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Star (Christchurch), Issue 6016, 26 August 1887, Page 3

A Tbagebt. — A tragical suicide ia reported frou? Karfchaus, near Prague. A young soldier named Kazowsky was stationed as guard at the prison there. His father had committed murder, and had been condemned to twenty years' hard labour. The son was then eight yeara old, and his father's features remained firmly imprinted upon his memory, as well as the whole painful impression of the . event. While standing sentry before the prison, he recognised his father in one of the criminals being led past. He spoke no word, neither did he discover himself to his father ; but on being relieved from his post he loaded his gun and shot himself. Dying, he confessed to his comrades that the discovery he had made had driven him to seek death at his own hands.

The Queen and the Pope. — It seem 3 to us (Spectator) that this event gives precisely the occasion that is wanted for the establishment of diplomatic relations between England and the Vatican. The first step— the step which is always so hard to take — will now be taken as a njatter of course. The reception of an Envoy charged with the delivery of the Pope's congratulations xs an opening of diplomatic relations. Even Mr Newdegate, were he still alive, would hardly propose that Mgr. Buffo Scilla should be turned away when he presents himself as his Sovereign's representative 5 and, if he is not turned away, the Queen will have received an Envoy from the Pope, and that Envoy an ecclesiastic. If the Proteßtanism of England survives this tremendous shock ; and our impression is that it will be found to be in all respects unhurt by Mgr. Buffo Scilla's visit— it cannot be injured by any number of similar visits. It will have proved its superiority to that most terrible of pests, the presence of a Nuncio at the English Court; and that superiority once established, there need be no fear in future of its failing before a repetition of a trial. If this moment is allowed to pasß unimproved, we may never again have bo good an opportunity for doing what every statesman, no matter what his political party may be, wishes to see done. Diplomatic relations can be set on foot now almost as a matter of course. The Pope has aent an Envoy to London to offer the Queen his congratulations, the Queen will, as a piece of ordinary courtesy, send an Envoy to Borne to thank the Pope for his good wishes. Out of this interchange of diplomatic civilities, the residence of a permanent representative at each Court might spring in the most natural way possible. It would no longer be tho establishment of a new state of things, but the continuance of a state of things which had come into being in the ordinary course of events.