An Unlooked-for Difficulty

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 20, 14 May 1903, Page 27

An Unlooked-for Difficulty

Writing under date March 16 the Paris correspondent of the London ' Times ' says it is believed that the French Government will have some difficulty in dealing summarily with certain religious Orders which it proposes to dissolve. Some of the Orders have missions not only near at home, but also in the Far East, and it is urged that it would bo unwise to close the mother houses in France Others attend the sick and impart instruction, and the impression seems to be gaining ground that it is undesirable to Suppress them, at all events with undue haste Tho correspondent quotes a French friend who \isitod his pio\incial constituency and was taken to see a well-appointed hospital by tho advanced Republican Mayor of tho municipality visited Finding the patients in care of Sisters of Mercy, tho visitor asked tho Mayor how tho radical Town Council permitted this. The Mayor replied : ' Theso good ladies cost about one-third what lav nurses would cost and do bettor work When B , tho prominent Socialist Peputv, was here a few weeks ago, we retired the Sisters to their own quarters for the time, leaving the lay nurses in their places Tho religious images "were temporarily taken down, and a bust of tho Republic substituted lor the statue of the Blessed Virgin.