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Ladies' Letter.

BOOK AND THE MODERNIST
SOCIETY. — BEHIND THE
COUNTER.—"TIPS" ON SEA
AND LAND.—THE PLACARD
AND THE PURSE.
St. Kilda, May 23, 1912.
My Dear Aileen,—

You asked me in my last letter
what I thought of a "novel" at present
very popular in certain bigoted
circles—a book written by a young
Australian—a woman, though, the
name under which she writes, and
which is her own, sounds like the
name of a man—to wit, Lindsay
Russell. It is a book that has
been, and is, so widely advertised,
that probably many of our own
Faith may be quite taken in by its
title, "Smouldering Fires," and buy
it for reading in the home. Should
they do so, they will find they have
purchased a most virulent attack on
the Catholic Church in an Austra-
ian-story form—a blasphemous caricature
of her holiest ceremonies, a
vicious attempt to blacken the character
of the priesthood, and a hysterical
exhibition of bad taste based
upon a want of thorough knowledge
of Catholic teaching. She has the
consummate effrontery to make her
heroine Irish—probably to attract
the attention of Irish Catholics, and
so draw them on to read what she
calls 'the ennobling and progressive
views of "The Australian Modernist
Society of Enlightened Roman Catholics"
(God help them, poor
"omadhauns" !) She describes the
Catholic Church as "a variety
theatre," showing immediately how
little capable she is of veneration
and reverence for ''the House where
God's beauty dwelleth,'' and how
unversed in historical lore which
prompts even an infidel to "take off
his hat" to what has so successfully
withstood the assaults of the ages.
Part of the book deals with life in
the mallee country, part with city
life as represented by Melbourne; and
Lindsay Russell has evidently gone,
like Ethel Turner, into our cathedrals
and churches with "the unseeing
eye," to hear with the spiritually
deaf ear, and then to come out
with the babble of the scandaliser's
tongue—all for the purpose of put-
ting in print firmly-rooted and erroneous
ideas against what has not
been comprehended—and for the unworthy
motive of stirring up old,
stagnant mires with a literary stick
which she hopes will be her prop
on the road to fame. If she desired
to have her book sell, she has accomplished
that desire ; it has been
simply "rushed" by the enemies of
our Church, and its contents gloated
over. It has brought the no-
toriety which the unfortunate
Chiniquy obtained at such cost to
his soul. But, unlike the latter,
the authoress has never seen the
light, and cannot therefore be so
severely condemned. She believes
what she strives to impress on her

readers—and that is the pity of it.
The members of the Modernist
Society
love to glorify their apostasy
by posing as men and women
who
are above their fellows in intellectual
attainments.
They would have
us
believe that the teachings which have
for so many centuries been the foundation
of all that was truly great,
noble, beautiful,
and
self-sacrificing
in man
are but the playthings of
a
child; and that their supreme arrogance
only can lead the human race
upward.
The blind must follow the
blind.
Christ's tender words, which
bid us be even as little children
or
we shall not inherit the Kingdom of
Heaven,
are conveniently
forgotten
or ignored.
Compare these
for
a
moment with Cardinal Newman; and
where they fail is at once
patent !
They
are
"enlightened"
in
the
wrong direction—so full of their own
conceits
that
their
testimony
is
worth nothing.
They want praying
for, so let a
prayer
for
them
be
answer
to
their
onslaughts.
A
Modernist church will be,
in
any
case, like a
certain
Melbourne
one
we wot of—soon shut up. "Time was
—time
is—time
won't
be,"
as far
as such earthly creations
are
concerned.
If the harangues
of
their
preachers
are as long and tiresome
as the
harangues
in
"Smouldering
Fires,"
their
hearers
will
soon
"silently steal away."
Talented Miss Rieke Parker, I note,
is to
give a
pianoforte recital
on
June 5th, Miss Violet Somerset
as
assisting vocalist, with Mrs. W.
C.
Nott as accompanist.
It is marvellous
what little Miss Parker accomplishes
in classical music.
Her technique
is wonderful for her age. Beethoven's
Sonata
op.
27,
No.
2
(Adagio, Allegretto,
Presto
agitato),
is one of the numbers
to
be
given; also
Ravel's "Jeu
d'eau"—
the latter for the first time in Melbourne.

I remember Mrs. W. C. Nott's late
gifted husband well.
He could literally
make the piano and the
organ
speak.
Called away
to
a
better
world, where perfect symphonies enrapture,
he
was
one
of our
most
gifted
and
promising
Australian
geniuses; and
his
early
death
was
much deplored.
His glorious talent
passed with him—for he left no child
to succeed him.
His wife then,
as
now, had a good standing
in
the
musical world.
.In last week's obituary notices
is
that of Mr. James J offers, of Longwarry—a
clever man who might have
attained to a prominent position in
political life but for a diffidence
in
his
own
powers
which
kept
him
back when the
opportunity offered.
He
was
a
regular
encyclopaedia
of political
knowledge—and
an
ardent
Catholic.
I found
his
ideas
helpful and original, and mourn the
sad accident which was
the
means
of ending the life of a deep thinker
and a courteous gentleman
of
the
old school.

Letters from all parts of the
State give harrowing accounts of
the suffering endured by live stock
through the . drought. When the
much-needed rains do fall we shall
surely tramp along cheerfully through
mud and mire for the sake of the
benefit to the country. Shop-girls'
prayers for fine Saturdays and Sundays
should be left unuttered for
once. Some of the "giddy young
things" in some of our larger places
of business are now so much
wrapped up in planning amusements
for Saturday that 'a large
percentage of customers—women
mainly—are often left standing at
counters till their limbs grow weary
while "the young ladies" talk to

each other under pretence' of putting
boxes away on the shelves, etc.
While philanthropic schemes for these
lazy young misses' benefit are being
energetically carried out by their
wealthy employer, they are turning
many a penny away from him by
their indifference- to the very people
to supply whose wants they are
salaried servants. While his head—
good man !—is in the clouds of benevolence,
they are giving an extra
comb to their coiffure or exchanging
witticisms with their companion
saleswomen. Only that "a fuss" is
unseemly in the eyes of many busy
matrons, these thoughtless Pieces of
femininity would often be reported.
Their behaviour is on a par with
some of the young men's in post
offices and other buildings devoted
to the carrying on of the public's
business. Surely attention and
answers calculated to moke the sensitive
feel that they have no right
to give "trouble" to these offhand
High-and-Mightynesses, is everywhere
now to be found. _"Prosperous
Australia means impudent Australia,
is it not so ?" asked a French friend
recently who had been snubbed by
one of these malaperts.
To "tip " or not to tip, that
seems the question. A sub-leader or
two have been written about the
practice of tipping waitresses and
waiters of every variety—on land
and on sea. There is no doubt it
is a foolish habit when carried to
the excesses that it is in our fashionable
cafes and restaurants—and
on board ship. One writer to the
dailies complains that if he does not
give more than sixpence per luncheon-hour
as a tip to the waitress
that she takes the half-shilling up
with a scornful air, though he really
cannot afford 3/ per week (12/ per
month) for paying for nothing, in
addition to paying for his meals.
In many instances what he says is
perfectly true. Waiters and waitresses
have been so long "spoiled"
that they often lose that rare grace
of conscientiousness and independence
which forbids the accepting of
any money-gift save what is their
due. To be sure, meanness in the
diners—female or male—should not
be encouraged (we all know that
"skinflints" are to be found everywhere),
but men who are always
courteous to women and who give
them as little trouble as possible
should find their civility to count
higher in the eyes of the worker
who is paid for attending to them
than the coin of the realm, which is
always more plentiful in the pocket
of a roue than of the ordinary respectable
suburban and city father
of a family.

Australians just returned from the
"Old Country" tell me that on
board the big boats one must "tip"
each and every one of the stewards,
bell-boys, stewardesses, and other
servants systematically or be "given
a back seat" on every occasion—orders
conveniently forgotten, any sort
of a place at table, or none till
others are finished, and the additional
mortification o£„bfiing "whispered
at." Thej^-ffl^q-; saj
any extra Ikfi^Ki,
asked for, qn'^fgwfimer eve
the change .fra^fi anv/sjlV^i&i
obtain it
i
the propi%' ^ 'the water, and
never retdhfcA... If this be strictly
correct, th^Gbftalnly there is something
radical!^ "wrong, and the abuse
of a good old custom from the early
mining days should be stopped once
and for all. The amusing part of
it is that placards are stuck up
everywhere to avow that tipping is
not permitted under any circumstances.
Yet under the very eyes
of placard and complaisant officer it
is carried on to an outrageous extent.
There are, for instance, a cer-

tain I'' ,inbpr of the police force who
ne^er k L'C more than they want to
see ;
1 ' ,ese other responsible guari;
the public can be classed
dinns (.
in tin same category. For the one
servant wlio deserves a good "tip"
and >uld have it if possible, there
uiv ' ••' 1 i who, shuffling through life
and <i" ing their work in an anyhow
style, ' In not, deserve to be recom-
penficii
with more than their lawful
Honest charity is as different
from this sort of thing as
<la\ from night. "It blesseth him
uliu u i • os and him who takes ;" but
the j1111n or woman who spend more
than half their time "looking out
for lips" is slowly, but surely,
descending
in the spiritual scale. Flatterers
and
sycophants
have
been
from the earliest centuries
hateful
beings, never worthy a true man's
trust, much less a woman's; and the
present
system
of
over-tipping
creates the species
and
deteriorates
the human race.
Mr. Louis Joseph, clothing manufacturer,
recently
deceased,
was
a
man ever ready to help in a charitable
cause,
and,
though
of
the
Jewish persuasion, never
forgot
to
do an act of practical kindness
in
the interests of the Sisters
of
St.
Joseph.
His
name
will be missed
on my charity list, at any rate.
A
man much beloved, may he rest
in
peace.
It would
be
well if
there
were more employers like him,
and
more of as just a disposition,
and
of as humane a heart.
All classes seem
to
be
dreading
the coming months and prophesying
distress and disaster.
But "not to
cross 1he bridge till
we come to it,
is a proverb
old
and of
excellent
wit" ; and to rest on the Irish saying:
' fiod
is good,"
is our
wisest
plan—No to throw whatever gleams
of brightness we can into the lives
of others.
"A cheery manner is as
^ood as a fire"—when we can't
get
one.
And from the men and women
of morbid ideas may we
be
mercifully
delivered !
"A little way, go singing,
A little way, rejoice—
Sweet thoughts to others winging
I p*m thy hopeful voice !"
—Yours, with all kind wishes,
-MARION MILLER KNOWLES.
11;. husbands who by their neglect
und indifference -drive those who
wouM otherwise make them true and
lovitii; wives into sin and shame deserve:
any fate they may get.
$