The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1906. CATHOLICS AND CRIME

New Zealand Tablet, 20 September 1906, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1906. CATHOLICS AND CRIME

f FRENCH cook (so the story runneth) tried once upon a time to make an English plum-pudding. He sorted the materials out ' in portions true '—got the ingredients all right , but somehow got the pudding allwrong. ' How vas dees ? ' asked the puzzled Frenchman of a-n English cook. The Englishman hinted that Monsieur had perhaps forgotten the pudding-cloth. And such turned out to be the case!, An analogous error is committed by the over-eager enthusiasts who from time .to time— and for the greater part anonymously— serve up to newspaper readers in these countries badly-cooked statistics of Catholic criminality. Quite commonly

the ingredients (that, is, the., figures) of .their . statistical plum-pudding ' are all. wrong. . • Even when< these are, by a^iais- t and happy , -chance,-, right,-, the puddingcloth .(th-at r is,wrigh.t logical of the : figures)is wronig.v and t the ', final ? result :is generally sufficient to justify « -the sarcastic degrees- of comparison in falsehood : lies, thumping lies, and statistics.

This is the case with a set i of statistics received by us this week from a. northern correspondent.. They are scissored from- a paper, the- title of which -does not appear, profess to be -taken from the ' Catholic. Times ', and are published in ", New Zealand for the express purpose of. showing that the number- of Catholic prisoners who • passed <- through the Liverpool, prison \ in 1 884 was ' out of all proportion to the Roman Catholic population of the city '. And then comes the smug observation : •By their • fruits ye ,shall know them. The number of 'Romanists' given is 13,67&. These figures are, so to speak, the' ingredients of the statistical dish. But the pudding-cloth of fight logical inference was forgotten. This latest statistical chef cooked his figures in the wrong way, and- the result has been a dish that 7s neither ' dainty ' nor fit "to lay .before the king ' Demos, who has, Nor ought to have, a taste for_ truth above all things. These figures- were also published (anonymously, as usual) some time ago in Dunedin. BotV statistical cooks fell into the following fallacies of undue assumption: (1) they assumed that the Catholic prisoners referred to were all from Liverpool ; (2) they assumed that the degree of criminality of the Catholic prisoners was the same as that of the non-Catholic ones; (3) they assumed , that ■ all those who appeared on the returns as • Roman Catholics ' were properly described as such ; and (4)' they assumed that 4 Romanism ' was the cause of the criminality " of the alleged ' Roman Catholics ' in the Liverpool-prison, for in each case we are asked to take the returns of crime as the ' fruit ' of Oatholic teaching. Now (1) the Catholics in the Liverpool prison in 1884, .as at the present time, were not all from the big city on the IMersey. They are sent there from Lancashire (St. Helen's, Widnes, sSouthport, Waterloo, Seafdrth, Crosby, Ormskirk) ; from Cheshire (Birkenhead Borough, Liscard) ; from Wales (Flint Borough and County). Why was not this explained ? And (2) why was it not stated that over fifty ; per cent, of the alleged Catholic prisoners were mere • drunks ' and other petty offenders who were 'sent up' for less than a fortnight (usually' through inability to' pay fines) ; that thirty-eight per cent, of them were ' in ' for a week and under ; and that only four per cent, of them had to serve sentences of three months or longer ? And why, in such a connection, was n-o mention made of the noteworthy and frequently published Protestant testimony to the relatively remarkable -purity and crimelessness of the Catholic poor, and especially 'of the Irish Catholic poor, in the slums of Liverpool ?

(3) It is v assumed, in * odorous comparisons ' of this sort, that . all who appear as • Roman Catholics' on the prison returns are correctly described as , regards religious profession* We 'have from time to time abundantly demonstrated the falsity of such an assumption so far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned. •- We need not here again refer in detail to such" signal;. instances of fraudulent misdescription as that "of the= pagan aboriginal • King Billy of Ercildoune^' who ? described, himself as a ' Roman^ Catholic' in the -Ballarat prison ; nor to. the long-sentence Jew who had himself entered as an adherent of the same faith upon « the - register of the Dunedin gaol. Our readers will readily jrecall the remarkable article * that appeared in our ±: columns two or three years ago from the pen- oT an: r observant and painstaking clergyman who discharges the -functions of > chaplain to one of t>he largest prisons <an New t Zealand. It wholly coincides with our .personal experience as regards the frequency

of false religious registration in the prisons of Victoria. The Melbourne ' Advocate '—which * has fromtime to time - done yeoman service in exposing . this class of calumny and fraud-has the following observations in point in its issue of September 8, in thecourse of a reply to Orange Grand-Master Snowball :- 1 'What is the authority upon which he bases his conclusions ? If he answers truthfully, he must confess that the figures upon which he relies are founded upon the unchallenged statements of every" convicted criminal in the State, and upon no other ground SOSES'; H ° kllow ? ™? th *V beyond the mere statement of the . criminal, which is never questioned, there are no ordinary means of ascertaining his religion ; nor, for that matter, his name, nationality age, or any other matter of the kind. This is a fact well known to officials charged with the custody of malefactors of every degree, and the statements of prisoners on these matters are not merely -regarded S h 3 I Sr. y but m £US > B w " t0 w absoluW " orth - The ' Advocate ' then directs attention to the following cases, which are taken from the official records, adding that « such instances could be multiplied by many hundreds ' :— *«J ™ B onv A cte . d on five separate charges, including forgery and uttering ; on the first batch of convictions religion is given as Cburoh of England, on the second Roman Catholic. J.M., three convictions : religion on each occasion, Roman Catholic. This man was known to be a bigoted Orangeman, and never nJii.^ - a R ath ° he 5 hls carriage certificate, when produced in the Divorce Court, showed his re igion to be Victorian Free Church. W. 8., with a number of aliases, seven convictions, 'seven years and one month sentences; record of religion, Church . of England, Church of England, Roman Catholic. W.K., with an alias four convictions, sentences,. 22 years : reliejion Presbyterian, Roman Catholic. M.P., a notorious SZf alf p'S. th r fort7 convicti <* s ; religion in each c aS e! Roman Catholic; parents Wesley ans, and the crimina had never been a Catholic. J.DI, with an aSSf 10 convictions ; sentences, 9* years ; religion, Presbyterian Roman Catholic The last example which we shall ?£«<£„ ra s er iKS"?* H ' T -' wi * h six biases ; convictions, 2»9 , birthplace, Newcastle, N.S.W. EnWatod London; born, 1871, 1870, 1868; religion , Wesfeyan' Wesleyan, Roman Catholic' < * w <®ieyan,

llt may be argued,' adds the ■' Advocate,' that the practice, of deception works all round, and 'that there is no reason why a majority of criminals should misrepresent themselves as Catholics. Unfortunately, -there are substantial reasons for knowing ifoat- criminals do habitually misstate facts in the'manner referred to, and that the Catholics are unjustly made to bear the odium of crime perpetrated by men of other denominations.' Our Melbourne contemporary, then .repalls the case of Knox, the Williamstown murderer, who had his name entered in the charge-sheet as a ' Roman" Catholic . We have a very distinct recollection of the man and of the crime, which was a peculiarly brutal case of murder. The criminal was a Sunday-school teacher and had never been a Catholic. When it was discovered that he was, and had always been, a Protestant, the- question was put to his mother : • Why did he designate himself a Roman Catholic ? ' And (according to the Melbourne papers) she answered :« I suppose he did not want to disgrace his own religion.' We have a personal recollection of many such instances of -religious misdespription. _ „ ~ °.

Entries of the religious profession -of prisoners are made for two purposes— with a view to spiritual ministrations, and for statistical information and comparison. For this la-tter purpose,' accuracy becomes a matter of public right and. of scientific and moral interest, and it should •be secured -by adequate pre- - cautions. 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 o"ut, and a few prosecutions for perjury would serve to convince even -.the criminal fraternity, that, in this matter at least, truth-telling is .the better policy.