in his eye, "don't press the question if you please. I am still a bachelor and there are ladies in the gallery."

It is related that Patrick Halligan, in his roll of rent collector, had exhausted every means to collect rent from a buxom Irish matron who was seriously in arrears. He threatened to bring Mr. Heeney on a certain day to deal with the tenant. The housewife, knowing well her landlord's weakness, went among the neighbors and borrowed six or more of their children. When Mr. Heeney arrived, the borrowed progeny sat around the room. The old gentleman's eye moved from face to face, and, as Halligan prepared to unmask the deception, he interrupted:

"Tut, tut, Halligan! Come out of here," and he would not listen to another word on the subject.

The deserving poor never appealed to him in vain and many an orphan child owed its success in life to his assistance. His transactions with the Church authorities were not always harmonious. He was a firm believer in the rights of lay trustees. He was a generous donor to the church but insisted that he should be permitted to have some voice in the expenditure of his benefactions. After the destruction of the diocesan seminary at Nyack by fire in 1833 he offered Bishop Dubois a site for a new college on Congress Street. The excavation was completed and some of the stone for the structure was on the ground when a disagreement arose between Mr. Heeney and the Bishop. He thereupon refused to give the Bishop title to the property and the seminary project was abandoned. Subsequently he gave the property for the site of St. Paul's Church and the orphanage and school adjoining.

The first American Cardinal, John McCloskey, was a Brooklynite and his legal guardian and patron was Cornelius Heeney.

The crowning glory of his long and useful life came in his ninety-first year. He caused the passage by the Legislature, May 10, 1845, of an act incorporating "The Trustees and Associates of the Brooklyn Benevolent Society" to hold by deed of gift from Cornelius Heeney parcels of land lying between Hicks, Columbia, Congress and Amity Streets or any other property that he might devise to it by his will. One fifth of the income of the estate was to be expended, annually, in supplying poor persons residing in Brooklyn, gratuitously, with fuel during the winter; one tenth, in supplying poor school children with shoes,

stockings or other articles of clothing during the winter. A teacher of poor children was to be paid two hundred and fifty dollars annually and the surplus of the income was to be applied solely to the support, maintenance and education of poor orphan children between four and fourteen years of age.

Right Reverend John Hughes, Bishop of New York, presided at the first meeting of the Society August 6, 1845. Mayor Talmage of Brooklyn eulogized "the generous donor whose name shall be held in remembrance by a grateful people." Mr. Heeney said that while he wished no restrictions in the society's dispensations where there was manifest necessity, it was mainly his desire that his Catholic countrymen and their families should be relieved from want, many of them on their arrival being in absolute need of assistance. Bishop Hughes was elected President of the Society and the deed of gift was presented to it September 17, 1845. The last meeting attended by Mr. Heeney was in March, 1848. Since its incorporation the Society has expended nearly $1,500,000 in strict accordance with its donor's intentions.

He died May 3, 1848. His funeral was from St. Paul's Church and his pall bearers, most of them trustees of the Society he had founded, were Messrs. Cooper, Gottsberger and Glover of New York, Friel, Turner, Peck, Thorne, Halligan and Copeland of Brooklyn. The body was laid at rest in St. Paul's Churchyard.

There is no monument in New York City to this pioneer of Catholicity, this friend and benefactor of so many thousands of the poor and helpless. A bronze bust adorns the front of the Society's building in Amity Street and a simple weather beaten monument marks his grave. On it is inscribed:

IN MEMORY OF

CORNELIUS HEENEY

Who departed this life on the 3rd day of May, 1848 in the 94th year of his age. Born in Kings County, Ireland, he was a citizen of the United States from the adoption of the Federal Constitu- ' tion. Throughout his long life he was much respected for his many Christian virtues, and was distinguished as the

FRIEND OF THE WIDOW AND ORPHAN,

by his numerous acts of private benevolence and liberal gifts, for the erection and support of Institutions for their benefit, and

at his death by the munificent bequest of a large estate for their relief and comfort

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Erected by his executors, James Friel and Peter Turner, with the concurrence of the Brooklyn Benevolent Society of which he was the founder.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

"Some Pioneer Catholic Laymen in New York," Thomas F. Meehan, A. M.

"Historical Records and Studies," Vol. IV, Parts I and II. "Cornelius Heeney," Rev. John M. Keily.

"Cornelius Heeney," Henry A. McCloskey, Manual of the Common Council of the City of Brooklyn, 1865.

"History of the City of Brooklyn," Henry R. Stiles, 1870.

DON BERNARDO O'HIGGINS-A CENTENARY.

BY GEORGE F. O'DWYER.

One hundred years ago this February, the Chilean Fourth of July was inaugurated. The Thomas Jefferson of that momentous period was one Don Bernardo O'Higgins, an Irish American, whose martial and stirring deeds have been commemorated by more than one pen and in more than one language. On February 12, 1818, just exactly one year after the decisive battle of Chacabulco which practically wrested Chile from the Spanish yoke, the people of Chile with great pomp and ceremony, launched their declaration of independence, at a time when the advancing legionaries of Spain threatened their capital. Notwithstanding this, the gathered thousands in the main square of Santiago that day heard their momentous message to Spain and the world uttered with good Irish vehemence by O'Higgins. The great event was inaugurated in the morning by a solemn high mass in the old cathedral of the capital. In the afternoon there were stirring speeches and general rejoicing.

From that moment until a fickle populace drove O'Higgins away to Peru in February, 1823, he was a respected idol. In accord with his fiery, tempestuous nature, O'Higgins exercised his röle of dictator with severity and the original laws as penned by him were enforced to the letter. In his government, O'Higgins saw the need of some strong attraction to draw the country away from its Spanish predilections and his native Irish intuition devised plans to offset these at different periods of his reign. Two of the great features of his educative reforms in the country were: Ist, The introduction of books and printed matter free of duty; and 2nd, The admission of a consul from the United States, the first in the history of the country. These two events are epochs in the history of Chile. After the decisive battle of Chacabulco where as colonel of militia O'Higgins performed with impetuous valor, his lucky star was in the ascendant. Peons, gauchos, and citizens vied with one another to do him homage. But, eventually, in 1823, the Spanish reactionaries asserted themselves. Since this period they have succeeded in

dethroning many an idol in South America, less famous than O'Higgins.

From the outset of his career as dictator O'Higgins was ambitious for the success of his native land and he outlined and carried into effect improvements in the political and commercial government which the inhabitants at first were slow to perceive. But gradually the import of the reforms penetrated their lethargic nature and the initiative of the Irish Chilean was early appreciated. Before O'Higgins' death, the reforms he worked put his country on a par with the larger nations and received diplomatic recognition.

When O'Higgins assumed the rôle of dictator, things were in a state of chaos. Spanish reactionaries indulged their revolutionary conceits, monopolized the public halls and cafés and openly hobnobbed with the worst robbers and renegades in the country. To add to the dictator's troubles, armed bands of robbers plundered haciendas and murdered travelers. In Santiago, the capital, were many criminals, who lived a comfortable existence until O'Higgins showed his Irish spirit and sternness. After a few months of this treatment the citizens went about freely once more and the malcontents took to the mountains. Incipient outbursts started later by these malcontents were immediately suppressed.

It was said that the Spanish troublemakers used the Catholic religion to cover many of their frailties-a habit which is not especially confined to Chile-and the dictator was at his wits' end to devise ways and means to offset their nefarious schemes. Eliot in his history of Chile says: "The clergymen intrigued openly and preached against the new order of things. Ladies were induced to insult the new officers of the republic and were discovered in treasonable correspondence." O'Higgins soon found the ringleaders in these troubles and curbed their overwrought, ill-directed, religious enthusiasm with an iron hand. He found this necessary for the stability of the new order of things.

On January 28, 1823, after five years of constant dissent and trouble, the menace of the royalist mob became too strong and he was forced to abdicate. He retreated to his hacienda in Peru where he died in exile on the 24th of October, 1842, at the age of sixty-six.

The original cause of O'Higgins' retirement had its inception in