending us money in that form. But they need not fear. In remitting your notes please send by registered letter ; it costs only ! tlh'ree pence, and the microbes are killed on the way.' ,

Non-Catholic • R.C.* Criminals

William Wilson— an old acquaintance of ours— some years ago shuffled off h s mortal coil and his soul is in the Spirit-land. Some of our West Coast readers will probably remember hiim better as 4 Billy Wilson, 1 or as ' King Billy of Ercildoune.' He was the last of the Ballarat district blacks, and in 1850 danced and feasted on roast bullock at a great coirobboree with two hundred other dark-skinned tribesmen on the site now occupied by the council hall of The City of Gold 1 . One day— it was in January, 1896— the diusky monarch loaded about a churnful of beer into Lis ' ' innards,' came into collision with the law, and was 1 sent up ' for drunkenness an*d obscene language. 'Do you profess any religion ? ' the warder queried. ' Keligion ? ' said his Majesty ;' of course, mister. ' I'm a Catholic— a Roman Catholic' ' Who converted you ? ' said a bystander. ' Why, a minister out alotfg on Sir Sir Samuel Wilson's station at Ercildaune.' And so the semi-savage and wholly pagan aboriginal was entered up on the records to swell the criminal statistics of the •' Papishes.'

' King Billy of Ercildoune,' in declaring his religious "belief, was merely folllowing a fashion of falsification set him by white criminals in these countries. When, for instance, the Williamstown murderer— who was a Protestant Sunday-school teacher— was brought to justice, he had himself entered on. the records as a ' Romian Catholic' 'An explanation of t|he notorious misdescription was subsequently suggested by this youthful criminal's mother : • I suppose,' said she, 'he did not want to disgrace his own religion.' Other similar cases

galore have been from time to time exposed by the Catholic papers in Australia, and some months agp authoritative evidence of the frequency of the practice in New Zealand was given in our columns. Among the long-sentence prisoners at present in Ounedin gaol there are at least two that are falsely entered upoln the records as ' Roman Catholic' The whole family history of both is well known. One of them is a Jew ; the other (a female prisoner) is a Protestant. And both admit that they have never, at any period of their lives be^n Catholics. Entries o£ the religious profession of prisoners may be made for two purposes —wjtli a view to spiritual ministrations, and for statistical information and comparison. If for the firstmentioned purpose, it might mean actual religious affiliation or profession, or it might mean prospective preference—no matter on what grounds— as to the kind of religious ministration desired while' in prison. If tbe ieligious description of convicted prisoners were intended for these purposes only, we should not lay much, if any emphasis on the circumstance of actual religious attachments formally entered into by baptism or other wise. But it is quite a different thing when the religious entries of convicted prisoners are used— as they are in, Mew Zealand and in Australia — for purposes of public information and comparison. Accuracy then r.ecomes a matter of public right and of scientific and moral interest, and it should be secured by ajdequate precautions. Such affirmations as to religious profession should be taken as statutory declarations, in which false statements would be punishable as perjury. The details of this much needed change could be readily worked out, and a few prosecutions for perjury— for which the evidence is ready at any time — wouljd serve to convince the criminal fraternity of the Colony that, in this matter at least, truth-telling is the better policy.

We are aware that this arrangement would not suit the card of some religious enthusiasts with whom we had a word or two lately. But the Po^pe aad the Jesuits are, like the poor, always witti us ; arid a respite froni wrestling with statistical fallacies womld give out over-eager critics more leisure to prove that Piius X a lit, with his ' taper ' fingers, the Chicago theatre fire,and that it is the sons of St. Ignatius who ' fill the butchers' shops with large "blue flies.'

• Pig-tail Politics'

Auckland voices the latest protest against the Importation of yellow "bondmen into South Africa. Cari-

ously enough, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his place in the House of Lords, supported this system of human bondage, which, by the terms of the Ordinance, are indistinguishable from those of slavery. The policy of spreading yellow slavery under the British flag has received the the apt name of ' pigtail politics.' The happy title is dpe to Mr. Kugene Crean, one of the Nationalist members fur Coik County, Ireland We have already recorded, in our personal columns, how, in the heat of tihe Chinese Labor debate in the House, of Commons, Mr. LylU'lton said that the de-tails of the Milner scheme were not yet ready. ' Tlvat may be,' Mr. Crean promptly replied, ' but the Government have got the pig-tails ready.'

Food in War

It has been said that an army marches and rights upon its stomach. • Mr. Dooley ' puts the idea in his own quaint way. ' If,' says he, c all them great powers (as they say themselves) was f'r to attack us (the United States) I'll tell ye what I'd do. I'd blockade Armour an' Comfp'ny (the great Chicago meat packers) an' the wheat ilivators iv Minnysoty. F'r, Hinnissy, I tell ye, th' hand that rocks th' scales in th' grocery store, is th' hand that rules th' wurruld.' The problem of feeding the population, as well as the army, is one of the factors that influence statesmen in undertalking a war. It also plays an important part in deciding or vetoing its continuance. In the days of the Crimean war, Russia, so to speak, blockaded her wheit fields, export from them ceased, the price of that prime necessary of European life rose by eighty per cent, in Great Britain, and there was hunger junoppeased in many places besides the purlieus of Whitechapel. When the Northern and Southern States of America were hacking and hewing at each other in the great Civil War, a wooden-wa-Uad steam-sloop of only 1040 tons— the ' Alabama,' to wit— «tole dut of Birkenhead with an English equipment and an English crew, became part of the Confederate service, and raided the Union commerce so industriously as to cause a very perceptible rise In the price of wheat. England is the largest wheat-importer in the world ; next comes Germany, but a long way in the rear ; and then Italy and France. The United States, Austria-Hungary, and Russia are considered independent as to the feeding of their population. But over wide areas of Russia high prices and consequent distress would prevail The difficulty o* keeping up the transport of adequate supplies of food-stuffs to the theatre of war must also be v^ry great, while the phantom of revolution is one of Ihe terrors that, as in the vision of Macbeth, stalk across the political stage of Muscovy.

An Unclean Tribe

Deain Swift^-to Judge from his epitaph— longed to get off the earth to a land ' where fierce indignation can rend the heart no longer.' In his day he turned the lash of his stinging sarcasm, to same p,uripose, at il^e weeds which the Pope threw over his garden wall, and at the welcome which awaited them when they landed on the other side. This strange infatuation has created in English-speaking coimtries one of the worst and most disreputable kind of swindling that it is well possible to conceive— to wit, the trade or profession of the unclean tribe of gaol-birds and adventurers who fraudulently set up as ' ex-priests,' ' ex-mom ks,' and 'exnuns ' and earn a dishonest livelihood by coarse appeals to the lubricity of the prurient and to tiic sectarian passion of the bigoted. We have compiled a bulky volume of the prison records and other biographic] notices and adventures of nearly a hundred of those theological magsmen and disreputable females. By far the greater number of them were never, at any perijd of their lives, Catholics. And the unclean herd 'night well take for' its motitov tliis distich from Taylor the water-poet :—

' I want the knowledge of the thriving art, A holy outside and a hollow heart.'

One of the bright particular ornaments of this swindling fraternity is (says London ' Tr,uth ') ' the impudent blackguard who calls himself " ex-monk Widdows." ' He is (says uhe same paper) ' a religions impostor of the most degraded type.' The fellow was, of course, never a monk. He has had a varied and extensive acquaintance with the inside of Canadian an<d English prisons, artd is a diplomat blackguard o£ t*e firstclass. On August 2, 1901, his prison-record was told in the House of Commons by Mr. Wyndham, Chief Secretary for Ireland. It came briefly to this : that Widdows (whose real name is Nobbs) was, in July, 1875, convicted in Toronto (Canada) of an attempt to commit an unmentionable crime. In 1888 he was sentenced to ten years penal servitude in London for an abominable crime. The briitalised creature was not long out of prison when he was at his dirty work again, and it was fo/und necessary to place him again under, lock and key for another long term for a similar filthy offence against morality. This precious pet of the Orange lodges was again enlarged a few weeks ago and was receiveld with open arms by the congregation to which he had been ministering in Hackney in the short interval of liberty which he enjoyed between the sentences of 1888 and 1902.

The ex-convict received, on his release, a greeting of quite a different 'kind* from ' Reynolds's Newpaper ' cf March 12. It says :—

' That abominable hy<procrite ( who falsely calls himself " Ex-Monk Widdows," having been again liberated from his Majesty's Prison, had the unspeakable audacity to start in Hacktiey another series ol what he has the blasphemy to call " religious services." The blackguardly convict was announced to give the " Story of his life " on March 7 at the Church of M.utin Loither, Hackney. He had a sort of a congregation, half of whom, to the shame of their sex, were alleged " ladies." We have often said that a person has only to start any hrand of religion in this country amid he is sure to have a following of neurotic females. It is a disgrace to Hackney that a man with such a record as Widdows should be tolerated. We have already published the details of his crimes, and Mere is no need to describe again the filth for which he has been several times convicted. The character of this scoundrel may be judged by the fact that he has published a statement containing the following sentence : " I astk the prayers of aPI true Christ lans that I may have strength to work and patience to suffer all for Jesus till we gather at the iiver in the "bright land where tears and toils are uwknown, and the deathless song begins." '

Which only goes to prove how easily hypocritical gaol-birds of this class can daub their vice with show of virtue, and whine, and groan, and play the saint and drop manna from their lying tongues— when there's money in the busines-s.

A Slanderer Caught

Dr. Martin Luther declared that « there are edifying and salutary lies.' And (says the learned American Protestant writer, the Rev. Dr. Starbuck) ' his oral admonition not to shrink from goad, plump lies for th benefit of the true religion, is not much known in our Reformed wing of Protestantism; yet,' he adds *i think that we may ple^d that we act pretty **ft!"sfTfb the sipirit of them.' We have frequently oec'as^'ifoW pel lay and clerical attacks upon ?ur faith* its tosti^u.lions, personnel, and practices— attacks which are , eokmonly marked by ignorance, by lack of gtmd iftftnti***, of truth, justice, charity, and siomethnes even of regard for the common decencies of human intejfcc/iirse. ,A favorite method of attack is that of vajßue an 4 general declamation. This is frequently varied by bogus details of persons and places in far-off lands. Some-

times^-perhaps twice In a hundred— real names are supplied and an opportunity is afforded of testing the evil tale, and then the results sometimes take an interesting turn. We gave a few instalnces of this in recent issues of our paper.

A fresh case in point was furnished some weeks ago by a bigoted anti-Catholic daily paper published in Dublin, the ' Irish Times '—more commonly known in '.he G-reen Isle by the soubriquet of the ' Liarish Times.' For a long time past that precious news-sheet has been publishing cowardly attacks on nameless Catholic clergy in nameless places in Ireland. But sometimes good old Homer nods. Even the watchful weasel has been known to take forty winks. One fine day the ' Irish Times ' forgot its customary coward's caution artd ga,ve '.he light of publication to a furious anonymous onslaught on the priests of Clare. Fortunately the devil put it into the head of the fanatic who wrote the screed ■'o attack specifically the pastor of Killaloe— the Very Rev. Father Mclnerney, V.G.— though not directly by name. He and his curates were accused of posturing to the money-bags and neglecting the spiritual interests of the poor. • There is no place,' the anonymous writer continued, • where this is more painfully manifest than^ at the graveside of the poor. I never saw a/ny thing so sad, so sickening, as to see the Roman Catholic poor of Killaloe being conveyed to earth without the burial service being read, simply because the relatives of the departed had not the " hire " of the priest ... In fact I cannot compare the burials of the Catholic poor in Killaloe to anything better than one would give Us dogs.' Father Mclnerney promptly took action. The case was tried before a mixed jury in Cork a few r veeks ago. The pastor's evidence showed that his salary (subject to all sorts of deductions, calls of charity, etc.) was about that of a foreman carpenter or foreman builder. On the other charges his testimony was sio direct, complete, and convincing that the defendant news/paper's counsel declined to cross-examine him and asked for an adjournment. The ' Irish Times ' then paid £450 damages and costs, withdrew all the published accusations, and apologised for all and any matter therein that reflected upon the plaintiff ' or the other Catholic priests of Killaloe.'