Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 26, 30 June 1904, Page 17

Notes

A Great BuHder°Btsliop

A cable message in Tuesday's daily papers announced, the death of the Right Rev Dr Maore, Bistop of Ballaiat The deceaised Prelate's ministratioois, both as piH'sl ,md Bishop, w(>r(> constantly associated with Ballarat it olll JK")<) till UlO lime of his dealili. He was, in fa' t, one 01 the insliuiuons of the City of Gold, ana his death is as t;he passing of one of its great landmarks The city is dotted over witHi noble monuments of religion that will perpetuate his n,ame tto 'future ge.neratious. lie was, indeed, a master buiMer. His episcopate passed, by exactly two months, tjhe even \mge of twenty years. But in that Comparatively ;>hort penod tdieie was spent on Carbolic religioSus edifices in Ballaiat alone the enormous sum of £223,000 sterling. Few episcopal cities in new countries are, m proportion to Catholic population, furnished with so mahy and stutih noble edifices of religion. The late Bisfoo,p Moore has seen the Church expand from small beginnings in Hie wide reeci'on that forms the diocose of Ballarat. 1 o Us gicat woik the twenty years of his administration a»nd the /<\u of an able and zealous clergy have contributed in a iemarkable degree, and he leaves after him ope of the best ma,rmed and best equipped dioceses, under the Southern Cioss May he rest in peace !

That Runaway • Nun '

The ' Feilding Star ' is an occasional Mnapipeir-up of tfuch utiK-'on^idered ant i-Oathohc tynfles as the following, which we take from its iss>ue of the 23r,d ins'feajit :—

' The " Bdshyn Cili/en " of April 2 staixis ■ tthat Sistor Annette, a mm, while teaching music in t«he parochial school at Burßngt'on, lowa, fell in love wifch one of hei older pupils. .She was transferred too t/he home of the mother superior at Cedar ' Kafprds recently. 11,'aiokl Stevenson, the pupil, stJbod t*he se'p'a-ratio.n as long as he cculd. then went t-o t«he Cejd^r Rapidis, where he managed to comrrVJmicate witji hpi.\ tinder cover of darkness, after all had retired, uhe stole diiwn t*he fire cscajpe to the waiting arms of flier sweetheart, and together they boarded a fast train for Olneago, where tihey w ere married '

And, of coutsc, they 'lhe-d happily ever afterwards.' Par is noi that, t lit- traditional and proper ending of sill fairy talcs "> The story quoted 'above was flfeshed to at least one lowa paper before it crawled into ttlie belated columns of tihe ' liustdn Oiti/ein ' There is nothing wionu; with tfhe tale except this : that it was ootfeocted by some f,i\onte son of the Fatther of Lies, atud that it i-> a fabrication from start to finish. The malignant lie was promptly ntn dow-n and oh'oked to death, as our Feildim* i outemiporaiy might ha.\e known had it been awake .uid lea'dmg Ihe \ineik.ui p;) j>tM s, Cai'kolic 01 soi'u'.u , dining the past (wo months. The facts of the case, as olliciallv set forth in the Milwaukee ' Catholic Citizen ' of April 2, «xnd otfher papens in our possession, aie ai follow • Ttic Si.ster Annette referred to is now in Dubuque She never had a pupil named Stevenson She was not sCnt to Codar Rapids, a>s stated. The wlinic of the cheap, melodramatic romance of love, elopement down a (ire-evcapo, and marriage is, through and through, a fabrication. Leg^il advice was taken by Sistei \nnette and ot'heis interested, with the result {bat -i 1 !ia-( one lowa paper has had t)0 swallow the wihiole raw, and with very hitter s,atice. Similar lnteteslniir de\elopinemts were awaiting other editors wln'ii out \nuMicin exchanges last leferrod t«o t*he evil t.ili 1 We hope ( J hr C'.i tiliolu uvwici -. of Ulic ' Fcilding Si.v ' will ,^ce llut due publicity is giVep to the oontravdiction of t9ic \ile calumny on a lady to which— we hope quite innocently I—it1 — it gave publication.

Chinese Slavery

The May number of the ' Wec/tminsjter Review ' contains an inteiesting aitiele on the yellow slavery in the

Transvaal. It quotes a aum,be>r of delicious extracts from apeoqhes by Mr. Chamberlain deprecating in strong terms tbe introduction of the almond-eyed Celestials into Ihe mining districts of the Ranid. But, as tiie world knows, Mr. Chamberlain is a past-master in ttw art of turning his back upon himself. ' Our Colonial Secretary,' siays the article in question, ' xegajtis as " nauseous " any reference to conscience in respect to this question, and to liken the proposed indedture system to slavery is to him like a red rag to a bull. But, in 1/nith, what difference tihwe is between Chinese contract labor utfider this Ordinance and Negro chattel slavery, as it existed in the Southern States of America, is all to the advantage of the Neigiro.' In this connectidn we may quote tihe following extract from an interview accorded to the Dtfnedin ' Evening Star ' by the recently returned sonior member for Dujnedin, Mr. Bedford, M.11.R. :— ' The anti-Chinese movement he (Mr. Bedford) looks upon as one of the most serious current. He says that a most significant feature of the Hyde Paork demonstration (at whiclh he spoke) was that all tlie Ehglish speakers v, ere what have been called pro-Boers. The pro-Boer was now tihe pro-Britisher, and the ex-pro-Britisher was become the pro-Chinaman. At the head of tihe procession which formed part of tihe demonstration was a representation of a dejected JotWn Bull walking between two jubilant Celestials, and tihe crowd took it seriously, and howled their execration fron/.iodly. The British workman, says Mr. Bedford, 2joc-> miad on this question. He believes tliat every union in England was represented in the demonstration The cusrent opinion whejn he left Holme was that tjie Chinese wonjla not be introduced into South Africa, and evein yet he would not be surprised to see the scheme upjset. He agrees with the suggestion that the attempt to condole tihe injustice to the British workman by making the Chinaman a sort of salaried slave is in the nature of dividing the wrong between uhe two. The scheme is opposed to the humanitarian ism of BTitain. Amd he points dut as an example that America put aji ertd to her Japanese conttract systtem on the ground that it was contrary to the principles of Tier Constitution. When questioned furtlher as to his discoveries in regard to pro-Boerism in England, M*r. Bedford said he believed that the wa^r party had won practically by exciting the lower classes ; and tfa'at most of the brainy men in the Nonconformist Churches, together with the majority of the scientists, had been pro-Boers from tjie first. When tihe New Zealander, in his speech at the Hyde Park demonstration, 'said in an explanatory way that in this Cofopiy we had thought it patriotic to be in favor of ttoe war, he was greeted with cries of " .Shame ' Shame ! " and a companion on the platform s.aid to him, •' You see you 'did not know so mucfi as we uid -iujre." '