Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 6, 7 February 1907, Page 22

Notes

Two Reminders : - 'A wise man ', says the Milwaukee • Catholic Citizen '/- ' paid ten cents a week to insure his house against fire, and- ten cents a week, to insure his- children against the loss^ of their religion. The latter insurance he took out »in the form of a Catholic family .paper published .weekly. Depend upon it— a Catholic family brought" up to read, year after year, a good Caitfaolic weekly, will get a' thousandfold the value of the subscription paid.' 'He was a Catholic (in name) I,'1 ,' says' the Los Angeles 'Tidings'. 'He didn't subscribe for a" Catholic newspaper (said he didn't need. ' it). After a while he married— and still he .didn't subscribe for a "Catholic journal. His children grew .up— without jeading or ever seeing a Catholic newspaper—and now he wonders why. he has- to .' spend twenty-four houis a day trying to keep his sons out of the clutches of the law.. 1 * Another * Bluggy * Leaflet Before their departure for" the £reen Snores of Erin, the Irish Delegates did not, we hope, omit to present a testimonial to' the Protestant 'Defence' (? Offence) Association in Auckland and the 'Defenders' "'• yellow brethren in Waihi. We learn that a good r ly measure of the success of the Delegates' meetings 4n these, two centres was due to the wholesome - disgust ' aroused' in\_-the nifinds of decent and fair-minded nonCatholics by two anti-Home Rule leaflets' distributed by the P.D.A. (which, as stated elsewhere) is merely one of the ' aliases 'of the Orange fraternity. In this-,- as in other cases, the brethren o'ervaulted their purpose. We have touched elsewhere upon one of these Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones leaflets. We now have the other • one before us. And it is a gem of purest ray serene. It begins with ,the good old wheeze (dealt with; in our 1 -last' issue)., that Mother' Michael McCarthy, the special anti-Catholic, pet of the Orange press and platform, is — ' a Roman Catholic ' ! We then have some • history' " -in * extracts.' There Is, for instance, a grotesque and scandalous travesty of the facts of an assault on ' soupers ' who some 44me ago made a coarse public attack, upon the niost^ cherished dogmas and practices of the Catholic laith . in the streets "of the Catholic village "of CUifdcn, Connemara. Then (among other— things) we have a statement— first published, and,- in afl probability; first coined, by the Orange 'writer . Mdsgrave— to the effect that during Tthe insurrection of" 1798 ' the" priests ' administered to .' the -rebjels '. an -oath to '"'murder all . heretics./ This fabrication is the old attempt to offse tf the oath which (according to the testimony .of Lords* Gosford and Holland, .Henry Grat'tan, William Sampson, '\\A other contemporary. Protestant writers, as well as of some' eye-witnesses)

early Orangemen took to exterminate •• the Catholics

of Ireland.' The . writer of the \ Auckland pamphlet wisely suppressed the name of Musgrave. Having, unlike them, no object in . screening the varlet, we may state that Musgrave was a venal placeman whose vote was ever at the service of the .highest bidder. He sold it by previous bargain' for the . destruction of the old Irish Parliament, receiving in payment the lucrative position of Collector of the City of- Dunlin Excise. Sir Jonah Barrington (another Orangeman) says in his • Personal. Sketches ' ' that Musgrave _.was insane on « politics, reiigidn, martial law, his wife, the Pope,' and other matters. Lowndes (a Protestantwriter) denounces 'Musgrave's book as { a party wdrky abounding in misrepresentations.' Cornwallis - (Lord 1 Lieutenant) refused to accept the dedication of . ib. The Irish Government 'deemed it necessary to disown all connection with the_ author,' partly on account of the clamorous .indecency, witlj which he advocated torture., and free-quarters against Catholics. And in pur Own. day Lcck'y scourged Musgrave's book for its 'malevolent -partiality,' its 'violent and. evident - partisanship.' He '.represents,' says Lecky 'the extreme anti-Catholic spirit, produced by the rebellion 1 of 179 a,' -

Another of the « bluggy ' features of the aii'lHonie Rule leaflet consists of a similar appeal to the User" passions of ■ the ignorant; It is a. perjured and highly coitired- wisfepresefifotioft of the facts" of the iiiassacre Hi Scuiiabogue" Barii during the^ihstirfec'tioh tit 1798. Tliis dep^rable incident (which is grossly exaggerated in tiie leaflet) was " the , w^rk si a hand- . ful of fugitives fr6m tiie battife bt New R6ss. it was brie of .the happily rare feprlsais by tife insurgonts for ,the long co'uise of scourgiflg, p^tfen^eappih'g,- torture, plundering- burningt arid wholesale massacres' perpetrated chiefly by tiie Orange' soldiery ~ befor6 and during the insurrection; But to their eyerfastfng honor, tveh at Scullabogue, as "throughout the ciititb c6urse of the war; the insurgents scrupulously respected tiie chastity. of women. Iri this they were poles apart from the soldiery; and especially the brutalised Orange yeomanry, whose outrages upon womefi did lnore" than all other causes combined to"" arouse in,, the breasts of the armed and exasperated peasants tha -- •spirit of • revenge which found expression in the fierce but unauthorised reprisal of Scullabogue. Froude's version of that sad affair is ill keeping, with the whole, character of his mendacious book, • The English in - Ireland, ' That work, says Leeky, (• Itelattd in the' Eighteenth CMrlury,' voi, i/-'p-.- - 13) «is intended to blacken to the iitffiost the'" chafactef ,of the Irish" people, and especially of the Irisp / Cathfliicg,' It has, says the same . non-CathoAc . iii&torifiri, * iid tnote claim to impartiality than an election squib.' Dr; Freeman is even more caustic in ' sizing up ' the th'oraugh'-go-ing unreliability of James Anthony Froude. But at " this time ' of day educated people ' do not gO to Froude for- history, but for hysteria and for iridescent romance. We may say of his Rawliead , versions of sundry events in Irish history what Macaulay said of the * Popish Plot ; — that , they have been 4 aband-" oned" by statesmen -to aldermen, by aldermen - to--clergymen, by clergymen .to old women, and by old women to S»ir Harcourt Lees.' And be it noted that, in Macaulay's Sir Harcourt Lefes was a type of the average -wearer o f the f ; saffron . sash who has a boundless" capacity for swallowing stories that record miraculous and impossible"' diabolism O n the -part of 'Rome.'

At a representative meeting of the . Catholics of Christchurcb,' held a few days ago, it was resolved that a fitting reception" be accorded his Lordship Bishop Grimes on his: return to the diocese, and that<a presentation foe made to him. The hearty co-operation ofall sympathisers with the movement is requested." Contributions ' may. be sent to the Very Rev. Father- Le > Menant des Ohesnais, V.G-., Mr.- P. Burke (toon, treasurer), or Mr. E." O'Connor, J.P. (Hon. secretary). An early response is earnestly requested, as His Lordship is> expected back soon. ..."