'Moral Karakter' not Required

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 43, 22 October 1903, Page 1

'Moral Karakter ' not Required

John Billings once wrote to his friend Elias a good deal of varied and curious information regarding the conditions of military service during the great American Civil War. In one part of his ' friendly letter 'he said : ' Moral Karakter aint required, the government furnishes that and rashuns.' The American Government seems to have been acting upon this principle in »the matter of appointments to the public service in its new eastern possessions The Philippine Islands correspondent of the Boston ' Transcript ' recently instanced the case of a degraded e\-parson ' who recently swindled hundreds of people out of their saungs by pretending to get gold out of salt water.' This estimable worthy is now ' teaching English and morals to the " niggers " of Ilocos Norte.' But it appears that the enterprising ex-parson is only a fair a\erage sample of the rascaldom that (as we have shown from time to time) is charged with the administration of those hapless islands. 'We have, 1 says the .same correspondent, ' one of the biggest assortments of scoundrels right here in these islands that is gathered on the face of the earth.' ' And,' says the New York 'Freeman,' ' they are all Americans, out there, we suppose, to take the ]place of the friars in making good Americans of uhe Filipinos,'