State-made Mendicants

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 13, 28 March 1907, Page 22

State-made Mendicants

There are many obvious "analogies between, the plunder and proscription of the .Catholic faith; Y in " "the Eng- . land of Henry VIII. and in the France of Clemenceau

and itihe Iladical-Socialist ' bloc ' or Tammany. The French' Tammany has at one blow deprived the parochial 'clergy of their homes, furniture, income, aoid 1 means of subsistence. They have followed this up. (as at .-.Saint Servan) by fining or clapping into pifison. any .priest .convicted of requesting offerings or 'subscriptions for. Us support. Henry VIII., in like manner, seized the patrimony of the clergy and of the poor, sold it, or-" handed it over to. his creatures. The poor- were thus at one- fell swoop .deprived of their means of subsistence. But Henry's laws had all beggars who were not aged or -infirm whipped atj the 'cart's tail for their first ofience of asking alms. For the second offence the Tjegjgar's ears were slit, or bored through 'with ' a red-hot iron. If caught a third time, the " law-made beggar suffered death as a. felon. He was, however, spared the "extreme penalty (a very barbarous one 'in , those days) on one' condition : provided some ' honest person '• having £10 in goods or " 40s in land, or some householder approved by the justices, ..would take the poor fellow into his r service for two years, and enter into a bond of £10 (a very large sum in those days) for the good behavior" of the condemned man. This law remained in force for sixty years. In the days of Queen Elizabeth it was again passed by both Houses. Modern France has repeated a bit of the history of sixteenth century England. It has also made beggars by Act of Parliament. But it has . given thiel old,, • infirm, and decrepit 'mendicants of its creation none of the latitude that was allowed to thesame class of unfortunates even under the most bloodtMirsty royal reign of modern times.