'De Mortuis'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 2

'De Mortuis'

Among the correspondents who write us all too rarely is a gentle soul who would not break a bruised reed. 4 Were you not, 1 ' says, he, .* rather rough on poor old Chiniqjuy in that answer to a correspondent ? "De mortuis "—you know^ the rest.' Our gentle friend refers to the old Latin proverbial saying which discounts evilspeaking of the dead. A sound general maxim, i' faith. But it may easily be over-worked, or set to tasks for whkih it was not originally intended. The modern Italian version of it is Dantesque, and better fitted for its work : ' Oitre la tomba non va ira nemica ' (' Personal enmity passeth not the tomb '). Here is how Dean Swift sarcastically paraphrases a misapplication of the Latin motto :—: — ' De mortuis nil nisi bonam : When knaves are dead, let all bemoan 'em.' We are not as sentimental as Laurence^ Sterne, who wept salt tears over a defunct donkey. As a general principle, we believe in silence regarding the ' ex-priest ' tribe, whether sham or true, living or dead. But it is a different thing when (being alive) they become aggressive ; or when (being dead) they are made offensive (as in the present instance) by the distribution of their filthy books. In the former case, we reach for our tried and trusty/ horse-whip. In the latter case— well, wo use just enough moral phenyle to abate the nuisance when ghoulish ' resurrectionists ' leave scraps from their ' yellow ' charnel-house at our doors over-night.