It will be seen from this that the percentage of the entire number is enormously in favor of the children born of foreign parents. This is only natural from a variety of reasons, chief among which is that the foreign-born population, including their children in the first degree, has, within the last half-century, been vastly in excess of the native, in this city particularly. Full statistics of the various nationalities of the children are only given for the last year (1874). Of the 636 new inmates received during the year, a little more than half the number (334) were of Irish parentage; 8 were French; 3 Italian; 1 Cuban. All of these may be safely set down as Catholics. There were 88 of German birth, of whom one-third, following the relative statistics of their nation, might be assumed as of the Catholic faith. The remainder, whom we are willing to set down in bulk as non-Catholic, were divided as to nationality as follows:
| American, | 96 |
| African, | 35 |
| English, | 26 |
| Jewish, | 3 |
| Scotch, | 6 |
| Bohemian, | 1 |
| Welsh, | 1 |
| Mixed, | 34 |
At all events, figure as we may, it may be taken as indisputable that more than one-half the children committed during the past year to the House of Refuge were of Catholic parents. Their average age, according to the statistics, was thirteen years and eight months. Consequently, the children were quite of an age to be capable of distinguishing between creed and creed, and six years beyond the average age set down by the Catholic Church as a proper time to begin to frequent the sacraments of Confession and Communion, to prepare for Confirmation, and to hear Mass on all Sundays and holydays of obligation, under pain of mortal sin. From the moment of their entering the institution the “wise Christian philanthropy” of which Mr. Edgar Ketchum is so eloquent an exponent has pronounced against them a dread “sentence of exclusion” from all these practices of faith and means of grace, as well as from instruction of any kind whatever in their religion. And not only has this been the case, but they have been subjected to the constant instruction of such men as Mr. Smyth and Mr. Hallock. Multiply these children throughout the last fifty years, as far as the relative percentage given will allow us to form an opinion of their creeds, and the picture that presents itself of these poor little Catholics is one that rends the heart. In the present article we are only presenting the general features of the case, basing our argument for the admission of a Catholic chaplain to this and all similar institutions from which a Catholic chaplain is excluded, on the law of the land, on the letter and spirit of the constitution, which we Catholics love, revere, and obey. We simply set the case in its barest aspect before our fellow-citizens, of whatever creed, and ask for our children what they would claim for their children—the right of instruction in the religion in which they were born; the right of the free practice and profession of the religion in which they believe; the right to repel all coercion, in whatever form, of conscience, whether such coercion be called sectarian or non-sectarian. In a word, we ask now, as at the beginning, what we ask for all, and what Catholics, where they have the power, as already seen, freely and without compulsion, or request even, grant to all—that great privilege and right which the constitution of this State guarantees to all mankind: “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.”
THE VEIL WITHDRAWN.
TRANSLATED, BY PERMISSION, FROM THE FRENCH OF MME. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’S STORY,” “FLEURANGE,” ETC.
CONCLUDED.
XLIV.
This was the spring of the year 1859. In spite of the retirement in which we lived and Lorenzo’s assiduous labors, which deprived him of the leisure to read even a newspaper, the rumors of a war between Austria and Italy had more than once reached us and excited his anxiety—excited him as every Italian was at that period at the thought of seeing his country delivered from the yoke of the foreigner. On this point public sentiment was unanimous, and many people in France will now comprehend better than they did at that time, perhaps, a cry much more sincere than many that were uttered at a later day—the only one that came from every heart: Fuori i Tedeschi. But till the time, when the realization of this wish became possible, it was only expressed by those who labored in secret to hasten its realization; it seemed dormant among others. Political life was forbidden or impossible. An aimless, frivolous life was only embraced with the more ardor, and this state of things had furnished Lorenzo with more than one excuse at the time when he snatched at a poor one.