Cadging Bribes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 17, 23 April 1903, Page 18

Cadging Bribes

The following cable-message appeared in Saturday's daily papers :—: —

'A leading Chartreux monk informed the newspaper "Le Gaulois " that a person professing to represent a political group in the Chamber of Deputies offered the prior of the Order in February to obtain an authorisation order under the Religious Associations Act if he would put £12,000 down and contribute £80,000 to the electoral fund. The offer was refused.'

The monks of the Grande Chartreuse have probably learned before now that the enemies of religion in France ' All have their prices, From coins to kicks, according to their vices.'

That venerable community of Carthusians manufacture the world-famed green or yellow liqueur known as chartreuse. The secret of its preparation is their own, and it is well guarded. Only three living members of the community know it. It was handed down to the community from the days of Dom Gamier, who had received it from one of the brethren who had died. Dom Gamier resumed the preparation of the white liqueur after the French Revolution, and to this day each bottle bears his name. Some two million bottles of the preparation are. sent out annually. The receipts leave a net balance of about £120,000, every penny of which is spent in works of charity and public utility— in the erection and maintenance of hospitals, orphanages, etc., the construction of bridges, roads, and water-supplies to towns and villages, the repair of poor churches, the support of aged and indigent persons, etc. Petitions from every part of eastern France have been poured in upon the Government for their ' authorisation ' to allow those public benefactors to live in peace and continue their charitable work. But the Combes ministry has thus far turned a deaf ear. The Fathers will neither apply for ' authorisation ' nor will they ' contaminate their fingers with 'base bribes ' to secure the rights to live and do good among their fellow-countrymen. And the result will be that France will lose their presence and their splendid public services, and Italy will be the gainer.