An Echoed Fallacy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 12, 23 March 1905, Page 18

An Echoed Fallacy

It is strange how the foolish contentions of bigots get echoed around the world. Some weeks ago we read, in a Ldndicn secular daily, a letter by some ' Constant Reader,' or by our ancient friend ' Pro Bono Publico,' contending that the Sisters of Nazaretn, Hammersmith, sihould be dealt with ' the same as any other mendicants ' and placed under lock and key in his Majesty's prisons. And lo ! in a norfhern N.Z. paper there has just appeared the self-same contention from another coy rn>nymity (belonging to the same menagerie as his sjiy friend in Londdn. Curiously enough, this is precisely one of the ' fallacies of ambiguity ' that are pilloried in Professor JeVons's ' Logic' 'On the same grounds,' says the Professor, ' any one who go about soliciting subscriptions for a charitable purpose would be liable to be sent to gaol as a rogue and vagabond. A mendicant is, no doirbt, one who begs ; but we must not convert the proposition simply, and say that whoever begs is a mendicant. A true mendicant not only begs, but lives upon what ne gets by begging, and does no useful work in return. When, therefore, the law punishes mendicancy, we must take care that it is applied only to those who beg for their own support, and make themselves a nuisance to the public'