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Show AN OUTRAGEOUS SLANDER. (Michigan Catholic.) In a ecent issue of the Grand Rap-ids Rap-ids Herald there appeared a "picture puzzle" which is an insult and libel on the character of the Irish race. The picture outrage of Irish life and cus- ; toms present the form of a woman . standing in the midst of burning wood, and underneath the malignity is the following: "July 5 Ten years ago today Bridget Cleary -was burnt to death as a witch at BALTYVADHEN, Tipperary. Find her husoand." There is no place in the County Tipperary Tip-perary named "Baltyvadhen," neither ha any one been burnt to death in j Ireland for over two. centuries. The government of England, which unfortunately unfor-tunately makes laws for Ireland, no I i longer punishes witchcraft by death. The earliest recorded case of witchcraft witch-craft in Ireland occurred in 1324. The party charged with the crime was tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal, while a similar case happening in England, about the same period, was tried by a secular court. The last victims vic-tims of witchcraft in ' England were Mrs. Hiekes and her daughter, 9 years of age, executed in 1716; and the last in Scotland suffered death in 1722. An act i passed in the reign of George IV pun- j ished those practicing witchcraft as rogues and vagabonds. This act removed re-moved the death penalty. The fertile imagination of the ma-ligner ma-ligner who .drew- the syndicate "puzzle picture" for the sensational press, i which includes the Grand Rapids Herald, Her-ald, has draWh too largely upon his ignorance of English law which prevails pre-vails in Ireland. His selection of a town in the County Tipperary "Baltyvadhen" "Baltyvad-hen" which has no existence, and his giving the name "Bridget Cleary" to the woman who "was burnt to death ten years ago," shows to what length the low-bred fellows who furnish "puzzle "puz-zle pictures" and other falsehood for the secular sensational press will go to earn a cowardly living, and to increase the receipts of newspapers like the Grand Rapids Herald. It is time for the Irish people to raise, an unanimous voice against the libels that are being daily issued against their character in a portion of the secular sec-ular press of this country. We reiterate our statement, made in the opening paragraph of this article, that the "puzzle picture" in the Grand Rapids Herald representing, a woman being burnt to death in the County Tipperary, Tipper-ary, ten years ago, is a vile and outrageous out-rageous slander upon the Irish race. |