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Show LIKE CARRYING COALS TO NEWCASTLE. NEW-CASTLE. The Intermountain Catholic has received re-ceived from the Metropolitan Truth Society So-ciety of Brooklyn, New York, a letter of which the following is an abstract: We are obtaining lists of the names of Catholics and non-Catholics to whom Catholic literature would be welcome, from the pastors of southern and western west-ern parishes, missions and stations. If you are a subscriber to a Catholic newspaper or magazine and. after you have read it, would be willing to mail ! it regularly to some worthy person who would be delighted to receive it, send a postal to that effect to the Metropolitan Metropoli-tan Truth Society. No. 225 Sixth avenue, ave-nue, Brooklyn, N. Y.. and we will send iyou the name and address of some one who will greatly appreciate the publication publi-cation you send. The idea is a good one if applied to those who need it most; but really, as far as the Catholics in the west are concerned, it is like carrying coals to Newcastle. There is only an insignificant insignifi-cant number of Catholic families throughout the west who cannot afford to pay for Catholic periodicals; consequently, conse-quently, as far as the west is concerned, concern-ed, we feel confident that the zeal of the Metropolitan Truth Society is being be-ing misdirected. The Intermountain Catholic would suggest to the Truth Society named .above that it direct its attention, precisely pre-cisely on the lines laid down in Ms letter let-ter regarding Catholics in the west and the south, to a virgin field. Within a radius often miles of its office in Brooklyn . there are Catholics to the number of a million and three-quarters. . At a conservative estimate w can pafely say that not more than twenty thousand of these people take a Catholic Cath-olic paper. Thus it will be seen that right at its very doors over ninety-eight per cent of ' the- Roman Catholic population is without a Catholic journal, or a little more than one per cent receives a weekly Catholic paper. : By way of illustration, let us comr pare a western diocese with the conditions condi-tions stated in the preceding paragraph. In the diocese of. Cheyenne there are about five thousand Catholics. The Intermountain Catholic has a subscription subscrip-tion list in that territory, which shows that over eleven per cent of the Catholics are subscribers to a Catholic paper. The percentage in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana is equally large. We mention these facts not to disparage dispar-age the Metropolitan Truth Society, but rather to point out to it the field which offers greatest opportunity for its zeal. |