than their Continental brethren who have no parishes to superintend, and indeed many Protestant husbands forbid the admission of a priest into the house in their absence. Much discretion is, however, shown by the priest in visiting, and an excellent control is exercised over all by a comprehensive system of jealousy; the priests are jealous of each other when they intrude in each other’s district or parish, the ladies honoured with a visit are jealous of each other, and a numerous non-Catholic population is jealously surveying the whole. In the Franciscan rule besides the vow of chastity there is a special grave precept commanding the avoidance of suspicious intercourse with women, and it is not uncommon for a superior to publicly denounce an inferior for that fault. Two or three cases happened at Forest Gate, but the accusation clearly sprang from jealousy on the part of the superior. In private, of course, mutual accusation, especially of frequenting by preference the society of young women, was very common; there was certainly much truth in the accusations, though why it should be made a ground of accusation is not clear. Another rule may be mentioned in this connection: all letters were to be given open to the superior to be forwarded, and he was supposed to read all letters which he received for his inferiors.
There was also a rule, the only one in our constitutions that imposed a grave moral obligation, forbidding us to take any intoxicating drink within the
