But, is it true that the Catholic people have no substantial claim as tax-payers? Such might have been the case twenty-five years ago; but every well-informed man knows that it is not so now. Wealth, amongst the Catholic population, may perhaps be less perceptible, because it is more diffused than it is amongst some other bodies of our citizens; but no man who is familiar with the cities of New York, Brooklyn, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and all others, from the sources of the Mississippi to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or with the Catholic farm-settlements of the Western States, can shut his eyes to the fact that our Catholic people are thrifty and well-to-do in the world; and that very many of them possess large wealth. A member of the British Parliament, in a recent work upon the Irish in America, has demonstrated this by undeniable statistics. The same is true of Catholics here of all other nationalities. We have not the time nor space, neither is it necessary, to go into the details of this question. We suppose our readers to be intelligent and well-informed, and that they can readily recall to their minds the facts which substantiate the truth of our assertion. Are there those, sharp at a bargain, who will say, "Well! the Catholics have the resources to educate themselves, and are doing so now; let them continue the good work without calling upon the state for any portion of the public funds, to which they contribute by their taxes"? The dishonesty of such a proposition is shown in the simple statement of it. It is true, as we have said over and over again, that the Catholic people, after paying their taxes to the state, have, with a generous self-sacrifice amounting to heroism, established all over this country more universities, colleges, academies, free schools, and orphan asylums than have ever been founded by all the rest of the nation through private contributions. {132} A people capable of such great deeds in the cause of civilization and religion are not to be despised, _can never be repressed_, and certainly should not be denied justice, when they ask no more! We hope that we have satisfactorily answered the objections of those honest adversaries, with whom we will always be happy to interchange opinions in a spirit of candor and sincere respect. In order that our readers may obtain some idea of what the Catholic people, unaided by the state, have done and are doing for popular education in this country, we shall now present a brief summary or synopsis from Sadlier's _Catholic Directory_ for 1868-9.