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Leader (1850-1860), 18th September 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 893, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      hild And I remember myself , af ter this , in my childish nlav ' playing , with boats of walnut-shells , at removing the separated members of families across the sea to rejoin each other in a foreign country . And I also distinctly remember putting a " Wesleyan preacher and a Eomancatholic priest in the same shell , as being part of my play . My notions on these points must have arisen from the practice of my mother of letting me stop in the room when nei ghbours called , some of whom were travellers , and men of tlioug ht , and talked of missions—missionaries then beginning to be a topic of conversation . These ideas continually haunted me as I grew up . And I had the advantage of a mother , to whom I owe whatever energy of character I have ; for it was her constant maxim to me never to shed a tear , or allow a fear to turn me from my purpose .

      My mind also spontaneously t urned t o reli gious speculation ; so that I had persuaded myself , at sixteen , that I oug ht to declare myself a Roman Catholic by conviction , ana decline to be confirmed according to the ritual of the Church of E ngland , in which I had been bred up . Shortly after this , I engaged myself to the bond of marriage . The man to whom I was betrothed was an officer in the Indian army . And before I betrothed myself to him , I told him , I felt within myself that a commission had been given me from above to devote all my energies to relieving human suffering wherever the scene of his duties might lie abroad . That , as this might interfere with his domestic enjoyment , it was right he should know before we were joined in marriage .

      He at once agreed to marry me on this condition , to which , as Mr . Harding has stated , he most faithfully adhered , and is at this day adhering : as because we found that the time was come when it was absolutely needful that a competent agent to look after the interests of the emi grants on landing in the colony , whom we had sent out in 1850 , from this country , and Captain Chisholm at once resolved to go to Australia at his own expense , and we accordingly halved our small income , and separated . In this , then , I have been favoured by Providence , as I have been in my children , with whom God has blessed us , and whose nurture and education was the only point my husband and myself had agreed to reserve before we married , as taking the first p lace in our p lan of life . We

      went to India , and there I founded an institution for the daug hters of European soldiers , called , a " F emale School of Industry , " several of which still exist . In 1838 , we visited Australia for change of air . There I found some hundred sing le females , unprotected , unemployed ; numbers more continuing to arrive in ships ; and ^ almost the whole falling into an immoral course of life , as a necessary result . I applied myself to the task of getting these poor creatures into safety , and decent situations as servants . I met with discouragement on all hands ; but I persevered , and I succeeded in my object . The Governor , at length , allowed me to sleep in a small room with the girls at the Emigrants' Barracks . It was , it is true , full of rats , as I found the first night I entered it ; but these I poisoned , and stuck to my post . I was thus able to get a personal influence and control over the girls . I founded a college to get them engagements in the Bush , and I got out some hundreds of

      girls into good places . In pursuing this object I at length found it necessary to take large parties of these unprotected girls into the Bush to procure places , and that I must accompany these parties myself . This I did for several years . The parties varied from 100 to 150 each . So I worked on for many years in Australia . I advanced much money for the conveyance of emigrants ; but so honestly was I repaid these advances , that all my losses did not amount during this period to 20 / . And , under God ' s blessing , I was the means of procuring engagements , and of settling no less than 1 , 000 souls , in the aggregate , before I left—a vast proportion of whom being young females , wore saved from falling into a life of infamy . I shall never forget the warmth of my reception this day , and that of the health of my husband and children , whom I liavo bred up in the maxim—to trust to thernHclvea , and work for themselves ; and never , if they have any regard for their mother ' s memory , to look for Government putronuge , or take Government Pay .

      Untitled Article

      PROGRESS OF ASSOCIATION . THE HOARD OK SUPPLY AND DEMAND . Wij are enabled , to state that a Provisional Committee has been formed to consider the p lan of a Board of Hupp /// and . Demand , suggested by M . . 1 . Leehevalier SI , Andre .

      Untitled Article

      THE JESUITS IN SICILY . Inn friends of the Jesuits and of monks may have hcen recently rejoiced to learn , through Lord Shrews'" H'y , that the city of Palermo possesses a free school for boys , and a college of young students who pay for their education , belong ing to the Jesuits , in addition to 44 <( » iveuts and 2 , ' A nunneries . An English journal has eagerly adopted these statements , and in disdainfully ' " epudiating the desire expressed by Lord Shrewsbury to W 1 e similar establishments transplanted into England , huHsti ^ niatizcd Sicily with the severe irony of " barbiu-ous . " '" a country not self-governed , we must always iiiijkh a clear distinction between the nation and the government ; . The government tends to barbarize the nation ; lmt the nation , though stripped of its political '" stitutions , may yet preserve some institutions which derive from a moral order of things that prevailed in > e . tter times , and may ho cling to civilization in the J » idst of imyonetH , monks , uik | Jesuits . Thus , it would unfair to cull Franca " barbarous" bucatwo ehe lift *

      fallen under the rule of bayonets , of monks , of Jesuits , and of a priesthood more servile than the clergy of any other Catholic country . Without drawing any distinction between the nation and the government , the Times in a recen t ar t icle de rided t h e miseri e s of S icil y , the country which has made the noblest efforts to reconquer independence , and which in spite of misfortune has by her very efforts proved worthy of a better lot , or at least not deserving to be struck from the list of civilized nations . Let us examine , however , the real extent of the influence of the Jesuits in Sicily .

      For the thirty-seven years during which the Jesuits were suppressed in Sicily—namely , from 1767 to 1804 , public instruction , which had been almost a monopoly in their hands , was entrusted to secular Lyceums , under a direction composed of the men of the highest intellectual eminence in the country . The literary history of S icil y in the eighteenth century , ( by Scina Palermo , 1827 , ) describes the revolution effected by the expulsion of the Jesuits in the intellectual culture of the nation . When the Bourbons of Sicily were the first in Europe ( after Russia ) to restore the Jesuits , it was too late to extinguish the lig h t or t o arres t t he pro g ress of

      intelligence . The Jesuits , on their return to the island , recovered only a fraction of the property and of the establishments they had formerly possessed—the hulk of them having been alread y disposed of ; and they found themselves ( as they remain to this day ) exclud ed fr o m all t h e g r e a t t owns excep t Palermo . They have no t a single es t ablishm e n t a t M essina , nor at Catania , nor at Sy racuse , nor a t G ergen t i , nor a t Cattag irone , nor at Trapani . During this interval of enlightenment , Sicily coul d boas t of d is t inguished savantsj such as P ia z zi , the astronomer ; Gioeni , the naturalist ; Gregorio , the publicist ; B alsamo , the

      economist ; Meli , the poet ; Giovarni and Salvatori ch B lasis , the theologians . Besides the ancient University of Catania , she ha d found e d ano t h e r a t P alermo , to which the majority of her savants were attached . The restoration of the Jesuits encountered the powerful opposition of all the talents in the island . Restricted to the capital , an d to six other t owns , which , wi t h P alermo , constitute b arel y 300 , 000 souls , or not quite an eighth of the entire population of the island , they could only to this limited degree enter into competition with the communal schools , whether private or governmental , for the instruction which is called in France " secondary , "

      that is , elemen t ar y Italian and Latin literature ; whilst all the rest of the secondary schools , and t he whole of the primary schools and universities continued exempt from their influence . The University of Palermo , and t he mag istracy to which public instruction was entrusted , con t inuall y resisted their encroachments ; and it would he possible to name one t own where , on an attempt being made to introduce the Jesuits , the entire population expressed their aversion to them by petitions unanimously signed and presented to the Government ; and another , from which they were ignominiously expelled b y t he indi gnation of the people in 1848 .

      Lord Shrewsbury says , that 800 boys are educated at Palermo in the Jesuit schools . For a population of nearly 200 , 000 , this number ( supposing it to be exact ) , is not very large . Even admitting that a third of the youth destined for the liberal professions have the misfortune to receive instruction in the . secondary schools of the Jesuits , rather than in the normal schools of public instruction , or in the numerous private establishmen t s , the evil is not so great as it seems . In the first place , as the Jesuits only g ive " secondary instruction , " almost all who receive it in their schools must

      necessarily pass into one or other of the three universities for the higher branches of education , to fit themselves for the professions . This transition opens to them a new field of intellectual culture , which wholly effaces the old . More to be pitied are Hit * children who are educated at the schools of the Jesuits , in preference to tin * colleges of the good Fathers Scolopi , or in private academics . The number of these children does not exceed 40 or 50 ; they belong to rich and noble families , and having no need of a profession , they do not ordinarily proceed from these schools to the universities to reform or to advance their education .

      Whilst , however , the Jesuits have displayed such zeal in extending their miserable system at Pal' -rnio , there have been found in that saint ) city honourable citizens who have constantly striven to promote the interests of a real and sound instruction . The Academy of Sciences , and the Communal Library , which are now placed under the auspices of the municipalit y , were founded by private individuals the one in IV ID , ( lie other in 17 ( 50 . A college and school of navigation , from which have proceeded the ablest and most skilful pilots in the Medi « tciTuncun , was founded and richly endowed in 17 H , ) by Joneph Giooni ; a public picture gallery wub established

      in 1815 by Joseph Ventimiglia , Prince de Belmonte ; an agricultural institute , endowed with rich lands in t he nei g hbourh o od of P alermo , and with a sum of 2000 ounces ( lOOOZ . ) per annum , was founded in 1829 by the Prince de Castelnuovo . A prize of 400 ounces ( 200 ? . ) to be g iven ev e r y fourth year to the student who should have distinguished himself most in the study of Greek and Latin literature , and of Sicilian history , was founded in 1834 by Paul

      di Giovanni . In fine , there is one fact which alone proves that Sicily will never become the abject pupil of the Jesuits , as the Times conjectures . During the ei g h t een mon t hs' freedom of the island in 1848 and 1849 , the Sicilian Parliament lost no time in suppressing the schools and foundations of the Jesuits , and in replacing them by national institutes . It proceeded also to suppress the monastic orders , commencin g wi th the Liguorini .

      It is against the will of the Nation that the Government maintains in Sicily such a pr o di g ious numb e r of convents . S ince t he coup d ' etat of 1816 , when Sicily was stripped of her ancient constitution , and of her la t er constitution of 1 S 12 at one blow , t he B ourbons have continued to impose upon her the Codes and the French system , as i t prevailed in t he kingdom of N a ples under M ura t , and they have always attacked all that savoured of old Sicily , excep t the monks . In this regard , the Bourbons have acted rather as the slaves of Rome than in their own interests . Generally speaking , the convents in their present condition bring no advantage to the Government , since neither their material nor their intellectual resources enable them to

      influence , alter the manner of the Jesuits , t he moral , in t ellec t ual , or political education of the country whilst , on t h e o t her hand , a posi t ive evil is caused b y withdrawing from a society not over-populated a great number of families who mig h t o t herwise be usefull y employed in industrial and p rofessional pursuits . F ormerl y , it was considered that to protect the mat erial prosperity of a country was as useful to absolutist as to free governments , but that was an illusion . C er t ainl y the nations have no hope of the future hut in free governments ; but is it not melancholy to find a portion of the press of a free country declaiming against the evil instead of denouncing t he cause , and holding up the victim to scorn rather than the murderer to execration ? G .

      Untitled Article

      CORSICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . [ We find in the Morning Chronicle the following account of the state of Corsica , so amazing and so full of interest , that we reprint it in full . ] It has been said that , in the ordinary course of retribution in this world , a man ' s smallest . sins are always moro heavily punished than his graver delinquencies ; and we are really sometimes tempted to believe that the obliquities of nations observe the same rule of requital . Among tho very li ghtest offences of I ' ranee against independent nationalities , was her annexation of Corsica in 17 <> 8 ; and , indeed , the original injustice has been more than compensated by the unmixed advantages which the island has obtained through the union . It would almost . seem ,

      however , as ii Corsica had been the commissioned delegate of all the vengeance which -Belgium , Spain , Prussia ., and Piedmont have scored up against their insatiable neighbour . Corsica at this moment governs France . A ( , ' orsuraii lias fastened a yoke upon her neck more galling than the chains of the haughtiest Hotirhon , mid a Cor . sicun oligarchy is dividing the rich spoils of her patronage , or assisting to crush her spirit and to perpet ante her servitude . During the last , war , the foremost missile hurled by tho libcllists at the . Emperor , was bis Corsicau extraction . Hut ( . he idiosyncrasy of Napoleon was far too strongly marked

      to admit of his being classed under any particular type oC national character ; and his mind , in common with those of all his adoptive fellow-countrymen , bad been formed and tempered in I lie liery crucible of the first Revolution . The point o ! " his birth possessed as little real importance as the question which has been recently agitated respecting the exact day on which if took place . It is far otherwise with Louis Napoleon Honapurte - -the son of an Italian and a Creole who never set foot , on French soil , except ; to pass and rcjuiss on the road to a prison , from the clone of his early childhood to the hour when the means of

      usurpation were put at , Ins disposal . The present , autocrat oi Franco has none of the excellencies or defects , and very few of tho cognisable features , of ( he French character . Ho is silent ., shy , and morose . 11 is abilities , which are doubtlens considerable , lie not , on ( ho surface , but in tho depths . Well read , and skilful with bin pen , he is essentially unsocial . Ambitious , he seems coumaral ively cureless of the shows of power . His personal indulgence , though unrestrained , is more systematic than extravagant . Although be is relentless in tlic purpose of requital ,

      ho knows how to conceal his sense of wrong , and to dolor his cherished ' vengeance . Great as in tho Butlering be ban nl times inflicted , be appears to he cruel rather at the crisis of opportunity than at the climax of passion . Such peculiarities are not I lie tokens of a Frenchman , and they are reproduced at liis feel , in the crowd of CorNican favourites among whom lie scatters the morsels of the dominion which lie has engrossed . Tho ollieo which approaches nearest to that of Prime- Minister wan lilled , till tho other duy , by the Cornican bailiff of tho Konupnrto ltiniily ; und wherever there ia iv noat or a divUnction

      Untitled Article

      September 18 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 893

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1852, page 893, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1952/page/9/