The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-11 00:00:00

THE SANTIAGO CATASTROPHE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

have sufficient confidence in your sense of justice
to believe that you will not refuse rue the necessary space
in your widely circulated journal for an act of justice, be-
cause I ask that favour in a cause which is highly unpopu-
lar in itself, and of which yon may very probably have
formed a view entirely different from that which I wish to
present. It is our well-founded boast as Englishmen that
we regard the interests of truth and honesty as paramount
to all considerations of political or religious difference; and
it is both because I consider these principles of English
fairness to have been outraged in the public treatment of
the subject in question, and because I am anxious to place
on record my humble protest in their favour, that I venture
to ask your assistance in carrying out an object which will
involve you in no responsibility either for the statements or
opinions which I may advance.
The recent most lamentable catastrophe at Santiago has
been dealt with by many public journals in a spirit which
is almost such as to deter any one who has regard for his
own character from coming forward, either with contradic-
tions to statements of fact, or with pleas in behalf of those
whom it has become the fashion to condemn with the most
merciless severity. This is one of the most unjust conse-
quences of a popular cry ; but the more keenly that injustice
is felt the less reserve ought we to have about making those
sacrifices of personal popularity which are necessary for
withstanding it.
I have no knowledge whatever of the Santiago clergy,
nor any personal interest in coming forward to protest
against the public outcry of which they have been made
the victims. More than this, I think it evident that if they
were directly responsible for the decorative arrangements of
their church, which were certainly the human cause of
the catastrophe (a matter which appears to be extremely
questionable), they are chargeable with gross and inexcus-
able negligence, though it is a sort of negligence which on
a lesser scale all men are liable to commit. For how often
does it happen that a long course of immunity from the
consequences of carelessness hardens u.. 4 into a confidence
of security from which we are only aroused by some unex-
pected, though not unnatural, disaster? But really, with
the exception of this admitted and undoubtedly most serious
fault, I cannot see, taking all the accounts of the accident
together, that there is any sure grounds for casting on the
priests of the unhappy church any other blame than that
which is fairly attributed to them for their extraordinary
want of circumspection and foresight. But if it be true, as
appears from some even of the most prejudiced accounts,
the arrangement of the church on the fatal evening was not
the works of the priests regularly attached to it, but of a
stranger to whom they had imprudently assigned the
work of embellishment, in that case their responsibility
even for this portion of the work is considerably lessened,
inasmuch as they may not have become aware of the peril-
ous nature of the decoration till it was too late to change
it without a risk almost as great as that incurred by allow-
ing it to remain.
There is indeed another allegation against the priests of
the church, which, if it were true, would be of a more
serious nature ; I mean, that they closed the sacristy door
against their affrighted congregation, because they were
anxious only to save the property of the church. I think
even here that charity would suggest some allowance for
the effect of a panic to which even the most cool-headed are
not superior, as well as to the circumstances that there is, in
every Catholic Church, an object more precious to a priest
even than his own life, I mean the most blessed Sacrament,in
which he believes that his Saviour himself is present. But
if we are to believe a narrative of the calamity, which is
quite as trustworthy (to say the least) as those of an oppo-
site tenor, the priests did not close the sacristy door, but, on
the contrary, left a passage through it, by which many
persons were saved. I find the assertion positively made
in a French paper of authority (Journal des Villes et des
Campagnes), upon the faith of its South American corre-
spondent. From the same paper I learn that it was not
the priests who removed the sacred objects from the church,
but a young layman, and since the name of this heroic young
man is added (Guevara) I take it for granted that the fact

is certain.
The same account tells us, upon the authority of the South
American journals themselves, that of the two priests who
alone were in the church at the time of the fire one perished
in the flames, and the other fainted away, and was carried
out into a neighbouring house.
Among the shameful uses which have been made of this
calamitous accident one bas been to fasten the odium of it
upon the Jesuits. It is strange, indeed, that the persons
who write upon these subjects should not be aware that the
Jesuits have been expelled from South America for more
than half a century. It is perfectly true that the church in
which the fire occurred was built by the Jesuits, but had
long passed into other hands, and it is about as historically
true to attribute to them any connection with the recent
accident as it would be to make Roman Catholics answerable
for the burning of York Minster.
After laying these statements before you I will occupy
your space no further than to request that your readers will
test by it the language in which the conduct of the Santiago
priests has been commented upon by some of the public
journals, more especially the Spectator. They have been
in some quarters almost accused of having wilfully occa-
sioned the accident; as if it were the natural result of the
avarice and selfishness imputed to them to burn the church
and congregation upon which they.depended for their main-
tenance. They have been charged, at the very least, with
saving their own property, instead of the lives of their
flock; as if the clergy of a church had any other interest in
its sacred vessels and appurtenance than such as those ob-
jects possess in the eyes of all religious persons, from the
fact of being used in the worship of Almighty God. To
sum up all : these priests have been represented as no better
than brutes in human form, and the only excuse which
charity can find for them is to transfer the hideous features
of iniquity which they are said to exhibit from themselves
to the Church whose Ministers they are. The version of
the whole story which I have set before you is, as I myself
fully believe, its true picture. That it is at all events pro-
bable I think no fair-minded person will venture to deny.
But if it be merely possible, that charity which " believeth
all things and hopeth all things" till its favourable con-
structions aro actually overborne by the most indisputable
testimony, should lead us, as I think, to accept it as at any
rate a plea in arrest of judgment so frightfully rash and so
inordinately cruel.—l am, &c,,

FREDERICK OAKELEY,
St. John's Church, Islington, Feb. 9.

AMERICAN MODE OF CLEANING THE BOTTOMS
OF THEIR IRON SHIPS.—. 4 diver, encased in the
usual helmet, sits on a spar, lashed across the vessel's keel,
armed with a scraper, with which he cleans the portion
within his reach, before and abaft. The spar is then shifted,
and he proceeds regularly with his work till completed. It
is stated that the operator remains under water several
hours, and that the Monitors at Charleston are kept clean
by this process. It was found by actual measurement that
250 bushels of oyster-shells and sea-grass were removed
from the bottom of the Montauk, the accumulation of one
season. The officers sometimes indulge in a mess of oysters
seized on the hulls of their own vessels.

DIMINUTION OF CRIME IN WALES.—At the
Epiphany Quarter Sessions of the peace opened
the other day in Carmarthen, the chairman, Mr. J. Johnee,
of Dolanco, communicated to the grand jury the pleasing
announcement that the calendar did not contain the name
of a single prisoner fur trial, and complimented the county
on the absence of crime even in the most trying times.