Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-09 00:00:00

SE,,ECT VESTRY.

The fortnightly meetirg of the Select Vestry wss held
at ten o'clock, yesterday, in the Parish-offices, -Brownlow-
hill. The chair was taken by th Rev. Rector Campbell,
and the other suardiins present were—Messrs: Bairstow,
Owen, Whitby, Jackson, Whitty, W. Jones, LA; erellin,
Mellor, Chesney, Rielardsou, Crawford, Hauct, Syred,
Hughes, Smith, and Gibson.

WOrilillollsZ

From the minutes of this committee, it appsa.-..ed that
the number of inma'es in the workhorse on the 2ud
September was f,102; sick cases same de e, 549, including
31 fever, rind 20 itch cases ; vagrants relieved same date,
233 males, 72 females, and 34 children—Total, 330.
Mr. BA ERSTOW moved that the proceedings be confirmed.
Mr. CRELLIN seconded the motion, which was carried
without any discussion.

'THE INDUSTRIAL SCIIOOLS-TIIR sztver .Ve€Tll7 AND TUE
REV. DR GOSS - GRAND CONTIIOVISIRSIAL DISCUSSION.
. _ .

The proceedings of this committee contained the fol,
lowing :

Industrial School Committee.—The Bishop of Lirerpoo
and the Steel Vestry.

At a Epccial meetintr, of the industrial schools committee,
held at the Palish-office en Monday, tho 7th instant,—
Present, Rector Campbell, chairia n, and seven of the
members. The minutes of this c3mm'ittee's proceedings of
the 4th instant were read and confirmed.

The Vcs-ry-clerk übrtlitted the foll,owing copy of a loVer
addressed to the Rev. .Goss, in pur,trmco of tYs
committee's directious at the last meeting, which le:ter was

approve

September 4, 1E57.

Right Reverend Sir,—l am directed by the committee ap-
pointed by tat: Select Vestay for the management oftl=eindus-
trial Schol=, to draw your attention to a speech reported in the
Zzverpool Journal, of ihe 291 Auzust, 1857. as baring he ,n
spoken by you in the Royal Assembly-room, Groat .George's-
stieet, at a luncheon immediately after the ceremonial of
the opening of the new Church of Saint Vincent of Paul, in
8,-. James's-3 reet, in which speech you are reported to have
accused the Select Vestrymen of persecutin,z poor parish
childrrn. I am farther direccd to ask you whetler you ore
correctly reported, and, if so, upon what facts the accusation is
grounded.—l am, Right Reverend S.r, your obA;ent servant,
CHARLES HART.

To Charles Bart, Esq., Vestry-Clerk, Liverpool.
Sir,-1 am directed, by the Right Rev. Goss, to
acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesaerday, in which
yeti inquire whether a speech made by his loidship, on the 25th
of August last, is correctly reported in the Liverpool Journal,
and, if so, upon wt-at facts the statement is founded. His
lordship Las not seen the paper which you mention, but he has
seen a report of his observations on the subject in one of the
other local rapers, and has no doubt it is substantially correct.
On reference to the report, you will perzeive that his li»dshils
remarks rather apply to the conduct of some individual mem-
bers of the Vestry ; and, as regards them, it can hardly be
necessary to do more than to point to the various reported
speeches of Mr. Satchell, and, more lately, to those of Mr.
Jones, and other members of the Vestry, to justify his lordship's
observations as to the persecuting spirit displayed towards poor
Catholic Children, whose miserable lot in life has placed their
faith, to a great extent, at the mercy of persons entertaining
such extreme opinions.
There are some acts of the board, such as the. refusal to
permit the Rev. Ma. Doyle the assistance of competent
persons to aid him in instructing the masses of poor children
committed to his spiritual charge—the change in the religion
of Sarah Hawkins, in direct aiolation of one of the rubs of
the vestry ; and the nearly analogous cases of Patrick Flynn
and James Joseph—orlered to go to church against their will
—and the cases of some children who are now being brought
up as Protestants, simply because they have no relations
to demand that they should he educated in their own
religion ; besides others which his lordship greatly
laments, and he ventures to hope that a more liberal
and generous treatment cf the children iu this,
the all important mutter of religion, may remove
all grounds of complaint. Whilst, however, his Lord-
ship points with pain and regret to these occurrences, which
have given so much pain and dissatisfaction to the Catholic
body, lie hears willing and grateful teatimony to the
conduct of many memo rs of the board, who, ri-irg
above sectarian prejudices, treat with respect and impartiality
the faith of the poor childre❑ committed to their charge.—l
am, your obedient servant,

JOHN CANNON WALX.,R, See.
St. Edward's CoPege, Sept. 5, 1837.
It was moved by Mr. Churehwar.len Shaw, secornltd by
Mr. Overee Crellin, and iesolve,l,—" That the firegoing
correspondence with Dr. Goss he laid More he Selcct Vestly
at its meeting to-morrow."

Mr. Owes moved the confirmation of the proleeerlinge.
Mr. Beeeseow seconded the motion, and in doing so,
said, he supposed it would be necessary for some gentleman
present to make some remarks upon the speech made by
the Rev. Dr. Goss. He certainly for one was sorry to see
it reported that the highest dignitary of that church in
Liverpool should hive made such an unwareanteble alt ck
:upon the vestry. Such a speech, coming from the head of
one particular class of the c .:mtnunity must havo consider-
able effect in undermining the influence of that vestry
upon a portion of the inhabitants. He considered that
language such as that coming from the Roman Catholic
Bishop, and applied to the Select Vestry, must destroy the
confitence of the Roman Catholic community, in the
fairness and straightforward integrity of the vestry
and its fidelity to the correct principles which had alw,ys
been carried out, so far as he knew, during the time he had-
been a member of that board—the principles of civil and
religious liberty—principles which were so dear to every
Englishman, that it as not necessa y either for him or
any other member of the vestry to vindicate them before
the inhabitants of that community. (Hear, hear.) So far
ae he could gather from the letter of Dr. Gems, the only
charge he had to bring against the vestry was that there had
been a total. absence of per ecution ; and one of the
instances which he made use of to show that they had
evinced a persecuting spirit only amounted to the fact that
they had not compelled a girl. Catiorine Ilawkine, against
her will to attend a service to which she herself stated
that she did not wish to belong To have compelled that
girl to attend the Roman Catholic service, after she said
she was not a Roman Catholic, would indeed have been
persecution ; and because the Vestry, by an overwhelming
insjority,—there being only two gentlemen found to
advocate the contrary view of the case—would not order
the girl to attend the service to which she conscientiously
ohjected, Dr. Goss said the-Vestry persecuted her. (Hear,
hear) Now, he contended that that was the very absence
of persecution, and that instead of Dr. Goss instancing it
as a case of persecution, he ought to have taken it an an
instance on the opposite side. ale, r, hear.) The Vestry
certainly violated their rules in that instance, but they
-violated them in the great and good cause of religious
liberty. With regard to the other case Dr Goss instanced
—that the Verery had not given the Rev. Mr.
Doyle permission to have the assistance necessary
to the instruction of the Roman Catholic children
—his (Mr. Bairstow's) memory told him, that about
two years ago the Rev. Mr. Doyle wanted to
prepare Roman Catholic children for confirma ion,
and applied for the assistance of two other priests to en-
able him. and the Commit ee of the industrial schools
sanctioned by the Vestry, geve him the permission ho re-
quired. After the Catholic children had been confirmed,
the attention of Mr Doyle was drawn to the feet that the
time had elapsed during which the permission was ex-
tended. Mr. Doyle replied, that he collie] dispense with
the attendance of other priests if he got the use of a room
to have the boys and girls together. The Committee, in
perfect fairness, granted the use of that room, and eter
since, so far as he (Mr. Deirstow) knew, the use of it
had been continued, and Mr. Doyle had instructed the
children there, boys and girls together. The Committee
never had any application, to his knowleOgs, from Mr.
Doyle, for any adt;itional facilities for carrying on the re-
ligions instruction of the children. Therefore, the con-
clusion he came to was, that the instances given by Dr.
Goes were totally without foundation, and that if these
were the basis of his attack upon the Vestry for perse-
cuting innocent Roman Catholic children, there was no
ground whatever for it, and instead of having exercised a
persecuting spirit, it was in the very absence of that spirit
that the Vestry had violated its rules. (Hear, hear.) Per-
haps it would be wise to treat the speech of the Dish--p as
an af er-dinner speech. (Hear, bear.) It
been his (Mr. Bairstow's) lot again and again
to listen to after•dinnen speeches, and he had
sewn heard quotations in such addresses from the
classic Joe Mier. It appeared the quotation of the
bishop with regard to the valour and diseretis n of men,
and the portion of their body on which acme men put
their sheilds, was from that book. Now, we certainly
was not aware that one of the qualifications of a bishop
was to be well read up in Joe Miller (laughter); but he
could certainly understand that to give a zest, and an
enjoyment to an after dinner speech, it was very useful to
have a happy and appropriate quotation from that bock
He had seen such a quotation produce vary favourable
effects upon the company, and he had no doubs that the
snotation of the hiehcp. must have produced an equally
appy effect upon the audience that afternoon. Taking
all these things into consideration, it would perhaps be
better to treat the speech as an after dinner epee* and to
let it go for what it was worth (Hear, bear.) Ho cen-
sidereel that the Vestry was above suspicion, as regards
Ter ecution, and that its members w re all adyoca es to
the fall extent of these great and glorious. principles of
civil and religious liberty which they had maintained until
sow, and which he trusted, so long as they had the
privilege of representing the inhabitants of Liverpool, they
should OM maintain, (Hear, hear.) The bishop said