A contest is going on in county Mallow which recalls
very- old days indeed. A mob has risen to defend Catholic friars from the discipline of Catholic Bishops. A body of religious teacheri, called the " Christian Brothers," with a charter from Pius VII., have become popular in Ireland as teachers, have raised large means by subscription, and have greatly attracted the affection of the people. The Bishops and parish priests,. however, do not like them, chiefly, we imagine, because they divert money from schools in the hands of the latter, and have appealed to Rome against them. Rome supports them ; but nevertheless, on the 17th March, four Christian Brothers in Mallow were ordered by the parish priest, who is also arch- deacon, to leave the town. They obeyed, surrendering their schools to the Archdeacon. Thereupon the Catholic laity re- volted. It was in vain the priest explained that the mixed schools would bring £800 a year to the town, in vain the Bishop of Cloyne decided in his favour ; the laity would not have the Brothers wronged, and being Irish, proceeded first to seize,. then to wreck, and then to burn the schools,—all in the interest of the true proprietors. The armed constabu- lary have been called in, and by the last accounts were hold- ing the schools, which have not a whole pane of glass in them,. against the Catholic laity, in the interest of Catholic priests. We have no idea which party is in the right, but record the incident as evidence for a theory we have always upheld,—that in Ireland the laity often drive the clergy, and not the clergy the people. He is a very great man, the priest, while he is on the popular side ; but let him offend the people, say, about land,. and he might just as well be in Bordeaux or Ghent. His robe will just save his neck, and that is all.
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