FRAUDULENT STATISTICS EXPOSED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 17, 23 January 1891, Page 5

FRAUDULENT STATISTICS EXPOSED.

(From the Boston Pilot.)

THRBK is a class of Protestants — for the honour of human nature, b e it said, a small one — whose hatred for tbe Catholic Church cannot be accounted for on human reasons. It is devilish, and expresses uself in devilish fashion — chiefly by an active propaganda of falsehood. Bold ascriptions to prominent authorities cf pronouncements against toe Church which they never made ; garbled quotations, dishonest statistics ; misrepresentations of Catholic doctrinal and moral teaching, are nnblushingly put forth ; and, however often nod authoritatively refuted, are practically never retracted. It is true that the story of the decision of St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1226,1274) on the Constitution of the United States has been laughed out of print; and that Dr. Dorchester, of Boston, has expunged from his '' Chris ianity in the United States," language falsely attributed to Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia. These are tbe exceptions, rarer than angels' visits. We trust, however, to see Father Alfred Young's " History of a Fraud," in current Hem York Freeman, so widely disseminated that, the dishonest statistics of Mr. Dexter,; A. Hawkins, John Jay, etal. will be shamedout of reputable publications. In the school question symposium, in a recent number of tbe Ntm York Independent, the Rev. Wayland Hoy t, D.D , of Minneapolis, made ihiß statement : — "It seems, according to tbe following statistics, gathered by Mr. Dexter A. Hawkii.B, from the census of 1870, that there are furnished to every 10,000 inhabitants in the United States :—: — Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals. By Public Schools of State of Massachusetts, 71 69 11 By Public Schools of 21 States. 350 170 75 B/ Boman Catholic Schools. 1,400 410 160 " In the State of New York the Roman Catholic parochial scbool system turns out three and a half times as many paupers as tbe public school system." Dr. Hoyt. in answer to Father Young's telegram, ttated that he took these figures from documents published by the Evangelical Alliance, and that they could be found in a paper read at the Evangelical Alliance Conference, Montreal, October, 1888, by the Rev. J.M.King, D.D, entitled, "Jesuitical Romanism in Relation to Education." Tracing them further, Father Young finds that they were first sent by the late Dexter A. Hawkins, who, by the way, was notoriously anti-Catholic and anti-lri9b, to an English publication, the Educational League. Finally, they were embodied by Mr. Hawkins in a lecture, " Tbe Relation of Education to Wealth and Morality, to Paupeiism and Crime " which was printed in pamphlet form in 1883. Mr. Hawkins' statistical table reads : — Illiterates. Paupers. Criminals. Inhabitants. Parochial system 1,400 410 160 to the 10,000 Public school system in 21 States. 350 170 75 „ 10,000 Public school system in Massachusetts. 71 49 11 „ 10,000 TheD, in order to compare ''the effect of pauperism and crime of the two systems of education," be takes the poor cared for by the department of charities and correction from 1871 to 1875, and the number of police arrests from 1860 to 1875 in the city ol New Yoik, and makes the sum total of " Irish " paupeis and criminals in the former case exceed, and in the latter almost equal, that of all other nationalities combined. Society, Le declares, under the parochial school, produces twenty times as many illiterates as under tbe public school. A child trained np in the paiochial school is three and a-balf times as likely to become a pauper, and during life more than three and a quarter times as likely to get into gaol a9the child trained in the free public school. Dr. Hoyt's tables improve on Mr. Dexter's tables by submtuting " Roman Catholic schools " for "parochial system," and be plainly intimates that the results were obtained, as Mr. Hawkins did not pretend they were, from returni of Roman Catholic schools in the United States. Now, in tbe Census Report of 1870 there are no statistics wbat•ver concerning illiteracy, pauperism, or crime, in any way made referable to parochial or Cat hclic schc ols, cither in the whole country, in the twenty-one Northern States, in the State of Massachusetts, or in any other State. Mr. Hawkins' statistics are his own unwarrantable inferences from the Census Report of the illiteracy of foreign and native-born people ia the United States, which showed, by the way, thai tbe percentage of illiterates among the foreign-born waß but three and a half in excess of that among the native-born. His anti-Irishism comes out strongly here ; as he assumes that the foreign born are mostly Irish, and were, of course, educated in parochial schools, forpetting that Ireland has no parochial schools. Mr. H iwkins carefully suppressed tbe heavy percentage of illiterates in the Southern States ; probably, Hays Father Young, be-, came they were neither Catholic nor Irish.

He also suppressed this paragraph from the Report of tbe Commissioner of Education, 1870, p»ge 467 :—": — " Some say : 'The illiterates are m stly fore goer* from conntri-p, wher<% in the imeref-ti of despotism the people are kept in ignorance.' Tnis 1b true of only a tmall portion of the emigrants from Europe. Besides, our illiterates are, most of them, native born." He h«8 dealt with equal dishonesty with the statistics of pauperism aiid crime. But dishonest as are Hawkins' statistics, they have been made worse by the malicious manipulation of the Hon. John Jay, who, in an article in the International Review, put them in the Bhape in which Dr. Hoyt found them. He made Hawkins' figures for New York City apply to the whole Btate, and changed " parochial system " to " Roman Catholic Schools." Then th« late Bey. Thomas B. Tbayer, once editor of the Univertaliit Review, took up the Hawkins-Jay statistics, and spiced them with an ignorant flmg at Catholic moral theology. The Revs. Philip S. Moxom and J. M. King, Senator Blair, and the Evangelical Alliance vigorously disseminate these falsehoods, and make use of them in pulpit, forum, and press to stir up fratricidal strife among American citizens. Father Young finishes his response to John Jay's challenge by expressing bis readiness for tbe conclusive answer which that gentkman promises. But Mr. Jay writes in tbe same issue of the Freeman ; and, without having seeD Father Young'd article, declares that " his evidence, ■whatever it may be, is delusive, and his charges wanting in truth I " What hope for the opponent who is determined to stick to the lie At all hazards I