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 clothing, bedding, &c., had to be paid for from England. Englishmen, in their eyes, are proverbially proud: I was assured from several reliable sources that I had been credited with an inordinate share of that British virtue.

At present they are making strenuous efforts to reorganise and improve their scheme of study: one or two earnest men are striving against the dead weight of materialism which is oppressing them, and possibly time will bring an improvement, though it can only be by a sacrifice in point of numbers which all are unwilling to make. The two points in which the glory of the fraternity is thought to consist are the maintenance of a perfect formal discipline and the increase of members. The Belgian friars are wrongly endeavouring to secure both points at once. They have built recently a large preparatory college which is always crowded with aspirants; but when I asked one of the Belgian friars, in an unguarded moment, whence the aspirants came, he answered with a shrug of his shoulders: ‘On y a ramassé la canaille des rues,’ and another explained that their training was deeply vitiated by espionnage and by an injudicious system of rewards and punishments. Whatever may be their future — and so long as socialism is kept in check they have every favourable condition — it is quite clear that any serious attempt to purify, to vitalise and spiritualise their fraternity will meet bitter opposition, and will, if successful,