When Cardinal Vaughan became Bishop of Salford, Father Nugent succeeded in getting his support and influence for the “Catholic Times,” a most valuable thing for us, seeing that Manchester, though with a smaller Catholic population than Liverpool, was of more importance from a publishing point of view, as from that city can be more readily reached a number of large manufacturing towns, of which it is the centre.  Again it was—­“Denvir, you must see the Bishop.”  But this time there was no difficulty, as an appointment had been made for me.  Accordingly, by arrangement, I reached Manchester one morning between six and seven o’clock, that being the most convenient time for him that Bishop Vaughan could give me, and together we discussed the best means of forwarding the interests of the paper in the diocese of Salford.  I found him, besides being a man of courtly presence, as we all know, most broad-minded and genial, and keenly alive to the influence which a good newspaper would have upon his people.

Whenever I see the “Catholic Times,” I feel gratified at its very existence, as a proof that my three years with Father Nugent were not altogether spent in vain.  For when he placed its control in my hands on his departure for America, I found it with a very small circulation, and anything but a paying concern; whereas, when I yielded up the trust into his hands, I had the satisfaction of handing over to him a substantial amount of cash in hand, a statement of assets and liabilities showing a satisfactory balance on the right side, and a paper with a largely increased and paying circulation.

For many years previous to his death, I did not come into contact with him.  Indeed it was only the year before he died that I had the pleasure—­and it was all the more a pleasure as we had differed strongly during previous years on some points—­of meeting him at his house in Formby.  This was before his last visit to America, where he contracted the illness which terminated in his death soon after his return to England.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR—­AN IRISH AMBULANCE CORPS—­THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION.

When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the sympathy of Ireland was naturally, for historic reasons, on the side of France.  It was not surprising, then, that many young Irishmen who had served in America, or in the ranks of the Papal Volunteers, or had borne a share in the Fenian movement, were anxious to show their sympathy in a practical way, and at the same time to gratify the national propensity for a fight

—­in any good cause at all.