Catholic Newspapers.

In The Tablet (October 24th, 1925) we read the following:

‘Bad luck has once more spoilt a good idea. Father Bede Jarrett, our English Dominican Provincial, lately had the bright plan of “taking ten Catholics at haphazard and asking them two questions,” namely :—>

1. Do you buy a Catholic weekly paper?

2. What chiefly do you buy it to read?

Bows drawn at a venture are often drawn in vain, and many a bullet finds a wrong billett. This has been the Dominican Provincial’s fate. His “haphazard” brought him ten pairs of replies, which are mostly so poor that it has required all Father Bede Jarrett’s well-known literary skill to work them up into even a moderately readable article for Blackfriars, the Dominican monthly. Indeed, his luck has been so bad that most of the respondents to his questionnaire seem to be minors. “The usual answer given to Question was ‘No, I don’t buy it myself, but they usually take it at home.’” Here we have the minor’s characteristic mixture of disdain and reverence for the Domestic Powers—for the mysterious “they.” To Question 2 Father Bede Jarrett gives us four or five pages of answers. To be candid, they are hardly worth so many lines. As the whole article is composed on the bad principle of alluding vaguely and generally to the various Catholic papers and their contents instead of giving verifiable references, we cannot say how far the comments are just or unjust, in the main. There is, however, one allusion which we can identify, namely, some words about The Tablet’s article “Of Lenten Pastorals” which appeared on March 1, 1924. The minor who has obliged the Dominican Provincial with his views upon this article turns out to be a man or woman who cannot even read; and therefore we will only say that we sympathise deeply with Father Bede Jarrett on the miscarriage of a happy thought. Perhaps he will try again. It would be useful if “they”—the Philistine plutocrats who put down their tuppences for the sprightly Universe and their sixpences for the ponderous Tablet—’Would give us their views.’