THE FRIARS IN SOUTH AMERICA
WHEN the American army took possession of Manila there were about seventeen hundred Catholic friars upon the various islands of the Philippine group. Of this number more than twelve hundred have emigrated, most of them going to South America where they were more confident of a cordial welcome than in Europe. These things happening just as the religious associations were exiled from France, the friars felt that they were likely to find brief rest in Spain, or even in Italy, should they attempt to carry out their peculiar convictions of ecclesiastical privilege in either. Having for many years dwelt with an ignorant and submissive people, they chose to make a home in such countries as afforded a clientele most resembling that which they had lost. They are now busier than ever, especially in Brazil, forming new orders, organizing new societies, and by a thousand well-known devices separating the natives from their slender accumulations. They distribute showy medals and various insignia, each suspended by a gaudy ribbon from the neck or fastened in the buttonhole; and the disposition of such favors becomes a marked source of revenue. In Brazil their course has already excited no little opposition on account of their pronounced hostility to the free institutions of any country. They are especially denunciatory of civil marriage, obligatory tho it is by the laws of the land; and in many places they have forced to live apart husbands and wives who have been married for years, because not married by a priest. And the most unreasonable thing is that when those compelled to put away their conjugal companions desire to avoid the boycott to which the friars subject them, they are not permitted to marry each other, but are forced to select other mates. Such at least is the statement made by D. Leolinda Daltro in one of the Rio journals. It is even asserted in some of the papers published in South American cities that the present disturbed conditions in many of these Latin republics are due to the intermeddling of these friars from the Philippines, who preach a crusade against all that is identified with democratic institutions or founded upon respect for popular authority.—The Interior.