Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 13, Issue 7, 13 February 1908, Page 21

Notes

•Catholic' Prisoners ' I noticed ', said the Hon. J. A. Tole at the recent meeting of the University Senate, ' that when I became Minister for Justice, a number of prisoners suddenly became Catholics '. The presence of a Catholic warder or two in a gaol, or thr| knowledge . that the prison is visited by a soft-hearted ' sogart arun ' , likewise counts among the factors that produce mysteiious ' conversions ', and credit our Fold with many, wrongdoers who never entered it by the only way that the Church recognises.

Deporting Anarchists Months before the Lisbon tragedy, the Argentine Government found it necessary to nass a law enabling the country .to cleanse itself of anarchists and other nois p ame human vermin that infested it. The Expulsion Law was lately put 'into operation. Some anarchists were seized and deported- to their native countries, '.with the compliments, of the Argentine Government. 1 They are not wanted * - here ' , says the Buenos Aires 1 Southern Cross ' ; 'let them go back to Europe,

which generated them, and help to make things hot for the greedy tax-grinders of that soldier-ridden Continent.' ' ' The ' Great Pillage The revelations in regard to the open, notorious, barefaced, and wholesale misappropriations by • the liquidators of the plundered Church property in France, have j at last moved the Senate to appoint a Commission to inquire into the transactions. The Commission may, or may not be, merely a white-washing one. But its appointment is at least a concession to popular sentiment, which, to some extent at least, -seems even still to think in France that ' The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing '. The Philadelphia l Catholic Standard ' hits offi In happy phrase* the ways and wiles of the official pillagers 1 . ' The Masonic symbol for " liquidation ",' it says, ' is the square and compass, and the legend', "Liberty, equality, fraternity." The formula is : Expulsion, confiscation, auction sale, division, subtraction, disappearance — mum ! A cabalistic word is " liquidation !" ' . Singers Then and Now The presence of a ' star. ' singer in New Zealand is a fresh reminder of the manner in which the moneyvalue of a fine voice has gone on increasing by leaps and bounds during the past six decades. Just over sixty years ago Cm 1847) such a galaxy of musical fame as Grisi, Alborf, Mario, Lablache, and Julius Benedict ' played ' at Brighton. Theirs were evien then names to conjure with. Tet the modest douceur of £120 sufficed to reward them all. -Long years afterwards, when every note of a famous singer was worth a pound note, Colonel Mapleson paid Madame Patti £1.000 before each performance. Once, however, he had not in hands the needful shekels before the curtain rose. He sent £SOO to the diva's dressing-room, with an intixration that the remaining £2<-0 would be forthcoming shortly. ' Almost immediately ', said he, ' I had a visit from Madame Patti s maid. Carrying a shoe in her hand, she observed that her mistress was fully dressed with the exception of one shoe, which she was not inclined to put on until the £200 was handed to her. At that moment my treasurer appeared with the necessary balance, and without delay 1 wrapped up a sum equivalent to £200, deposited it in Patti's shoe, and sent it to her with my best compliments.' And then the queen of song was ready to become the audience's queen of hearts.- Of PaderewsKi.it is said that his. ordinary fee for a performance . of twenty minutes is ' anything over £500 ' ; that ' in one short American tour he made £3<,,000 ' ; rand that ' in one season of about a hundred concerts in large towns he netted £200,000 '. As for tb.e songs of Tetraaauii, each of them must be as valuable as one of the rich pockets of gold which miners term 'jewellers' shops '.