The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1869-02-09 00:00:00

EXTRAORDIN tRY ACTION FOR ASSAULT

AND CONSI'L 'LACY.

An extraordinary cols of assault and oonspiraoy is
°cooping the Court of autien's Bench. The plaintiff,
Miss Saerin, a bider of Morey, sued the superiors of
the oonvent at Mill for boring beams and imprisoned
her, take her watch, *series appsrel, books, and
papers, subjected her tit various intligMties, psessea-
Bons, and anneyantles, deprived bat of load, published
C libel upon her, and finally pawed her, without any
just rowan, to be espelled from the sisterhood. The
plaintiff lays her damages at £5,000. The sief en dant di ars
paid £.5 into wort, plead not guilty to the various
counts in the declaration, and allege that the plaintiff
is not • member of the order.

Th. Sollaitor-Oeuersl, Mr. Diet, flaymorr, Q.C., sad
Mr. Willis wcra reenact for the piaintid , Hawkins,
QC., Mr. Melloib, Q.c.. and Mr. Charles Remelt
were counsel for the defendeets,

The plaintiff and defendants, said the Soßeiter-
Depend. are Homan Catholics. They are alike devoted
to the belief and practires of the Roman Cetholic church.
They alike believe, with • patiert and intense devotion,
in the Divine authority and the exchtsive authority of
that branch of the church Catholic of which Pius the
Ninth is the head. The defendant is the superioress of
the convent of Our Lady of Mercy at Hull; the
Plaintiff is a person of very good family, and connected
with good families in Ireland, herself a person of great
devotion, having two sistr re nuns in different Roman
Catholic orders, and having a brother a Jeertit priest,
and an uncle a parish priest in Ireland, and brought up
amonget Roman Catholic aiescistions, and surrounded
in every way by Roman Catholic influanoes of the best
sort. From early youth she was desirous of entering
into religious orders, but she was not permitted to do
eri prematurely. Two of her sistars had already
I gone into ammonia, and her family, although religious.
I were net desirous that their third daughter should be
devoted to the eon vsntisl hie, and for some years they
opposed her desire ; but at last she obtained the consent
of her mother, and with her uncle, a Roman Catholic
priest named Matthews, she visited several mavens., to
see what kind of habit of life she liked hut; and even-
tually, in November, 18.51, she entered the Convent of
the Sisters of Mercy in Begot-street, Dublin, as a
postulant. On the sth August, lASI, she took what
was &let the holy habit, and became • novice in the
convent at Dublin. The following are tbe vows which
the took, end the prolusions wltkli she subscribed:
Do you earnestly desire to become a good and fervent
religious in this ilsetitut• I—Yes.
Are you resolved to observe its rules and customs
faithfully as you have been made isequainted with them?
—Yes.

-
Are yon resolved to obey your superiors in all things,
svbether metten of great or little moment, apeeable or
disagreeable ?—Yes.
••• •

Are you satisfied to epend your life in any offlee or
employment assiared you, be it ever so disagreeable'
laborious, or bamilisting?—Yee.
Are yon willing to receive and dispenve the profit of
public as well as private reprehension and penance ?
Yes.
- -

Are you will* to have your faults made known to
your encoders by whoever becomee acquainted with
them, and are you ready to woke the customary man-
ifestation of conscience whenever you may be required
to do .o'—Yea.

SUSANNAH ld. SAUSIN.
Do you find any serious difficulty in the practice of
holy poverty of obedience, or in the obsorvanas of our
holy rule '—No.
Are you firmly resolved to peas yoor if. in the exact
observance of our holy rule and customs, without
requiring or seekiug for any dispensations or particular.
itiss in respect el food, clothing, lodging, or the like?
—I itm,

-
Do you (,teem and love this instituto, and do you and
the exorcist) of it. characteristic functions conducive to
your own perfection ?—I do.
Is there anything in ita rttles or constitutions, or in
bile approved customs of this congregation, to which you
find s particular difficulty is submitting your judgment?
—No. .

- --
Have you any doubts respecting your vocation, of co
strong • nature as to warrant • fear that you will
hereafter be Intel, to abandon it?—No.
Are you willing to go to any of our branch houses, and
to remain there as your superiors may deem expedient,
and are you satisfied to be bent on • foundation to any
part of the United Kingdom I—Yes.
(Signed) Sister M. SCRIOLABITCA, JOIMFII &Witter.
The order of admission is as follows :

"In the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
and under the protection of His immaculate mother,
Mary, ever Virgin, I, Susannah Mary Sauna, called in
religion Sister Mary Scholastica Joseph, do vow and
promise to God poverty, chastity, and obedience, and
the servioe of the poor, sick, and ignorant, and to
persevere until death in this institute of our Leidy of
Mercy according to lie approved rule and constitution..
under the authority and In presenee of you, my
lord and most revermd father in God, Paul Cullen,
Archbishop of this diocese, and of our reverend mother,
Ellen Whiny, celled in religion Mary Vinoust, mother
superior of this Convent of Marcy. MU ard day of
October, in the year of one Lord 1863. Signed—Suan
M. Saurin called in religion Sister Mary Scholastics
Joseph. Sister Mary Johann Delany, Assistant. Sister
Mary Vincent Whitty (superioreas). Paul Callen,
Archbishop of Dublin." Upon that profession having
been made in 1853, she became a regular professed sister
In this order, when she took the following vows of
poverty and °bohemia :—" The sisters dial therefore
keep their hearts perfectly disengaged from every
affection of the things or this world, motont with the
food and raiment allowed them, and willing at all times
to give up whatever has been allotted for their use.
They shell not give Of receive any present without per.
mission from the mother supenor. When with her
permission they receive any present from their rela-
tion or other persons, it must be considered as for the
use of the oommunity, and sot for the particular use
of the receiver. Nothing shall appear in their
dress bet what is grave and modest, nor can they keep
In their cells anything that is 'nepenthes or any curtly
or rich furniture or decoration. All must be suitable to
religions tiniplicity and poverty. The sisterrs are always
to bear in mind that by the vow of obedience they have
ever renounced their own will, and resigned it to the
direction of their superiors. They are to obey the
mother superior as holding her authority from God,
rather through love than servile fear. They shall love
and respect her as their mother, and in order that she
may be able to direct them in the way of the divine
service, it is recommended to them to make known to
her their penentential works and mortification" with
the advantages derived from them. They shall, without
hesitation, comply with ell the directions of the mother
superior, whether in matters of great or little moment.
agreeable or disagreeable. They shall not murmur, but
with humility and spiritual joy carry the sweet yoke of
Jesus Christ. They shall not absent themselves from
the common exercises without her leave, except ins caw
of pressing urgency ; and if they cannot thee have mous
to her, they shall make known the reason of their
absence at the earliest opportunity. They then obey
the call of the bell as the voice of God." In another
rule it was directed that the sister should regard the
voice of the mother superior as the voice of an angel.
The defendants, Mrs. Starr, and Mrs. Kennedy, joined
the convent about the same time as the plaintiff, Mrs.
Starr taking the religious name of Sister Mary Joseph,
and Mrs. Kennedy that of Sister Mary Magdalen. After
some time Mrs. Starr was removed to a convent at
Clifford, in Yorkshire, of which she became the
superioreas, where she was joined by the defendant, Mrs.
Kennedy, and also, after considerable opposition by her i
parents, by Miss Saurin, at Mrs. Steers requett, and 1
with the special oondition, made by her mother and '
acquiesced in by Arehbithop Callen, that she should
return to Begot-duet, Dublin, if she wished to do so.
Things went happily, for some Lime until in the
year 1861 the superior's", Mrs. Starr, Demme
anxious to know what had passed between
Sister Scholastics and her priest at confession.
If there is one thing more mowed than another, it is
that which paean between priest and penitent under
the seal of the confessional. I am, of course, arum-
ins. and I do so heartily, that these things are dose
honestly, and that nothing panes which savours of
immorality and impropriety. Mini Burin declined to
answer questions which the considered unusual, and
which, in a letter to the mother uperior' she said.
"quite shocked" her. Miss Burin appeared, from her
letters, to have done her beet to keep her vows, but
she failed to propitiate the anger of the mother
superior. She was not allowed to see her father
when he was dangerously 11l her letters were inter-
cepted, and she was sent to a drawer where a heap of
her relatives' letters were accumulated without being
permitted to mead any of them. At other times
letters were gives $• her with passage' obliterated.
nod Wine where snatched away almost tinsteatly
and destroyed, without her baring the slightest chasm
of reading them. She was put to menial work, placed
under constant espiorsowspe, and forced to eat food which
she disliked. She rartacularly recoiled from mutton.
" I fear," should in one of her written monthly con-
fessions, "I have tried my beet to take mutton. I
cannot do so. God only knows how much I wish I
could." Eventually snort of 001U011111011 of inquiry into
Wes Saurin's conduct was held, and she nu expelled,
but refused to leave the convent at last except under
compulsion. It was stated that the charges brought
before the commission were mach lees heinous than
those of which Was gastrin hod been accused to the
bishop. She had been charged with dishonesty and
untruthfulness, bat now the offences imputed to bee
were that she had communicated with externs, that she
had eaten buttered toast, that • oaks had been dis-
covered in her drawer, and that once she had been seen
eating one. It was arranged, moreover, that she
should be held guilty unless four-fifths of her judges
peonocinced her to be innocent. Dr. O'Haolon.
librarian to the college of Marsooth, was one of the
ummissimsere, and be bu very remarkably &w-
-lerithom his poet Mime Burin's brother, who is •
, has also disappeared, and cannot be found.

There is mush a museums in the description of the
plaintiff's story of the petty but looveontinned persecu-
tion practised against her that one wonder. how any
body Gould do day after day what the plelotiff describes.
If we are to take this es • sample of oonunt life,
eartainly religious aseetioiena does not appear to Improve
women" tempers, though it sharpens their ingenuity in
the art of peratientiou. But, however wearisome it may
be to read the inflietioas suffered by the plaintiff, they
must have been stiU more irksome to bear ; and taking
the plaintiff's urns, of the matter as
_proved, her ease
seemed really • proper one for a remedy at last But
does not this use prove the necessity for a Government
iezeonoa of convents? Snob institutions are theoreti-
sillegal. and, to keep up this miserable Illusion, me
lure them without any control, and their inmates with.
out the protection shish paupers have in our work-
house, or primers in our rola. Every other European
mow has MOO system of Slate inspection for religious
bouss, but we simply ignore them and their claim
It seems probable that the me will come to a pre-
mium ocloolueion. On Saturday, Mr, Hawkins, who
appears for the defendant*, sated the judge to he
of
to retire to confer with the bishop the
=lt to the possibility of ooming to &settle ent
After remaining in consultation DOM time, the learned
muse! returned into eourtand announced that aerials
perique not in court must be moulted before the term
settlezneort=ed mold be accepted, .114 she rem
therefore p