The Express.
London, England, 1860-11-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, NOV. 13.

Date shams Petro. A cry of distress comes
forth from the Capital of the Christian world,
the metropolis of mendicity ; and no less • per-
sonage than his Eminence Cardinal ANTONKLLI sits
in sackcloth at the Flaminian Gate in the attitude
of Itrusseit's, and cries aloud for the alma of
the Faithful. If It Mile is the Paradise of beggars,
London is seam-lily inferior to the Eternal City as
the hunting-ground of cadgers of high degree. No-
where, perhaps, is charity more magnificently or-
ganised, or more impudently abused, than in the
capital of an enterprising and evangelising people,
which in its Prutuatant seal blackens the sea with
Bibles, and in its vicarious contempt for the lives
of its martyrs picks up Patagonia as a point d'appui
for the conversion of the Cannibal Islands. Funds
are for ever forthcoming to aid societies in com-
passing land and sea for a handful of proselytes,
and to enable deserving secretaries to put • good
face on • twelvemonth's operations at the annual
diuner. Failures and exaggerations apart, there is
no doubt that an immense amount of our surplus
enthusiasm is let off by the annual subscrip-
tions and donations of pious folk, who, by
the wholesale system of missionary effort,
purchase for their souls • sort of uncontested
equivalent for the Papal " indulgence." Nor is
it public charity only that has become a vast and
thriving industry in heretical England. Private
charity, nowhere more hearty and spontaneous,
has crested in the midst of a devouring flood of
populous misery a distinct corporate profession of
cultivated impostors, who by every artifice of out-
ward seeming waylay the pennies of passers
by whose facile benevolence is often nothing better
than a sentimental selfishness. In England, how-
ever, charity with all its abuses, and mendicity
with all its impostures, is but the natural growth
of a highly civilized society, in which competition
for life and bread is fierce, and the weakest go to
the wall. In the Capital of the Christian world it is
otherwise. There mendicity is not only not for-
bidden, it is permitted, patronized, encouraged,
rewarded, sanctified, canonized. Charity in its
loosest sense, in its most indiscriminate, selfish,
and reckless form, is at Rome a religious
institution, a means of government, a sub-
stitute for labour and industry, for honest
work, for that sense of independence which
honest work is apt to foster, and which at Rome
might lead to rebellion against priestly rule.
Heretics as we are on the banks of the Thames, a
hard-mouthed and hard-hearted race, we instinc-
tively button our pockets at the sound of a " came
" of real distress ;" and as for a begging letter
lacrymoeo and unctuous in composition, our first
impulse is to go before a Police Magistrate and to
clap a detective on the scent of the orthography.
If the begging letter purports to be a case of piety
in trouble, the prosaic and practical Briton is still
more liable to pecuniary constriction. In the
Capital of the Christian world, where beggars are
not only paid for their picturesque appearance by
the artists, hut also for their impressive devotions
in the public ways by the pries* mendicity is even
better than a cardinal virtue ; it is a virtue in a Car-
dinal, and a sovereign grace in his Botts VW himself.
It is only fair and reasonable that we should take
into account the difference of ideas on the virtue
of mendicity at Rome and in London when we
read the Letter lately addressed to Cardinal
Wisestse by hie Eminence Cardinal Awroetzu,
m Secretary of State to the HOLT FATHER, "re-
"commending the systematic collection of ST.
" Pma's pence throughout every diocese in
" England, to replenish the resources of the Papal
" treasury at Rome."

We earnestly recommend the study of this
Letter to the attention of the dignitaries of the
secular order of mendicants in this metropolis.
Without base flattery, we regard it as a model
of the sort. Concise, dignified, comprehensive—
neither too vague nor at all precise—it has the
strength and suppleness of the elephant. It is
hn,ad enough to swallow the entire rent-roU of
fifty territorial converts, and to ►bsorb the testa-
mentary di.spositions of a hundred penitent capi-
talists ; it is nice enough to scratch up the hard-
canted farthings of a half-starved Irish charwoman.
Never before has the establishment of the Papal
Hierarchy in this kingdom vindicated its im-
portance so triumphantly 24 in this appeal to the
powerful " CO-Operation of the Episcopate."
Already in cvi ry "diocese" the Letter is being
read us church sod chapel ; and meetings and
committees are tang organized. It is thus, as
31. us Ms ,NTALEW BRET tells us, that the Catholic
l'hureft takes advantage of liberty in free coun-
tries. And for our own part we are proud to see
so admirable an example of the Voluntary prin-
ciple in active operation among us under the
trannocad,ot ati.pioes of Cardinal .tanrvsr.u.
What a lenwm to our Church-rate zealots ! In
the weey Capital of the Christian world the
Cathode Church is declared to be self-support-
ing. and not only the " fabric " but the minister
is to be maintained by the free gifts of the
faithfoL It so happens that in the case of Rome
the pariah 13 slim Est in tie hands of dissenters,
and the "land" is uawilliog or unable to supply