Chapter IV (4)

"The tender regard with which the Sisters cherish the poor on
whom they wait, calls forth the best feelings of their hearts,
so long dead to every human charity. They respond by the most
refreshing cordiality; but truly hearts could not resist the
winning kindness with which they are invariably treated. One
little incident may illustrate how above all selfish
considerations the law of kindness prevails: One old woman was
anxious to be received among the 'Little Sisters' somewhere in
France. Her case well deserved the privilege, but the old woman
insisted on bringing also into the house her hen and her
sparrow. Without these companions, she would not enter; she
would rather forego the advantage offered to her. The old
woman, her hen, and her sparrow were all admitted together,
anything rather than lose an opportunity of doing good.

"Selfishness cannot long exist where such examples of
self-denial are ever present in these Sisters. They take the
worst of everything for themselves. Even in the longest
established houses there are no chairs except for the old
people; the Sisters 'sit upon their heels.' A Jesuit father, on
one day visiting one of the houses, found the Sisters just
sitting down to dinner. They had nothing to drink out of but
odd and broken vessels, mustard-pots, jam-pots, etc.; all in
such a dilapidated condition that the good father hastened off
the very first penitent, who came to him for confession, with
an injunction to buy a dozen of glasses and send them to the
house of his '_Petites Sceurs_.' Such is their voluntary
poverty!

"Every time a house is opened, so soon as a sufficient number
of poor are collected, a retreat is preached. The fruits of
these retreats, in those who have been so long absent from the
sacraments, is wonderful. Thus the house is furnished with
those who serve to set a good example to all those who are
afterward admitted.

"Nothing can exceed the gratitude of these poor creatures when
reconciled with God. They embrace the Sisters with tears. 'It
is seventy-five years since I drew near to God,' said one; 'and
now I am going to receive him to-morrow.' A poor barber who had
lost the use of his hands through rheumatism, and, being unable
to exercise his profession, had fallen into such a state of
destitution that he was thankful to accept an asylum in one of
the houses of the 'Little Sisters,' was observed, after his
confession, to be looking at his hands. 'What are you doing?'
was asked of him. 'I am looking at the finger of God,' he
replied. This spirit of resignation and gratitude is nearly
universal, and the Sisters are not without their consolation
even in this world."

To the special ministry of the Sisterhoods of Charity have been assigned the sick, infirm, and aged poor, whom all regard as proper objects of relief and pious care. We have shown, in our October number, how well they satisfied alike the Christian and the economic need. Mrs. Jameson, in the work there referred to, [Footnote 273] has strongly contrasted the conditions of the "English workhouse system" (which is the same as ours) with the religious management not only of the sick-poor, but also of the criminal and most degraded classes. Take, for instance, the Austrian prison at Neudorf. This prison is an experiment which as yet had only had a three years' trial when Mrs. Jameson visited it, but had already succeeded so well, both morally and economically, that the Austrian government was preparing to organize eleven others on the same plan. It began by the efforts of two humane ladies to find a refuge for those wretched creatures of their own sex who, after undergoing their term of punishment, were cast out of the prisons. They obtained the aid of two Sisters of a religious order in France, devoted to the reformation of lost and depraved women. Government soon enlarged their sphere of action, and confided to them the administration of a prison, penitentiary, and hospital, with several buildings and a large garden.

[Footnote 273: _Sisters of Charity, Catholic and Protestant_.]

"In its management, I found more than two hundred criminals,
separated into three classes. The first class consisted of
desperate characters, the refuse of the prisons at Vienna, who
are brought under a strong armed guard, bound hand and foot.
Their appearance was either stupid, gross, and vacant or
frightful from the predominance of evil propensities. The
second class, drafted from the first, were called the
penitents, and showed, in the expression of their countenances,
an extraordinary change from the newly arrived. They were
allowed to assist in the house, to cook and to wash, and to
work in the garden, which last was a great boon. There were
more than fifty of these, and they were, at least, humanized.
The third class were the voluntaries who, when their term had
expired, preferred remaining in the house and were allowed to
do so. Part of the profit of their work was retained for their
benefit.

{709}

"Twelve women, aided by three chaplains, a surgeon, and a
physician, none of whom resided in the establishment, managed
the whole. They had dismissed the soldiers and police-officers,
finding that they needed no other means of constraint than
their dignity, good sense, patience, and tenderness. There was
as much of frightful physical disease as there was of moral
disease, crime, and misery. Two Sisters acted as chief nurses
and apothecaries. The ventilation and cleanliness were perfect.
When I expressed my astonishment that so small a number of
women could manage such a set of wild and wicked creatures, the
answer was, 'If we want assistance, we shall have it; but it is
as easy with our system to manage three hundred as one hundred
or as fifty. The power is not in ourselves, it is granted from
above.' Here men and women were acting together; and in all the
regulations, religious and sanitary, there was mutual aid,
mutual respect, and interchange of experience; but the Sisters
were subordinate only to the chief civil and ecclesiastical
authorities; the internal administration rested with them."

The "Little Sisters of the Poor" have inspired the following remarks, which apply to many other orders actively engaged in works of charity:

"Their records demonstrate that religious institutions do,
effectually and cheaply, what the clumsy and lifeless machinery
of the state does at an enormous cost and peril, with a very
questionable preponderance of gain over loss. Charity is a
religious work, and these orders are specially qualified, as
religious, to lead the charity of the country; they have a
special vocation and a supernatural aim; they unite the
strongest motives for individual exertion with the highest
development of the co-operative system; they are free from the
impediments of other parties; what they give establishes no
legal or political right, yet it recognizes a moral claim and
provides for a human want. In addressing the statesmen of this
country, we can prove that one thousand dollars a year, thus
wisely spent in well-organized charity, goes twice as far as
two thousand dollars a year spent with a blundering alternation
of prodigality and cruelty, such as characterizes the
management of our secular charities. Organic bodies contain
within themselves a principle of endless adaptation. The
church, herself an organic body, is the fruitful mother of all
such organizations as the moral needs of man require; nor is
there any reason to doubt that she can help the modern pauper
as readily as the captives, the lepers, and the laborers in
mines for whom her mediaeval orders worked. The recent
institution of the 'Little Sisters of the Poor' derives a
peculiar interest from the mode in which it approaches that
special trial of modern society, pauperism, and it may, with
the divine blessing, advance from its present humble beginning
to enterprises which, alike on the ground of theology and of
sound political economy, are beyond the efforts of the most
beneficent governments now existing."

The gospels abundantly attest the loving and tender behavior of Christ toward the poor and the afflicted of every class. It is important to note how lively and loyal is the tradition of this conduct in the Christian church, from its earliest periods to our own day. It was a favorite turn in the mediaeval legends of charity that our Lord should reveal himself, even in the body, to those who had, for his love, consoled some poor object of compassion. It is written of St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, that she kept always near her, and herself served, thirteen sick poor, in memory of Christ and the twelve apostles.

"Among the sick was a poor little leper named Helias, whose
condition was so deplorable that no one would take charge of
him. Elizabeth, seeing him thus abandoned by all, felt herself
bound to do more for him than for any other; she took and
bathed him herself, anointed him with a healing balm, and then
laid him in the bed, even that which she shared with her royal
husband. Now it happened that the duke returned to the castle
whilst Elizabeth was thus occupied. His mother ran out
immediately to meet him, and when he alighted she said, 'Come
with me, dear son, and I will show thee a pretty doing of thy
Elizabeth.' 'What does this mean?' said the duke. 'Only come,'
said she, 'and thou wilt see one she loves much better than
thee.' Then, taking him by the hand, she led him to his chamber
and to his bed, and said to him, Now look, dear son, thy wife
puts lepers in thy bed without my being able to prevent her.
{710}
She wishes to give thee leprosy, thou seest it thyself.' On
hearing these words, the duke could not repress a certain
degree of irritation, and he quickly raised the covering of
his bed; but, at the same moment, the Most High unsealed the
eyes of his soul, and, in place of the leper, he saw the
figure of Jesus Christ crucified extended on his bed. At this
sight he remained motionless, as did his mother, and began to
shed abundant tears without being able at first to utter a
word. Then, turning round, he saw his wife, who had gently
followed in order to calm his wrath against the leper.
'Elizabeth,' said he, 'my dear, good sister, I pray thee often
to give my bed to such guests. I shall always thank thee for
this, and be thou not hindered by any one in the exercise of
thy virtue.' Then he knelt and prayed thus to God, 'Lord, have
mercy upon me a poor sinner. I am not worthy to see all these
wonders.'" [Footnote 274]

[Footnote 274: Montalembert, _Life of St. Elizabeth_.]

For the many illustrations of the wonderful diffusion of benevolence in the early ages of the Christian church, in contrast with the truculent spirit of the contemporaneous paganism, see Rev. Dr. Manahan's _Triumph of the Catholic Church_, etc.

We recall here the mention of John, Patriarch of Alexandria, who asked of his clergy a register of all the poor and destitute in that city. "Go," said he, "and get me a full list of my masters."

From the Theodosian code, it appears that the church owned large vessels, employed either in bringing to some dioceses provisions for their own flocks, or in sending help to the most afflicted communities, from Egypt even unto Gaul.

"The Cenobites, or Monks of the Desert," says St. Augustine, "used to freight these ships of charity with grain, obtained by them in exchange for the mats and baskets which they manufactured." The vast hospital, founded by St. Basil, of Cappadocia, near Caesarea, is called by St. Gregory" a new city built for the sick and poor."

Hospitals were so great an innovation on the customs of the ancient classic world, that the Emperor Julian, surnamed "The Apostate," tried in vain to introduce them. Repelling the Christian doctrine, he was sensible of the influence of Christian charity, and would fain have engrafted on the pagan stock this fruit of another dispensation.

Why are the poor and afflicted especially given in charge to the church, and why does the Christian see them with quite other eyes than those of mere benevolence? Why is Christ identified, in his birth and companionship, with the poor? Why are the most suffering classes the first objects of his care and mediation?

If it is written that "He who shall give to one of my disciples only so much as a cup of cold water in my name, shall not lose his reward," it is also written that the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, are all our brethren in Christ. It is by virtue of that susceptibility, which the exercise of charity develops in us, that we become consciously "members one of another in the body of Christ."

Jesus Christ came to awaken in humanity a conscience including our neighbor, a conservative instinct embracing the relations of the individual with the species, unlimited by family, clan, or nation; and which transcends the analysis of a Malthus, a Locke, or a La Rochefoucauld. [Footnote 275]

[Footnote 275: That Sister of the Poor, whom you pass in the
street with her basket, and perhaps look down upon as on a
creature of inferior grade, is living closer to the heart of
universal love, is deeper in celestial wisdom than the proud
philosopher; leads a life more heroic in its abnegation and
humility than the general with his bloody laurels. This is
so, because the divine influx of life moulds the will and the
affections, and moves the bowels of compassion long before
the brain matures its schemes of action.]

{711}

The suffering persons or classes are the atoms, the organs, or the local points where the life of humanity is threatened or compromised; thither, with unwonted energy, must its vital resources be directed; and how directed? Here we find the contrast between the spirit of Christ and that of pagan or schismatic countries. Ignoring the true unity of man, paganism merely suppressed the effects of misery by suppressing the person of the miserable. It did not consider that the spirit of cruelty, developed or encouraged in this elimination, is itself a living cause and propagator of human misery. Religious sympathy alone could quicken the intelligence to this perception, and find something precious in the life of the wretch rescued from his wretchedness; find beneath the rags, the dirt, and the chains, beneath ignorance, the vices, and diseases, that "a man's a man for a' that." Again, Christianity discerned precious discipline of virtue in the exercise of charity, and practised it no less for the sake of the giver than that of the receiver. This is a practical commentary on the axiom of human unity or solidarity, anticipating the fuller light which may be expected from a knowledge of our ulterior destinies.

Wherever the church has nobly filled her part as the social conscience of Christendom, (a function for which the confessional so well adapts her,) she has been the intelligent mediator between those who need to give or to serve, and those who are really in need; she has maintained a social equilibrium while averting the jealousies and hatreds of classes, and by her enlightened and judicious distribution has prevented charity from ministering to vices and imposture.

"The _poor_ ye shall have always with you." The worst prejudices only will interpret this saying of our Lord so as to discourage our efforts to eliminate, from the condition of the poor, its actual vices, disgraces, and miseries. This once effected by means, the success of which experience has verified, there remains an honorable poverty due to the disinterested devotions of science, art, and social affections, in which the love of our neighbor, under divers forms, absorbs cupidity and the cares of self-preservation. The church has always encouraged vows of voluntary poverty, and directed the zeal which animated them to Christian uses. She has permitted the rich to expiate their crimes by sharing their fortunes with the poor, even by soliciting alms for them; and we are told that Roman nobles have been seen, during this very year, thus begging in the streets of Rome. To a noble poverty belong the first years, and often the whole life, of the inventor, of the true artist, of all whose originality of conception or fidelity to the ideal transcends prudential economy. We may glance but in passing at that "Bohemia," where floating wrecks mingle in disorder with germinal forces of the social future. In proportion as the constitution of societies shall be perfected in kind and useful labors, those in whose characters friendship predominates, whether attached to holy orders like the Trappists and Sisters of Charity, or simply members of the church of Christ, will content themselves with the common _minimum_, and work in their elected spheres without care for any other material compensation. To such has Christ said: "Take no care what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed," etc. "Consider the lilies," etc. We shall not confound these noble poor with paupers, a term which comprehends indifferently the victims of misfortune, of vice, and of disease; deficient in faculties either corporeal or mental, or in consistency of purpose, principle, and will. {712} _Pauperism_ is not to be regarded as a state of suffering to which the Christian should be resigned; far from being an expiation of sin, it is not only humiliation, but degradation and perversion, and owes its parasite existence to the absence or decline of Christian life.

The Catholic Church commenced an exterminating war on pauperism in those fraternal associations which sprang from the breath of the Saviour, and which its religious orders have never intermitted. Disbanded by the persecutions of the Roman empire, they rallied to works of charity; and, gradually obtaining spiritual ascendency over Europe, organized agriculture and the arts of peace. In the sixth century, the Benedictines and Columbans reclaimed the soils of Europe from their wilderness, and their peoples from the worst of barbarism.

The monasteries and convents, considered from the point of view of political and social economy, were agricultural, scientific, and domestic associations, with fields, gardens, and orchards, libraries, laboratories, and workshops, provided with all the means and facilities known in their age and country for the subjection of nature's resources to the progressive evolution of humanity. Fusing the nobles and the people, absorbing, in the sentiment of our common fatherhood in God and brotherhood in Christ, the invidious distinctions of caste, reconciling again in their administration the behests of spiritual culture with the exigencies of material existence and refinement of taste in letters and the arts, the monastic orders were for Christendom a most benign providence. Their charities never have been limited to the necessities of mere subsistence, like the secular dolings out of _so-called_ modern charity. Hearts must respond to the needs of hearts, and brains to those of brains; in other words, the organization of Christian charity essentially embraces social life and education, intellectual and moral culture, as well as the conditions of labor, of remuneration, of lodging, of clothing, and nourishment, comprised in the guarantee of access to the soil. By separating the material from the spiritual elements of charity, Christendom retrogrades into paganism; less brutal, less ferocious, the economic (?) workhouse system is colder and still more inhuman than those methods of summary destruction by which Greece removed her supernumerary helots, or Rome her infirm poor.

"It is not without a mingled shame and fear," says Mrs.
Jameson, of the English workhouse, "that I approach this
subject. Whatever their arrangement and condition, in one thing
I found all alike--the want of a proper moral supervision.

"The most vulgar of human beings are set to rule over the most
vulgar; the pauper is set to manage the pauper; the ignorant
govern the ignorant; every softening or elevating influence is
absent or of rare occurrence, and every hardening and depraving
influence continuous or ever at hand. Never did I visit any
dungeon, any abode of crime or misery, in any country, which
left me the same crushing sense of sorrow, indignation, and
compassion--almost despair--as some of our English workhouses.
Never did I see more clearly what must be the inevitable
consequences where the feminine and religious influences are
ignored; where what we call charity is worked by a stern, hard
machinery; where what we mean for good is not bestowed but
inflicted on others in a spirit not pitiful, nor merciful, but
reluctant and adverse, if not cruel. Perhaps those who hear me
may not all be aware of the origin of our parish workhouses.
They were not designed as penitentiaries, although they have
really become such. They were intended to be religious and
charitable institutions, to supply the place of those
conventual hospitals and charities which, with their revenues,
were suppressed by Henry VIII.

{713}

"The epithet 'charitable' could never be applied to any parish
workhouse I have seen. Our machine-charity is as much charity,
in the Christian sense, as the praying-machines of the Tartars
are piety.

"These institutions are supported by a variable tax, paid so
reluctantly, with so little sympathy in its purpose, that the
wretched paupers seem to be regarded as a sort of parish
locusts, sent to devour the substance of the rate-payers; as
the natural enemies of those who are taxed for their
subsistence, almost as criminals; and I have no hesitation in
saying that the convicts in some of our jails have more
charitable and more respectful treatment than the poor in our
workhouses. Hence, a notion prevails among the working-classes
that it is better to be a criminal than a pauper--better to go
to a jail than to a workhouse.

"Between the poor and their so-called guardians, the bond is
anything but charity.

"A gentleman who had served the office said to me: 'I am really
unfit to be a poor-law guardian; I have some vestige of
humanity left in me!' Under these guardians, and in immediate
contact with the poor, are a master and a matron, who keep the
accounts, distribute food and clothing, and keep order. Among
them some are respected and loved, others hated or feared; some
are kindly and intelligent, others of the lowest grade. In one
workhouse the master had been a policeman, in another the
keeper of a small public-house, in another he had served in the
same workhouse as porter. The subordinates are not of a higher
grade, except occasionally the school-master and
school-mistress, whom I have sometimes found struggling to
perform their duties, sometimes quite unfitted for them, and
sometimes resigned to routine and despair.

"In the wards for the old and the sick, the intense vulgarity,
the melancholy dulness, mingled with a strange license and
levity, are dreadful. I attribute both to the utter absence of
the religious and feminine element.

"But is there not always a chaplain? The chaplain has seemed to
me in such places rather a religious accident than a religious
element. When he visits a ward to read and pray once a week,
perhaps there is a decorum in his presence; the oaths, the
curses, the vile language cease; the vulgar strife is silenced,
to recommence the moment his back is turned. I remember one
instance in which the chaplain had requested that the poor,
profligate women might be kept out of his way. They had,
indeed, shown themselves somewhat obstreperous and irreverent.
I saw another chaplain of a great workhouse so shabby that I
should have mistaken him for one of the paupers. In doing his
duty, he would fling a surplice over his dirty, torn coat,
kneel down at the entrance of a ward, hurry over two or three
prayers, heard from the few beds nearest to him, and then off
to another ward. The salary for this minister for the sick and
poor was twenty pounds a year. This, then, is the religious
element; as if religion were not the necessary, inseparable,
ever-present, informing spirit of a Christian charitable
institution, but rather something extraneous and accidental, to
be taken in set doses at set times. This is what our workhouses
provide to awaken the faith, rouse the conscience, heal the
broken spirit, and light up the stupefied faculties of a
thousand unhappy, ignorant, debased human beings congregated
together.

"Then as to the feminine element in a great and well-ordered
workhouse, under conscientious management, (to take a favorable
specimen,) I visited sixteen wards, in each ward from fifteen
to twenty-five sick, aged, bedridden, or helpless poor. In each
ward all the assistance given and all the supervision were in
the hands of one nurse and a helper, both chosen from among the
pauper women supposed to be the least immoral and drunken. The
ages of the nurses might be from sixty-five to eighty years;
the assistants were younger.

"The number of inmates under medical treatment in the year 1854
in the London workhouses was over 50,000, (omitting one, the
Marylebone.) To these there were 70 paid nurses and 500 pauper
nurses and assistants, (not more than one fifth of the number
requisite for effective nursing, even if they were all able
nurses.)

"As the unpaid pauper nurses have some additional allowance of
tea or beer, it is not unusual for the medical attendant to
send such poor feeble old women as require some little
indulgence to be nurses in the sick wards."

Such is the standard of qualification, and as for their assistants, Mrs. Jameson found some of them nearly blind and others maimed of a limb. She remembers no cheerful faces; their features and deportment were melancholy, or sullen, or bloated, or harsh, and these are the nurses to whom the sick poor are confided!

{714}

"In one workhouse the nurses had a penny a week and extra beer;
in another the allowance had been a shilling a month, but
recently withdrawn by the guardians from motives of economy.
The matron told me that while this allowance continued, she
could exercise some control over the nurses, she could stop
their allowance if they did not behave well; now she has no
hold on them! They all drink. Whenever it is their turn to go
out for a few hours, they come back intoxicated, and have to be
put to bed in the wards they are set over!"

Mrs. Jameson speaks of bribery as the only means by which some of the bedridden patients could obtain help.

"Any little extra allowance of tea or sugar, left by pitying
friends, went in this way. One nurse made five shillings a week
by thus fleecing the poor inmates. Those who could not pay this
tax were neglected, and implored in vain to be turned in their
beds. The matron knows that these things exist, but has no
power to prevent them; she knows not what tyranny may be
exercised in her absence by her deputies, for the wretched
creatures dare not complain, knowing how it would be visited
upon them."

In some workhouses many who can work will not; in others the inmates are confined to such labor as is degrading, such as is a punishment in prisons, which excites no faculty of attention, or hope, or sympathy, which contemplates no improvement, namely, picking oakum, etc., and this lest there should exist some kind of competition injurious to tradesmen.

As to the "out-door relief" at certain workhouses, Mrs. Jameson says it was distributed to creatures penned up for hours in foul air, who waited sullenly for the bread doled out with curses. She complains again here of the system which brings a brutal and vulgar power to bear on vulgarity or brutality, the bad and defective organization to bear on one bad and defective, "so you increase and multiply and excite, as in a hot-bed, all the material of evil instead of neutralizing it with good, and, thus leavened, you turn it out on society to contaminate all around."

Rev. J. S. Brewer, a workhouse chaplain, in his lectures to ladies on practical subjects, writes of the insensible influence which the mere presence of ladies, their voice, their common words, their ordinary manners, their thoughts, all that they carry unconsciously about them, can exercise on the poor; but this applies to real ladies, cultivated, gentle, well-born, well-bred. There are no people more alive to gentle blood and gentle manners than the English poor. He confirms in other respects the preceding remarks of Mrs. Jameson, and says of the children:

"The disorderly girls and boys of our streets are mainly the
produce of the workhouse and the workhouse schools. Over them
the society has no hold, because they have been taught to feel
that they have nothing in common with their fellow-men. Their
experience is not of a home or parents, but of a workhouse and
a governor, of a prison and of a jailer."

Nature exhibits two contrasted methods for controlling that _tendency to increase of population beyond a due proportion to the means of subsistence_, which seems to justify in the eyes of some political economists the partial destruction of the species by war. One of these methods is extermination; the other, elevation. Malthus says, in substance: I would share all my having with the poor. I would proclaim this the duty of the rich, were it possible, by even enforcing and continuing the most liberal distribution of goods, while all were working faithfully to increase the yield of the earth as fast as the mouths that consume it would multiply; but extensive observation and experience proves that, the easier life is made for the poor, the faster they increase; this increase is at a ratio so much greater than the means of subsistence are capable of reaching, that we should soon be all paupers unless we restrain each local population within the ratio of its provisions.

{715}

Malthus understood that high-toned character and uncommon force of will were essential to the perfection of such restraint. He invokes the influence of the church and of education to this effect. One step further, however, in the filiation of ideas would have led him to perceive a supreme harmony in the equilibrium between population and subsistence, arising out of the perfection of organic types and individual characters; so that _quality is the cure of quantity_.

If it be true, as travellers affirm, that in Europe the _temperate_ are divided from the _intemperate populations_ by a curve which, commencing at the eastern extremity of France, intersects Berlin and terminates at Sevastopol, being the northern limit of the vine-growing countries; then, _a fortiori_, will the greatest temperance be found among peoples whose refinement not only rejects distilled liquors but the coarser qualities of wine, and will have either the very best or none.

This law is universal. Compare the order of mammifers, a high type like man or the elephant, with a low type like the rabbit or mouse. Species are more prolific with each grade in their descent. Now compare the order of mammifers with the order of fishes, passing through the birds and reptiles, embracing all vertebrate animals; still the lower are more prolific, and consequently more subject to destruction. Now compare the vertebrate type with the insect, passing through the articulate. Still the same increase of numerical ratio down the scale of life; and when we reach polyps and plants, every section, every bud, may become a complete organism, and multiplication takes place by several methods at once--seeds, tubers, roots, suckers, buds, etc. Follow this law in the science of breeding. Even among fish, the fat and well-conditioned breed but slowly, and "ponds of misery" are kept for breeding carps. The history of the _turf_ verifies similar facts in the physiology of the horse.

We no longer wonder that the hovels of the suffering poor should swarm with children; but the analogies of the animal kingdom encourage us to believe that social and industrial procedures, which convert these children into Christians and launch them in the path of a general prosperity, will itself tend to reduce the ratio of their increase by a method more expedient than those of war, pestilence, or famine.

In conclusion: If the first of these natural methods of checking population be adapted to the world of the _fall_--a world of selfishness and sin--the other method is adapted to the world of the redemption--a world of Christian co-operation and love of our neighbor. By the first method, population is reduced so effectively that the most agreeable portions of the earth's surface remain almost untouched by human culture. When, by the triumph of true religion, wars and their consequences cease to vex humanity, population may increase until it covers the area of the habitable globe, without danger of starving itself, without sinking into pauperism. The numerical population of the world may increase while its actual ratio of propagation is diminished, and is harmonized with its capacity of production. Such is the logic of charity, which in relieving suffering aims at the spiritual elevation of character and the permanent protection of mankind.

----------

{716}

New Publications.

History Of Louisiana: The American Domination.
By Charles Gayarré.
New York: William J. Widdleton. 1866.

This is a handsome 8vo volume of 693 pages, of which 250 are devoted to the story of the defence of New Orleans by General Jackson, and 60 pages to a sketch of leading public events from 1816 to 1861. The first chapter opens thus:

"On the 20th of December, 1803, the colony of Louisiana had
passed from the domination of Spain into that of the United
States of America, to which it was delivered by France after a
short possession of twenty days, as I have related in a former
work," (_History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination_.)

It is to be regretted, we think, that this relation of the cession is not given in the volume before us. The causes, the antecedents, the inevitable necessity of the cession, are all practically American, and, therefore properly the subject for the opening chapter of the "American Domination."

We have not seen Mr. Gayarré's preceding volume, but presume he has well told the story of the cession. It is an interesting one. Martin's _History of Louisiana_ was very meagre on that point, and gave, if we remember correctly, little else than the text of the treaty. True, Martin's book was completed some forty years ago, when the author had not at hand the materials that now exist. Barbé Marbois's work was not then published.

The "American Domination," we venture to suggest, should have opened with at least a sketch or _résumé_ of the state of facts immediately preceding the cession--the condition of trade between the Upper Mississippi and New Orleans, the order of Morales, (October, 1802) closing the river, the supposition throughout the West that the action of Morales was authorized by the French government, the excitement caused by it, etc. etc.

The Mississippi to be closed!

It would be difficult at this day to convey an idea of the consternation and indignant anger of the inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys at the announcement. The country was in a blaze of excitement. Meetings were held, resolutions passed, and, what was more significant, rifles were repaired, powder purchased, and knives sharpened.

When Germany, a few years since, sang and shouted

"Sie sollen ihn nicht haben,
den freien Deutschen Rhein,"

war may or may not have been imminent; but when the hunters of Kentucky and the backwoodsmen of Ohio swore, as they picked their flint-locks, "They sha'n't have the Mississippi!" the oath meant business. In their eyes the free navigation of the Father of Waters is a part of every Western man's heritage, [Footnote 276] and when he clears a farm in the great valley, the right freely to carry his produce down to the mouth of the Mississippi is to him simply what the lawyers would call an _easement_, passing with the title to his acres.

[Footnote 276: "No power in the world shall deprive us of
this right."--_Petition to Congress_.]

Prominent on Mr. Gayarré's pages stands out the figure of Claiborne, Governor of Louisiana from 1804 to 1816. We rise from the perusal of Mr. Gayarré's book with a higher estimate than ever of this distinguished man.

Calm, prudent, wise, temperate, and magnanimous, Claiborne is one of the most admirable characters in American history.

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When a virulent libel was published against him, on which the attorney-general thought it his duty to institute suit, Claiborne wrote him a noble letter requesting him to stop the prosecution, (p. 227.) "An officer whose hands and motives are pure," he said, "has nothing to fear from newspaper detraction, or the invectives of angry and deluded individuals. My conduct in life is the best answer I can return to my enemies. It is before the public, and has secured, and will, I am certain, continue to secure me the esteem and confidence of that portion of society whose approbation is desirable to an honest man. The lie of the day gives me no concern. Neglected calumny soon expires; notice it, and you gratify your calumniators; prosecute it, and it acquires consequence; punish it, and you enlist in its favor the public sympathy."

The story of the heroic defence of Fort Bowyer is well and spiritedly told by Mr. Gayarré, and that of the defence of New Orleans, in the various skirmishes and battles that for weeks preceded the grand culminating victory of January 8th, is, for the first time, clear and intelligible to us. Here Mr. Gayarré gives us several pages of nervous and picturesque writing. His description of "the night before the battle," and of the brave but disastrous charge of the British troops upon the American line, is excellent in spirit and in detail.

Mr. Gayarré explodes the popular story of the cotton-bale fortifications. There were none. "Some bales of cotton had been used to form the cheeks of the embrasures of our batteries, and notwithstanding the popular tradition that our breastworks were lined with it, this was the only one," etc. etc. (p. 456.)

The account of the two colored battalions which rendered such excellent service is interesting, as also Mr. Gayarré's comments on the celebrated British countersign of "Beauty and Booty."

Mr. Gayarré's history closes with a long paragraph, somewhat in the same dithyrambic vein that marks the pages of his first volume of Louisiana. He has, however, greatly improved both in style and judicious arrangement of matter, and, combining many of the best qualities of the historian with great aptitude of research and study, has undoubtedly made a mark in literature, his state may well be proud of, even though she be amenable to the reproach conveyed by the author at page 391.

It appears that, in 1814, Governor Claiborne advised one David McGee in regard to some literary work of the latter: "A love of letters has not yet gained an ascendency in Louisiana, and I would advise you to seek for your production the patronage of some one of the Northern cities."

"How bitter," comments Mr. Gayarré, "is the thought that it is true! How hard it is for the veracity of the Southern historian to admit that, even in 1864, a judicious and frank adviser would be compelled to say to a man of letters, in the language used by Claiborne in 1814, "I would advise you to seek for your production the patronage of some one of the Northern cities"!

----

Memorials Of Those Who Suffered For The Faith In Ireland
in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries.
By Myles O'Reilly, B.A., LL.D.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 462.

An elegant volume, containing biographies of the martyrs of the Reformation in Ireland, which we intend to notice at length in a future number.

----

Lectures On The Life, Writings, And Times Of Edmund Burke.
By J. B. Robertson, Esq.
London: John Philp.
For sale by the Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street, New York.

{718}

In this volume, Professor Robertson, as an extremely conservative monarchist, and as an enthusiastic admirer of what he calls the "old temperate monarchy," best typified in modern politics by the government of England, the native land of the lecturer, treats of the history of the life, writings, and times of Edmund Burke, the most illustrious Irishman of the eighteenth century, and, in purely civil affairs of all times, from a monarchical point of view; and makes his lectures, which he seems to have designed for a biography of the greatest of British orators and statesmen, really the medium of an exposition of his own peculiar doctrines and opinions in the political relation, with such incidental notices of the immortal Burke as were deemed pertinent to the illustration and enforcement of the political speculations of the gifted lecturer, who appears to live and move in utter awe of "the spirit of revolution," and in utter detestation of "the sovereignty of the people" and of "the republic." The book is of value chiefly as showing how the complex affairs known as constituting the modern world are viewed by an Englishman of fine culture, eloquent expression, and very conservative instincts and sympathies.

The book is got out in Mr. Philp's best style; the paper, type, and binding are faultless.

----

Sadlier's Catholic Directory, Almanac, And Ordo,
for the year of our Lord 1869.

This work is published in the same style as heretofore, and is, we presume, about as correct as can be expected of such a publication. There is one improvement, however, which _could_ be made at the expense of _one cent_ a copy, namely, to sew the book instead of _stitching_ it. The way it is now bound, several pages are defaced by the large holes punched through the book.

----

A Practical And Theoretical Method
Of Learning The French Language.
By A. Biarnois.
D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1868.

Of all the systems hitherto devised to facilitate the study of the French language, and at the same time offer to the student a method which, in its development, will prove attractive to him, we are inclined to think the present one by M. Biarnois is in many respects to be preferred.

The idea in the invention of most of the modern systems is a good one: to give the pupil words and phrases before he is taught the rules for their grammatical construction. This is the design proposed by our author, and after an introductory article on pronunciation he gives us at once a sentence.

"On nous dit que le Sultan Mahmoud, par ses
guerres perpétuelles, au dehors et sa tyrannie
à l'intérieur, avait rempli les
états de ses ancêtres de mine et de desolation;
et avait dépeuplé, l'Empire Persan."

This sentence is thoroughly analyzed, which gives him occasion to
explain:
1. Transposition and contractions of pronouns.
2. The gender and number of substantives.
3. Formation of the feminine of adjectives.
4. Of the plural of adjectives.
5. Place, elision, and contraction of the article.
6. Forms of negation.
7. Possessive pronouns.
8. Possessive, demonstrative, and indefinite
adjectives, with many grammatical
relations of all these.

This is followed by an original set of rules to find French words to express what we know in English, how to form verbs out of substantives, and to determine, without a dictionary, the conjugation to which each of these verbs belongs.

Again we have more phrases, accompanied by running explanatory notes, and the whole couched in a familiar conversational style which cannot fail of fixing the attention and impressing the memory of the student.

The latter half of the work, under the title Recapitulation, takes up the parts of speech in more regular order.

We confess that for young beginners we would prefer a certain amount of study in the admirable work of Dr. Emile Otto, as revised by Mr. Ferdinand Bôcher for English students, before taking up the method of M. Biarnois. The latter supposes a considerable advance in the knowledge of the English language, and he is compelled at the very outset to make use of words and phrases which, to youthful pupils, might need explanation fully as much as the corresponding ones in French. But for students in our colleges, who have already some notion of English or Latin grammar, we think this grammar of M. Biarnois is one of the best, and in many respects better than any that have come under our notice.

----

{719}

Tobacco And Alcohol.
I. It Does Pay To Smoke
II. The Coming Man Will Drink Wine.
By John Fiske, M.A., LL.B.
New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1869.

It was hardly possible that Mr. Parton's attack on the "smokers and drinkers" of this generation should pass without a reply. Mr. Fiske has sprung into the lists, while yet the gauntlet of the challenger has scarcely reached the ground, and has begun the battle with a force and vigor which, to say the least, must temporarily startle his opposers. Scientifically, he appears to have the advantage. There is very little of assertion; very much of authority and argument about him. His manner of dealing with the sweeping statements of his adversary is more effective than courteous. His theory of the value of alcohol and tobacco, as stimulants for daily use, is certainly plausible, and must be welcome to all who either smoke or drink, or who aspire to do so. Physiologically, also, it appears sound, and in accordance with the latest therapeutical discoveries. But it will be indeed a task of difficulty to lead Mr. Parton, or his sympathizers, into the belief that either smoking or drinking are profitable to mankind; a task equalled only by that of bringing smokers and drinkers to observe that golden mean of temperance which even Mr. Fiske admits to be of indispensable necessity.

But whatever may be the scientific merits of Mr. Fiske's treatise, we can but feel that, morally, he is on the losing side. The advantages and disadvantages of tobacco and alcohol are to be estimated by their effect upon mankind at large, as mankind uses and will use them, and not by the medical influence they exercise when taken by the proper persons, in proper quantities, at proper times. Many things are _per se_ useful and beneficial which, _as used_, are sources of great injury and destruction. Some of these can scarcely be used as they ought by man in general, but become, almost inevitably, the cause of ruin and disorder. To this class we believe that tobacco and alcohol belong. Experience seems to teach that their abuse necessarily follows from their use, and that, whatever their peculiar beneficial properties, they have been, and still are, among the worst enemies of man. For this reason we regret to see any argument put into the mouths of smokers and drinkers, whereby they can quiet their own consciences or beguile others into self-indulgence; and we feel that it were safer and better that the nerve-power of the individual should waste a little faster, and the stimulus be denied, than that the misery and wretchedness which tobacco and alcohol have already occasioned should find either an increase or an apology.

----

A Book About Dominies:
Being the Reflections and Recollections of a
Member of the Profession.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1869.

But for one fault this were a charming book. There is a freshness and genial warmth about it which is very welcome to the heart of any one who has ever been "a boy." The keen appreciation of the "boy nature," of the "boy aspirations," of the "boy troubles," which the dominie, whose experience is here narrated, seems to have possessed, gives a rare relish to his sketches, and makes his book almost a story of the reader's own youth and school life. For these merits it will be read not once only but often, and will serve both to maturity and age as "a tale of the times of old--a memory of the days of other years."

{720}

The fault of which we speak is the tone of religious sentimentalism which runs through the whole book, and crops out in various flings at positive religious faith, and in innumerable expressions of an unhealthy, mawkish, self-congratulating piety. Latitudinarianism is bad enough, but when it reaches to the open contempt of dogma, and elevates the undisguised conceit which despises all authority and law above the humility which acknowledges some truth outside its own conclusions, it becomes the worst possible kind of teaching both for boys and men. It is difficult to realize that the writer of the substance of this book should also be the author of these dangerous and disagreeable sentimentalisms.

----

An Illustrated History Of Ireland, from the Earliest Period to
the Present Time.
With several first-class full-page Engravings of Historical
Scenes, designed by Henry Doyle, and engraved by George Hanlon
and George Pearson; together with upward of One Hundred
Woodcuts, by eminent artists, illustrating Antiquities,
Scenery, and Sites of Remarkable Events; and three large Maps,
one of Ireland, and the others of Family Homes, Statistics,
etc.
1 vol. 8vo. Nearly 700 pages, extra cloth.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street. 1869.

We are glad to see this new and improved edition of this excellent history of Ireland. The first edition we noticed at length, on its appearance, some months ago; but the demand for it was so great that it was soon exhausted. The distinguished authoress, (Sister Mary Frances Clare,) having made several additions and improvements, presents us with a finely illustrated volume, worthy of a place on the shelves of every library, public or private, in America.

It is very important that the people of the United States should study the history of Ireland intelligently. They have, as a people, too long neglected it; and all the greater portion of them know about Ireland and her history is that which they have learned out of their school-books, and vitiated novels. In fact, our public men, writers and speakers alike, have not thought it worth their while to read Ireland's history; it was, to many of them, a country beneath their notice, _except to slander_, by quoting her history from the biased writers of England. But those times are passed. We now have good histories enough. Besides, there is no country of Europe that has sent so many of her people to populate this country; her children or their descendants are to be found in every town and hamlet from Maine to Oregon. It is therefore incumbent on _all_ American citizens, native or adopted, to study the history of that

"Isle of ancient fame,"

whose history is almost as old as that of Judea. We trust that those who have not yet done so will now procure a copy of this work. Apart from its intrinsic merits, which are manifold, there is another which is of some importance. It is sold for the benefit of the Convent of Poor Clares, Kenmare, Ireland, which institution gives education to hundreds of poor Irish children.

----

Books Received.

From Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman& Co.:

Analysis of Civil Government: including a topical and tabular
arrangement of the Constitution of the United States. Designed
as a class-book for the use of Grammar, High, and Normal
Schools, Academies, and other institutions of learning.
By Calvin Townsend, Counsellor-at-Law.
New York. 1869.

From Lee & Shepard:

Gloverson and His Silent Partners.
By Ralph Reder. 1869.

Words of Hope. "That ye sorrow not, even as others which
have no hope." 1869.

From J. B. Lippincott & Co.:

A Few Friends, and how they Amused Themselves.
A tale in nine chapters; containing descriptions
of twenty pastimes and games, and a fancy dress party.
By M. E. Dodge, author of Hans Brinker and The Irvington
Stories. 1869.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co.:

Songs of Ireland and other Lands; being a collection
of the most popular Irish sentimental and comic songs,
1 vol. 18mo.

From Charles Scribner & Co., New York:

Essays on the Progress of Nations, in Civilization,
Productive Industry, Wealth, and Population, etc.
By Ezra C. Seaman,
1 vol. 12mo.

From D. Appleton & Co., New York:

Mental Science; a Compendium of Psychology, and the
History of Philosophy.
By Alexander Bain, M. A.
1 vol. 12mo.

----------

{721}{722}{723}

The Catholic World.

Vol. VIII., No. 48.--March, 1869.

An Apostolic Letter From His Holiness Pope Pius IX.

The letter of the Holy Father which we publish below, in Latin and English, together with one from Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the Congregation of the Propaganda, have just been received from Rome. The readers of _The Catholic World_, and those persons especially who have taken an active interest in, and have generously contributed to, the establishment of the Paulist Congregation, the Publication Society, and other associated works, will doubtless feel gratified and encouraged by the approving words with which the Holy Father has deigned to give them his sanction and apostolic blessing. These gracious words of the Vicar of Jesus Christ ought to encourage us all to redoubled efforts for the advancement of our holy religion, and such, we trust, will be their influence.

Admodum R. D.:

Cum Sanctissimus Dominus Noster non levi inter quibus afficitur
acerbitates jucunditate ex pluribus nunciis acceperit, D. Tuam
per Catholicos ephemerides curam omnem impendere ad religionis
nostrae sanctissimae studium fovendum, ad falsas doctrinas
refellendas, et ad hujus Apostolicae Sedis jura tuenda, aliquod
suae paternae dilectionis testimonium voluit exhibere. Pergratum
proinde erit D. Tuae literas Sanctitatis suae hisce adjectas
reperire, quibus factum iri confido ut majori usque studio et
alacritate inceptum opus prosequaris.