Cliptomania.

Evening Star, Issue 6979, 13 August 1885, Page 3

Cliptomania.

A romarkablo relic is thus described by a French correspondent:—"l was present on Whit Monday at a religious ceremony of a very remarkable kind, which is celebrated every year iu tho parish church of Argenteuil, a small town upon the banks of the Seine, just outside Paris. For ten days every year, from Ascension Day to Whit Monday, a casket containing one of the supposed fragments of the robe or tunicworn by our Lord just before his crucifixion is carried in procession along the aisle of the church, and the congregation are afterwards admitted to view it in the vestry. Many of your readers will doubtless be aware that what is said to be the exterior robe worn by our Lord is preserved in tho church of Treves, in Germany, but that at Argenteuil is alleged to be the inner garment which the Saviour wore, and for which the Roman soldiers cast lots. The holy tunic is enclosed within a double shrine, and is only exhibited in its entirety at rare intervals, as it is placed under seal by the Bishop of the diocese (Versailles), who alone has the authority, under the Pope, to break them. Thirty years ago tho seals were broken by the then Bishop, as the late Pope had expressed a wish to have a fragment of the sacred garment, and at tho same time two other fragments were cut out of it and placed in two small shrines which the faithful arc allowed to kiss, kneeling at the altar. The saals affixed in 1354 began to crumblo away about three years ago, and they were renewed by the Bishop of Versailles just before the Whitsun _ festival, among those present being the parish priest of Argenteuil, who tells me that' the holy tunic is made of camel's hair, being dark brown in color, and very much like the garment which the Arabs of the present day wear' next the skin. He adds that it was examined through a microscope, and that all who were present unanimously agreed that they could detect, not stains, but traces which they are convinced are of blood." A practical joke played upon a Croatian peasant has nearly caused the destruction of the chemical laboratory of the University of Agram. The man in question, coming with his wife into Agram, separated from her, agreeing to meet her a few hours later at a certain place. As she delayed her return, he expressed his anxiety to a bystander, who told him, in jest, that his wife had probably been kidnapped by the University vivisectors, who made it their business to cut up women and children. Tlio wife came up soon afterwards and went home with her husband, but the latter repeated what he had heard, and the results have been most serious. On Whit Sunday an infuriated mob of peasants attacked the laboratory, crying: "Down with the hell kitchen !" and had to be beaten off by soldiers. All the servants of the University left their situations,' and the professors had to ask for police protection, being in terror for their lives. The depopulation of France has been rccaiving much attention from the Par's savants. M. Lunier proposes that the Government take legal steps to facilitate marriages, to search out the paternity of infants, to accord prizes of immunity from taxation to parents having more than two

children, to guarantee secreeyto any mother who may wish to leave her child at u foundling hospital, and to extend the protection of the State to all children "mo a'ly abandoned." Since the year 1800 the French birth rate has fallen from 32.9 to 25.5 per 1,000 inhabitants.