Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/679

 KANSAS

601

KANSAS

his or her property to other persons than the husband or wife. Either husband or wife may consent in writing, executed in the presence of two witnesses, that the other may bequeath more than half of his or her property from the one so consenting. A verbal will, mace in the last sickness, is valid in respect to personal estate if reduced to writing and subscribed by two competent witnesses within ten days. The legislature of 1909 authorized the assessment of an inheritance tax on estates over $1000, which is, however, not to apply to property exempt from taxation under the con- stitution. In bequests to kindred the ta.x is graduated.

Sunday Observance. — Labour, except the household offices of daily necessity, if performed on Sunday is deemed a misdemeanour, antl is punishable by a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars. Persons observing another day of the week as the Sabbath are, however, exempt from the provisions of this statute. Horse- racing, and the sales of merchandise except medicines and provisions of immediate necessity, are also pro- hibited on the first day of the week. There is a rigid anti-lottery law, and also a law against the use of cigarettes and one forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors under sixteen years of age. The circulation of obscene hterature is a misdemeanour and the pubhsh- ing or dissemination of scandalous prints is a felony.

Legal Holidays. — The following are the legal holi- days: Lincoln's Birthday (12 Feb.); Memorial Day (30 May) ; Labour Day (first Monday of September) ; Washington's Birthday (22 P\'bruary) ; New Year's Day (1 January); Independence Day (4 July); Thanksgiving Day (Thanksgiving Day is fixed an- nually by the proclamation of the president or gov- ernor) ; the first four of the above, Christmas Day (25 December) and Arbor Day, in April, are not legal hoU- days except as to negotiable instruments.

Exempt from serving as jurors are all persons hold- ing office under the laws of the United States or of Kansas, attorneys and counsellors-at-law, physicians, ministers of the Gospel, professors and teachers of colleges, schools, and other institutions of learning, ferrjTnen and all firemen organized according to law; all persons more than sixty years of age. A person belonging to any of these classes is, however, not precluded from serving.

EccLEsi.\STic.\L History. — As early as 1541, the soil of Kansas was hallowed by the blood of Father Juan de Padilla, who fell a victim to his zeal for the conversion of the Indians. Baptism was administered and marriages were blessed by Father Lacroix, in 1822. The Jesuit Father Van Quickenborne began his missionary journeys to the Indian tribes here in 1827. Rev. Joseph Lutz of St. Louis soon thereafter preached to the Kansas or Kaw Indians. In 1835 mis- sionaries Wsited the Peorias, Weas, and Pienkishaws, a remnant of the Kaskaskias known as the Miamis. St. Francis Xavier's mission and school were estab- lished at Kckapoo above Fort Leavenworth in 1836. English was here taught at least as early as 1840. Among the Pottawattomies, in 1838, a permanent Jesuit mission was established by Father Christian Hoecker. In 1841, four Religious of the Sacred Heart, including the saintly Mother Duchesne, opened a school for girls in this mission. The Jesuits opened a school for boys the following year. Osage IVlission obtained resident missionaries in the Jesuit Fathers Schoenmakers and Bax in 1847. In this year the Pot- tawattomies began moving to their new reservation on the Kaw immediately west of the present site of Topeka. This later developed into the St. Mary's Jesuit Mission with its famous college. During the ten years prior to 1848, there were 1430 baptisms in- cluding 550 adults among the Pottawattomies. There were at this period 330 Catholic families in this tribe. Sixty years later some of their descendants are found in Pottawattomie County, and are good Catholics. In 1851 the Rt. Rev. J. B. Miege, of the Society of

Jesus, a professor of St. Louis University, was conse- crated Bishop of Messene and appointed Vicar Apos- tolic of the Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains. He made St. Mary's Mission his residence until .\ugust, 1855, when he estabhshed himself at Leavenworth, a promising city of the newly organized territory, but where the bishop found but seven CathoUc families. At the end of this year in the vast territory under his jurisdiction there were but six churches completed, three being built, eleven stations, and eight priests. The Benedictine Fathers and the Carmelites were invited to Kansas for missionary work. The former in 1859 established a priory which has become an abbey, and laid the foundation for St. Benedict's College at Atchison. Bishop Miege was a man of Apostolic spirit and remarkable discretion. His visitations were made before railroads were built over the prairies and across the plains to points as remote as Denver and Omaha. In 1857, Nebraska Territory was formed into a separate vicariate which came under the jurisdiction of Rt. Rev. James Michael O'Gorman in 1859, leaving only Kansas Territory to Bishop Miege. In 1868 there were in the vicariate twenty-seven priests, of whom thirteen were seculars. There were schools under the conduct of the Rehgious of the Sacred Heart, of the Sisters of Loreto, of the Sisters of St. Benedict, and of the Sisters of Charity. These last were also in charge of a hospital and or- phanage in Leavenworth. In this year on 8 Decem- ber, the Leavenworth Cathedral, a massive brick building of great architectural beauty, was conse- crated. Bishop Miege went to Rome for the Vatican Council, and later to South America on a collecting tour. In 1871, the prior of St. Benedict's, Louis Mary Fink, O.S.B., was consecrated Bishop of Eu- carpia, to assist Bishop Miege, whom he succeeded on the latter's resignation in 1874, when there were 35,000 Catholics in the state. Bishop Pink remained Vicar Apostolic of Kansas until Leavenworth was made an episcopal see, in 1877, when he became its first bishop with jurisdiction over the State of Kansas.

The Cathohc population within a few }-ears in- creased to 80,000 souls. Churches and schools multi- plied under his fostering hand. In 1887 two other dioceses, those of Concordia and Wichita, were carvetl out of Leavenworth. New boundaries were estab- lished by Apostolic letters in 1897. The first Bishop- elect of Wichita, Rt. Rev. James O'Reilley, died before his consecration. The Rt. Rev. John Joseph Hennessy was consecrated Bishop of Wichita, 30 Nov., 1888; his jurisdiction extends over an area of 42,915 square miles, with 765,000 inhabitants, of whom 30,000 are Catholics. Rt. Rev. Richard Scan- nell, who was transferred to Omaha in 1890, was the first Bishop of Concordia. The second to be pre- conized was the Rt. Rev. Thadeus Butler, D.D., who died in Rome before his con.secration. The present bishop is the Rt. Rev. John Francis Cunningham, who was for many years vicar-general of Leavenworth, and was consecrated bishop 21 September, 1898. Concordia diocese has an area of 26,685 sq. miles, w ith about one Catholic to every square mile out of a popu- lation of 351,000. The Rt. Rev. Louis M. Fink, after a laborious and fruitful episcopacy of thirty-three years, went to his reward 17 March, 1904. His suc- cessor as Bishop of Leavenworth, the Rt. Rev. Thos. F. LiUis, was consecrated 27 December, 1904. The Leavenworth diocese has an area of 12,524 square miles, with a Catholic population of 56,000. The three dioceses have 312 priests, including about 100 religious.

Excellent Catholic boarding schools for boys are: St. Mary's College, conducted by the Jesuits, with 400 students: and St. Benedict's, at .Atchison, by the Benedictines, with 300 students. There are nine academies, with seven hundred girl pupils, sev- eral Catholic high-schools, and ninety parochial