THE CENTENARY OF A GREAT CITY

'All over the world men dream of Manchester'
By Sidney F. Wicks VIANCHESTER this week celebrated her centenary as a city. 1."Victoria by the Grace of God" created Manchester a city on March 29, 1853.
To quote from the message of Mr. Ewin Bayliss, chairman of the London County Council: "When Manchester was created a city London was still without a local government system capable of meeting the social physical needs of its people."
Perhaps this sense that Manchester is the pioneer among modern cities bred that arrogance which boasts "what Manchester thinks today England will think tomorrow."
I do not think a stranger can rightly understand Manchester unless he views the astonishing spectacle of the Whitsuntide procession of Catholic children winding mile long through its streets. Nothing else is done on that day. The spectacle is bewilderingfor here are thousands upon thousands of children whose parents have come to Manchester from all countries of the world. Here you may see national costumes lending colour to the white of the children's Whitsuntide dresses; un-English banners and flags and up-borne statues of Our Lady create an international scene; bands blare out tunes often comically incongruous to the occasion but which enrich the amazing vitality of the event.
Here is this great throng of people owning religious fealty to a universal church but foremost in their allegiance to a city which has given them liberty of life and an economic opportunity to expand.
This then must he understoodManchester founded by Rome, has gathered to itself citizens from all parts of the world and has absorbed theta into its civic life.
This surely must have added yeast to the solid Manchester and Lancashire dough.
Yet that is not obvious. Manchester is not a city of manifold ideas and of exotic culture. The dour rather unimaginative Lancashire mind remains much the same.
Common-sense city
Manchester is not a city of wild philosophies. The Manchester school never dabbled with the metaphysical jargon of Mandan dialectical materialism. It was concerned with practical problems of commerce and industry. It was economic individualism made into a common-sense creed.
Culture Manchester has; its citizens have enriched dramatic art and the Halle Orchestra is a permanent glory, but it all has the accent of Manchester. It may have a conductor of Italian blood but it is Manchester men and women who listen to the music.
When we think of the blood shed in the streets at the Battle of Peterloo we think of men and women who died for the practical advantages of citizenship. Cobden and Bright were essentially our men and Free Trade meant freedom for Lancashire to sell her goods.
Dickens had to come to Manchester for his cheerable brothers, and when Manchester wanted a newspaper it did not adopt a London one but in the person of C. P. Scott found a man to create the greatest newspaper in the world; and today the Manchester Guardian widens in Scope.
ENGAGEMENTS
Cardinal Griffin. Good Friday: Cathedral. Presides at Tenebrae, 5.30. Saturday : Cathedral. Solemn Pontifical Mass and Vespers, 11.15 an. Sings Matins and Lauds of Easter, 5.30 p.m. Easter Sunday : Cathedral. Sings Teree and Pontifical Mass and imparts Papal Blessing, 10 a.m. Attends Compline. preaches and assists at Benediction. 7 p.m. Thursday : Dorchester Hotel. Attends annual dinner of the Westminster branch of the Guild of St. Luke, SS. Comas and Damian, 7.30 p.m.
Mgr. Masterson, Archbishop of BinoIngbans.-Easter Sunday.: Preaches at the Cathedral, and gives Pontifical Benediction, 6.10 p.m. Monday : Celebrates Pontifical Low Mass at the Cathedral, 9 a.m. Tuesday : Installation of Bishop Bright as Provost of the Metropolitan Chapter, 11 a.m. Presides at the Solemn High Mass following. Cotton College Governors' Meeting at Archbishop's House, Birmingham, 3 p.m.
Mgr. King, Bishop of Portsmouth.Tomorrow (Saturday): Blesses new fire and font, sings Pontifical High Mass at 11 p.m. Easter Sunday : Presides at Solemn High Mass and imparts Papal Blessing at St. John's Cathedral, Portsmouth, 11 a.m. Sings Pontifical Vespers at St. Peter's, Winchester, 6.30 p.m.
Mgr. Erns, Bishop of Nottingham.Easter Sunday Celebrates Pontifical High Mass at St. Barnabas Cathedral and preaches at 11 a.m. Easter Monday : Opens Derby Catholic Fair at Derby, 11 a.m.
Mgr. Petit, Bishop or Menevia.-Easter Sunday : Pontifical High Mass in the Pro-Cathedral, Wrexham, 11 a.m.; preaches 6.30 p.m. Wednesday : Attends headmasters' conference at Ampleforth College,
Mgr. Cowderoy, Bishop of Southwark.-Faster Sunday: Celebrates Pontifical High Mass and imparts Papal Blessing in the Pro-Cathedral, 11 a.m.; Administers Confirmation to adults, 3.30 p.m.; Presides at Vespers, preaches and gives Benediction, 6.30 p.m,
Mgr. Beck, Bishop of Brentwood.Saturday : Officiates at Vigil Ceremonies and celebrates first Mass of Easter, Brentwood, 10.30 p.m. Easter Sunday : Sings Pontifical Mass and gives Papal Blessing, Ilford, 11.30 am. Monday : Presides at final profession at St. Angela's Convent, Forest Gate. Tuesday : Sings Pontifical Mass for the golden jubilee of Rev. Mother. Mercy Convent. at Brentwood, 11 am. Wednesday, April 8, to Friday. April 10 : Attends conference of Catholic colleges at Ampleforth College.
Travelling Missions
Nottingham.-The Mission will this week visit Croxton Kerial, Plunger, Barkstone ajid Barnston. Mass will be said in the Village Hall, Bouesford, at 8 a.m.; at the United Steel Co.'s Hostel, Buckminster, at 9.30 a.m.: and at a place to he announced locally at 11 am.
MenevIa.-This week-end the Mission wilt visit (I) Parish of Conway ; Mass will be said on Sunday at Trowen at
9 a.m. (2) Parish of Newtown.
Brentwood. Mass will be said on Sunday in the Recreation Hut, Grenacre Camp. Wormingford, at 8.15, and in the Victory Hall, Sures, at 9.45 a.m. Next week the Mission will visit Danbury,
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Flown home from Korea, 19-yearold Kevin Green. of (lolborne, near Leigh, was able to he at the bedside of his father, Mr. John Green, steward of Golborne Catholic Club, who has died, aged 45.
Yes, I have heard the name of the Manchester Guardian cheered tin 1924) in little towns at thc foot of the Rocky Mountains when people in Sussex hardly knew of its existence.
And so there is a distinctive Manchester mental idiom, perhaps too self-satisfied, too content with the old ways, but believing that a move is a move for all that and that a city which has performed heroic achievements is not to be dominated by popular modes of thought.
Yet it is a queer psychological contradiction that purely "civic patriotism" does not flourish in Manchester, a man rarely swears by Manchester as an ideological entity; he swears rather of Gorton swarming with engineers, or of Chorlton-cum-Hardy inhabited by the lower middle-class. All over the world men dream of Manchgster; abroad they swear by Manchester; when they come home they swear at itl
Heroic effort
Now where there is local patriotism is in the vast satellite township of • Wythenshawe, Manchester's heroic effort to cope with its slums. Wythenshawe is so proud of itself that it is already clamouring for self-government, yet if and when they get it (if ever) should they emigrate, they will shed sentimental tears over the mother city of Manchester.
Heroic achievements? Yes, indeed. The people of England forget that at the Industrial Revolution Lancashire fought in its filthy trenches and won Britain's economic battle, and we have paid the price for it-if only in slums, and we fight the curse of the slums with energy but with no obvious end in sight.
The creation of the "satellite city," the "overspill township" (lugubrious names I) Wythenshawe was heroic enough. To create a community centre built upon farm land for 30,000 people was an immense labour, and Wythenshawe grows rapidly year by year and largely looks at Rome as its foster mothersign of healthy childhood and that roots are sending down.
Yet see how it came about. In days of prosperity those who could moved into green suburbs outside the city, leaving a shell of rotting slums, rotting behind a facade of enormous business premises and of noble buildings such as the Central Library.
This was a tragic step. The Christian policy is to make cities fit to dwell in, smokeless, fair with parks and green trees. But are we deserting cities in despair and building new towns on farm lands vitally needed?
730 CHILDREN WILL NEED THIS SCHOOL
Essex County Council has approved an application for a onestream Catholic school to be built at Harold Hill-the L.C.C. "new town" near Romford, Essex, Bishop Beck of Brentwood told the Council that there are about 730 children under five years of age living in Harold Hill and the surrounding district, whose parents want them to attend a Roman Catholic school.
More children
but no school
Although the number of Catholic children in Oxford is increasing by about 10 per cent, each year, the Ministry of Education has not agreed to include a Catholic secondary modern school in the reserve building programme for 1952-3 or 1953-4.
At a meeting of Oxford's education committee it was explained that St. Joseph's full-range and infants' school is heavily overcrowded in very poor premises and overflows into hired accommodation. Other primary schools are also overcrowded.
The general purposes committee suggested that the new school be included in the 1954-5 programme, unless there were any other requirements as a result of housing developments.
FLOUR DOLE FOR 1,000 PEOPLE
The Tichborne Dole was distributed this year by Miss Anne Tichborne, in the absence of Sir Anthony and Lady Tichborne, who are in Rome.
The ceremony of blessing the flour was conducted by Fr. C. S. Riche, Thirty-five cwts. of flour were allotted to a thousand people of Cheriton and Lane End, Hampshire.
The story of the Dole dates back 800 years to the time of Lady Mabella Tichborne. and the land which provides the flour is still known as the Crawls, from an area encircled by the dying Lady Mabel.
Gallipoli remembrance
Gallipoli Sunday, commemorating the anniversary of the landing, will be celebrated this year on April 26, when the Old Comrades' Association of the Catholic Regiment of the Royal Munster Fusiliers will attend special Masses in London. Cork, Tralcc and Limerick. The Mass in London will be at Farm Street Jesuit Church at 11 a.m.
Southampton students
The London Branch of the PastStudents Association of the Immaculate Conception Training College, Southampton, has been revived, and a committee is arranging regular meetings of members. The secretary is Miss M. Furlong. of 43 Briar Crescent, Northolt, Middlesex.
The Passion according to St. Matthew was read in English by Alderman R. B. Miller, LP., during the sung Mass at St. John's Church, Banbury, on Palm Sunday.
Mrs. Gabrielle Wells, wife of Mr. John Wells, managing director of Messrs. P. & G. Wells, Winchester College booksellers, died last week. Mrs. Wells was a Frenchwoman and was captured by the Germans and interned for a while during the war.