Daily Kennebec journal., 1879-11-14
Letter from Cambridge.

TYRANNICAL CoNDrCT OF A CATHOLIC PRIEST
TOWARDS CHILDREN IL ScnooI.-A Pr
NoBscoT SQUAw IN LIMBo.-PATiENr
FISHING AND WAITING.
CAMBRIDGE. Mass, Nov. ~, 1879.
To the Editor of the Rennebee Jou,nai:
The people here have been justly indignant
the past week over the outrageous conduct Of
Thomas Scully. Roman Catholic priest of
Saint Mary's parish. Some six years aga,
this priest established parochial school in
Cambridgeport; to-day the scholars of this
school number about seventeen hundred.
Owing to the brutal manner in which some
of the children of this school have been pun
ished under the direction and sanction of
this ''Toly Father" several scholars have
been withdrawn from this inquisition and
sent back to the public schools. This act on
the part OF the parents has drawn the full
fury of the priests hatred down their
heads, and he has followed them with vim
dictiveness of which the devil might
well be proud. The more intelligent
portion of Father Scully's parish
toner's have become disgusted with
him, and have taken their departure to more
congenial atmosphere, where their feelings
will be respected and themselves treated like
men. To the incipient apostates who have
taken their children from his school, Father
Scully has refused to give sacraments at the
altar, and he warns them under pain of NOR
tai sa to bring them back as he has the pow
er to send them to Heaven or-some other
place. few days since, Catholic commit
tee (in Scully's INTEREST," waited on Arch
Bishop Williams of Boston, and laid before
that holy potentate, some of the charges that
had been made against priest Scully. The
Bishop would hear nothing against the con-
duct of Sculy. He told the committee that
he endorsed everything that his beloved su-
bordinate had donc-that he knew his busi-
ness and that it was impossible for him to err,
etc, etc.
The committee made their report at st.
Mary's church last Sunday evening There
was great rejoicing among the good Catho-
lies" when the report was made. Sooner or
later the strong arm of the government has
got to confront and throttle this arch enemy
of human progress, and it will be sorry day
to the Catholics of this country when they
II
Business is quite lively here now and there
is every prospect of a brisk trade during the
coming winter. There is a great deal of
building being done on the Back Bay, (Bos-
tom this fall. There are being built on Com
monwealth avenue, between Arlington and
West Chester parks, - buildings, valued at
SOY 900, and plans are completed for eight
more valued at about $4,000. On Marl-
boro street. 20 houses are being built, valued
at $500, 900, and on Newbury street eight
more houses are in the course of construction
which will cost when completed, about Sll2,-
600.
An old squaw from Oldtown Maine. has
been in Cambridge the past two weeks. She
was dressed in the usual toga of the noble
Lo an old ragged horse blanket around her
queen-like form and battered beaver on her
head; she wore a pair of mOccasins on her
feet that were large enough for bath-tubs.
She called herself the queen of the Barni-
dumkops and daughter of the great chief
Marandabbc. Last Thursday she was full of
fire-water and fight; she got into Harvard
square car, and when the conductor came along
to collect fares, this child of the forest. after
using good deal of profane, obscene
''Indan lingo" made an attempt to scalp
him with a large screw driver which she had
concealed under her blanket. She was put
off the car, when she soon drifted into the EN-
brace of officer Stevens of Station Two, who
locked her up. She was before Judge Ladd
the next morning who let her off with the con-
dition that she should take the trail for the
Penobscot forthwith. which she proceeded to
do with alarming suddenness.
An infirm old man, with his face wrinkled
up like wet beam has stood the last two
months on West Boston bridge about mid
way between Boston and Cambridge, fishing
for smelts. From early morn till the shad-
ows of night gather around him he bobs away
with wild longing and painful cagerness
that is touching to behold. He takes no note
of time, and makes no conversation with the
hurrying thousands that pass him daily. The
singular part of the affair is. that during all
this time the old man has never got nibble
but persists in fishing from the same spot.
When the action of the tide has worn the bait
off the hook, he draws it in, rcbaits it, filings
it overheard, and, with grim impatience, bobs
away again.
Occasionally the old mariner gets mad and
swears, when some rascalv boy comes along
and upsets his basket of schrimps. and curses
all the fishes in the great deep he squirts
tobacco juice over the railing of the bridge.
Whether the aged fisherman will pursue his
vocation during the winter, is matter of un-
certainty.
Z. RI