Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 38, 22 September 1904, Page 18

Notes

The Congress : Important Notice The Union Steam Ship Company and the Hkitidart Parker Company have kindly consented to make the following arrangements in connection with the Second Australasian Catholic Congress :— They will grant the special content, ion of ten uer cent nn fares to Melbourne ON SIGHT OF ME-MBER-SIDIP VOUCHERS signed by one or other of the Diuces'ara Secretaries— namely, the Very Roy. P. Power (ILaweira), for the Archdiocese of Wellington ; the Right Rev. Molisignor P. O'Reilly (Thames), for the Diocese of Auckland ;, the Very Rev. Dean Foley (Temoika), for the Dipcese of Christrhurch ; and the Reiv. H. W. Cloary (Box 98\ Dunedin), for the Diocose of Dunedin. NOTE WELL : The Membership vouchers will NOT BE RETAINED by the Shipping Companies named. They; will |3e returned tt> Members and MUST BE PRESENTED at the Congress Offices, Cathedral lllall, Melhtomrne, when a Badge of Membership will be issued. The arrangements in connection with v.ouiChers for the reduced rates on the New Zealand Government Railways are (not yet to hand, but will be publiyhed by us at the earliest possible date. • Time is passing, and we strongly urge all those who intent! to tjake part in this historic Congress to forward immediately an application for Membership, with fee (lOs 6d), to the Secretaries of their respective Dioceses. Those who cannot avail themselvos of tihis g?e.~it treat, shoiiHd at least secure Membership cards in order to proplute the splendid Congress Memorial Volume, whiuh will, in it&elf alone, be worth miuch more tihap. ;t3io modes,!! slum expended upon it. We shall be glad to transact any business in connection with travel-tickets, etc., that! may be entrusted to us from the Diocese of Dunedm. Compensation for Accidents There is often moire in an Act of Parliament than mecLs the eye— more even than met the eye of the men who licked it into shape with their jaw-bones. Few of o'Hr legislators, we ween, realised whait a long-range weapon they forged when they passed certailn clauses of the Workers' Convponsatitm for Accidents Act. A case was) decided by the Court of Arbitration at Milton last week which brines into unexpected light the responsibilities and the rights which exist under tihis Act. Full details of the case appeared in the ' Otago Daily Times.' Briefly and summarily stated, the case was a i s follows : A wifcjow sought compensation for the death of her husband, William .Seed, Who had been employed as plough man by the respondent, John Seiner ville. In July of last year the deceased, d unrig the course of Ins emfploymant, banged his fingers with a hammer. The inj)ui-y scorned of no particular account and causdd no incohvemience. A medical practitioner (whb was in attondanjee upon the man's wife) s"aw the abraded finger five days after ' the fall of the hammer ' (syj to speak), and thought the wound of no particular consequence — justi tone of the passing little pin-pricks of life. Butt in five days more the man was dead— carried off by erysipelas 1 .

It happened in this way. The deceased mans wife had boe"n sjuffering from puerperal fever. The nurse in aUetiudftnee upon her was attacked with erysipelas ; the husband helped to remove her from the house ; and in doing so it is presumed that he caught the contagion Which carried him off to another and, we hope, a better worrd. A claim was laid by the widow under the Workers' Oomjpon'sation for Accidents Act, and the case presented a fine complication for the law to disentangleThe respondent stoutly argued tlhat the erysipelas, even

if introduced through the hammer-wound, was the true cause ,oB 'death. But the Court held, all the same, thai the case was covered by the provisions of the Workers' Compensiation for Aocidents Act and granted the widow and child compensation to the amount of £244. A word to the wise is— or ought to be— sudicient. And th')se employeis ate wi.se in tlieii geiieidLiun who piulect ll^n interests by a modest ' gamble ' in accrdont insurance policies for their employes.

Missionary Massacre Thero ia nothing like a great grief to soften some of the\ Voorst asperities of t>he world's divided religious life. 1 Pity and need,' says 1 Edwin A,rnold, ' make all men kin ; there is no Caste in blood.' And the messages of condolence, in connection with the New Britain massacre, t.ent to the Catholic authorities by non-Catholic prelates! and others in these colonies bear eloquent testimony to the bond of true brotherhood tihat will, no doubt, work wondrous good in God's good time. The Press- Association supplied to Tuesday's daily papers the latest expression of kindly thought and feeling : ' The Evangelical Council sent a message of condolence to Cardinal Moran on the massacre of the missionaries in New Britain.' Wo do not know who the Evangelical Council are ; but they are evidently possessed of kindly heart's, which (as Tennyson sang) are more than coronets.

One, and only one, raucous note of discord was raised over the graves where the mangled remains of the martyred missionaries await the Second Coming. It was given to the world by the General Secretary of the Methoidist Mission in Sydney, and stated that the m,asLvac;ro. was brought about because the leador of the murderers H wanted to marry a station girl and tihe members of t'hc mission refused to allow him. This lad,' Sjay^l the General 'Secretary's informant, ' then organised the affair, and shot Father Rasher with las own gum.' The following day there appeared in our daily papers an authoritative statement which ate the other up. It ran as follows : ' A German military officer from New Guinea states that the authorities in New Britain do not think that the recant massacre portends a rismg ap.ain.st the whites. Tie regards it merely aa t|he work of Toman to revenge hinusclf for being punished by the Government for into fering with the wife of another native.'