The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-18 00:00:00

Boman Catholic Chaplains,

(From the Times.)

It will have been observed with regret that the
Middlesex magistrates have decided, by a large ma-
jority, neither to appoint Roman Catholic chaplains
to their gaols nor even to pay priests for visiting
Roman Catholics in the county prisons. Our readers
will remember that a bill was passed last year which
gave the magiatrate3 power under certain circum-
stances, with the consent of the visiting justices, to
appoint a Roman Catholic priest as minister, and
to give him a fixed and sufficient remuneration.
Wherever the number of prisoners exceeds 30 the
Act may be put in forcr. Where it is not adopted,
prisoners are only visited by a priest at their own
request. The Middlesex county prisons are a good
instance of the necessity of some such measure.
According to a letter which we publiih in another
column, the number of Roman Catholic prisoners in
the three county prisons is no less than 649. The
number in the House of Correction is 391, in the
Westminster Bridewell 223, and in the House of
Detention 35. All these at present have no regular
religious instruction. They will, of course, in nearly
every case exercise their right of refusing to receive
the visits of the chaplain of the Established Church,
and there is no one else to go to them. They may,
if they ask for it, receive visits from a priest, but it
is not surprising that, as stated on Thursday,
" cum faratively few prisoners have made such re-
quests ;" and the result is that a'l these prisoners,
remain without any religious influence—we might
almost Eay any moral influence—being brought to
bear upon them. They are simply subjected to the
hard lessons of the penal discipline of the gaol, and
left to deduce the moral for themselves.

Mr. Laurie endeavoured, by the most obvious
arguments of justice and common sense, to induce
the magistrates to put an end to this disgraceful
state of things. He proposed resolutions for the
appointment of regular Roman Catholic ministers
for these three prisons, leaving the details of the
arrangements in the hands of the visiting justices.
Such a straightforward proposal, however, seems
to have been felt at once to involve a liberality of
feeling which was not to he expected in the board
of magistrates, and Mr. Cox endeavoured to substi-
tute a propcsition which should give a less serious
shock to traditional prejudices. Ho only ventured
to propose that the justices should be requested
to carry out so much of the act as relates to " per-
mitting a minister of the church or persuasion to
which prisoners belong to visit them at proper and
reasonable times" under any necessary regulations,
and that they should be authorised to pay such
ministers a moderate remuneration. Even this,
however, was far too much for the meeting. and
the amendment was rejected by no less a majority
than 65 to 7. Upon this another amendment was
proposed, directly denying the necessity and the
justice of the proposition before the Court. It
committed the magistrates to the opinion " that
the present arrangements for the moral and
religions instruction of the prisoners are suf-
ficient," though, as we have explained, IV far
as Roman Catholic prisoners go, there are no such
arrangements at all; and " that any appointment
by the Court of permission by the visiting justices
for Roman Catholic priests to attend at the prisons
on all occasions, whether their ministrations are re-
quired or not, would be unnecessary and improper,"
—a statement of which we will venture to say that,
like many Protestant manifestoes, it contains es
much ingenious misrepresentations as any of the
Roman Catholic evasions which are these gentle-
men's bugbears and every honest man's abomi-
nation. No one proposes, ever did propose,
that Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to
attend at the prisons "on all occasions," but only
on such occasions as shall be permitted by
the regulations of the visiting justices; nor was
it ever contemplated that they should attend
" whether their ministrations are required or
not," but only when it shall reasonably appear
that such ministrations are required. The sole
question is when it shall be considered that this
requirement exists. At present it depends upon
the caprice of the prisoner; the proposal of the act
is to make it depend on the judgment of the magi-
strates. However, the amendment was scarcely
even criticised, and this disingenuous and extrava-
gant resolution was adopted by a majority of 70 to
24, or nearly 3to 1. The original proposal was
therefore rejected, and the result received with
loud " cheers.' The cheers proceeded, of course,
from the magistrates themselves. There are very
few other persons who will receive with any satis-
faction a result which proclaims that two-thirds of
the magistrates of such a county as Middlesex are
still capable of denying the claims of reason and
justice.
The speech of the gentleman who proposed
the amendment—Mr. Sergeant Payne—is a curio-
sity as being delivered by an educated and
learned gentleman to a body of magistrates. It
consists of nothing but a string of those loud and
irrelevant, and for the most part unfounded, decla-
matory platitudes which may be eulogised or studied
at Protestant Institutes, but which are banished
from the conversation and almost from the recollec-
tion of all reasonable men. Mr. Sergeant Payne
"did it," it must be confessed, in a style which
would have done honour to the most free and inde-
pendent orator who ever thundered Protestant
"buncombe" on platform or in pulpit. " Three
centuries ago their ancestors had fought for an
amended form of religion, and they ought to hold
by a Reformation which was founded in good
sense." "When once the door was opened there
was no knowing when it would lee closed."
"If they admitted priests, there would be a sealed
confession, and what would there be to prevent
improper communications being made between the
priests and the prisoners?" Who, indeed, can tell
what horrible schemes, what new Guy Fawkes
plots for the blowing up of the Qeeeu, the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and Mr. Newdegate might
not be hatched if two such persona as Father New-
man and an Irish convict got tagether in a prison
cell ? May we suggest that the same danger exists
from Raman Catholics loose as from Roman
Catholics tied up, and that Mr. Payne himself and
the whole Constitution are in imminent danger of
being suddenly blown up so long as half a dozen
priests end a dozen Irish Catholics exist in Louden?
One or two other such dreadful censequenees were
suggested : and then came the peroration :—" It
was said that the strong Pro; eitant feeling of the
country was sufficient to cheek Roman Catholic
arrogance. He trusted that it was so, and he
hoped that resistance would be made to every
attack, however small, from a sense of thankful..
ness that we no longer lived under the blighting
influence of a Roman Catholic priesthood," That