NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 147, 25 February 1876, Page 8

NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

■ ■ +f ■ ' [We take the following items from our exchanges.]

ROME AND ITALY. On Tuesday, the 23rd November, the Pope received in the Sala Bucale about threp hundred French pilgrims from the dioceses of Bayonne and Marseilles. Addresses to his Holiness were read by the Abbe Blanchard, Vicar-General of Marseilles, and by the Rev. P. Loprade, archpriest of Bayonne Cathedral. The Abbe Blanchard presented to Pius IX. a magnificent silver statue representing Kotre Dame de la Qarde, in the pedestal of which was enclosed a large sum of gold, being the collection of Peter's Pence. The Archpriest Loprade laid at the Holy Father's feet an album richly bound and adorned with costly miniatures, with the signatures of nine thousand Catholics of the Bayonne diocese, who all had taken part in the pilgrimage to our Lady of Lourdes. A remarkable and very important document has recently been published by the Italian Catholics. It originated in the now famous Catholic Congress of Florence, and consists of a programme of the course which Italian Catholics will henceforth adopt in reference to the government. In the opening paragraph it states that the development of evil in Italy of Lite has beon so incalculably great that although the Italian Catholics submit to accomplished facts without accepting them, they nevertheless think it their duty no longer to abstain from interfering in public affairs. "We do not conspire, we do not lend our hands to works of blood, forbidden by the laws of the Church, love of country and by conscience, but in the presence of the despoiled Church, whose bishops have been driven from their sees, whose property has been sold and whose religious orders have been suppressed, we Catholics of Italy are determined to use every possible means to avert further evils and to remedy those of the past." The document is signed by the President of the Italian Catholic Societies, Duke Salviati, and was forwarded to the Pope for approval. His Holiness approved of its contents and dispatched a brief to the Duke in which he speaks of the programme in the highest terms. The fruits of this document w ill be made evident during the next few months. In the meantime it is, as might have been imagined, bitterly attacked by the liberal and official papers. Next May the Holy Father will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his episcopal consecration. If the measures adopted by the Italian government against the Church are slower than those of Germany, they are nevertheless quite as effectual, and it is but too certain that Italy intends to follow in the steps of Yon Bismarck. Recently Signor Minghotti announced that he had made a discovery in Naples, to the effect that in the seminaries of that city were many young men w r ho received their education from tho priests, but who had no intention whatever of entering the priesthood. Consequently the government intends to suppress two-thirds of the existing seminaries, and to confiscate their goods. All this is strictly in accordance with the system which has been in \ ogi ein Italy since 1870. By decreasing the number of seminaries Italy hopes to decrease the number of priests, and to end by closing the churches, on the pretext that there is no one to serve them. The new Sindic of Naples draws a vivid but horrible picture of the unhappy condition of the lower orders in that beautiful city. It is something horrible, he &uys, to see the poor of Naples, living like beasts in cellars and other subterranean habitations which are scarcely fit for animals, let alone men. He also states that the Italian officials far from endeavoring to remedy the evil, actually turn it to their own account and let to the wretched creatures portions of the public highways and squares on which they can build their temporary huts, in which sometimes as many as a dozen persons of both suxes are huddled together. The Sindic makes an energetic appeal to the government to improve the condition of these unfortunates. Saturd. j , Nov. 20, Francis V. ex-Duke of Modena died of apoplexy m Ye. na. He was one of of the wealthiest men ,n Europe and t'.i. eir to the Stuarts. His mother was the eldest daughter and heiress of Victor Emmanuel I. the last King of Sardinia, of the elder branch, and thus heiress of Henrietta Maria, Duchess of Orleans and daughter of Charles I. who left issue, Anna Maria, married to Victor Amadeus 11. Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia. Thus the house of Stuart would be extinct were it not that the late Duke of Modena left a daughter married to the Archduke Ludwig of Bavaria. This hi'ly is the present representative of the royal house of Stuart. Yet it is asserted on very good authority that the old Virginia family of Stuart can very satisfactorily prove their descent from the older branches of the Stuart family, which was numerous previous to the rei»-n of Elizabeth.

The commercial prospects of Rome are absolutely appalling. At no period of its history have its finances been in such a forlorn condition as this year. There have been failures and bankruptcies within three months to the amount of over 2,000,000 francs. The cause of this is to be found in the mania there was at fir -it amongst merchants for opening stores and shops which were 100 Urge for the city and the demand. They doubtless imagined .hat .ill the world was coming to Rome and that it would soon be us largo a city as New York. They have learned a bitter lesson from experience

A Requiem Mass in memory of Don Garcia Moreno, the late President of the Republic of Ecuador, who was so basely murdered by the assassins of the secret societies, was celebrated last week in the Church ot'the Gesu, at the instance of the Federazione Piana of the Catholic association in Rome. An immense number of persons, including the members of the South American College, attended* His Grace Archbishop Howard pontificated.

IEELAND. At length the committee have finally decided on adopting the figure of O'Connell with the cloak, ns modelled by Foley, and have instructed the executive to proceed speedily to finish the monument. Mr. Broi k, Mr. Foley's successor, is eminently qualified to complete the unfinished work. On Nov. 14, owing to the heavy rains that prevailed for s >mo time back, and more especially during the previous night, the Tolka Kiver began to overflow its banks in the vicinity of Drunicondra, the Botanic Gardens and Richmond. The rising of the river was sudden and rapid, and in a short time the entire district for miles along its banks was under water. His Eminence Cardinal M'Closkey, Nov. 13, visited several of tho charitable and icligious institutions of the city of Oork, in company with the Bishop of the Diocese, the Right Rev. Dr. Delany. In the afternoon His Eminence was entertained a\, a dejeuner by the Mayor. The compniy, which numbered about 70 persons, included the Bishops of Cork, Limerick, and Cloyne. The Cardinal, who seemed greatly nnpiv ssed with the cordial and hearty manner in which the company received his name, in replying, -aid he never could forget the kindness wh eh ho h.id already experienced in their ancient city, which was one that particularly interested him, being virtually, though not geographically, the nearest point in Europe to his own native city of New York. He had that day, by the kindness of their worthy Bishop, been enabled to see as much of their city as could be visited under the disadvantages of a rainy day, and he was convinced that theirs was a great Catholic city. The Irishman carried his faith with him wherever he went ; but, after all, one should come to the old land to learn the full extent of tho fen or and warmth of the liish Catholic heart. The startling discovery that Ireland is annually defrauded of three millions and a half sterling by the manner in which the duty is assessed on alcoholic liquors, has proved a hard and bitter nut for our English contemporaries. They are utterly unable to combat the facts ; they are powerless to answer the arguments of Sir Joseph Neals M'lCcnna, Mr. Mitchell Henry, and Mr. Butt ; and the only escape they can discover out of the difficulty is the allegation that " the Irish are clamoring tor cheap whisky." It has been shown again and again that what Irishmen require is not that whisky should be cheapened, but that the extra taxation levied on it should bo appli< d to Irish purposes. As Mr. Butt said at the meeting of the Home Rule League held lately, the ovei-charge for a single year would drain the Shannon and p nty the Liffey. Yet the ' Times' — which devotes a lengthy article to the subject without once disputing the principal pomt — can ii id no'hing better to say than that if alcohol, howtver consumed, were taxed 10s. per ga lon (as it is under the form of Irish whisky) a larger revenue would be raised than the country requires, aid ergo the League is covertly aiming at cheap whisky. The case must be bad indeed when this piece of absurdity is its rtrongest defence. Archbishop McHale, in his recent letter on Sir John Gray, said : " The Press, which in the hands of tyrants and bigots, becomes an engine of oppression, was wielded by Sir John in the enlargement of the domain of justice and constitutional freedom." Guiness's brewery is one of the institutions of Dublin, a,nd is generally visited by strangers in the Irish capital. The building covers an area of 11 acres ; 1,260 men are employed. If a man dies while in the employ of the company, his widow is pensioned ; the men receive from 1-is to 20s a week ; two physicians and an apothecary are employed to look after the sick ; the firm owns about 180 horses and hire about 100 more ; six brewers are employed, none of them receive less than .£6OO per annum j they brew about 1,800 hogsheads of porter per diem, each containing 48 gallons ; there are 175 vats, holding 1,155 barrels, worth from .£5,000 to ,£7,000, according to quality ; they manufacture their own ice by the ether process, averaging about 25 tons in 20 hours. This brewery was established in 1713, and is only second in extent to the Bass Brewery at Burton-on-Trent.

A public demonstration in favor of an amnesty for the political prisoners still in confinement, took place in Cork Nov. 21. It was decidedly an emphatic expression of the popular sentiment on this question. Upwards of five thousand men marched in line of procession, the long array being broken by fourteen bands and thirty banners. All Cork seemed to have turned out to take part in the grand exhibition of feeling. At the Park the chair was taken by iVlayor Nagle. Mr. Ronayne, M.P., moved the first resolution, conveying a protest of the meeting against the conduct of the British Government in declining to release tha political prisoners, and stigmatising the policy that dictated such a course as ungrateful, tyrannical, and impolitic. It was said that an appeal to the Premier would have ihu .effect of emancipating the prisoners. Well, the Irish members attended by deputation upon the Premier. That was the first deputation the speaker had ever taken part in to a British Minister (cheers). Several Irish representatives made speeches to Mr. Disraeli, which that gentleman certainly could not find fault with. He told them he should give an answer „\n the House of Commons, and when he did so it was a peremptory refusal (groans for Disraeli, whose name was received with vehement expressions of popular disfavor throughout the proceedings). Mr. Eonayne thought it ungrateful of the British Government, of all governments, to refuse this paltry favor, asked in behalf of Irish soldiers, but for whom England could not hold the position she enjoyed to-day. Captain Kirwan announced at a congress of the Home Eule party, held in London on Nov. 27, that there were 150,000 Irish parliamentary voters in Great Britain, and that they held the balance of power in thirty boroughs, including the two largest outside London. At this late municipal elections in Great Britain they returned over forty Town Councillors of their party, and they hoped to return more than that number of members to Parliament from Great Britain at the next general election, pledged to Home Eule. It was decided to make a house-to-house canvass in those Metropolitan boroughs containing a large proportion of Irish votes.

GERMANY. A letter written from Munich in the latter part of last month, and published in a Vienna Journal, states that the attention of all parties was being concentrated on the elections for the parochial and communal boards. The " Liberals" are straining every effort where they have already secured a footing, in order to improve their position. The Government, pursuing the tactics which they employed last summer, have made a redistribution of electoral districts wherever the patriotic party won the victory last July. For this purpose parishes are being divided into parts, and the parts attached to districts of hostile political views. On the other hand, the districts where the Liberals were victorious have been also subdivided, but into independent electoral divisions, so that the number of Liberal successful candidates might be increased. These manoeuvres stirred up the spirit of the Catholic electors, who have been usually apathetic on such occasions. Some came to the conclusion that it would "be more prudent to abstain from voting, and made a formal protest against the partisan conduct of the Government. The more moderate "Patriots," however, looking on abstentation as cowardly and .silly, determined to take part in the elections. At Eatisbon the position of liberalism was so well secured that it was useless to contest it. The Liberals have had it all their own way for several years at Wiirzburg, and, aided by the Government, have been endeavoring to secularise the splendid hospital, the noble creation of Prince Bishop Julius. Such was the prevailing indifference a short time ago that the Protestants were granted an equal right to make use of the University church there, although it was a purely Catholic foundation, a proceeding against which the Catholics protested in vain. This year, in the communal elections the Catholics have so exerted themselves that, out of twelve candidates, they have been able to return eleven, so that at the next election for the municipal council they are likely to recover the whole representation. A Prussian correspondent of the London ' Times' announces that it is the intention of the public prosecutor of the German government to depose the Archbishop of Cologne, the Bishop of Treves and the Bishop of Minister. The same official recently made a speech in which he announced that it was the intention of the Prussian Government to separate the Prussian part of the diocese of Breslau from the Austrian. The correspondent facetiously observes concerning this rearrangement of the diocese that "as the Eoman Catholic Bishops will soon have ceased to exist in this country unless they will allow candidates for holy orders to receive the ordinary literary education of the land, the consent of the Vatican to these arrangements becomes a matter of comparative indifference." Do these non-Catholics seriously imagine that governments can make or unmake bishops, or bring the episcopacy to an end ? The High Chamberlain of the Court of the Emperor William has despatched seven portraits of the Emperor, elegantly framed, to Eome for presentation to seven ladies in waiting at the Italian Court " who have shown the Emperor attention" during his recent fisit to Milan Catholics priests and head-masters of colleges in Silesia have of late frequently adopted the practice of saying prayers in the public service on behalf of the Prince Bishop of the diocese, Mgr. Forster, recently "deposed" by the Prussian Government. The civil authorities have now prohibited such prayers as being illegal. The participation of school children in religious exercises, which used to be formerly free has now been restricted within very narrow limits. At a conference of teachers held lately at Cologne ihe school inspector promulgated the new regulations and explained them. They may be reduced to four points. 1 The children of the upper form's are permitted to attend Mass twice weekly, provided that on those days the ordinary school instruction begins at eight a.m. Otherwise, and on all other clays, attendance at Mass is not sanctioned 2. Teachers are to abstain on Sundnys and festivals from any direct or indirect co-operation, as regards the children, with respect to their attendance at Divine service, 3. Preparing them for the Sacraments, or conducting them to receive them, is not allowable, because thoroughly irreconeileable with the condition and calling of a teacher (!).° 4. The attendance of schools at processions and taking part in them, e\en outside school hours, will not be any longer permitted. The inspector also decided that the children may not assist at Mass on working-days from the 16th of December to the 3rd of February. It will be remembered that a couple of months since a monster suit was instituted against Herr Ernst Ihieme, the responsible editor of the ' Germania.' He was accused generally of libelling the State, Prince Bismarck, and the Imperial Government. Selections were made from eight numbers of the paper to support these charges. Ho was convicted and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. Both the Attorney General and the accused appealed. The case came before the second criminal division of the Berlin Kammergericht on Fiiday, the 12th November. The Court rejected the appeal in toto of the Attorney-General, who asked an increase of the punishment to at least a year's imprisonment. It modified the original sentence, redacting the term from nine to six months, among which it ordered that one month of preliminary confinement should be included. Tlie consequences of the suppression of the religious establishments are beginning to make themselves painfully felt. At Hildesheim, in Hanover, there was a " Marienschule" for the education of Catholic young ladies under the direction of the Ursuline nuns. Upon the departure of the nuns, on Ist October, this school was closed; and it is now a question whether it can be re-opened on the Ist of January. Ten days ago sixty Catholic fathers of families, who are specially interested in the re-opening of the school, held a meeting to consider the situation. Forty -fi»e constituted themselves into a school committee, nnd drew up certain provisional rules. Of course lay mistresses must now be employed, and these necessarily involve a greater expense than the nuns. The school fees were fixed for the four classes respectively at 15, 20, 25, and 30 thalers (i.e., 425. 6d. ; 565. 6d. ; 72s ; and 855.) The meeting passed resolutions (expressing their profound

sorrow at losing the Ursuline nuns, and their deep appreciation of their services; and also thanking the Vicar-GeWai Kopp for the great assistance he had given in the matter.

FRANCE. «♦ J h !- Sai ?m Who is Ost venerate d in France after our Lady is St. Martin of Tours. Over 4000 churches are dedicated to him, but the most famous of them all is the great basilica of Tours which was destroyed in 1793. In ancient times thousands flocked to this shrine every year and it ranked as a place of pilgrimage with the Holy Sepulchre, St. Peter's at Borne, and St. James of Conipostello Spain. The veil which covered the relics of the Saint was once the national standard of France. But in 1793, during the reio-n of terror, this shrine was broken down and mined, and now onfy its two western towers exist. A committee has been appointed to rebuild tins national monument, and a subscription opened some ten years ago has already returned 1,800,000 francs. It is calculated that the rebuilding will cost 2,000,000. The ground has been purchased, and the rebuilding of this vast temple has already commenced. The plan is to rebuild it as it was in the eleventh century fortunately diawings of the old church still exist, and with the assistance of these there is every reason to believe it will soon rise as splendid as ever. In a few months the first stone of this gigantic church will be laid by the assembled bishops of France. When we consider the enormous sum which France has paid Prussia, and the damages done by war, it seems incredible that she should yet be able to subscribe vast amounts to the building of such churches as that ot the Sacred Heart at Paris, and that of St. Martin at Tours J he resources of France in the midst of her trouble, are a convincing proof that God blesses her faith and love for His Church The pilgrimages still continue. Eecently, at Tours, there was one of a very imposing nature. Over 8,000 persons attended it and the procession was exceedingly magnificent. The Archbishops of Tours, Aix, Angouleme, and the Bishops of Mans, Verdun, and Basille walked in it, and it took more than hour to pass one spot. At Lourdes another pilgrimage occurred, in which 20,000 men" joined. They were escorted to the sacred grotto by 400 priests. Nine thousand communions were registered in the basilica. The first mass began at midnight, and the last at one o'clock in the afternoon. A grand pilgrimage is being organized at Mount St Michaels, Normandy, and will take place at Christmas.