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discernment in those employed and trusted, and (is it a reproach ?) no intriguing whatever against the Republic, but an extraordinary preference for Christian as against anti-Christian deputies in the Assembly which disposes of the earthly circumstances of the Church in France. This is all, excepting as regards intellectual questions, exegesis &c., which Monsignor Montagnini seems to have regarded as his duty to watch and report on, not always it seems with accurate knowledge or understanding; but, after sifting and classifying, this is the worst we find; and the farce called the trial of Abbé Jouin and his plot, is well exposed not only by his admirable counsel Maître Danet, but by the equally admirable judgment, in which the newly-made law was condemned as exorbitant, by which a French citizen could be fined sixteen francs (the smallest fine) for rousing his parishioners to work instead of only sighing; for saying that in such times of acute distress a deuil armé was needed; a remark understood in its harmless sense to him the dishonourable language which he used? It is to his old friend that he should turn his attention if he had in him the smallest particle of the feeling of a truthful man. But there are only too many reasons why he should fear the answer. Of the two forms of confession he chooses the one which injures the man who is to-day his accuser. As the last straw he now seeks to drag a woman into the affair in the matter of the luncheon at which he endeavoured to meet me. The only thing that was wanting to him was to hide behind a petticoat. With Mgr. Montagnini's soutane, there are now two of these garments in the case." —Reuter.

'PROPOS DE PREMIER MINISTRE.-M. Clemenceau est en train de perdre toute mesure et toute décence. Dans une déclaration qu'il a dictée à un journal du matin, en réponse aux explications plus ou moins heureuses de M. Piou, on relève, au milieu de beaucoup de phrases étranges ou injurieuses, celle-ci: "Pour comble, le voilà qui cherche à mettre une femme en cause dans l'affaire du déjeuner où il sollicita de me rencontrer. Il ne lui manquait plus que de se cacher derrière un jupon. Avec celui de Montagnini, cela fait deux.” Nous ne doutons pas que ce mot ait le succès qu'il mérite dans les établissements que Gambetta appelait les salons de la démocratie. Mais il existe d'autres salons où un ministre français est dans l'obligation de fréquenter. Il y a, ne fût-ce que dans le corps diplomatique, des personnalités que leurs fonctions mettent en rapports nécessaires avec le chef de notre gouvernement, et qui risquent de ne pas saisir du premier coup tout l'atticisme de semblables plaisanteries. Il y a des représentants catholiques d'Etats catholiques qui peuvent être un peu gênés d'entendre bafouer, fût-ce avec tant d'esprit, une robe qu'ils respectent. Il y a aussi une France, qui est une grande nation, qui occupe une grande place en Europe, qui y avait gardé un grand renom de tenue et de courtoisie. Pour qualifier des propos comme ceux de notre premier ministre, il y a des mots qui viennent tout naturellement à l'esprit. On assure qu'ils ont franchi les lèvres d'un diplomate étranger. M. Clemenceau ne s'est pas borné à nous les faire connaître; il a tenu à les justifier.'

No scandal has remained; and the reputations of M. Clemenceau, M. Piou, and of Mgr. Montagnini have not been affected by the fact that the American artist, an acquaintance of M. Clemenceau's, and lodging in the same house as M. and Madame Piou, was a woman and not a man!

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10 Since writing this we have read in the Revue des Deux Mondes, April 15, the Revue Chronique,' and wish space remained to quote every word regarding the Montagnini papers and the pretended Abbé Jouin's plot: Abbé Jouin, to whom no reference whatever was found in the papers-only a visiting card was found among the thousand and more the Government enjoyed studying. We can only quote this sentence from M. François Charmes's admirable résumé. 'Never did he' (Montagnini) 'direct his efforts or those of the Catholics against the Republic.'

just as much as we all understood Monsieur Clemenceau when lately he boasted that he had fired the first shot! The trial established that never had Abbé Jouin seen Montagnini, and that not once did he appear in the affair. Yet the seizure of the papers was made on the grounds of an Abbé Jouin plot!!! We have been reproached as lacking a spirit of tolerance in an article in another Review.11 What does tolerance mean? Tolerance of evil? of anti-Christianism, of injustice, of French Freemasons? We were asked to throw such light as we had at first hand on the present ecclesiastical struggles in France, and unfortunately this is impossible without stating bravely (it is neither easy nor agreeable) the anti-Christian objects and methods of the present Government in all its ramifications of intensely centralised administration. It is absurd to attempt to explain the situation, and at the same time to ignore the chief factors on the side of evil-Freemasonry and the atheistical, fanatically anti-Christian, elementary school teachers; trained expressly in the écoles normales. Of course there are still many of the old race, who bitterly regret and bewail the poisoning of the race; but the whole current of the stream is a propaganda of atheism, and often also of anti-patriotism. To us it is wonderful that the fond of the country, of the people of France, retains so much virtue and faith as it does; this is the ground of our hope for the future. For a country and people so rich in qualities and endowments of all kinds, above all so rich still in Christian faith, there will surely be a recovery of noble, christian, patriotic life in the benign atmosphere of a Republic in which the motto 'Liberty, equality, fraternity' represents a living, gracious power, and not mere words which mock us from the walls of State buildings and of churches in town and country. We will close with this quotation from the Revue de Droit et de Jurisprudence des Eglises séparées de l'Etat, April 1907, p. 78:

It will be seen that the law of the 28th of March, 1907 (that which does away with all declarations) is characterised by true liberalism; the resistance of the Holy See has resulted in assuring to all religions the free practice of their rites, in freeing them of the useless and vexatious formality of declarations. The Associations Cultuelles, formed by Protestants and Israelites, need no longer renew annually the declarations of public worship which they had deposited at the prefecture of police or at the mairie. The Separation Law, such as it was promulgated in December 1905, has already undergone profound modifications; it would have been further greatly improved if the Government had not caused the Chambers to declare, in obedience to a small group blindly sectarian, the immediate confiscation of properties incontestably belonging to the Catholic Church.-(Armand Lods.)

SOPHIA M. PALMER,
Comtesse de Franqueville.

"Church Quarterly Review, April 1907.

THE HOMES OF OUR FOOD SUPPLY

A FEW years ago it so happened that I had to visit a farm not far from our shooting lodge in the Highlands of Scotland to inquire about supplies for the household before the great Twelfth of August was upon us. The walk through the woods was enchanting, with the squirrels chasing each other from tree to tree, the rabbits and roedeer darting off among the bracken, and the wild roses greeting me at every turn along the pathway. Crossing the river I paused to look over the bridge down into the depths of the pool wherein lay the salmon so stilly, then onward up the Ben. The silence was only broken by the steady murmur of the river, the cooing of the wood pigeons, and anon by the harsh 'koeck koeck' of the grouse among the heather. All was peace. It seemed as if nothing could disturb the serenity or dispel the sense of gratitude that the world was so fair and in all directions displayed her varying charms. Truly it was enough to live.

In the midst of this great solitude I came to the farm of my quest, and was invited into the parlour-that best room used only on state occasions, and on which the position and dignity of the family are known to depend. The state occasion had come, for on a couch lay a young girl in the last stage of consumption, or, to use the mother's phrase, 'decline.' There was no hesitation shown in discussing the case before the girl herself. It was the will of the Almighty. The hand of God was upon her, and in deepest reverence they bowed to His will.

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Here, then, in the midst of all these natural charms, with Nature's children sporting happily about, lay a young human being nipped in the bud, the victim of human ignorance, or, in other words, of the fatal concatenation of circumstances, the seed, the soil, and surroundings.' Needless to say, not a breath of the sweet mountain air was allowed to enter this sunless chamber of death and solitude. On the walls were signs of damp and mould, but ignorance knew not the significance, and was content. Taking leave of the dying girl, I stepped outside to join the father, who was busy among the cows in the byre (cow-house). Here, again, were all the elements which breed disease. The dust of ages hung on the walls; ventilation was unknown, its need unrecognised. The low buildings formed three sides of a square

of the usual type, the dwelling-house forming the fourth, with a roadway between. The windows as a rule ignored the glorious expanse of mountains and pure oxygen on the one side, and faced the square for convenience and shelter. In the byre the cows were all tied up with their heads to the blank wall, and next door came the dairy, with the churns, milk pails, and pans airing in front. In the middle of the square was the usual dung-heap, that pestilential accumulation of decomposing matter which all farmers treasure as manure for their fields, without reckoning that what may be right in one place may be wrong in another. Instead of protecting their families and clean living animals from contact with this seething, steaming mass of putrefaction they seemed to live around it as a guard of honour! It was painful to think of the awful nights so many living creatures must suffer when doors were shut, and they were left to lie sweating in their own dew till released next morning. Still, the cows and the horses were better off than the poor sick girl, who was doomed to wait for death to release her from the night sweats' which were regarded as a natural symptom of the disease. The creatures who suffered least were the cocks and hens, who took matters into their own handsif I may say so—and led a free life among the heather on which they love to feed when it is in full bloom. This imparts to the flesh a gamey flavour which makes a welcome variety in the menu du jour of a country house; and as this was the object of my visit I was able to make satisfactory arrangements and stroll homeward, no longer awake to the beauties of nature, but painfully alive to the penalties which come of ignorance.

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Over all these hills and glens there were farms of a similar kind, some more dilapidated, others less, but all plague-spots from accumulated filth and the overcrowding of families. Fortunately, lack of space within drove the children without as soon as the sun was up, the elder taking part in the farmwork, the younger nursing those below them; but behind the scenes there was not infrequently the 'objeck' (idiot) or sick bairn to be attended to. These were regarded as pure waste in the general economy, for there was no 'eddication' to be done when they could not walk miles through rain and snow to the 'schule' carrying their books, and their peat bricks as tribute to the schoolroom fire. The two prevalent diseases in that part of Scotland were consumption and cancer, and as neither doctors nor trained nurses were to be had, it was quite usual to find a consumptive girl utilised as nurse to the old people dying of the latter disease.

Another farmer whom I knew (in England) enjoyed the reputation of being the prosperous man of the place. He did not profess to be a farmer pur et simple, but eked out a very good living by odd jobs in the way of carpentry, so while sending out milk from his own cows he could also supply coffins and various other trifles. Now, under the Act of 1885 A person who sells milk of his own cows in small quanti

ties to his workmen or neighbours, for their accommodation, shall not, for the purposes of registration, be deemed, by reason only of such selling, to be a person carrying on the trade of cowkeeper, dairyman, or purveyor of milk, and need not by reason thereof be registered.' One Christmas he fell ill with scarlet fever, and to while away the weary hours he occupied himself in bed by sending out his little bills to customers all round the place. While his hands were still peeling, the doctor who had been in attendance found him one day in the market-place, hail fellow with everyone he met, spreading infection everywhere. Not long after this the schools were closed. Several of the village children had died of scarlet fever, and the funerals were arranged and coffins supplied by the prosperous man of the place. When the first child died the simple folks were so deeply affected that all the rest of the school-children were bidden to the funeral, when white rosettes were handed out of the fever-stricken house for the small mourners to wear! A procession was then formed, and all proceeded to the church, where a service took place in front of the coffin. Next Sunday the church was crowded to hear the funeral oration, the dismal place unbearable from carbolic acid, which had been freely but vainly sprinkled about. Needless to say, the fever, the milk, the rosettes, and the coffin did their allotted work.

In the days of my youth there was a general idea that to send a sick or weakly child to a farm for a few weeks was the panacea for every ill. There were the warm milk fresh from the cow, the buttercups and daisies in the field, the simple life, a general kindliness and freedom. They were regarded as convalescent homes for town folk, but in those days no one knew the real cause of disease, nor whence it came; it could not be seen, from it we did not flee. The world was overpowered by the mysteries, and Fate kept on weaving her deadly spells.

In our hospitals, where Charity bid the sick and injured to come and be healed, hope gradually faded away and despair took up the cry, none knowing whence the stroke came. The mortality was frightful. Again, in our homes the angel of death hovered round every young mother at the moment her life was most needed, and none knew why joy should thus be turned into mourning.

Universities and schools of medicine were training medical men everywhere, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons opened their portals to confer distinction on the highest, yet none knew or understood the true cause of disease. All was empirical. And while confusion and sorrow were pervading the world, Pasteur, then about thirty-three years of age, was pursuing his researches on ferments in a disused attic of the Ecole Normale, alone, under circumstances the most difficult. It was here he was enabled to dispel the mysteries by proving that the cause of disease in beer, wine, and in all putrescible material, including the human body, was due to the vitality of ferments and other disease-producing micro-organisms. The questions he had

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