NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 9

NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

(We take the following items from our exchanges.) ROME. The Holy Father has been slightly indisposed but he is now quite well again. Amongst notable visitors to the Vatican during the past week have been the Marquis and Marchioness of Ripon, who have been in Rome some days. They stay at Costanzi's hotel. Sir Charles Douglas and the Marquis, who are great friends, were both presented to the Pope on the same day. His Holiness told Lord Ripon, that his conversion had been a subject of great consolation to him. On the Sunday following the Marquis received Holy Communion at the hands of his Holiness. The next day he presented Lady Ripon to the Pope, who received her in the hall of the Countess Matilda. This lady is not yet a Catholic, nor is her son, the Earl of Ripon, now in Egypt. They will remain some weeks longer in Rome to visit the churches and places of interest. They have already seen the English, Irish and Scotch churches. When they have thoroughly seen Rome, they proceed to Naples, where they will stay some few days. A small place of worship was lately erected in the Piazza Poli for the Methodist "Church," which it is asserted, has made no less than 500 converts among the soldiers of the Italian army. The building itself is not capable of holding more than 100 persons comfortably, and although the facade is surmounted by a cross it seems in its internal arrangements more like a small club or reading-room than a church. The 500 converted soldiers are probably to be found only in the reports of the Methodist agents, who draw funds from England and America. On the other hand, it is rumoured that an inspector was lately sent to Rome to verify the glowing accounts of Methodist triumphs, and that this inspector reported that it was a waste of money to try to convert the Romans, that the paid missionaries were more numerous than the alleged converts, for they relapsed as soon as the money supplies began to fail. Hunger is the cry of the poor people here. The other day a wretched girl, only eighteen years of age, dropped down from starvation in the Piazza Capranica. She was taken into a humble inn, and received some attention and kindness from the poor host, who declared he would not receive any money from her. " The poor," said he, " must help the poor." On the same day a young man attempted suicide because "he had nothing to eat for thirtyeight hours, and had no money." He also was rescued ; but during the night of January 22 a poor woman died of starvation in the Forum, and was found stark the next day. They made a post mortem examination of her, and, as in the case of Oliver Twist, the coroner " declared she died from natural causes, nothing of an injurious nature being found in her." Perfectly true ! for nothing was found in the poor creature's stomach. Another instance of the impious spirit of the times occurred the other night in the Piazza Lancelloti. At the corner of the Lancelloti palace stands an ancient and much venerated image of our Lady covered with a glass and having two lamps burning before it. This image, the other morning, was found broken and indecently disfigured. The people in the neighborhood were terribly scandalised and it is said that the holy figure will be speedily replaced in its former position. Not many weeks since the women of the tobacco factory were in a state of great commotion because the authorities had ordered the removal of a venerated image of our Lady which stood in the chief vestibule of that establishment. They declared that they would not continue their work until the sacred statue had been replaced in its position of honor. Their indignation was so great that finally the new chief of the institution, a Piedmontese, was obliged to yield, for although he had ordered the image to be taken away "as a relic of the superstition of by -gone times," he did not quite enjoy the risk of having to lose an extra day's work. This was indeed a triumph for the poor women. IRELAND. The returns of local taxation in Ireland for the year 1874 have just been published. Making the usual deductions, and supplying the absence of figures by the latest information available, the local taxation of Ireland for the year named may be set down at .£3,147,328, or an increase of ,£166,108 on the previous year. The < Dublin Nation ' says :— " The conference of the Home Rule party — ' the feeblest and hollowest organisation 'of the time, according to the 'Pall Mall Gazette'— appears, nevertheless, to have exercised during the last week the minds of all the enemies of the Irish national cause in the three kingdom?. It has drawn forth abuse and misrepresentation from a hundred journals — a clear proof that it has caused considerable disquiet to the whole pack. But all this has not dispirited the Home Rule party ; and one of the most frequent comments on the matter — was very effectively disposed of by Mr. Butt at the meeting on Tuesday to which we have just referred. When downright obstruction is determined on by the Irish party, there will not be much difficulty in discovering the fact." The rumors which have been floating about for some time past relative to certain deliberations of a committee of graduates of the University of Dublin and of the Catholic University, have this week taken definite shape. It has been asserted — and it has not been contradicted — that the committee in question has agreed upon a comprehensive measure of University Reform, of which Mr. Butt has consented to take charge in the House of Commons, reserving to himself the power to modify some of its details. That Mr. Butt should so consent is not prhna facie unlikely, for that ! which seems to be the main principle of the measure — namely, one great national university, with endowed and affiliated colleges for the Catholics, the Protestants, and the Secularists of Ireland — is that which the Home Rule leader himself long since put before the public. That such a principle should be approved of by a number of influential graduates of the Protestant University of Dublin is certainly a hopeful " sign of the times."' The Kilkenny ' Moderator,' in noticing'the approaching mar-

riage of the Marquis of Ormonde, which is fixed for the first week: in February, [says the news has been received with the greatest general interest in that city, where the family have resided for five hundred years. In the year 1391 the third Earl of Ormonde became possessed of the Castle of Kilkenny, previous to which the principal strongholds of the family in Kilkenny or Ossory, were the Castles of Gowran, near that city, and Granny, or Grandison Castles, near Waterford, as were the Castles of Carrick and Thurles, in their County Palatine of Tipperary, or East Munster, or Ormonde. During all these ages, the kindly race of Butlers have been to the inhabitants of this city, their landlords, or protectors, or patrons, or friends. The hereditary office of Chief Butler of Ireland from which the family name is derived, was conferred in the year 1035, and so continued until 1810, when the Marquis Walter (great uncle to the present possessor of the title) sold the Butlerage and Prizage of Wines to the Crown for £816,000 ; since which the designation of the office has been "Honorary Chief Butler of Ireland." Different members of the family have governed the kingdom, made treaties, commanded armies, suffered defeats, and obtained victories. The second Earl of Ormonde was great grandson of Edward I. Queen Elizabeth was the great grand-daughter of the seventh Earl. The much-abused Act of Settlement (in the estimation of statesmen a most healing measure) was the work of the Duke. Holders of three Irish Peerages, bearing the ancient name of Butler, acknowledge the Marquis of Ormonde as their chief, and thirty distinct creations of peerages, including all its Orders, have been Jmade by the crown in favor of the male descendants of the first Chief Butler of Ireland, a fact, we believe, without a parallel in the annals of the British Peerage. The Grosvenor family, with which the Marquis is about to be connected, is of high antiquity, and although only ennobled in the reign of George 111., were Bai\>nets of an early creation, and in possession of wealth for many generations. The present head of the family has attained the highest order of the Peerage, and is believed to be the wealthiest member of the wealthiest aristocracy in the world. Their connections, without getting much outside the line of near cousinship, would include almost a moiety of the three kingdoms, and are duly chronicled in the Books of Burke and Dodd. miscellaneous. It seems that the Socialists are becoming exceedingly dangerous and troublesome in Belgium. Early in the month of January, several very remarkable discoveries were made by the official agents in Brussels. One of the papers seized contained a list of 8,000 names of persons, engaged, in propagating socialistic doctrines throughout the country. Most of them were working men and persons associated with various secret associations affiliated to the Masonic order. The 'Gazette de Mons' states that serious fears are entertained of riots in the mining districts, especially at Mariemont, where over 7,000 working men have struck for an increase of wages. Meetings are being held all over the country in which the most subversive doctrines are preached, and those at the head of affairs in the country are beginning to see the error of detaching the masses from their religious duties, of socialistic meetings, and of permitting the publication and diffusion of papers and works contrary to the Christian religion. Another Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Arthur Wollaston Hutton, M.A., Rector of Spridlington, Lincolnshire, has just resigned his living in order to enter the Catholic Church. He wag for some time curate of St. Barnabas at Oxford, and wrote a pamphlet in defence of the Established Church, entitled "Our Position as Catholics in the Church of England," which was published by the Rivingtons some three years ago. The recent legislation, and the attitude assumed by the English "bishops" in regard to it are given as reasons for Mr. Hutton' s secession. He is at present under the direction of Dr. Newman at the Oratory, Edgbaston. Some very interesting discoveries have recently been made in Jerusalem through the efforts of the Palestine Exploration Society. At about 121 yards from the Damascus gate at the northwest of the city, a huge cistern has been discovered. It was quite dry and on digging beneath its pavement a number of subterranean chambers were exposed, some of which are fifteen feet in length by ten in width. In one of the largest of these was found a fine marble sarcophagus. The workmanship of this tomb is of a much more recent date than the chamber in which it stood, and as it is well known that the early Christian church of St. Stephen originally rose over the cistern in question, M. Chennplin, the archoeologist, thinks this tomb must be that of the Empress Eudoxia, daughter of the philosopher Leontius and wife of Theodosius 11. Emperor of the East, who died at Jerusalem, a.d. 400. The Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor of Dublin has been cordially welcomed in Paris. He was presented at Versailles to Marshal M'Mahon and the Duchess. To the latter he handed over the balance of the sum contributed in Dublin for the relief of the sufferers by the inundations in France. The Marshal presented him with a full-sized bust of himself. The Lord Mayor dined with Monsignor Dupanloup, at his villa, Viroflay, and with Count de Flavigny and other distinguished persons. M. Veuillot will entertain him at a grand banquet on his return from Rone. The Registrar-General, in his report for 1873, just issued, states that during the yesr the following new titles of religious denominations were certified : — Hope Mission, Primitive Christians, Protestant Union, and Reformed Church of England. An American paper publishes an amusing account of the sale of "relics" at the depot in Philadelphia, where Moody and Sankey have been holding a revival. One enthusiastic devotee paid ten dollars for two towels upon which Mr. Moody had wiped his hands. The whole lot of those used by Sankey, on the other hand, went for five dollars and fifty cents. " The identical cane seat chair used by Mr. Moody" brought fifty-five dollars. That sat in by President Grant at the meeting fetched only twenty-five dollars What was the meaning of this odd performance ?