Costly Irreligion

New Zealand Tablet, 13 August 1908, Page 9

Costly Irreligion

An English politician found a conscience costlier than a wife and* a carriage-and-pair. But the townspeople-of Dijon < are finding it a good deal more expensive, to disobey than obey the dictate of conscience which places a discount v uj>on*irreligion and injustice. Till a few years ago the municipal hospital, was t. served by nuns. The annual expenditure upoiv.-the ins.tj.tute was then about 275,000 francs (;£i 1,000) a }'car. Then, one -,fine morning, the nuns- were driven out and their little belongings ,• seized and sold. The Paris correspondent of the London. Tablet, of June 27 writes that ' since the Sisters were turned out, .»he cost of maintenance has risen by some 150,000 francs G£6ooo), though the number of patients has not increased. - Nor^ is that - all,' he continues. ' There has been a striker among the nurses. ' Then a Commission was appointed, and now for some reason or other the members have been sent packing. And now an official inquiry has been instituted, for the results of which the townspeople are anxiously waiting. So far there.is nothing to show for secularisation except a balance oir the wrong, side, so that the luxury is proving an expensive one.' - "