116
AN GAOḊAL.
tation of Christ. The cuts will be the
property of the subscribers.
The present circulation of the Cath¬
olic and Irish-American press in the
United States and Canada is about
500,000, but if the papers publish this
matter we venture to say that it will
be a million before a year. The Gael¬
ic serial will retain the old subscribers
and secure, perhaps, five times as many
new ones. To supply new subscribers
with passed lessons, the editors could
throw them off in pamphlet form
at a trifling cost. The editors of the
Catholic and Irish-American press ne¬
ver had such an opportunity to in¬
crease their circulation, and without
any expense, for the electro cuts will
be supplied at one half what it would
cost them to set the English matter for
the same space.
We shall send a marked copy of
this issue to all the Irish-American e¬
ditors and, without further notice we
request of all those who are willing to
avail themselves of our proposition to
send us word.
Should all the Irish-American edi¬
tors publish the lessons it would be the
crowning success of the Gaelic move¬
ment. Heretofore they expressed regret
for their inability to assist this great
movement for the preservation of mo¬
ther tongue through the columns of
their journals because they were una¬
quainted with the Irish language; but
hereafter they will have no excuse for
the matter ready to be laid into their
chases is now offered to them.
Viewing this effort in behalf of the
preservation of the language of Eirinn
in all its parts, we are satisfied that all
Irish-American editors will support it.
We shall note in the GAEL all the
papers subscribing to and publishing
the lessons, and it will be the duty of
Gaels all over the country to see that
every Irish-American family be a sub¬
scriber to one of them.
The circulation, as remarked above,
of the hundred or more Catholic and
Irish-American papers in the United States and Can¬
ada, according to Rowell's Directory, does not ex¬
ceed 500,000 copies though there cannot be less than
2,000,000 Catholic Irish-American families in both
countries. The German-American press has over
2,000,000 of a circulation because every German
family patronizes one of them. Why is it that only
one-fourth of the Irish patronize theirs? 'Because,
evidently, the matter contained in them is not appre¬
ciated by them. Copy the example of your successful
Teutonic neighbors and give your countrymen some
thing really national to see what effect it will have
on them.
We shall commence the issue of the cuts as soon
as we hear from a sufficient number of journals to
meet the cost of postage and stereotyping.
It has been going the rounds of the Anglo-Amer¬
ican press for some time past that his Holiness, the
Pope, speaks English better than the majority of
Englishmen. We know that his Holiness requires
of Brooklyn priests who visit him to converse in
Italian, Latin, or French! But what is the object
of the report? We shall revert to this subject again
One of our Catholic exchanges complains that
English-speaking Catholics do not support their
papers as well as the German-speaking Catholics
support theirs. Who, pray, are the English-speak¬
ing Catholics? And why the slurring evasion ?
After the demonstrated success of the Irish lang¬
uage movement any Irish Nationalist who here
after refuses to support it writes himself down as
an Irish political hypocrite of the first water.
Two hundred years ago every man, woman and
child in Ireland spoke nothing but Irish: Was it
patriotic to barter it for the language of the op¬
pressor?
The German government applied to the Pope to
get the nuns in Alsace Lorraine to substitute the
German for the French language in the convent
schools. But before his Holiness had time to move
in the matter the nuns had it conveyed to him that
the order, if given, would not be obeyed — they did
not get the order! Compare the patriotism of the
French nuns with that portion of the Irish people
who bent their necks early in the fight beneath the
British galling yoke! How sad the contemplation.
What are the children of these doing to make a¬
mends for their parents' shortcomings?
British-doctored telegrams represent that Russ¬
ia is brutally governed. Reader, does not the fact
that Russians do not emigrate (though free to do
so like other opprest nationalities) give the lie di¬
rect to the charge ? And yet we see the English
scandal rehashed by Irish-American journals.
France's population is over 38,000,000. Russia
has one hundred and twenty millions — as many as
speaks the English language.
Rev. Father O'Growney states that three million
people speak the Irish language still. — Brethren,
let us try to make then read and write it.
Some say, "Why try to keep the Irish separate
from the other peoples by reviving the language?"
Why keep your family separate from your neigh¬
bors? The Irish are The Bundle of Sticks — sep¬
arate them by severing the family bond and they
get lost in the tempestuous human ocean which
surround them — Keep them together in national
sentiment and they defy the world.
