GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 185, 13 October 1876, Page 14

GENERAL NEWS.

1 1 "*■ A telegraphic despatch, dated Dublin, June 29, says : — The following are the f our liflemen who -were "nominated" by Major Leech, to compete on the grounds at Wicklow with the ten who have been selected through the preliminary practice shooting at Dundalk for places in the Centennial team for America : Lieutenant George Fenton, musketery instructor of the 77th regiment of infantry, John Bigby, James B. Pollock, and Lieutenant Birch, of the Leeds rifle volunteer corps. Mr. Fenton made 569, the highest score made during the three days' shooting at "Wicklow- He has, therefore, been declared champion of Ireland and winner of the American Challenge Cup. The following made the highest scores at the final competitions, of two days' duration, for the Centennial team : Wm. Bigby, Fenton, Johnson, Smyth, Cooper, Joynt, Ward, Goff, John Eigby, and Greenhill. Thirty -four archbishops, according to the 'Annales de Lourdes/ made the pilgrimage to the Famous Grrotto of Lourdes during the year 1872. Within the last few years more than half a million of pilgrims have gone there, forming seven hundred grand processions, without speaking of the many isolated pilgrims who took no part in these processions. The men numbered more than fifty thousand. Almost every country in the world is represented by its banners |at the sanctuary of the Immaculate. The same number of the 'Annales' also gives a, list of more than thirty miraculous cures that took place during the year 1875 alone by the intercession of our Lady of Lourdes, and this list is far from complete. More than seventy foreign preachers spoke at the shrine during the same year, among whom were some of the most famous pulpit orators of the Catholic Church. The popularity of this renowned shrine is rapidly increasing, and it is certain that the recent steps taken by the Holy Father, authorising the coronation of our Lady of Lourdes, will give a just impetus to the devotion. A respectable man named Keneally, residing in Kyrl Street, Cork, received injuries, which have since proved fatal, in the following extraordinary manner : He went to bed at an early hour, and dreamt that two men, friends of his, were fighting. For the purpose of separating them he gob up, and, approaching the open window of his room, fell out upon the pavement. A little boy Bleeping in the same room attempted to save the dreamer, but in vain. Dr. P. J. Cremen was called to attend Mr. Keneally, whom he found suffering from a fracture of the skull, which resulted in his death. The correspondent of the ' Cincinnati Enquirer,' writing from New York, on June 29, says : — The religious community of this city, and indeed I might say of the entire community, is likely at no distant day to receive a shock from a most unexpected quarter. The I lets I now publish to your raaders have been imparted to me unhesitatingly by one of New York's leading clergymen — the Rev. Dr. Hepworth. Up to some six months since it was universally believed that the two great Evangelists, Moody and Sankey, had been performing their labours in the vineyard free of all worldly reward, save and except what was absolutely necessary for their travelling and hotel expenses. They never took any pains to undeceive the public in the belief that they had not a goodly bank account, amounting in the case of Moody, it is said, to something in the neighborhood of thirty-five thousand dols., and that of Sankey to over thousand. At the close of the great New York revival the managers of it were astounded to find that the two saints had appropriated to themselves six thousand three hundred dollars, exclusive of three hundred dollars " consequential " expenses. Mr. Moody explained that the six thousand and odd dollars was the total amount of "thank offering" received during the progress of the revival, and that "thank offerings" were strictly and beyond question the property of him and his co-laborer. Up to that time, it appeared, Moody had scrupulously divided in equal proportions between his brother saint and himself all and every thank offering received by him while laboring together for the cure of souls. But when the labors of the Gotham revival had come to a close, and the Evangelists were about to gird their loins, preparatory to taking their departure for other parts, Brother Sankey ■« as absolutely horror stricken to find that Brother Moody, instead of making the usual "divvy" of "half and half,'" allotted him as his share a thousand dollars. Mr. Sankey naturally became very indignant, and reasoned and argued, but all to purpose, as Moody claimed that he himself it was who really carried out the revival ; that Mr. Sankey took no part in the preaching, and that a score of persons could be obtained in any city any one of whom would gladly perform Sankey's share of revival work, and in quite as competent a manner, too, for half one thousand dollars. An influential committee has proceeded to Chicago to endeavor, if possible, to arrange matters amicably, and keep the affair out of the courts. His Holiness Pius IX., was born on the 13th of May, 1792. He was ordained priest on the 13th April, 1819. He was consecrated bishop on the 21st May, 1827. He was created a Cardinal on December 14, 1840, and was elected Sovereign Pontiff on June 16, 1846. He is now in the thirtieth year of his Pontificate, and the eighty-fourth year of his age. The latest costume for emancipated women in the United States is more remarkable for simplicity than elegance. It is to be called the " Emancipated Costume," and is the invention of Mrs. Gearing, and though it was cool in summer Mrs. Gearing found that it was warm in winter. The new garment is made all in one piece — tunic and trowsers combined — and, like the ice-house of the inventor, is lined with sawdust. It is made double, and padded with sawdust ; and Mrs. Gearing maintains that, in extremely hot and cold weather, a layer of sawdust evenly disposed about the person will make the wearer perfectly comfortable. "In proportion as the temperature of the atmosphere rises or sinks to the neighbourhood of 65 deg. Fahrenheit, the quantity of sawdust may/ we are assured, "be regulated until the weather feels neither too warm nor too cold. Thus clothed, a lady would need

but one dress for all seasons of the year, and could adapt her clotting to meet the most sudden changes of weather by merely taking in or letting out a little more sawdust/ Other advantages, too, will result from the adoption of the new style of dress. " There will be no more corsets," says Mrs. Gearing, " and no more cotton." If the wearer of the "emancipated costume " is unable to emancipate herself from the prevalent passion for skirts, Bhe may surround herself with any number. But the true dress-reformer and enthusiast for the elevation of women will, it is hoped, content herself with the " emancipated costume" and nothing more. — ' Pall Mall Gazette.' The standard adopted by Constantino after his victory over Maxentius near the Milvian Bridge, and which is accurately described by Busebius, Prudentius, and other contemporary authors, has finally been brought to light, if not in its integrity, at" least in its principal parb. It is described by the archaeologist Mariano Armelhni in the ' Monthly Chronicle of Archaeological News,' and is a monument off great value and interest. The " labarum" was found in the vicinity I of Borne, and to-day enriches the valuable collection of the Christian/ Museum in the Vatican library. It consists of a crown or ring of bronze which encloses the decussate or crossed monogram bearing the initials of the name of Christ. That this was intended to be fixed on the extremity of a shaft or pole. is evident from the curved aperture, closed at the top by a small bar, with which it was fastened to the shaft, and on which rises the crown already mentioned. The size of this ancient ornament is a little more than fire inches in diameter, which at first sight appears too small for the top of the banner, especially considering the breadth of the cross-bar from which the banner hung. But De Eossi observes that these proportions correspond perfectly to those of the "labarum" of Honorius, as ehown in the well-known diptych of Aosta in Savoy, where the crown containing the monogram of the name of Christ is small in comparison with the whole. The value of this discovery is increased by the fact that it is the first and only specimen of this object discovered up to the present time. A bronze in the Estense Museum resembling this is shown by De Rossi to have been a sacred object, a sort of " ex-voto," and never intended to crown the shaft of a standard. Mr. Gladstone has not been in the House lately, but he is far from idle. He is correcting the sheets of his article for the ' Contemporary' on the courses of religious thought. He is writing on Lord Macaulay for the ' Quarterly,' and he is writing for the ' New Quarterly' a review of Dr. Norman Macleod's life. Thus at the same time he extends his favors to the Broad Church Liberal, the Low Church Tory, and the High Anglican reviews. We have not hitherto been inclined to give much credence to the telegrams which from time to time have alleged that Don Carlos was in Mexico, that he had some idea of engaging in the enterprise which proved so disastrous to the Archduke Maximilian, and that the Mexican Government had requested or mean to request him to leave tie country. Now, however, if Reuter's telegrams may be so far trusted, we have the authority of au official despatch from General Jovellar in Cuba, dated the 7th inst., for believing that Don Carlos baa actually been in Mexico, and has just left Vera Cruz for New Orleans. But this, if true, affords no- sufficient reason for crediting the rest of the story, or for concluding that the Spanish Prince has been contemplating the Quixotic adventure attributed to him by certain newsmongers. At present Don Carlos is in Philadelphia, where he visited the Bxhibiton on Tuesday. — ' Tablet.' At the ceremony of crowning our Lady of Ceignac by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, there were present no fewer than 50,000 persons. At 10 a.ni., the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris said Mass, assisted by all the bishops. At 3 p.m. came the ceremony of the coronation. The procession is said to have been splendid. It ■was opened by mounted gendarmes, then thousands of persona divided into 63 groups, next 1,500 priests, followed by 600 nuns with young girls. The Cardinal then left the cathedral, preceded by the miraculous statue, which was carried by four priests and escorted by four gendarmes and two sappers. There were also 37 other statues in the cortege, one being that of a negress, which attracted a great deal of attention. Afterwards followed historical groups, the first representing S. Martial, who founded the sanctuary of Ceignac ; the second the Prince Palatine, who visited Ceignac, with 100 companions, in 1150, and recovered his sight, &c. These persons were in the costume of the period. At 3.30 our Lady of Ceignac was crowned in the name of the Pope. An unhappy mother was yesterday found by a funeral party at, Greenwood lying with her four little children huddled about her on •• the grave of her husband. They were quietly dying there of star* vation amid the costly monuments reared by civilised opulence aad. religion to attest the sanrbity of human affections and human hop4K The poor creatures had been turned out of their apartments in this city, and they found no room left them anywhere among the living in the metropolis of the great republic. We chronicled but the other day the appalling fact that in London nearly 50 human beings annually die of absolute starvation, in spite of all the miracles which steam and electricity have wrought to better human life since Wordsworth wrote his unf orgetable lines : " Homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food/ This miserable story of the day in New York, following upon half-a-dozen others of the same sort during the present summer, is a terrible and sardonic commentary upon our own proud Centennial boasts of the superiority of our own social and political systems to those of the Old World.—' New York World.' Postulants for religious orders are not generally received beyond the age of 40 years, but an exception has been specially made in the case of the ex-Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Maria Antoinette de Bourbon, aunt of the ex-King of Naples, who has just taken the veil, to enter a convent of nun 3of the Franciscan Order at Paris. This princess is 62 years of age.