AN event attracting wide public interest this month has been the case of Adolph Beck, an English resident of Scandinavian birth, who was arrested in 1895, and sentenced, and served his time; then was re-arrested recently on another charge, but set free, it having transpired that the real culprit, one John Smith, had been at large all this time, Mr. Beck being innocent of both charges. This gross miscarriage of justice has been taken up vigorously by the press of the country. Mr. Beck was offered £2,000 by the government, if he would let the matter drop; but, backed by the press and general public sentiment, he has asked for an investigation, which has been granted, and is now taking place, behind closed doors, of course.
September has been a quiet month politically, the legislators taking their holidays. Next month several important speeches will be given by leading statesmen. The most significant movement in politics is the growing independence of the labor members of Parliament. It looks as if the time is not far distant when England will have a Socialist party wielding much the same influence as that in Germany and Italy. Many of the regular Liberals in this country sympathize strongly with the labor movement, and the Daily News, the principal Liberal organ, is devoting two of its columns daily to the discussion of labor problems.
Insanity Steadily Increasing.
The report which the commissioners in lunacy have just issued certainly contains food for careful thought, and not by any means for self-congratulation. They tell us that, on the first of January last, there were no fewer than 117,199 insane persons in England and Wales, an increase of 3,235 during the year. To get a clearer idea of what this means, it may be well to say that the number of insane in England and Wales was but 36,762 in the year 1859, and that the ratio then was 1.8 lunatics per thousand of the population. To-day the ratio is 3.6 lunatics per thousand. In other words, with all the science and education and general advantages of modern life, England has to-day twice as many lunatics in proportion to her population as she had forty-five years ago. This does not look like evolution.
Child Drunkards.
Naturally drink cuts a large figure in the insanity records. The Bluebook issued by the select committee appointed to look into the subject of physical degeneration, gives some sad details in reference to the ravages of gin. Even little children contract the habit. In a hospital at Blackheath, in the southeast of London, "there was a little puny, three-year-old child, who had a penny given to him to play with, and the poor little wretch held out his hand to every visitor with the penny in it, asking them to get him 'just a ha'porth [half-penny worth] of gin.' It was his one idea of the way to use the penny. Gin was his ideal of happiness."
Sometimes the women drink worse than the men, when, of course, there can be no real home life. Drinking begins in the morning, breakfast probably consisting of a bottle of stout and bread and cheese.
Rome's Tactics.
Romanism makes stealthy advancement, with the same tactics that it used hundreds of years ago. Cardinal Vannutelli, the pope's special representative, was in Ireland recently, and, in one of his speeches, said he had good hopes of a Roman Catholic University for Ireland, because King Edward, on the occasion of his visit to Maynooth College (in Ireland), had expressed his marked sympathy with the aspirations of Roman Catholics in that direction. But this question of the university is a political matter, concerning which royalty in this country is supposed to be entirely non-committal. Accordingly the English Churchman, a strong Protestant paper, took up the matter, and the secretary of the Imperial Protestant Federation wrote His Majesty's secretary, Lord Knollys, asking if such a royal utterance had been made at Maynooth, whereupon an official denial was given. The cardinal then stated that the press had reported him incorrectly, which seems unlikely, in view of the fact that some weeks before, in leaving Ireland, he publicly commended the press for their "accuracy" in reporting his addresses.
Missionizing the Protestants.
Missions for non-Catholics are now a regular feature of Roman Catholic activity in Great Britain. A few months ago crowded congregations of Protestants were gathering nightly at Rugby to hear a Catholic cleric explain the Roman faith. We may judge of his methods from this significant paragraph in a press notice:
The great feature of these missions is that they are absolutely non-controversial; the aim is to explain the doctrines of the Catholic faith, and from beginning to end not one word was said that the most critical Protestant could take objection to.
It seems hardly necessary to point out that it is just such missions that do the most harm. While professing to explain, they really place the whole matter of Romanism, its history and doctrines, in a false light. But we are seeing on every hand the old boundaries disappearing. It is something for Rome to condescend graciously to explain herself. Protestants will crowd each other to reach the feet of the sovereign pontiff; and the union of a false, back-slidden Protestantism with the Rome that never changes is only a matter of time.
Prophecy gives the key to the situation, but prophecy is a portion of the Scriptures especially neglected in these days, when only the few study the Bible at all.
At the present writing the palmists mentioned in my previous letter are still under remand, awaiting trial, a true bill having been found against them.