We wish at this junctaro of a very undesirable controversy to state exactly our own position with regard to the subjects that are being discussed with so much heat, In justice to one and all our Correspondents, it will be admitted that none of them wish to be considered personally opposed to charity able actions as such, or antagonistic to the grant asked in such persuasive terms of the Municipal Council, on behalf of the French Orphanage, save on grounds of the most purely public natare. The reasons for acceding to the request of Scour Marie de St, Dominiqae are broad and Catholic, and may be sapported—if religion is to be dragged into the discussioom—by many words from an authority which Protestants hold supreme, as well as by the consideration that no similar Institution exists under Protestant control. The reasons for declining are, that the Municipal Council are not. custodians of a obnrity-fund, that they might commit themselves to a dangerous precedent in view of applications from other bodies, and that the Institution on whose behalf the appeal is made is nated in a Foreign Concession quite rich enough to support its own charities without applying to us, It remains for the ratepayers to decide which of there sides they will take.
With respect to a cognate matter, however, it behoves us to speak with plainness, It has been hinted in these columns that the Sisters have been actuated in what they have done by the Jesuit Fathers in order to dis. tract the sympathies of the commu. nity from the proposed Unsectarian School. This we decline to believe for a single moment. We have given publicity to the theory in our Correspondence columns, but only from a sense of fairness to all, and a feeling that the right of the public to express their various ideas upon a subject of public importance should be recognised and acted upon as far aa possible by journalists, Wethink, however, that here the limit has been reached; and we are sure that no persons would regret having attributed unworthy motives to men and women of known excellence more than our Correspondents themselves, could they be but once. convinced that they have done 0. At the same time, this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.