Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/424

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French-Canadian Decisions. the part of the cemetery where good Cath olics lay at rest, upon payment of the accus tomed fees, and that a peremptory writ of mandamus should be issued to make les cure ct marguilliers inter him properly. Copper's corpse's claim for burial in the Calvary Cemetery, owned and controlled by St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral in New York, was less successful than that of Guibord's. Copper died a Freemason, and although he had paid $75 for a plot of ground in the cemetery, and his friends had given $7 to have a grave dug therein, the trustees stopped his funeral cortege at the cemetery gates and refused interment to his ashes. The court refused a mandamus hold ing that Copper had acquired only the right to interment according to the laws of owners of the Cemetery Company, and that they had a right to exclude such as he (7 Abb. N. Y. N. Cas. 121 : reversed 21 Hun. [N. Y] 184). According to Mr. Doutre, Q. C., some ages ago the Duke of Milan went beyond issuing a peremptory writ of mandamus, in a somewhat similar burial case; it having been reported to him that a priest refused to inter a man because some dues had not been paid, he gave sentence that his rever ence should be tied alive to the dead man and buried with him. The bishops of the Roman church in Quebec still keep a keen watch for anything in the newspapers, or other publications, that may injure the morals or weaken the faith of their people. Lately " Le SoldI " was placed under a ban, and a book reflecting on the clergy was put in the " Index," and in both cases the parties interested sub mitted to their spiritual pastors and masters. Upon one occasion the civil courts in Montreal ordered a priest to baptize a baby (Harnois v. Rousse, C. C. Montreal, No. 1021; Judgment, Dec. 7, 1844); but in a later case of Davignon v. Lesage, the Supe rior Court declined to give damages against a priest who refused to baptize an infant, be

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cause neither oppression, scandal nor injury was shown to exist. It is not safe to call the editor of a FrenchCanadian newspaper a " Methodist." M. Sauvalle was the editor of the " Canada Revue." Mr. Tardival was the editor of "La Virile." The former paper was strongly in favor of clerical reform and was prohibited by the Archbishop of Mon treal; the latter was equally strong on the clerical side. Sauvalle in his paper called Tardival " Torquemada Tardival, false Torquemada, sub-pope, head of la petite eglise, imitator of the late Machiavelli, sacristan accomplished in the art of distilling gall," etc. Tardival in " La Verite " called his opponent " Methodist." Suavalle thought this was hitting him below the belt and ap pealed to the umpire; that is, issued a writ in the name of Her Majesty claiming $200 damages, alleging that as a French-Canadian journalist in the Catholic Province of Que bec it was absolutely necessary that his cath olicity should be, like Czesar's wife, above suspicion, otherwise he could get no work. Tardival pleaded justification and compen sation; justification, in that as baby Sau valle had been baptised in a Methodist Church the fair inference was that papa Sauvalle was a Methodist, and in that he had been called all the ugly names afore said; compensation, that he, Tardival, had suffered as much from what he had been called as Sauvalle had from the name "Methodist." The trial came on in Febru ary, 1894, before Mr. Justice Jette. Evidence was given by a high ecclesiastic to show that failure to comply with the regulations of the Roman Catholic church as to mar riage and the bringing up of children did not necessarily prove a man to be a Protes tant. Counsel for Sauvalle argued that to call his client a " Methodist" was, under the circumstances, most offensive and injurious; (Madame Sauvalle is a member of the Eglise Reformee de Paris, a Calvinistic body; ) that it was far worse than merely to