There are Irishmen who are wealthy and wear fine clothes that are no credit to their race or their religion, but the Catholic Irish as a body constitute a sober, quiet, peaceable, intelligent, religious, industrious, and thriving portion of our population, and no American-born citizen has any right to say a word in disparagement of them. Indeed, we may say of the Catholic population of the city generally, that it is that portion of the population that it can least afford to spare. Were the city to lose them, it would lose the very population that has contributed, and contributes, the most to its high moral and religious character, to its industry and wealth, and on which its prosperity chiefly depends. With all their faults, and they are many, and many more in the eyes of the Catholic than of the Protestant, they are, as they should be, decidedly the best people going. Their vices are on the surface; their virtues lie deeper, and are many, solid, and durable. We bless God that we are permitted to call them brethren, and that we are with them in the unity of faith and communion, though we happen to be an American of the seventh generation, and it was our misfortune to be reared a Protestant. We think the conduct of the Democratic party towards their Catholic supporters is discreditable. Any party may feel itself honored that secures the votes of the great body of our Catholic citizens, whether naturalized or native-born citizens, and no party will suffer in the end by insisting on justice to Catholics and to Catholic interests. Any party, by frankly and fearlessly sustaining the equal rights of Catholics with Protestants, and maintaining the freedom and independence of religion, will not only serve truly their country, and respond to the demands of American patriotism, but they will best ensure its own permanent prosperity, power, and influence. They who scorn and trample on the church may flourish for a time like the green bay tree, but in the end they will wither and die, and their places be sought, and not found. It is well for every political party to remember that God reigns, and that they who scorn his church, whom he hath purchased with his own blood, will in turn be scorned by the “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” ---------- THE PLACE VENDOME AND LA ROQUETTE. 127 THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE COMMUNE. FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.