The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-04 00:00:00

MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND.

Mr. NEWDEGATE rose to move for a select committee
to inquire into the extensive character and increase of
monastic or conventual societies in Great Britain, and pre-
sented some petitions from different parts of the country in
favour
of his motion. He said that last April he had
proposed to the house to institute an inquiry
into the statements which had been made by ulra
a gentleman named Smee, who presented a petition re-
specting his relation Mr. Hutchinson, who bo
member of the Oratorians, who had a place of worship
at lf
at Brompton and a burial ground at Sydenham. Ithap-
p
hap-
pened that subsequently Mr. Smee addressed letters to
the Duchess of Norfolk, which were printed and
circulated ; and perhaps no person had more rea-
son to complain of the adoption of that course
than he (Mr. Newdegate). These letters were
printed and circulated without his authority or con-
sent; and the effect of these letters was to divert attention
from the motion he had made on the subject awl to defeat
its success. He had referred to another case, in which a
gentleman, who was in orders in the Church of England
and was about to be promoted to a living, had been, as he
contended, seduced to become a member of the Oratorians,
and he read the petition which that gentleman's father
had presented, in which he said that his son had
been induced by improper influence to take a course that
was detrimental to his prospects in life. This petition
was taken no notice of, a matter which much surprised
him, as the subject of the petition was of great importance.
It was contended that the Act of Parliament of 1829 did
not apply to the Oratory at Brompton, on this alleged
ground,_, that it consisted of a number of secular priests
remain in
members voluntarily, were not compelled to
Against that body,
and had control over their property.
the assertion he cited the decision arrived at by
Catholics a Geneva, to the effect that that body were
a regular order of clergy He alluded next to tho increase
of monastic and conventional institutions in
.this country,
and contrasted the restrictionsth imposed in France and
Prussia in regard to
should be taken, and toppre
the period for which religious vows
the fact that in Italy it had been
considered right to .I,:true monastic institutions,
to the freedom permitted
institution
sstPirtotestant country. As
regarded the increase of the
hadution in question, he
said that from a small number they*use_nto convents,the
of 58 religious establishments for me
with the
10 colleges in Great Britain and Wall ;
addition of 19 in Scotland, the number of eh:,
increased to 201. To show that monastic Inblensttistrulvtioenres
were deemed dangerous and impolitic even
Catholic towns in the country, he historical v3staultean-

ments as to the course which Cardinal Moreton deemed it

advisable to adopt in the time of Henry VII., by recom-
mending the Pope of that day to use his authority for the
suppression of those establishments. The visitation made
at the time developed a very loose state of morals in those
institutions, and the Pope issued a bull, or re-
script, in conformity with the recommendation he
had received. It would be remembered that Henry
VIII. considered these institutions so dangerous that he
did all in his power for their extinction, although he had
been entitled Defenskr Fedei, and yfritten_ a letter against

Luther. The hon. member next adverted to the cases of
Miss M‘Dermott and Miss Ryan, and quoted different nar-
ratives as to mal-practices in monasteries mad convents
which were current in this country, and he appealed
earnestly to accede to his motion for the in iviry he sug-
gested.
Mr. HENNESSY said that in his c Including sentence
the hon. gentleman told them he did not ask for a remedy
for the grievances of which he complained. That was not
surprising, because all the stories which the hon. member
had repeated to the house, however marvellous in their
nature, presented this common feature, that the laws of the
land, as they now stood, provided an ample remedy for
every grievance they disclosed. (Hear, hear.) Take the
last case on which the hon. gentleman dwelt, and which he
told them was the most important ever brought before the
house. What were the facts? A young lady, the hon.
gentleman said, was confined against her will in a convent.
Some persons, whose names they did not know, went to Mr.
Justice Wightman and applied for a writ of habeas corpus.
The Judge said to them, "If you lay before me an affidavit
that you have endeavoured to see this young lady and have
failed to do so, I will grant the writ at once, and you will be
able to see her." They accordingly proceeded to the convent,
asked to see her, saw her, and had a long conversation with
her, part of which had been read by the hon. gentleman.
The hon. member said these persons were commissioned by
Mr. Justice Wightman. Nothing of the kind. Mr. Justice
Wightman told these anonymous gentlemen that their first
duty was to prove to him, in the ordinary process of law,
that they had sought for and been refused admission to the
convent—that they had wished to see the young lady, but
that the authorities of the convent would not allow them
to do so. Well, they went ; and even from the story
which the hon. member had told the house, taking the
one-sided version of it which these anonymous persons
gave, it was perfectly evident that the law of the land
was quite strong enough to remedy the grievance of
which he complained. But the hon. member had pur-
sued a course that night identical with the one he fol-
lowed last year and the year before. He had adduced
cases whi6, on his own confession, were still before the
courts of law or were to be brought before those courts,
and he had gone into certain portions of them, discussing
them, and giving one-sided accounts of that which he
admitted was to be taken for adjudication elsewhere.
Why, what occurred last year ? Then the hon. gentle-
man brought before the house the case of Mr. Smee and
Father Hutchinson of the Oratory. Mr. Smee, whose peti-
tion the hon. member presented, complained that Father
Hutchinson made a will on his deathbed, being of unsound
mind, by which he gave his property in charity ; and the
hon. member endorsed these statements, told the house
that Father Hutchinson was not of sound mind, that he had
been unduly influenced by the priests of the Oratory, and
at the same time stated that the case of Mr. Smee and the
priests of the Oratory was pending in a court of justice ;
notwithstanding which he gave his own version of the case
to the house, and leading articles appeared in some of the
papers taking the hon. gentleman's view of the matter.
But what happened? The case was tried in the Probate
Court, it was there ably argued, the most complete evi-
dence was given on each side, and what was the result ? A
jury, composed of 12 Englishmen, 12 Protestants, unani-
mously came to the opinion that the case had not been
made out, that Mr. Smee's statements were false, and Mr.
Smee himself was condemned in costs. Well, the hon. mem-
ber had told them of Miss M'Dermott's case, which he said
was also to be brought before a court of law. Why, it had
been before a court of law. Mr. Selfe and another magi-
strate had inquired into it, and it had been inquired into,
not in public court only, but also privately ; and what was
the result ? The hon. member for Peterborough (Mr.
Whalley), who in all these proceedirigs was associated with
the hon. member for North Warwickshire, attended at the
police office and himself heard the magistrate dismiss the
case. The fact was that the more these cases were inves-
gated by a competent tribunal and with the full power
which the law of England gave the better. But he asked
the attention of the house to the motion which the hon.
gentleman had put on the paper. It was now 10 or 11
years since a similar motion was made in that house by Mr
Chambers, and since then events had occurred which had
materially altered the public feeling in England on the sub-
ject to which it related. At that period the table was co-
vered with petitions in favour of the motion, and public
meetings had been held all over the country upon it. The
people of England at that time, actuated, he believed, by
very blind and ignorant prejudices, did think that a com-
mittee of inquiry, which :should investigate the existence,
number, and character of conventual establishments, was,
necessary. But then they knew very little about those in-
stitutions. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) Very soon after that
however they began to hear something about nuns. At the
time of the Crimean war their conduct and practices came
to be talked of in that country ; and, speaking from the
Treasury bench as a Minister of the Crown, Mr. Sidney
Herbert gave to the house his opinion of the character of
these ladies. The people of England, he believed, were
very much influenced by what they then heard and saw.
There were, he believed, at that moment sitting in the
house some gallant officers who had seen those ladies in
the Crimea attending on our wounded soldiers, and who
could bear testimony to their character. But in addition to
that something more had happened. About the same time
the conventual institutions in England which were in any
way connected with education were placed under Govern-

ment inspection, and in the report of the commissioners on

popular education, which was composed of the Duke of
Newcastle, Sir J. Coleridge, two clergymen of the Church
of England, and three othergentlemen, who were also mem-
bers of the Church of England, he found it stated that the
Roman Catholic female training schools were supplied with
students of a very much higher class than the male schools,
the teachers being for the most part members of religious
communities, and immeasurably superior to those who tatight

in the male schools. Such was the opinion of the Commis-
sioner on Popular Education in England, and last year a
blue-book was published which gave the fullest informa-
tion with respect to all the convents in Ireland, to which
also the motion of the hon. member related. And what (lid