Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1916, Page 34

Notes

Good for Evil A French paper gives some interesting figures regarding the contemporary history of the Society of Jesus. According to this record, 760 members of the Society were expelled or kept out of France at the ' Separation.' Six hundred and forty-nine—that is all, without exception, physically fit for service—returned to bear arms, and the older Fathers have offered themselves as chaplains. Thirty-five Jesuit soldiers have fallen, 60 have been wounded, 17 are prisoners. Of a certain number the fate is unknown. Five have been decorated for distinguished service, 27 mentioned in despatches. One Jesuit Father has a commission in the artillery, has three French orders, and the Russian Cross of St. George. Two War Stories One sad, but inevitable concomitant of the state of war is the national, racial estrangement it sets up between men, and the religious separation it is all too likely to effect. But there is another side of the picture, which may well touch our hearts even if they be wrung with grief for fallen friends. Here are two stories which will find an easy entrance into Catholic hearts. The first story told by a French trooper shows that brave men know how to die in good dispositions : ' We had reached our position in a night march and were looking for some shelter when we saw a large farmhouse. There was a passage before us, and at the end of a door we could see a faint glow, and we heard low murmurs. Our officer dashed across the passage with us close behind, and throwing open the-door entered the room. A strange sight met our eyes. We had entered a low vaulted room, lit, by two flickering candles placed at either end of a long table. Kneeling round the table were five Germans, three officers, and two soldiers, praying. One of the officers held a string of beads between his fingers. ' We shouldered our rifles and our officer called out to the Germans to surrender. . .• The officer who held the rosary explained in French that they had lost their way in a storm, and having nothing to eat or drink, had entered the farmhouse to seek food and shelter. They had given themselves up for lost and had knelt down ' to say a last prayer. He asked our officer if they would be shot, and seemed much relieved when told that they would all be treated as prisoners of war.' '-■':", *. " ' The other story lets us see how the women of Francea thousand, times more sadly tried than we have thought of their foes as a whole: 'An exalted person has visited the tombs of our soldiers fallen in August and September, on the banks of the Oise, and found among many others two large mounds with wreaths of flowers laid upon.them. The first bore the inscription: "Offered by the women of France to the German soldiers, our brothers in Jesus Christ." A second inscription ran: "For the German soldiers, our brothers in Jesus, dead far away from their country, wept by their families. We pray for them." '

By their decision to print their minutes without punctuation the Northfleet (Kent) Urban Council will save Is llvjd a week. The council pays the printer 5d for every seventy-two words, commas, full-stops, semicolons, and colons . each counting as a word. As the cost of these luxuries amounts to about £5 a year the council decided to dispense with them. -■_.-. ':: v; : .