The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-03 00:00:00

DON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 3, 1868.

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND HIS PATRON.

The following letter appeared in the lireeman's
Journal yesterday. The state of things it describes
is so flagrant that we cannot but hope they may
be made the immediate subject of Parliamentary

inquiry :
Sir,—l pray that the case of the Rector of
Caragh, near the Curragh, and his shoe-black
schoolmaster, as reported in the Freeman, be not
permitted to drop without proper exemplification
of the peculiar phases of Irish life involved in it.
If I mistake not, Rev. Samuel G. Cotton, rector of
that Anglican union, is son of the venerable plu-
ralist, Dr. Henry Cotton, author of the _rasa,
Archdeacon of Cashel, Incumbent of the Union of
Lismalin, and three united parishes, value £794,
Protestant population, 110 ; Incumbent of the
Union of 'fhurles, which embraces four parishes,
value £950 ; and also treasurer of Christ's Church
Cathedral, Dublin. Your Church Commission
(Cashel Diocese, p. 56) shows that this lucky dig-
nitary has netted upwards of £60,000 during his
long incumbency of these livings, the one of forty,
the other of forty-four years. The venerable
archd aeon has piously devoted "young Samuel "
Ito the church of Kildare, in which the late Dr.
Whately appointed him to the living of Car.tgli,a
snug glebe house, with seven acres attached,
in
the midst of a fine sporting country, a rent charge
of £143, and a congregation of only eight families,
consisting of forty-four individuals, having a
parish church for the few Church-goers affording
accommodation for 200 persons. The Catholics
who bear this heavy rent-charge—£lB for each
Protestant family—number 1,745 souls, or about
forty Catholics to one Anglican. Utterly blind to
the circumstances of his position, this mistaken
zealot employs an unfortunate man named Flynn
as Colporteur, or Tract Distributor, and Scripture
Reader, and Parish Clerk and Schoolmaster, and
. places him over a school for which he obtains aid
from the National Board, to enable him to further
the work of proselytising aggres•don upon the
Catholic people of Caragh and Prosperous. A new
chapel was being built in Caragh. Mr. Cotton,
whose church, with 200 sittings for only eight
families, was built and is repaired by the Catho-
lics, whose surplice is purchased and washed at
the expense of the Catholics, avails himself of the
opportunity to post on the walls—walls besprent
with the bravest blood of Kildare in the hard-
fought battle of Prosperous, in '9B—an offer of £5O
towards the erection of the church, if the Rev. Mr.
Fury, the Catholic Curate, will disprove, from the
Bible, certain controversial theses advanced in this
mural chalenge. Flynn, the unfortunate man em-
ployed for the various offices of bill-sticker, Scrip-
ture-reader, shoe-black, schoolmaster, parish clerk,
and scullion, at the Parsonage, was a Catholic who
taught a National School all day, under the mixed
system, patron, Rev. S. G. Cotton, from which
even the suspicion of proselytism was to be
banished—where, as a decoy duck, he might lure
the little Catholic " birds of a feather" to the
" waters of life," and, in the evening visit their
parents and let a faint gleam of Scripture light
into the Cimmerian darkness of the Popish homes
of green Kildare, St. Brigid, " the Mary of Ire-
land," giving name .(Bride-church) to this very
parish. Mr. Cotton disgusted even Flynn, his own col-
porteur and parish clerk, against whom he cited to
the unbelieving Bench of Magistrates the highest
authorities in Canon Law in proof that he should
aid the Minister as bill-sticker to outrage the feel-
ings of the Catholic people. The Bench gave a
decree, with costs, against the Rector, for the
amount of salary due to the schoolmaster, with a
severe admonition that Mr. Cotton had been ap-
pearing at the petty sessions more frequently than
the Magistrates wished, or than was conducive to
tohre
and tradition seem alike sealed sources of informa-
tion to the last rector of the Establishment in
otto the dignity of his office,
Caragh. From the lips of the presiding chair-
tpheeac promotion of
thei on parish,of
charity. History
Christian
chair-
man of petty sessions, Sir G. G. Aylmer, Bart.,
he might have heard of the expensive and unsuc-
cessful enterprise, the last attempt at reviving the
Reformation in Kildare. Kilmeague, the very
little town in which the case was tried, was built
by the Aylmers, and colonized, at great expense,
with "waifs and strays," attrac.ed by vistas of a
future city of the elect, which was to be more than
in fable, " the Blest." Rev. Mr. Preston, the
rector in charge, witnessed one or two Orange dis-
plays on the demoniac political festivals of that
imported faction, which constituted the sole suc-
cess of the Kilineague mission. A large expendi-
ture, a thriftless immigration, and a decreased
rental are the painful recollections remaining to
the landlord whose missionary experience has made
him a wiser and a better man.
The National Board, like the s)-called National
Church, both fitly united in this case in the parson-
patron, Rev. Mr. Cotton, will die hard, and, I fear,
impenitent. A Christian Brothers' School, for the
education of Catholic children, in Athy, is denied
all state aid. The nuns' school, in the next parish,
Naas, narrowly escaped withdrawal of the grant,
the Protestant head having found an
inspector
image of a guardian angel in the school grounds, a
violation of rule evaded in another convent by the
Iconoclast subterfuge of breaking off the wings,
and pretending that it was an old man minding a
little child. The exhibition of the sign of the
cross—the symbol that seems such a scandal and
a stumbling-block to Mr. Cotton, as well as the
National Board, that he refused to kiss it on the
Bible when being sworn—on a Catholic National
School would exclude it from further aid. Yet
here we have Mr. Cotton and his unfortunate
schoolmaster—colporteur, clerk of church, and
bill-poster--getting, as was deposed by the patron
of the school at the trial, " salary from the National
Board, from the Ecclesiastical Board, and local
salaries," in support of this wanton outrage upon
a Catholic population, whose taxes are misapplied
in sustaining a school under such a patron, and
ironically called National. It was in the next
parish, Ballysax, that another National School,
under another rector, so vindicated the liberty to
prosleytise the Catholic children that the late
bishop, Dr. Maly, had the children withdrawn, and
then denounced the subversion of the original
National System. It was in a neighbouring parish,
Brackna, that Rev. Mr. Dunn, P.P., had to with-
draw his flock from Lord Ashtown's National School
under an immoral teacher, who had been forced
into the parish in defiance of the priest's warning.
Athy is not remote from the Model Schools in which
the Cardinal Archbishop had to withdraw the Ca-
tholic children, some of the staff in which were
guilty of open profligacy.
Under the existing aspects of the National
System, I think Lord Abercorn might have applied
the principle of the Suspensory Bill, and not have
recently filled up two of the vacancies on the board.
No evil could arise from leaving vacant livings
filled by such men as Rev. Mr. Cotton or schools
directed by such patrons. Poor Flynn, in his re-
pentance, is now deemed to have been " a Jesuit
spy in Mr. Cotton's National School, and has
thrown himself on the Catholics again "—" a
broken tool, the tyrant's castaway." it is most
desirable that the correspondence between Mr.
Cotton and the Commissioners in Marlborough-
street, alluded to at the trial, should be moved for
in Parliament.--I remain, dear sir, yours truly,
CONLAETHUS.

Kildare, 28th May, 1868.

TIIE MAGNESIUM LIGHT.—King Theodore, it is
stated, advised his companions to attack the British
by night, but they declined, and descended to
their deaths by daylight. Had they obeyed, they
would have had a new proof of the power which
science can bring to bear in aid of slaughter. Sir
Robert Napier had with him an apparatus for em-
ploying the magnesium light on a grand scale. At
a distance of 600 yards a bewildering blaze of
light would have been thrown into the eyes of the
Abyssinians, and the British, themselves in im-
penetrable shadow, would have shot down their
enemies at leisure and at ease. The poor Abys-
sinians would have been helpless as herrings with
the electric ray streaming on the shoal ! It is
hardly war, such a contest but it is better that
civilization should be armed than that barbarisui
be,--Spectator.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.-7 MS DAY.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.
POTTER V. RANKIN.-JUDGMENT.

The Court gave judgment in this case to-day. It
has been frequently before the public, and it will
be recollected the sum sought to be recovered
amounted to £4,000, which the plaintiff alleged
he was entitled to under a policy effected
on the
... ship Sir W. Eyre, which was so
damaged during the late cyclone in the River
Hoogly as to be given up as a total loss. At the
first trial a verdict was given for the defendant, but
leave was given to move t) enter the verdict for
plaintiff for £lOO. The rule was granted and the
case fully argued, but their lordships deferred their
judgment until to-day.

After going at length into the various bearings
of the case, the Court thought the underwriters
not liable for the loss, and therefore ordered the
rule to be discharged.

COURT OF DIVORCE.
(Before the Judge Ordinary.)
:KADEN V. MADEN AND DE THOREN.

This was a suit for dissolution of marriage insti-
tuted by the husband against the wife.
The petitioner and respondent were office'rs in
the Indian army, and, from the opening of the
learned counsel, it appeared the respondent, after
quitting her husband's house, Lad been received
back again, but in a short time after she again left
him, and it was then discovered she was living in
adultery with the co-respondent. Servants from the
Charing-cross Hotel, the Crystal Palace Hotel, and
other places were this morning examined, and
proved that the respondent and co-respondent
passed some days and nights at each of their
places.

Verdict for plaintiff. Damages, £1,500.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

WEST DRAYTON RACES—TUESDAY.
The second day's racing scarcely came up to that of the
first, as for as sport was concerned, but there was again no
lack of holiday folk on the ground, and the weather being
most pleasant the proceedings generally appeared to
afford satisfaction. One peat failure in the programme
however, was productive of much disappointment, and that
was the utter collapse of the "big race" of the meeting,
the West Drayton Handicap. In accordance with the con-
ditions of the race, it was requisite that three should start
to secure the added money, but only two were weighed
out, viz., Merry Andrew and Othello. Both of these went
to the starting post, but subsequently both returned to the
enclosure and the race became void, amidst loud expres-
sions of dissatisfaction. Otherwise the details given
below require no comment :
The Village Plate of 40 sovs (Handicap); winners after
May 28 (at ten a.m.) 71b extra; about five furlongs.
Mr Rickards's Aurora, by Lord of the isles—Dawn of
Day, 5 yrs, Bst 51b (including ilb extra) (Viney) 1
Mr Heene's Arkadi, 3 yrs, ist 91b .................. (Forster) 2
Mr. F. Barnes's Hop Leaf, 5 yrs, Ost ............(Clement) 3
The following also ran :—The Regent, Vullaynia, Dia-
mond, and Lady Roseberry.
Betting-6 to 4on Aurora, 6to 1 agst Arkadi, Bto 1
agst Hop Leaf, and 100 to 3 agst any other. Aurora
jumped away with a slight lead, immediately attended by
Arkadi and Lady Roseberry, Hop Leaf next, and The
Regent whipping in. No change occurred, and the
favourite, never being caught, won by a length, a neck
only separating second and third. Lady Rusoborry was a
bad fourth, Diamond fifth, Vulhynia next, and Regent was

last throughout.
The Hurdle Race Plate of 40 sovs (Handicap); winners
of any hurdle race after May 21 (at teu a.m.) 71b extra ;
about one mile and a half, over six hurdles.
Mr it. Watt's Summertime, by Stockwell—Summer-
side, 4 yrs, list 91b (iuc. 71b extra)... ............ (Barry) 1
Mr Alwyn's Bright Phokus, 4 yrs, 10. t 61b (W. peeves) 2
Mr T. Pilgrim's Order, 4 yrs, lOst 121 b ......... ..(Jarvis) 3
Betting-7 to 2on Summertime, 4to 1 agst Bright
Phcebus. The favourite got away with the lead, attended
by Bright Phoebus, Order dropping a long way in the rear
after going a quarter of a mile, and Reeves was never able
to get up to the leader, who won easily by a length. Order
was walked in with the crowd, but passed the post.
The Selling Plato of 30 says; two year olds Gst 71b, thro
Bst 71b, four 9st 51b, five and upwards 9st 71b ; the

winner to be sold for 50 sovs; if for 30 8J,73 allowai
51b, 20 101 b ; about three-quarters of a mile.
Mr E. Chase's Diamond, by Knight of Gwynne or De-
fiance—Opaque, 4 yrs, Bst 91b (.£2O) .(Coslett) 1
Mr Rover's Inuendo, 2 yrs, sst 1 lib (20) (T. Barker) 2
Mr Thomas's The Brigand, 6 yrs, Bst 111 b (£2O) (Payur) 3
Henry the First and Master Bagut filly also ran.
Betting opened at 7 to 4, and closed at even on Inuendo,
2 to 1 agst Diamond, and 7 to 1 each agst Henry the First
and Brigand. Diamond made all the running to the dis-
tance, where the favourite joined issue, and in a good racy

home suffered defeat by a head, Inuendo beating the Bri-
grand for second place by a length. Henry the First was
a bad fourth, and the Master Bagot filly last, not passing
the post. The winner was sold to Mr. Andrews for 63
guineas, and Henry the First was sold to Sir. Walker for
10 guineas.
The West Drayton Whitsuntide Handicap of 7 soya each,
2 ft, with 50 added; winners aftar May 28 (at ten a.m.)
71b extra. One mile and a half. 21 subs.
Mr. J. Dixon's Othello, 5 yrs, 7st 121 b (S. Adams), and
Mr. J. Nightingall's Merry Andrew, 3 yrs, 7st (Wyatt),
were weighed but did not go to the post, for after confer-
ence among the stewards, the race was declared null
and void, in consequence of three horses not going to
the post.
The Selling Hurdle Plata of 30 soya (Handicap); the win-
ner to be sold for 40 sous; about one mile, over four

hurdles.
Mr. Hudson's Ada, by Lambton—Blight, 4 yrs, lOst 101 b
(Mr. E 'wards) 1
Mr. M'Cubbin's Vision, aged, lOst 81b ...(Mr. Gregory) 2
Mr. C. Pileh's Dr. Wilson, 3 yrs, lOst 41b (Jarvis) 3
Thermometer, Heurlys, Miss Franklin, and Peignoir
also ran.

Betting-2 to lon Ada, sto 1 azst Vision, 7t) 1 agst
Heurlys, 100 to 8 bar three. Peignoir made play at a smart
pace, followed by Ala, Vision; Dr. Wilson, and the others
close up, Miss Franklin bringing up the rear. No material
change occurred till half a mile of the journey had been
accomplished, when Ada ran to the fore, followed by the
rest in close order as above-named, but never afterwards
being overhauled she won easily by three lengths. Bad
third, Peignoir fourth, Thermometer fifth, Ileurlys sixth,
and Miss Franklin the absolute last. The winner was sold
to Mr. Potter for 70 guineas.
The Maiden Hurdle Race Plato of 40 sous ; llst 71b each
those beaten iu any hurdle raise previous to this stake
closing allowed 71b, and any winaer over hurdles at this
meeting and engaged in this stake to lose the maiden
allowance and carry 71h penalty ; non-professionals
allowed 51b. About one mile and a quarter, over five
hurdles.
Mr ii. Marsh's Pakrita, by Magnum—For; 4 yrs, 10st 91b
(Mr Yates) 1
Mr J. Woodwood's Black Swan (b-h), aged, list '2W
(Mr. Wodelaouse) '2
Mr Alwyn's Tom Coke, 5 yrs, llst (W. Reeves) 3
The following also ran :—General Sherman, Delium,
Goodwood Girl, King of Spades, and Volhynia.
Betting—ti to 4 agst Pakrita, 7to 4 agst King of Spades,
Bto 1 agst Tom Coke, and 10 to 1 agst Black Swan.

Black Swan cut out the work with King of Spades in
attendance, and Tom Coke close up, Volhynia next,
Pakrita being at the head of the rear lot, the last of
whom was Goodwood Girl and General Sherman, the
latter pulling up opposite the stand, having lost so much
ground. Little alteration occurred for nearly a mile of
the journey, when the race was left to the three placed
horses, and a fine race home ensued, resulting in the vic-
tory of.the favourite by a head, a neck separating second
and third, King of Spades was a bad fourth, Delium was
fifth, Volhynia sixth. Goodwood Girl pulled up before
passing the post.
The Scurry Welter Cup (Handicap), for three year olds
and upwards ; winners this day 71b extra ; non-profes-
sionals allowed 51b ; about three-quarters of a mile.
Mr. J. Dixon's Astracan, by Muscovite—G. olden Fleece
3 yrs, lOst 71b (Mr. Edwards), 1
Mr. Yates's Odd Fellow, 4 yrs, lOst 31b (Owner) 2
Mr. Bastin's Henrietta, 3 yrs, Ost 131 b ...... (Mr Hobson) 3
The following also ran:—Othello, Gaiety, Katinka,
Gentle Gale, and Chantilly.
Betting-3 to lon Astracan, 7to 1 agst Henrietta, and
12 to 1 agst any other. Henrietta made play, followed by
Gaiety, Astracan, and Othello, and in this order they ran
until rounding the lower turn, where Henrietta gave way,
and the favourite immediately afterwards took up the
running, with Odd Fellow close up, and, after a good race,
Astracan won cleverly by half a length, Henrietta being
beaten a length for second place; Othello was .fourth,
Gaiety fifth, the others finishing at wide intervals.