NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 91, 23 January 1875, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

New gold discoveries have been made in the Cape ef Good Hope. Brete Harte's eldest son, aged ten, has scribbled several amusing little stories. . . The ' London Bookseller' says :— " It is really dreadful to think how much Popery there is in the world. John Wesley used to Bay that every man had a Pope in his own heart : but to think that Mrs Brown should turn out to be a Papist is really shocking." The Mra Brown here referred to is a popular author, whose books are published by Routledge and Co. The publication shortly is announced of a complete collection or. the unabridged speeches and public letters of Daniel O'Connell, by "the Nun of Kenmare" (Miss Cusack), being a sequel to her life of the Liberator. It is said there are only three persons in all Germany who are not afraid of Bismarck, and they are the Empress, the Crown Prince, and Mrs Von B. ' Two hundred thousand*'francs have been subscribed by the Arab Chiefs of Algeria, for a jewelled decoration to be placed over Louis Napoleon's tomb. It is stated, on the faith of certain statistics, that thirty years ago Alexandre Dumas was paid one franc for every sixty alphabetical letters ; Frederic Soulie had one shilling aline ; while Balzac obtained three centimes for every alphabetical letter. We may add that poor Thackeray used to say that he was ashamed at receiving so much as " sixpence a line." The late Barry Cornwall declared not long before his death that it was while going to business on an omnibus that he wrote all his poems. The venerable Archbishop of Tuam, " the Lion of the Fold of Judah," is to be honored by the erection of a colossal statue, in honor of his reign of fifty years over the See of Tuam. Professor Tyndall has invented a fog whistle which can be heard at sea for a distance of fifteen miles. Essex Bridge, in. the City of Dublin, is in future to be called after Ireland's gifted patriot — Grattan. Father Potter, who had been exiled from Switzerland, has been made Minister of Public Worship in Ecuador. The order convoking an International Catholic Congress at London is said to have been issued by the Pope himself. Paul Boynton, the American diver, will tmdirtake a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile swim on his return from Europe. It has been asserted that the great so-called Italian tragedian, Salvini, is an Irishman, formerly called Sullivan. A New York astrologer predicts that President Grant will be impeached or die before completing his term of office. In Germany the fourth-class carriages have no seats, and the passengers are huddled together like sheep for hundreds of miles. To encourage immigration San Luis Potosi, Mexico, has offered a plot of cultivatable land and room and material for the creation of a house free to each colonist. The municipal authorities of Seville, Spain, have offered .£2,000 reward for the recovery of Murillo's painting of St. Anthony, which was stolen from the Cathedral in that city. The citizens of Mill River Valley, Mass., have presented gold medals, appropriately inscribed to George Cheney, and Collins Graves, the heroes of the WiUianisburg reservoir disaster. Sir Philip Egerton is now " Father " of the British House of Commons. He has had a seat in the Senate for forty-five year?, having been elected in 1830. The Duke of Abercom, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has been appointed High " Cockalorum " — or something of that sort — of the Irish Freemasons. Fousterville, Connecticutt, turns out 1000 clocks daily. The emigration from Italy is stated to be SO,OOO persons annually. It is stated that two thousand persons are arriving in Texas daily. It takes 50,000 London cabs to convey the population of that city from place to place. New Zealand flax, the strongest of all fibres, is now cultivated in the South of .Europe. The Russian fleet is composed of 29 ironclads, and 196 wooden vessels, carrying altogether 921 guns. It comprises 1305 officers, and 25,000 sailors. It is said that amongst the persons of eighteen years of age and under, the population of illiterate persons is smaller in San Francisco than in any other large city in. the Union. It is said that the British Government paid .£20,000 for the secret of making a certain torpedo, and now the German Government is in possession of the identical secret. His Holiness has not been outside the grounds of the Vatican for four years. The clebrated American poet, William Cullen, Bryant editor of the New York ' Evening Po&t' celebrated his 80th anniversary recently. " The " Final Reliques of Father Prout " have been collected and edited by Mr Blanchard Jerrold. Herr Harlesz, who was the actual head of the Protestant Church in Bavaria, has become a Catholic. The Hon Mrs Yelverton is about to publish a work entitled "■ Teresing in America." A son of Mrs Hernans, the gifted Irish poetess, is preparing a book on " Historical and Monumental Rome." While General Sherman was visiting the New York Com Exchange recently, he was hailed as "the next President of the TJnined. States." Owing to the disestablishment of the Irish Church a large number of the Protestant clergy are leaving Ireland, the / London aa es ' says, " Like a ship's crew on the afternoon of a pay-day."

The Government of the Corea is said to have politely intimated its willingness to send to Japan the heads of all persons implicated in the insult of the Japanese Government. Eussia leather, used for binding;valuable books, has a peculiar odor which preserves it from insects. How this odor is imparted to it is a secret, suspected to be from tannage with willow bark, or by the use of pitch oil, although not known beyond those employed m producing this variety of leather. The Catholics of Kiniberley, in the diamond fields of South America have forwarded to the Pope a present of sixteen picked diamonds, together with an address of their love, veneration and esteem.