A Story of Slaughtered Innocents

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 3, 6 August 1908, Page 9

A Story of Slaughtered Innocents

Hudibras's Squire, Ralpho—a sort of minor English Sancho ie- a ~Pleaded - S f°IIOWSf °IIOWS f °r What he cons'dered the sacVed tight of the saints of Puritanism to prevaricate in a holy cause :'

'* For if the dev'l, to serve his turn, ~ /' Can tell the- truth, why the saints should scorn ,' When it serves theirs, to swear and lie, I think there's little reason why ; • «15.® h' has a greater power than they, . .Which 'twere .impiety 'to say.'- ' . According to Mary Twain, people ' so dispoged • (as Sairy Gamp puts it) have their choice of 869 different wiy^ofcgaytn^ the thmg that is not, when it serves their turn. . The reverend 0

orators of the saffron sash seem to have discovered and applied pretty nearly every" variety"'of error ,in matters of fact in the annual eruption of ' the' glorious twelfth. 1' '.In .Ireland,' said the ' Very' Rev!" Dcan~PHeittf,* V.G. (Melbourne), on a recent occ^lion^ <lw¥lised^o^calT^"hg tflsectfnd';wee"k-of July the "Dog- , •Days?.""*'* Th > e Mwe"a"fKel'*bec'arfitrso-w*arm >'that the canine creation lost its mental balancej and" mad* dogs became the terror of the country. Then a small section of the community, far higher - than the brute creation, became " mentally affected. The wave of madness grew in, volume" and'^intensity as it extended north- * wards, ahd broke'like' thunder ' claps over Portadowny Derry, and Belfast on the 13th, and ended' in vapor', as all -matter composed of gas generally ends. Now, there seems~ to be nothing in our. July weather" to beget' a wave of madness'; on the contrary, we haye 1 Had coldr:bitt'e'rly cold "weather for'the>' past weeks.. So we must account for this wave of insanity with " which we have been visited on "other than atmospheric grounds.' The speaker referred to an attack made by one Orange clergyman, at a demonstration in Melbourne, on St. Joseph's Foundling' Home, Broadmeadows. The speaker' began his attack by a story to the effect that in a Catholic foundling hospital, near Sydney 82 per cent, of the infants"' 'die before they reach the age of one year. 'The Church - authorities in Sydney,' said' Dean Phclan, ' are more than able to defend their own frontier,'" and had the King William orator stopped there I should" nbt x touch the matter. But when he went on to say that " not many miles from Melbourne a similar state of things existed," he could only refer to the Foundling Hospital at Broadmeadows. It is the only institution of its kind connected with the Catholic Church in Victoria.'' . * " *"'—, . - -. Dean Phelan then proceeded to rackarock the foul calumny.Hu said : /■ . ' I am supplied -with information from the books of -.the institution, and those figures are guaranteed by. the honorary ' physician, Dr. Thomson, whose 'care, and time, and .trouble in connection with the hospital places • us-" Catholics under-a " lasting obligation to him. And lam supported in 1 this state- "r" r ment by Dr. Wood, who is pre-eminently at the head of his- ' profession in the treatment of infants, and who" pays an occasional visit of inspection. Dr. Wood- has placed on record in the pages of the Intercolonial Medical- Journal his appreciation' of (he marvellous success which has attended the efforts of theSisters at Broadmeadows. When visiting the home.some. months ago he quoted for me statistics from the leading foundling' hos-'"'. pituls of the world, and- assured ""me" that we have put up a record in Melbourne which they .failed to establish in London-, Paris, or New York. Take last year—that is, from June of 1907 to the end of last month. 'There were 85 infants in the hospital in June, 1907, and 40 were admitted during the" twelve months. From that number 9 died, or an average .death-rate for the year of 7.2. You will appreciate this marvellous' success of the Sisters when I tell you that the infant mortality in the State of Victoria is over 12 per cent., and when, furthermore, you remember the vast difference bet Ween the delicate children sent to Broadmeadows —the most Of whom are without" mothers — and the child of a happy mother in a private" home'v where its infant wants are supplied from Nature's ,own founts; And how has that success been achieved"? By the skill of the Sisters . in the treatment of their charges', and by the spirit of heroism and self-sacrifice characteristic of those who devbte their" lives to the service of God. ■ During-the terrific and'prolonged 'heat' wave of last summer —a wave which left an empty cot in many a home, and a sword of sorrow in many a mother's heart —not a single life was lose at Broadmeadows". Yet the self-sacrifice which that involved—the watching night and'day", the' taking' of temperatures, the foreseeing of dangers," the applying of remedies —all this, I say, is singled out by the apostles of calumny as a work for which " someone should be hanged." ' ; ' *■""-'- Strangely enough, the men who substitute this dancingdervish b.usiness for-the clean and gentle teaching of Christ, waste their time-wondering ' why men don't go to church. r Most men have, happily, sufficient manhood in them to revolt agaiHst - the coarse and calumnious attacks' on the'-flowe'r of Catholic womanhood that*'for. several years past, have disgraced the' July' platform, and the pulpits'of-a-few notoriety-seeking clergymen*;' •■ in Melbourne and Sydney. -'A-\va'y. to some church'doors-will 'pro-* bably be open > for- many '-men"'when 'these reverend Wahhabees ' 'experience a change of heart,; abandon what Dean-Phelan' terms the butchering'truth-' and murdering "'charity—and turn to some such Christian occupation as planting cabbages or cleaning boots.'