Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 47, 22 November 1900, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Truth, according to Mark Twain, is stranger than fiction — to some people. But the ingenuity of all the fiction-monging tribe of

A hideous CALUMNY.

Ananias never devised a more heartless tale than the moss-grown calumny that the Jewish people, or any of them, have been guilty of murder in connection with the rites of their religion. It is one of those hideous calumnies that

. . Have no possible foundation, But merely in th' imagination. And yet for over four centuries the Jewish people — our spiritual ancestors— have been made time and again to sutler atrociously owing to the spread of this evil tale by men on whose minds the principles of the Gospel had a.-, little real hold as they had on those of the Kalmuk Tartars. No fewer than seven Popes have issued strong condemnations of this cruel outrage on truth and justice. And yet— if we can believe the cable-demon — an unfortunate man of Hebrew race (HuUner) was condemned to death on such a charge a few days ago at Polna, in Bohemia. The probabilities are that he was condemned merely for the crime of murder. On the occasion of his arrest on the charge of ritual murder we, in our issue of September 2S, 1899, and on subsequent dates, dealt editorially and at considerable length with the sickening story 01 the ' blood accusation ' and showed its utter folly and mendacity. We believe we were the first Christian paper to do this tardy act of editorial justice to the members of that ancient faith. Our efforts in the cause of truth received the compliment of quotation and of grateful recognition from the 'Jewish Chronicle in the following November. On September 29 a refutation of the infamous charge appeared in the Otago Daily Times in the form of a letter from the Rev. Mr. Chodowski, of Dunedin, and later on the London Tablet and Weekly Register dealt with the s.ul story of wild credulity, on the lines of the N.Z. Tablkt, in their issues of November 25, iS<)O. For over three centuries the Catholic Church has likewise been made the butt of calumnies almost as gross and heartless. We naturally resent this. And a sense of truth and elementary fair play should incline us to strongly repel likewise the gross libel that has been so recently revived against that old and God-given religion of which we know ours to be the prophetic fulfilment.

EKGLISHSPEAKIKG CATHOLICS.

sermon on ' Education and the Future of Religion.' ' A hundred years ago,' says he, ' those who sooke English did not count at all in the Catholic Church. They were few, poor, ignorant. Their fathers had held to the old faith at the cost of all the earthly things that men most seek and cherish. In England they were a handful, forgotten and forgetting. In Ireland they were ground by the penal laws, a system of tyranny the best adapted of any ever contrived by the ingenuity of oppressors to degrade and dehumanise a people. In America they were a small body confined to a few

There is the sound and feeling of a triumphant march in the record of the progress in English-speaking countries as summed up by Bishop Spalding in his recent great

counties in Maryland and Pennsylvania, without education, without influence, without consideration. It would have been deemed as improbable that the worship of Jupiter should revive among us as that the Catholic religion should reflounsh. • • *

' What a marvellous transformation,' he continues, ' has taken place in the last 50 years, for it is scarcely longer than this since the Catholic revival in the English-speaking- world began. More than one-fifth of the bishops who govern dioceses are now found in the British Empire and in the United States. The Catholics who speak English are 20,000,000 or more. In the last half century they have built probably as many churches, schools, convents, and institutions of charity as the 200,000,000 Catholics besides. There have doubtless been losses, but in the midst of struggle and battle loss is inevitable. Has there, then, been no falling away from the faith, no decay of spiritual life among the Catholics o! other nations ? Are not our losses in America to be attributed largely to the indifferercc or ignorance of many of those who have come to us from countries that are cilied OithJic '' The root of the evil lies elsewhere than in our own country. Nevertheless the history ot the Church in the English-speaking world during the nineteenth century is one of roai and great p r ogress ; and th^re is good reason to think that we shall continue to advance, since both priests and people are animated by the spirit of confidence, of courage, ot generous and devoted loyalty to the faith.'

THOSR 1 Ol'KlSl S A(. M.S.

Rows of figures are usually as dull and uninteresting m an editorial artu le as rows of telegraph polos are in a flat and dreary landscape. But the following figures — a tag to a note in our issue of la^-t week — may be welcomed by the eyes of those who, like us, take an interest in the encouragement and expansion of the tojrist traffic in this ' Swi'/jrland of the Southern Hemisphere.' According to ofhuai dat t published last year, as many a-, 2,3(10,000 foreign touu->ts visited Switzerland —' the Playground of Europe,' as it is called — in iBqB. The invading aimy of sight-seers left no less a sum than 125,000.01)0 francs (about £5,000,000) — -or at the modest rate of over £2 per head — to be divided among 1700 hotels and boarding-houses, anc j cp en t; about 25,000,000 francs (some £1,000,000) in encouraging certain small but important indu^tues of the country by purchasing ricordi or souvenirs such as brackets, jewellery', paper-knives, and sundry other knick-knacks aud gimcracks ot all sorts and sizes, which the hardy natives manutactine in the winter-time in the snow-bound eh ilt'ts that are perched on breezy heights or grassy ledges among the mountains. 'The extent to whiih the little lepublic depends upon the roving ioretgrvr may be estimated by the following facts • that the total population of the country in 1898 was only 000,000 greater than the number of foreign visitors, and that the total revenue of the Confederation in IS9S tell short ol the amount p,.id by tourists by the handsome s-um of 30,000,000 francs, or about ;£ 1.200,000 sterling. Swiss hotels are now models of their class, and tew are as in the days when Longfellow vwote in his Hyperion of the ' Haven ' Hostelry : —

Beware of the ' Raven ' of Zurich ! Tis a bird of omen ill, With a noisy and an unclean nest, And a very, very Ions? bill.

Britains have learned to rub skirts freely with the Continentals since the days when Chesterfield cautioned his travelling son to abstain from Teutonic beer, and described the rare English tourists of his time as 'being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the 1 inguages, 1 and hence, he added, ' they co into no foreign company — at least none good — but dine and sup with one another at the tavern.' Cook and Gaze and the schoolmaster have altered that a good deal, and the inrrf-T^e in 'ho number of those who ' run across to the Continong ' during the past halt-century has been altogether phenomena. It i? n o longer rfforr^'i ?n Uy thp solemn phris^ ' S 0 ' 11 ? abroad ' — so suggestive of will-making and teary leave-takings. During the one jear 189S a goodly company of 443,102 p issengers embarked at Dover alone for the Continent ; and it is estimated that, at the very least, 1,500,000 Britons bold innually seek change or rest or relaxation beyond the Straits of Dover, and enrich the pockets of the unspeakable 'furriner ' by an expenditure of minted sovereigns to the tune of £18,000,000. Paris receives about 890,000 tourists between New Year's Day and St. Silvester's in every year ; Berlin about 507,000 ; Vienna attracted 184,000 in 18S4 — she drew as many as 364,000 in 1897; ar >d tne official estimate of visitors to the soft smiling skies and blue waters and languid air of the Riviera is about 270,000 each year. 'Of these,' says one authority,' 60,000 are British and 30,000 Americans, and they spend on an average £44 9s ' — a little fortune compared with the modest £2 per head which leaks from the pockets of tourists in the little Helvetian republic.

THE URST ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

originator, of English lexicography and the literary ancestor of Dr. Johnson, Grose, Richardson, Hensleigh Wedgwood, Smith, Dr. Murray, and the rest. ' This interesting fact,' says the Tablet, ' is recorded in Dr. Murray's Romanes Lecture for 10,00, delivered at Oxford on June 22, under the title of ' The Evolution of English Lexicography.' After describing the early Latin- English glossaries of the early Middle Ages, Dr. Murray tells us that "a momentous advance was made about 1440, when Brother Galfridus Grammaticus — Geoffrey the Grammarian — a Dominican friar of Lynn Episcopiin Norfolk, produced the English-Latin vocabulary.to which he gave the name of Proniptucirium, or Promptorium Parvulorum, the Children's Store-room or Repository. The Promptonum — the name which has now become a household word to students of the history of English — is a vocabulary containing some 10,000 words — substantives, adjectives, and verbs, with their Latin equivalents." Friar Geoffrey's bonk, he tells us elsewhere, was aUo the first lexicographical work to appear in print, as it was printed as early as 141)9, and passed through many editions in the piesses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian Notary.'

We may add that a new edition of this historic work was prepared by Mr. Albert Way and published by the Camden Society in 1543-1865. We may also state that the first known polyglot dictionary was the work of an Italian monk, Ambrogio Calepino (A.D. 1435-1511) and his continuators. By 1590 his Latin-Italian dictionary had grown into a great polyglot of eleven languages. The world is beginning to slowly — and in some instances rather grudgingly — recognise how much it owes of science, philosophy, history, and general literature to the patient labors of the monks. But in too many instances the results of their care and toil are represented by the two allied Irish proverbs : ' Eaten bread is soon forgotten/ and ' eaten bread is sour.'

Among the Esquimaux the old time judicial duelling then single combat long ago resolved itselt into a and now. harmless contest in singing. Among the judelling Alpine cowherds it has taken the mild form of a Schnaduhuepfl combat. In England duelling was almost as common as dining, shaving and gambling trom the Restoration to the Revolution. It nourished throughout the eighteenth century, and died a hard de^xh in the nineteenth. Legislators, lawyers, editors, and ' gentlefolk ' fell back upon a duel with h.tir-tnggcred duelling pistols as the last arbiter ot rii^ht and wiong, of true and lake. John \V ilker (the reputed 'Jumus'j blazed at his m.m twice in 1765; the Duke of Yurk in 1789; Pitt in 171)6, C. inning and Lord Castlereigh enden v >rt"d to dull litil' tunnJs in each other in 1809; irk" Dukes ot Uuckwiifh un and IS "d'ord burned powder at c ich other in 1522; the Dukf ot Wellington missed Lord Winchelsea in 1820, and the opponents wound up the batile with a silly barging contest. When C harles James Fox denounced the Government for issuing bad gunpowder to the army, he was challenged by Mr. Adam, Secretary for War. Adam lodged his bullet in some non-vital part ot his opponent's anatomy, and the incorrigible Charles James remarked : ' Adam, you'd have killed me if you hadn't used Government powder.'

London Tablet publishes as something like a fiaming new discovery the fact that is so long known to students of English literature, that a Dominican monk can claim the honor of being one of the originators, if not the

In his Personal Recollections Sir Jonah Barrington states that ' as many as 227 official and memorable duels were fought during my grand climacteric ' Political duels were of rather frequent occurrence. O'Connell's fatal encounter with D'Esterre is about the best remembered of this mode of bringing conviction to opponents' minds. The last duel was fought in Scotland in 1822; in Engl.uid in 1845; in Ireland in 1851. A society for the discouraging ot duelling wis established in England in 1845 — the year of the last duul within its borders. But it was loud, healthy ridicule that gradually strangled off duelling in the Rritish I^lps — especially the withering ridicu'e of the dramatists : they harped upon the comic side of single combat so persistently upon the stage that people forgot the shuddering horror of the Corsican Brothers, and shook their ribs with laughter at the antics ot Mansie Wauch, the Dalkeith tailor, and the empty bragging and consequential strutting of the cowardly Bob Acres who (by his own showing) slew his man each week, and 'ran' a private cemetery on his own account,

This survival of barbarism still retains a hold— but happily a relaxing hold— upon the social and military life of France, Germany, and Austria. Towards the end of August the Marquis of Taki was dismissed from the Austrian army for having had the Christian courage to decline acceptance of a challenge issued to him by a foul-mouthed insulter of himself and defamer of a lady of high birth and blameless life. 'Military etiquette,' said the Morning Post, 'required that the Marquis should challenge his insulter, but he refused to do so, giving two reasons : firstly, he said, no gentleman was called on to fight a slanderer ; secondly, he, as a devout Catholic, objected to duelling on principle.' The officers' misnamed 'court of honor ' branded him as a coward, and on their recommendation the Ministry of War cancelled his commission. During the inquiry before the 'court of honor ' the fact was elicited that a distinguished officer had written to the Marquis Taki the following manly words : ♦ You are right in your attitude. It is intolerable that a man should be terrorised into duelling against his own religious convictions. It I had been in your place, I should also have refused to fight.' • The writer,' says the Morning Post, ' turned out to be Captain Ledonowski, of the headquarters staff, a young officer of great distinction. Captain Ledonowski was likewise convicted of cowardice, and the Ministry of War likewise promptly cancelled his commission. Duelling is prohibited by Austrian law as a criminal offence. Officers, however, are thus driven by a brutal terrorism to become criminals, if not to become murderers, at least to sacrifice their lives in a criminal cause.' The two gallant officers that had the courage to keep their hands clean of criminal blood-guiltiness may, we hope, be the pioneers of a movement which will wipe duelling out of Austrian military and social life. It is a strange anomaly of Continental life that while encounters with six or twelve inch knives are sternly suppressed by law, the agents of public safety have an eye as blind as Nelson's for duels with the longer knives that are known as swords. As Joseph de Maistre said, 'it is all a question of inches : to fight with a knife is criminal; to fight with a sword is honorable.' The present attitude of Austrian, French, and German law towards what are termed ' affairs of honor ' is at present what it was long ago in the British Isles. And that was neatly put by an Irish judge when charging a jury in a case in which 'an accident' had happened and one of the combatants departed to a worse or better world. 'It is murder, according to the law,' said the judge, ' but, for my part, I never heard of a fairer duel in my life.'

The German Emperor's decree of 1898 against duelling in the army is by no means a dead letter. Nevertheless, the German military ' code of honor ' is savagely searching and compulsory in character. On January 12, 1899, a civilian named Tilmann was murdered by an officer at Metz in pursuance of orders from the ' court of honor.' A return published by Mulhall says: ' A return of Italian duels for ten years down to 1890 shows that there were 2,760, which resulted in 50 men killed, 1066 wounded, and 1644 unhurt. The percentage of combatants showed 30 military, 29 jdiiors, 12 lawyers, and 29 per cent, various.' The ri-^ks look hi^h, but the damage done does n^' .seem to ruse thov 276) I all in du.-ls not ibis above Lfic levv'l of so many football m itches. Fiench duels sometimes result 111 ' accidents.' But they have acq lired the reputation ot being alimst as uviojuous as the elaborate encounters of Tweedledum and fvveedledee in Lewis Carroll's Looking-gl.iss Land. It is, we think, in his Tramp jLbroad that M irk Twain satirised theabsurd duel fought by Gumbetta on a foggy morning in 1878, with toy pistols, and the combatants almost out of sight of each other at a distance of thirty or forty yards. Twain also happened to be in France when the farcical duel took place between M. Floquet and General Boulanger. The great humorist feigned deep resentment at not having been entrusted with the management ot the affair. Mark's idea of a proper duel was cannon at five yards or pea-rifles at half a mile. The usually harmless character of French encounters of this kind recalls Tom Hood's famous Brentford duel : the

combatants, by mutual arrangement, fired their pistols in the air — and the arch-punster expressed the hope that all duels might ' have this upshot in the end.'

The Catholic Church has set the mark of her high reprobation of murder by duelling by visiting principals and seconds, if Catholics, with the most severe ecclesiastical censures. Priests and medical men are strictly forbidden to be present at any duel for the purpose ot ministering 10 svuuudcii v, »l>ing combatants. ' Duelling,' says Them, lis strictly forbidden by the Church. Anyone concerned in duelling becomes guilty 01 a grievous sin, and those playing the principal part become guilty of a double crime, by willingly exposing themselves to death, and by attempting to take the life of another. The duel is only considered permissible as preventing greater disaster, or as conducive to public welfare, as was the case when David fought Goliath (/ Kings, xvii., 50). The Church has forbidden duelling (also when the contest is not for life and death), and punishes with excommunication not only the parties themselves, but also all accomplices, counsellors, assistants, witnesses, and spectators, who by their presence approve and sanction it. He who perishes in a duel is likewise deprived of Christian burial.'