AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY

New Zealand Tablet, 26 December 1912, Page 15

AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY

There was a very large, representative, and enthusiastic meeting in the Cathedral Hall, Melbourne, on Monday evening, December .2, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Australian Catholic Truth Society. His Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne presided. • ’ . . ; ~ *

Rev. Father Norris read the annual report and balance sheet, which stated, inter alia : The balance sheet shows a credit at profit and loss of'£l4 ss, after providing for all contingencies. During the period under review twenty-four distinct pamphlets, of a high order of merit, have been published, and of these pamphlets 181,500 have been printed, as against 104,550 for the preceding year. Since the inception of the society, eight years ago, over 1,000,000 publications have been circulated, and 52,596 copies of the society’s prayer-book have been sold. The fact- that the merit of the society’s publication is recognised throughout the English-speaking world should give rise to searchings of heart and compunctuous visitings at home. Last year it was our pleasing duty to place on record the cheering news that the International Catholic Truth Society of America, which is doing noble work in defending the interests of the Church from the slanders and calumnious , mis-statements of her enemies in the anti-Catholic press, ordered a large supply of our pamphlets, and that another Catholic publishing society ' the Angel Press, Boston—had requested permission to reprint our booklets. This year we have to add another mark of appreciation. A few weeks ago the Secretary of the Catholic Reading Guild of England, a society which has organised on a large scale the sale of Catholic pamphlets at the church doors, in the streets and highways, expressed a strong desire to receive our pamphlets and create a demand for them all over England. ‘We appreciate,’ writes the secretary of _ the Reading Guild, ‘ the forceful style of your writers, and the bold, clear type and sub-heads you use, so highly that we greatly hope it will be possible for us to get an arrangement by which we can circulate your literature in this country, in addition to that of our own C.T.S.’ This testimony to the value of our publications is highly encouraging in view of local apathy, and proves that there is no need for our society to put up a notice similar to that which is said to have adorned the piano in a saloon in a Western State of America: ‘ Don’t shoot at the pianist; he is doing his best. The life subscribers number 118 clerical and 89 lay; the annual subscribers, clerical, 60; lay 361. In conclusion, we have to extend our heartfelt thanks to the writers who have given us freely of their best, especially to the lady writer, ‘Miriam Agatha,’ who has successfully solved the difficulty of writing for children ; to the press, both Catholic and secular, for the publicity given to our meetings; to the Catholic Federation, for its promise of aid to make the needs of our society more widely known, and to win fresh recruits for the labor of coming years;—On behalf of the executive, John Norris, clerical secretary.