NEWS IN BRIER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 107, 15 May 1875, Page 13

NEWS IN BRIER

The British TTnder-Secretary for Foreign Affairs stated recently in the House of Commons that instructions were to be sent at once to the British Minister at Madrid to recognise Alfonso as King of Spain. Twenty-three bishops hare protested on behalf of the Eoinan Catholic Episcopate of Germany against such interference [in the Papal election as is implied in Bismarck's late circnlar dispatch. It is reported that the Home Rule members of the British Parliament intend to submit a demand for a repeal of the act of the Union, and on its rejection they will withdraw in a' body from Parliament. An Italian newspaper in Florence has published correspondence between Bismarck and Mazzini, which implicates the latter in an attempt to aid the former during the Franco-Prussian war by a rebellion in Italy. At a Trades Union Congress, held recently in Liverpool, a resolution was unanimously passed asking that the jury law be so altered tha.t in trials of working men the jury shall be chosen from working men exclusively. France stands by her government. The subscriptions to the Paris municipal loan are forty-two times more than the amount required. The financial condition of the country seems to have more stability than the political. The Duke de Richelieu, of Paris, grand nephew of the great Cardinal, is soon to be married in the church where his grandwncle's remains are interred.,

A lease for 999 years has just run out in England. The land is at Woolwich, and was Church property a thousand years ago, but the Crown leased it for military purposes j it now reverts to the heirs of the original holders. At a mass meeting of Cubans held in New York recently, patriotic addresses were delivered and resolutions adopted favoring the formation of an organisation to supply the struggling Cubans with arms and ammunition. A young man in New York recently picked up an [envelop containing 70,000d01. worth of bonds, which he returned to their owners, a firm of bankers. The latter had just had their circulars printed, offering lOOOdol. reward for the missing bonds, but promptly cut down the reward to lOOdol. The daughter of Baron von Weather, Grerman .'Ambassador at the Ottoman Porte, has become a Catholic. The petition of the Catholics of Ermland to the Emperor and Empress of Germany, praying that the sisters in charge of parochial and other schools might be suffered to remain, has been answered by the Cultus-Minister in the negative. He says he cannot revoke the decision of his colleague. The Polish colony of Paris has recently sent the Pope a handsome sum of money. A number of Polish ladies added to this present a chasuble, embroidered with their own hands, which is a. marvel of art and beauty. Count Sosnonosky, a Polish nobleman, residing in Rome, has given the Pope a. fine statue of the Mother of SorroAvs, -which he sculptured himself, and with which his Holi- • ness was greatly pleased, pronouncing it a master-piece of art. It has beeii remarked by the French papers that never have' the anniversary masses for the repose of the soul of Louis XVI. been so well attended as this year, throughout the country. v la Paris, on January 21, the Chapelle Expiatoire was thronged all day by persons of every class of society, eager to show their respect for the memory of the martyred king. Gladstone declines to become a candidate for Lord Hector of Aberdeen University. He could not be much more wrecked(er) than he is at present. < Out of 8000 German Catholic priests only two have expressed willingness to submit to Bismarck's "blood and iron ecclesiastical laws. An important document, which throws fresh light on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots, has been discovered. Mr. Froude started to travel round the world, but his return to England has been announced. It takes a very truthful and honest man to go so far in safety. There is a saying, " What is one man's meat is another man's poison. The ' Indian Mirror' furnishes the following illustration of the saying : — " Burinah rice is being shipped io Glasgow for the manuf actnre oi whiskey ! In other words, rice from the East, the staple food of the Hindus, is being converted into poison in the West." Under the chairmanship of their bishop, the Catholic clergy of Westmeath have protested against the recent decision of the magistrates as to the necessity for prolonging the Coercion Acts, being .unanimously of opinion that the Ribbon conspiracy does not exist I in the county. A novelty in the mode of hanging criminals was recently introduced into Newgate, England. Instead of erecting the usual scaffold above ground, a pit was dug in the soil, and a trap-door made level with, the ground opening into the pit. The convict was pinioned by the executioner on the top of the trap, and at a given signal the drop fell, and the unfortunate ceased to live. A log of wood containing a sealed bottle has just been picked up at Havre, France. It was one of the several thrown overboard from the Prince Napoleon, in its Arctic expedition, to test the force of currents. The writing it contained was perfectly legible, although the log had been drifting since 1860. At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. do Lesseps announced the capture, in the Suez Canal, of a female shark, containing in her abdomen twelve young sharks, all living, and varying in length from four to eight inches. This fact, in M. de Lesseps' opinion, tends to prove that the shark is truly vivaparous. Advices from Asia Minor state that the famine in that country is causing terrible distress. In one district alone 20,000 persona have died since the commencement of the famine. The population of this district before the famine was 52,000. The Paris Bonapnrtist organ * Le Pays' announces that henceforth the Prince Imperial will wholly devote himself to the direction of the Imperialist policy. A Bill is before the Virginia Legislature to appropriate 60dol. for a pair of artificial eyes for a soldier who lost both his natural orbs during the war of the rebellion. The War Department has ordered an enrolment of the people in_ the West who are suffering from last summer's grasshopper raid, with a view to their relief. Germany is reported to be preparing to send five men-of-war into Spanish waters in case there is any further delay of satisfaction from Spain for the G-ustav affair. A xed-hot meteor fell near West Liberty, in the eastern part of lowa, on the 12th ulb., sinking fifteen feet into the ground, and making a hole ten feet in diameter. For hours it continued to spit forth flames, crackle, spitter, and smoke, and occasionally discharge cannon-like reports, to the infinite terror of the people in the vicinity. The brotherhood of the Presentation^ a new order, has been formed in Cork. Ireland, under the direct sanction of the Pope* Their object is to visit the sick and to teach the poorest class of children. The Bishop of Strasbourg having issued a charge to his clergy in which he alleges that the Church is persecuted, the German authorities have seized the copies and. forbidden the promulgation of the. document.