PRIESTLY OPPRESSION. 



331 



Prisoners, Insane, etc. — being systematically handed over to 

 Religious Orders, where the State and the Taxpayers have no 

 control whatever over them ? " 



Before receiving Philip's letter, the Secretary of the Aborigines' 

 Protection Society had directed the attention of the Secretary of 

 State for the Colonies to an article in " The Canadian News " of 

 June 17, relating the injustice to the Indians ; and in the follow- 

 ing December he received from the Colonial Office the report 

 of the Canadian Privy Council upon it, with a Memorandum 

 (September 13) from Mr. Laird, Minister of the Interior and 

 Superintendent-General of the Indians, who stated that the title 

 of the Seminary had been confirmed by the Seigneurial Act of 

 1859; and as to the rights of common, etc., claimed by the 

 Indians, the Indian fund would defray the cost of an action 

 brought by the Seminary. Mr. Laird ended by complaining of 

 the Aborigines' Protection Society, for making their protest on 

 the strength of a newspaper report ! 



It was " understood that the Seminary were offering (some 

 say eleven, others thirteen) thousand dollars to compromise 

 the Indian claims : and the Indians were preparing to migrate 

 in the spring to some good lands near Lake Nipissing, which 

 the Dominion Government were disposed to grant them," to 

 get rid of the difficulty, when a fresh trouble befel them : — 

 " A few years ago, a neat church was erected by subscription 

 at a cost of 1200 dollars. This was crowded, while scarcely any 

 Indians were found in the Catholic Church. It was erected 

 on land forming part of a garden which Indian families had 

 possessed unchallenged for many generations. But the priests, 

 taking advantage of the temporary absence of the Indians 7 

 lawyer, got a decision from the court, requiring the owners to 

 pull it down. As the men were off hunting, a mob of French 

 Catholics, without any warning, pulled down the church, tower 

 and all, and carried the material over to the priests' property. 

 The old chief, a man of ninety-three, who had fought for the 

 British in the last war, could do nothing but look on and weep. 

 . . . Just as their church is torn down before their eyes, comes 

 a letter from the (Catholic) Dominion Officer of Crown Lands, 



