simple account of the manner of proceeding of the visiting justices of Tothill-Fields Prison with regard to a Catholic clergyman who held a certificate of their approbation for his exact observance of rules, but who had made himself disagreeable by insisting on some attention being paid to the provisions of the new Prisons Act in behalf of Catholics, nor the animadversions of a leading Protestant journal on their conduct in far more energetic terms of reproach than any Catholic had used, have, as far as we know, elicited any

counter-statement.

Again, something like a public discussion of the alleged Catholic grievance in three of the London prisons had been really expected. After memorials had been addressed to the Home Office by the Archbishop with regard to the treatment of Catholic prisoners in one of them, and by the Hon. C. Langdale, in the name of a deputation of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen, with regard to all three, and again on the subject of that little episode of the dismissal of the priest, and had been referred to the visiting justices and replied to by them, notice was given by one of their friends of a motion at the next quarterly sessions of a vote of thanks to them for their spirited conduct. This would give them an opportunity of explaining their proceedings, without any loss of dignity, and before a highly sympathetic audience, but at the risk of a discussion, in case the two Catholics, who are all that have seats in the assembly, or a weak brother not up to the Exeter-Hall standard, might choose to make inconvenient remarks. If such a notice had not been given, one would probably have appeared from the other side for the purpose of calling public attention to the subjects of complaint; but now it seemed needless, and was not done. However, when the important moment arrived, and the presence of a large number of magistrates not usually attending these meetings, and the dira facies of Catholics and even of reporters in the strangers' gallery showed the interest taken in the expected debate, the champion of the justices rose only to withdraw his motion, and send tip-toe expectation away disappointed.

We are not at all surprised that the same disinclination to descend from general to particular contradiction has been shown with regard to the more flagrant oppression of Catholic orphans. Several thousands of the reprint of our former article, De Profundis, have been circulated; and the circular, Summary of Grievances affecting Catholics under the existing Poor-law, has been still more widely dispersed. In that circular fourteen definite statements are made. They are all proved by the evidence taken before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1861, to which constant appeal

has been made, and which any one can procure. No one has attempted to invalidate that evidence, or to give any reason for hoping that the system then prevailing has been mitigated. "No attempt has been made," as the Letter to a Member of Parliament remarks, "to refute any of the statements in that circular, beyond vague suggestions of exaggeration, and vague denials of the fact that Catholic children are treated as is alleged, and as the evidence proved. It has not even been attempted to be denied that all Irish children are brought up as Protestants, except the very few whose parents" (it should have been "parents or relations") "succeed in obtaining by repeated demands from hostile boards that their children be registered as Catholics." And with regard to such denials as have been made of the perversion even of those that are so registered, of course the observation that we made before of visiting justices is à fortiori true. The magistrates are gentlemen-men of intelligence and humanity. They have shown a very laudable readiness to alter their arrangements, when they found them to be illegal, although they still interpret the law in what seems to us a very harsh and narrow manner. What poor-law guardians often are, late disclosures have abundantly displayed. Those who can look with satisfied complacency on a state of things with regard to the bodily necessities of their victim, which strikes horror and disgust into minds of ordinary sensibility, are not likely to allow that their arrangements for the supply of spiritual consolation are defective. But the observation reaches farther. The particular atrocities to which we have alluded are, we trust, confined to a few union workhouses. The children in the district schools are, we believe, on the whole well cared for with regard to the body. But if a strong prejudice in favour of cutting down expenditure can make one set of guardians not only guilty of what other men call execrable cruelty, but unconscious that there is any thing to be complained of, surely an equally strong prejudice against the Catholic religion must make the assertions of others, that children known to be-i. e. the few who are registered as-Catholics are permitted to practise their religion, are not ill-treated for professing it, or are not debarred from proper instruction, of very little value. When we remember, what we so often witness, and what Fr. Newman has so exquisitely delineated, the apparently complete inability of many intelligent Protestants to allow of the existence of feelings in us with which they do not sympathise, we see that when a secretary of the Protestant Alliance puts his name to some astounding assertion, that Roman Catholics in workhouses suffer no injustice, or that our statements are false, he may very likely have no intention of denying the facts, which to any

unprejudiced person would fully prove every one of those state

ments.

A good Protestant chaplain, who lately showed a party of inquirers over one of those large district schools in which crowds of Irish children are losing their faith, disclaimed with evident sincerity all intention of proselytising; and then, as an illustration of his fairness, and without the faintest notion probably of the cold shudder that his words would produce in the breasts of his Catholic auditors, went on to say that he should not even know which of the children under his charge had been brought up in another faith, if it were not that from time to time one came into his study to say, "Please, sir, I do not mean to trust in Mary any more, but only in Jesus." What agony it would cause any Catholic parents, not wholly hardened or profligate, to know that their child was formally renouncing the Mother of God; through what a blighting process the soul even of a child must have passed, before it could utter that blasphemy from its heart, and in what tortures of self-reproach it was plunged, if it uttered it only outwardly to escape persecution; and how some of those to whom he spoke would receive his information with the same feelings as if they had been told that children there were made to trample on a crucifix or offer incense to Jupiter Tonans, -all this would be a mystery which the kindhearted minister not only could not understand, but would not believe. This school, in which no creed-register is accessible, which receives Catholic orphans from four London unions, and in which, as the chaplain informed his visitors, only two children during thirteen years had been sufficiently claimed as Catholics to receive any exceptional mitigation of the uniform Protestant education, would be spoken of by our friends of the Protestant Alliance as one in which "there is no injustice practised, and no proselytism carried on."

II. The first of the documents to which we referred is a "Copy of Correspondence with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the subject of the Religious Instruction of Roman Catholic Prisoners in Prisons in the county of Middlesex," moved for by Major O'Reilly, and printed by order of the House of Commons. It contains the memorial from the Archbishop, and a statement of the Catholic priest attending Coldbath Fields on the treatment of Catholic prisoners there, with the reply of the visiting justices; the memorial from the deputation to Sir G. Grey on the state of things as affecting Catholics in the Middlesex county-prisons in general, to which no reply at all is given; two letters from the inspectors of prisons giving an account of a more liberal interpretation of the law in other prisons inspected by them, which were sent by Sir G. Grey's order

to the visiting justices of Coldbath Fields for their "information," but apparently not thought by them to merit attention; and a correspondence between Mr. Langdale, the Home Office, and the Tothill-Fields justices on the subject of their dismissal of the Catholic priest.

We must extract from his grace's letter the following admirably brief and lucid statement of what must be insisted on, until, either by alteration of the law or by judicial enforcement of the law, or by both, each particular has been secured :

"1. A bona-fide creed-register made in full freedom by the prisoners on entering, and as freely corrected when, through error or fault of their own, it has been incorrect.

"2. Free access of the Catholic clergyman to all Catholics in the prison, on the same regulations as that of the Protestant chaplain to the Protestant prisoners; subject only to the refusal of the prisoner, made to the Catholic clergyman in person.

"3. All interference by books or Scripture-readers with the Catholic prisoners to be rendered as impossible as any like interference with the religion of Protestant prisoners is now."

The memorial of the deputation, like the published Letter, is an undesigned development of these points, and a statement of various ways in which the system in force is opposed to them all. His grace declares his belief that "the welfare of the prisoners and the peaceful administration of the prisons will be always compromised until they are secured." At present neither of them has been gained in any prison, except those few in which the Prisons Ministers Bill has been allowed to take effect, and not fully in all of these.

We pass over the lay memorial; although, being drawn up by an able lawyer, it points out very usefully the evasions and breaches of the legal enactments in favour of Catholic prisoners. But we have treated the subject in our poor fashion in a former article, and we must try not to be tedious. To any one, however, who may be engaged in a conflict with visiting justices, it would be worth while to procure this parliamentary paper for the sake of this portion of it.

We proceed to notice briefly the chief admissions of the justices in what they seem to think their triumphant refutation of unjust complaints, and the concessions which they have made since the agitation commenced, for which we thank both them and the agitators. It is admitted, that it is only "since the 24th of December last" that the question on entry as to creed "has been put to each prisoner, and the answer taken down by a responsible and intelligent officer;" and that if a Catholic has been wrongly entered, he is never to be allowed to correct the mistake, unless it be proved that the officer

did not put down the answer accurately. "They are advised that, as the law stands, they have not the power of allowing the register to be altered." Sir G. Grey expresses his opinion that they are wrong in their interpretation; but they adhere to their opinion.

That, till lately, the direction given to the reception-warder as to the way of ascertaining whether a Catholic objected to the ministry of the priest, was to ask him once for all, "Do you wish to be visited by a Roman Catholic priest while in prison?" and that the warder shortened it into "Do you wish to see a priest ?" and that a negative answer to this question was considered to be objecting. Of course, nine out of ten Irish, if they heard the question at all, understood it as asking whether they wanted to go to confession at once, and would be amazed at finding afterwards that they were considered to have objected to visits from a priest.

That, till lately, the Protestant Bible and Prayer-book were placed. in the cells of the Catholic prisoners, while a Catholic Bible and Prayer-book were given only to those who asked for them; i. e. those to whose requests the warder chose to attend.

That Catholics who decline to attend the Protestant service continue in solitary confinement during all that extra time, which the justices deem "simply the result of the provisions of the law."

That the Scripture-reader visits the Catholics in their cells when he pleases, "for purposes of temporal relief," and endeavours "to learn so much of their history and intentions as may enable him to form a judgment whether or not they are deserving of relief;" "reads and explains portions of Scripture in the sick-wards and in the boys' workshop during their working hours," to Catholics as well as Protestants; asks Catholic boys to repeat their prayers, and explains to them that the Apostles' Creed is not a prayer; and that the justices, in deciding on the amount of relief to be given to an out-going prisoner, "receive information from the Scripture-reader." So much for the enactment gained after long toiling, that "no prisoner shall be compelled to attend any religious service held or performed, or any religious instruction given by the chaplain, minister, or religious instructor of a church or persuasion to which the prisoner does not belong." Yet the justices "do not hesitate to express their conviction that, under the arrangements actually in force, every Roman Catholic prisoner within the prison is at perfect liberty to exercise his own religion, and that no such prisoner is exposed to any vexation on account of it;" and that in the same paper with these admissions. What would they say if, in a prison in Ireland, Protestant prisoners were liable to visits from priests and Christian Brothers ad libitum; to questions about their past life from them; to public read