NEWS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 60, 20 June 1874, Page 10

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Death of a Pomsh Exilr »n Tippebabt.— A long and painful ill nese, borne with unehhken fortitude and with the fullest resignation to the will of God, terminated on Monday, the 9th March, in the death of the Rev. Joseph Honoratius Wlodarski, in his sixtteth year. The rev. deceased, who was highly descended, was a nephew of the late archbishop, a parish priest of the diocese, a canon of the cathedral, and a professor in the University of Cracow. He was not an inactive spectator of his afflicted country's efforts to regain her independence. From some observations casually fallen from him in conversation, it would appear that he was wounded, was for seven years a State prisoner of Russia, and was then conducted beyond the Polish frontiers, and forbidden ever to return. Hnviug spent some time in England, he came to Ireland, " the Poland of i he West." Eight years ago or more, after having made trial of various placos, he came to Thurles. where his reception by the archbishop, the priests, the nuns, and the people, was such as to be worthy of him and them. Here, since then, with the exception of a few brief intervals, he resided up to his death. His guiding principle in all things, which ever had the spontaniety of a natmal instinct, was that embodied in the famous motto, ' Potius mori guam fsedari"— " Death before dishonour " At his obsequ;e», which took place in the cathedral, on the llth March his Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Leahy, over twenty priests, the students of the college, and many of the laity were present. Irish Depkavity.— A correspondent, who signs himself " Orion " writing to the 'New York Sun, 1 from Oswego, N.Y., gives the following striking illustration ot the "depravity" of the Irish heart. The writer says :-The following incident will help to demonstrate the depravity of the Luh heart, so f.equentlv exposed by veracious writers :- Willie Claik, thirteen yeara old, found an envelope containing 620 dollars, and brought it to his f .ther, John Clark, who resides at 17 Lake street, in this, city. John is a labourer in summer, but in winter an involuntary idler, and, of course, he did with the money what the depraved Irish always do ; he advertised it in the daily paper, searched everywhere for its owner, and found him before the new.paper had time to be issued. This miserable specimen of Celtic vwe has seldom the wherewithal to procure the common neces-

It is to be remarked that in many of the Irish elections the Home Rules have heen substituted for the Whig or the Liberal. In Kildare, for instance Lord Ot ho Fitzgerald has lost his seat, and his place is taken by Mr Mehlon, a Home Ruler. Lord F.tzgeraid is a prominent Liberal Ho ,s the son of Ireland's premier Duke ; his family lived in Kildare from timo immemorial, and his personal and political influence was great. But he has been compelled to give war to a commoner, who represents the Irish aspiration for independence. It i* currently reported that during the ensuing summer their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will visit Ireland, as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn. The Baeony of CARLiNGFORD.-This title, which is about to be created anew in favour of Mr Cliiohester Fortescue, is one which has existed during the hv>t two centuries and a half in three d.fferent families. It was first bestowed in 1627, as a viscountcy, on one I3arnliam Swyft, a member of a Yorkshire family, who went over to Ireland to make his fortune under the early Stuarts. The title, however, became extinct, according to Sir Bernard Burke, on ins death without issue. In 1662 it was again bestowed as an earldom, on the noble house of laaffe, the second viscount Taaffe being created Earl of Carhnglord ,v recognition of his services to Koyalty, and losses in the fj"i * Ca , USe iv.i v ." n « the Usurpat.o... This earldom was held down to 1738 by four Viscounts Taaffe, , n succession, the third of them bein» the celebrated Count Taaffo of the Germanic Empire, though he represented an old Roman Catho'ic family, the late he-id of which had fallen fighting on the side of King James in the Battle of the Boyne, had sufficient influence with the crowned heads of Europe to obtain from Wilhu.il 111 a special Act of Parliament exempting his title from forfeiture by attainder. In the year 1761 the title of Carlin«fordthis time again as a ywcountcy— was conferred on the Carpenters h°!filh- PP | n n n^iV' 1 "' 11 of whom, George, was created in 1/61 Jiarlof lyrconnell and Viscount, Carpenter, which title became extinct on the death of the third earl (and filth baron) in 1853.

[he Kilkenny Coal MiNKS.-[ n the beginning of 1873, an English firm, Kobaon, Grace and Co. leased a Royalty from Mr Oeor«e Bryan, M.P. Operations for mining the coal began in Februiry when great and unexpected difficulties were met with thr, ugh thereat de t)t )o 3 it of sand and gravel, no less than eighteen faihoin* having to bj sunk through before the rock was reached This w«u- however accomplished and the shaft securely cased or lined witn lr:cks sot with convnt. The sinking then proceeded, and on Feb 7 1874, a scam of coal was cut at a depth of 49 fathoms, which was p oved to 1.0 live feet in tluckncs on the stone. On sinkmg further the stone mis lonml to be only three inches in thickness, and there were only two feet of coal below it, making a *cam of sevou feet in thickness altogether. The Belfast Riotehs -Lord Spencer has left lo his successor tae duty of determining whether there are imiigating circumstances in thoeuseß of any oitue prisoners convicted and sentenced for uarticipation in the liots ut J3olf«st i» 1872. The sentences varied from siimoithsimprioonmenclo ten rears 1 penal servitude. There are at present iulii hug their sentences fourteen Protestants and seven Catholics, and the memorial presented to Lord Spencer on their behalf was signed by a urge number of clergy and laity of all religious denominations. The memorial only .cached his Excellency's hands on the i7th lunaiit, when hi. tenure of office here was rapidly approaching its ,nd. The mitigation of the punishments imposed, at such a mom. Nt, would creitainly be m.sundorstood. No doubt the case will be carefully considered by the new Government.

T<T ■ o ?M WW n3n 3 P M T~5 h0 L^ d Lieiltei '» at conferred iho honour of Xn.ghlhood on Mr Henry Donavon, chairman of the Tralee Town

Commissioners. The ceremony took place in the Castle in oresence of the Earl of Antrim and the O'Donoghue, M.P. One of the most remarkable incidents in connection with the Irish elections is the foot that not one single Catholio Liberal member of those who voted for the University Bill now remains on the roll. Fourteen liberal Irish members voted, and one paired for the Bill and every one of the fifteen has lost his seat. These fifteen include five Catholics, namely, Sir D. Corritran, Sir R. Blennarhasset, Mr D. O. Heron, Major Gavin, and Right Hon. W. Monsell (gone to the Upper House), and ten Protestant Liberals, Messrs. Bagwell, Smith-Barry Pirn, Lord O. Fitzgerald, Fitzwilliaui, Greville, Fortrscue, Whitwortn Osborne, and M'Clure. To these must be added Mr A^ar-EUis Kilkenny, who, though he voted against the University Bill, lost his seat mainly because of the support he had given to Mr O'Keefe in regard to the Callan Schools. Here we find sixteen members, or morn than one forth of the whole Irish Liberal representation, losing their seats because, amongst other grounds of dissatisfaction, of their adverse vote on the Irish University Bill. Home Rule, Eduoation, and the Catholic vote have therefore been nobly vindicated in the Irish elections just closed.

A trial of a special express with Pullman's sleeping-car attached, made on the Midland railway on March 17, demonstrated the astounding fact that trains oan be run with safety at the rate of seventy -five miles an honr. The train was run very fast to see if the sleeping o ire shook about, and the trial was from Darby to London, at St. Pancras. The engine hud the s^eam brake, and the cars and tender had the new air brake, which is now fitted to all Midland trains. The car brake will stop a heavy express of twenty-five carriages running seventy.five miles an hour in 290 yards. The distance from Derby to London is 129 miles. It is also on the block system, and all trains were shunte« for this special express. The exact distance of 129 was run in 142 minute*, but this does not show the actual speed, as three stops and three starts took six minutes, and speed was reduced to twenty-five an hour over thirteen junctions, which each took a good minute leaving the time as 123 minutes for 129 miles, which averages over a mile a minute all the way. In one instance on a level piece of line seventeen milea was run in l.Smin. IBscc. which averages about seventy-five miles au hour, and twenty miles was run in 19 mmutes. Tlie cars ran as steady as tables at seventy miles an hour. The driving weels of the engine were 6ft* B£in.

For seven centuries Dublin has been the centre and capital of the English Pale, and even a few hundred years before that period « had been largely Danish in its population. Attracted by tke Court, afid being the headquarters of the administrative departments of Government, upon no part of Ireland has the influence of British Protestant power been so continuously exercised, the plantation Ulster alone excepted, as upon the Metropolitan Diocese. The seat of local government, up to the present century, it attracted to it all the nobility, the commoners and their dependents, who had abandoned the national faith— all of whom helped to swell the muster roll of Protestantism in Dublin and the vicinity. So late as 1745, ou the occasion of the tragic death of a priest and nine members of his flock, who had feloniously gathered to celebrate and assist at Mass, in an upper room, on a loft in Dublin, Catholics were first permitted to attend public worship in a few miserable churches of the city, and scores of persons now living heard Mass in a thatched chapel in the very heurt of the metropolis. After the compaiatively brief space of 126 years, we now found the city studded with magnificent churches, there being upwards of 44 places of Catholic worship in Dublin and the suburbs, and nearly half as many priests in the Diocese as there were in all Ireland in 1701. The Diocese contains 12 distinct Orders or Congregations, and 19 houses ol the Regular Clergy ; 2 Orders or Communities of religious laymen, with 17 liouses ; aud t4 Orders, with 48 convents, containing nearly 1200 nun?. The metropolis supplies the Provinces with Regulars to conduct Missions and Ketreats, and most of the Religious Orders have their headquirters in the city. A considerable difference of feeling exists in Louth among the Liberal party as to the proper person to fill the seat vacated by Mr Callan. The latter gentleman is sponsor for Mr Molloy, who unsuccessfully contested the King's county against Sergeant'Sherlock the recent election. The local Home Rulers wish to have put forward Mr Kirk, a tennant farmer, while another section of the Liberals are for having a more advanced .Nationalist than Molioy or Kirk. The feeling in Dundalk is strong against both O'ttorman Mahon or O'Connor Power, John Mifchel being nioro favored.