Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 34, 25 August 1904, Page 17

Notes

A Joke and a Surprise The viceregal visit to Dunedin produced one elephantine joke which deserves a record. In the course of an address the Otago Orangemen described their Society as ' an organisation whose principles are based on a desire for unity among men of all creeps and confessions in all landp, bait more especially within the wide-reaching realms of his Majesty's Empire.' The brethren promptc tins ' unity among men of all creeds anti confessions ' by furious attacks and calumnies upon the faith of Catholics and by an oath or ' obligation ' (taken on bended knees and witih hands clamping the Bible) by which they bind themselves to deprive ' Papists,' by illegal and immoral means, of the equal rights which arc guaranteed to them under the Constitution. One of the surprises of the visit was the Anglican Primate's appeal to Freemasons (in the new Governor's presence) to aid him (the speaker) in the building of a new cathedral. The Primate declared himself ' a Knight Templar of the Order of Freemasons.' « U the Colony,' said he, ' there are four different constitutions of that order, and I am going to make an offer to my brother Freemasons : If four of them will come forward, to let each of them have the privilege of laying a cornerstone of the great tower we intend to build hereafter, if each will lay £500 on the stone.' The proposal met with a varied greeting of ' applause and laughter.' The amount which the general public are asked to contribute is less than half of what the Catholic body has expended on ecclesiastical bfuildings alone in the Dunedin parish within a comparatively short period. We commend to our Otago Anglican friends the fable of the lark and her young, to which a different but equally appropriate application was given in our last issue.

What's in a Name? ' I am glad,' says an ' Advocate ' writer, ' that the Federal authorities are trying to avoid having towns of similar names in various parts of Australia. The Prime Minsiter has asked the assistance of the State Premiers in the matter. While an the subject, it is a pity that some of the jaw-breaking names by whi-Ii several of the towns in Victoria are designated could not he altered. The curtailing of such names as the following would be appreciated by the mercantile community of Victoria : Baddaginnie, Boomahnoomoonah,

For the Marines We have waded lihrough about a bullock-load of t'.e sort of insane no-Pcpcry fiction that circulates among; the members of the Orange lodges and similar organisations'. One peculiarity ran through them all : however fantastically absurd or impossible they were, they were all ' fqunded oti fact,' ' strictly true as to the main facts,' efcc. So, too, by the way, are the preposterous ' Adventures ' of Baron Munchausen. They are all solemn fact. 'If any of the company,' says he (after having described how the frozen bugle-notes thawed out in merry music before the inn-fire), ' entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only say, I pity ttheir want of faith.' He waxes indignant at the ' impudent knaves ' who have no regard for veracity, and is ashamed to be fouji/d in their company. The lay and clerical Munchausens to whom we refer are equally vociferous in protesting the ' truth ' and ' honor-bright ' of the fantastic and impossible narratives with which they make the flefc'h of the gobemouohes creep and the hair rise upon their heads like quills upon the fretful ptorcupine.

A subscriber has sent us a screamy advertisement of the latest) sample of this sort of theological pennvdreadful. It is, of coUisse, fiction I—but,1 — but, as usual, •founded on fact ' The author has 'not indented the main facts of the story.' He never docs. It is ?11 ablaut the ' proclamation of a Roman Cattholic Queen ' in England ' on the night that Queen Victoria died ' It is, of course, scarcely necessary to state that ' tin-; daring proclamation ' * was set on foot by the Company of Jesus ' (the Jesiuite). Cela va sans dire. ' Catholic Book Notes ' for July 11 has tfae following further oarticulars, which may interest those of our readers at whose heado this latest sample of ' yellow ' Munchausenism may be flung : ' In our issue for December last we briefly noticed a preposterous little book by Allan Lpward entitled " High Treason." Absurd as they are, its fictions have been swallowed with avidity by Protesant gobemouches. Mr. Walter Walsh, for example, sees in it a further evidence of Jesuit machinations. At the annual meeting of the Women's Protestant Union, the Secretary, Mr. G. W. L. Barraclough, announced (according to the " Daily News,") " that the King bad reatf the book, and had practically admitted its truth so far as it concerned himself." This seemed on the face of it so impossible that flic Lay Secretary wrote to Lord Knollys inquiring as to the truth of tlie report, and received by return of post the following letter :— j ' " Buckingham Palace, June 11, 1904.

1 " Sir,— ln reply to your letter of yesterday's date, I beg to inform yo,u that the King has never eveh heard of the book to which you allude. Mr. Barraclough obviously, therefore, made an incorrect statement.— l am, sir, your obedient servant, " J. J. Britten, Etfq. Knol!ys<" *

We may add that the ' Lay Secretary » referred to above is Mr. James Britten, K.S.G., of the Catholic Truth Society, London. Mr. G. W. L. Barraidough, who has been so badly pilloried by his Sovereign, is left with the pious reflection that, according to no-Popery theology, every falsehood is ' founded on trut/h '-so long as it is aimed at ' Rome.'