Northern Standard/1886/A tribute to Sir John Lentaigne

by Robert McDonnell

A tribute to Sir John Lentaigne

Dr Robert M'Donnoll has written the following to tho Pall Mall Gazette:—

"The largo and mixed assemblage of friends that a few days ago followed the late Sir John Lentaigne to his last resting-place is tho best proof that even in Ireland sectarian differences vanish in the presence of real worth. My own intimacy with him dates for fifty years back, at the time when he, with Sir Walter Crofton, presided over the Irish convict prisons Sir John Lentaigne was truly a remarkable man, and well deserving of fuller notice than has been recorded in the public journals. Ho was a rare combination of shrewdness and worldly_wisdom, with tho great qualities which go to make up tho noble nature of a self-sacrificing philanthropist—

The pupil of impulse, it forced him along;
His conduct still right, with his argument—
Still aiming at honour.

"A devoted adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, he was absolutely free from the least taint of bigotry or intolerance. If it be true, as Lecky somewhere says, that the Irishman who makes a friend of a fellow countryman of a different religion from his own is a benefactor to his country, then Lentaigne was one. He numbered among his friends many who, like myself, _though a different religion, accorded to him the most unbounded admiration for a large and catholic spirit of Christian charity which led him to devote his life to tho improvement and reform of the criminal classes. Fur many years every female servant in his house was one who had been a convict. He made his own home a place to test the soundness of their reformation, and ultimately, if this was found satisfactory, he sought to have them absorbed again among the working population. He was rarely or ever disappointed in the success of his efforts. By a witty profligate he was ridiculed for his undertaking, but most persons will admit that it was an instance of true practical benevolence. from which most of us would shrink with fear. Sir John Lentaigne possessed one quality which peculiarly fitted him to undertake tho reformation of prisoners and convicts. Ho had perfect faith in human nature. Ho believed with intense earnestness that even in tho most degraded criminals there exists tho germ of good, tho seed which, by careful, tender culture, may be developed and ultimately boar good fruit. A loving faith pervaded his whole life, and was tho secret of his success."