GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 5 January 1877, Page 9

GENERAL NEWS.

The ' Catholic Mirror,' discussing the election of the next SPope, says : — " The enemies of religion are massing their forces in anticipation of the Pope's death, and have chosen the moment of his death for a vigorous onslaught on the autonomy of the hierarchy. A canonical election is to be prevented. The power of veto or confirmation once granted to certain kings and emperors and subsequently revoked, is to be reasserted and enforced. Failing in this usurpation of authority, the Cardinals are to be debarred from voting, and the election is to be made by the people of Italy. Already a society, the " Catholic Association of Italy," for assarting the rights of the Christian people, and especially of the citizens of Borne, has been formed, and claims an " incontestable right to elect the Bishop of Rome." Thirty thousands of the lowest and ' vilest persons in Italy, heretics, infidels and atheists, have combined to change the mode of election. The kind of Pope this rabble would select may be imagined, and they are determined to make a selection. Whether the Cardinals are prevented from voting, or whether they do elect a successor to Pius IX., the revolutionists and members of secret and atheistic societies will also make a choice. Then will the storm burst and the struggles of an antiPope, aided and abetted by the enemies of the Church, to supplant the true Pontiff will once more convulse the civilised world." The heir of one of the best names in the French nobility, M. •Charles de Courteilles, Marquis de Chavernay, has just entered the Monastery of La Trappe. He was among the combatants at Reichshoffen. Wounded at Monsbrown, says Galignani, he continued to fight, fell from his horse, and was left for dead. He was about to be buried with his unfortunate companions when tha Germans perceived that he was still living. Made prisoner, he escaped, returned to take service in the army of the Loire, and at the combat of Baume-la-Rowlands was again wounded and taken prisoner. On his return to France he learned the death of his wife, who had fallen a victim to her devotedness in tending the wounded. His father was killed at the fight of Patay. A strong and healthy girl, twenty-two years of age, named Ellen Bradley, of Mullaghmore, near Omagh, got her ears pierced by an amateur a short time ago. Whether it was a rusty needle that was used in the operation or from whatever cause, the girl's ears became inflamed a few days afterwards. The inflammation extended to her neck, turned to erysipelas, and she died. A balloon that ascended from the Alexandra palace on August 23, was attacked by a bull on its descent in a meadow in Kent. One of the aeronauts threw out the last two bags of ballast, and the balloon rose in time to escape the horns of the bull. While goring the bags and scattering their contents, the animal's horns came in contact with the grapnel rope, setting free the balloon and throwing one of the men out of the car. He seized the netting and was hauled into the car before the balloon had ascended many hundred feet. The air ship finally anchored a mile to leeward of the bullThe Paris ' Revue des Deux Mondes ' sees in Mr. Gladstone's famous pamphlet nothing beyond " bitter eloquence," " melodrama," and " of all the proposed solutions of the Eastern question the least satisfactory." The ' Revue ' thus continues, " Would the small autonomous States he wishes to create on the banks of the Danube and on the two slopes on the Balkans be in reality autonomous States ? Would not their independence be delusive ? Would they not some day have their Tchernajeff ? Would they not fall into the hands of secret societies ? Moreover, the creation of such new States would not be conformable with the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, of which Mr. Gladstone says he is the decided supporter. No ; Europe has declared Mr. Gladstone to be in the wrong ;it has rallied to the proposals of Lord Derby. Let the Conservative Cabinet carry out its programme, and neither Europe nor England will fail to approve it. The new iSultan is described by a writer at Constantinople as by no means prepossessing in appearance. He is only thirty-four, but looks fifty, and is small, with a hard Armenian face, and a very common exterior. The following anecdote about Sub.-Lieutenant de MacMahon, son of the President of the Republic, was lately related by one of his comrades : — " Almost immediately after leaving Saint Cyr, he was passing through Versailles, proud, of his officer's uniform, of which, however, a false collar of not very regimental appearance diminished the severity. The young officer passed a colonel, who, after having returned the salute, stopped and reprimanded him for his unmilitary appearance, and asked his name. But scarcely had he glanced at the card presented by the young man than he expressed his surprise at not having recognised the son of the Marshal, and was profuse in his politeness. ' Very well, Colonel, card for card,' said the young man, ' I must ask for yours, because I have not the honor of knowing your name.' The colonel at once t\nded his card, and the other at once went to the Elysee to make complaint to his father. An hour after the colonel and sub.lieutenant were both ordered to confine themselves to barracks for four days — one for his non-regimental costume, and the other for not having punished the offence. The Berlin correspondent of the ' London Telegraph ' writes : "As to the wishes of the German people, I may confidently maintain, after close and constant observation, that the first and foremost of these is, that the Imperial Government use all its influence to prevent a war between individual Great Powers, but above all a European war; for, though Prussia issued from the three last world-shaking wars as a victor, covered with glory, yet the middle class in Prussia and throughout Germany fears nothing so much as the breaking out of a new war, even though it should end once more in victory to the Empire. The economic crisis which followed the swindle years 1871-3 has done so much havoc in all strata of society, especially in the middle class, that many years will be needed to recover from it. The majority of the great dishonestly

managed joint stock enterprises having, in the course of the lost three years, become bankrupt, involving in their ruin thousands of individuals of the middle class, the chief participators in these swindling transactions are now being brought to justice by the Attorney-General. The coming winter is looked forward to with the utmost anxiety by the commercial and industrial world. Large orders are not being received ; hundreds and thousands of workpeople must therefore be dismissed, to increase the discontented masses of the socialists, who have sworn war to the knife against modern society. Here in Berlin a number of dwelling-houseß are brought to the hammer every day, because the owners cannot fulfil their engagments. House-rents have of late years been screwed up to an unheard-of height, and consequently houses have been sold at incredibly high prices, which now, in the rapid sinking of all prices, no longer yield interest. The owners, therefore, find themselves in the painful position of not being able to satisfy th« claims of their hypothecaries, so that the " house crash," as it is> called, has become unavoidable. Such being the economic situation, it is not to be wondered at that the German people wishes above all things quiet and peace, not only in the Empire but also throughout Europe. Suspicion of Russia is therefore ever on the increase, because the general war clamor there is not only tolerated by the St. Petersburg Government, but even encouraged." Great linguistic acquirements are among the characteristics of the officers of the Austrian army. The two field-marshals of the empire speak five living languages. Among the field officers and the staff, thirty-one per cent, speak Italian, the same proportion, the Tchek or Bohemian; twenty-four per cent., French; twenty per cent., Magyar ; eighteen per cent., Polish ; twelve per cent., Croatian ; eight per cent., Roumanian ; seven per cent., . Servian; seven per cent., Slovaque; five per cent., Ruthenian; and three per cent, English. This calculation is made without including German which is the official language of the army. And still Catholic nations are sunk in the depths of ignorance. — ' Catholic Review.' Among the"illustrious men who here inlAmerica have left the ranks of Protestantism for the Catholic Church, are the Most Rev. James Roosevelt Bay ley, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore; Most Rev. James Frederick Wood, D.D., Archbishop of Philadelphia; Right Rev. Josue Young, D.D., late Bishop of Eric; the late Bishop Tyler, of Hartford ; Bishops Becker, of Wilmington ; Gilmour, of Cleveland ; Rosecrans, of Columbus ; and Wadhams, of Ogdensburg ; L. Silliman Ives, D.D., Protestant Bishop of North Carolina, who having seen the light of truth in the Catholic Church, renounced every earthly consideration — dignities, honors, wealth, friends — and braved contumely and insult to become a simple layman in her fold ; Very Rev. George H. Doane, VicarGeneral of the Diocese o£ Newark, and son of the Protestant; Bishop of that name ; Rev. James Kent Stone, late President of Hobart and Kenyon College, now a Paulist Father; Very Rev. I. T. Hecker, Francis A. Becker, A. F. Hewett. Edward Dwight Lyman, Episcopal clergymen of distinction, and now Catholic priests ; Generals Rosecrans, Pike, Graham, Newton, James A. Hardy, and others ; Orestes A. l ßrownson, LL.D., the distinguished reviewer, whom Lord Brougham is said to have styled " the master-mind of America;" General D. W. C Clark, of Vermont; Rev. Dr. Rodgere, Dr. Joshua Huntington, the well-known author of "Rosemary," " Gropings after Truth," etc. ; Hon. Thomas Ewing, Senator from Ohio, and for some time Secretary of the United States Treasury ; Hon. Henry May, a distinguished orator, and one of the leaders sf his ±>arty in the House of Representatives ; Homer Wheaton, Esq., late of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., at first a lawyer of distinction, but actuated by zeal for the service of God, such as he then supposed it to be, he devoted his wealth and talents, of a superior order, to the Protestont ministry, until the study of theology having opened his eyes to the falsity of his position, he was eventually led into the Catholic Church. Then there are the Hon. Thomas B. Florence, of Philadelphia, for sixteen years a member of the United States House of Representatives ; Hon. Judge T. Parkin Scott, of Baltimore, and a host of others eminent in the different walks of life. A monster balloon, to contain accommodation for fifty personc, is to be constructed foi the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878. Ihe gigantic aerial machine will be thirty-four metres in diameter, and wifl be kept captive by an immense rope of five hundred and fifty metres in length. German papers state that Dr. von Dollinger, of Munich, has suspended the delivery of his theological lectures in consequence of their not being attended by any sufficient number of auditors. The ecclesiastical authorities having interdicted the attendance of Catholic students at tire course of the learned professor, his lecture rooms are become almost deserted, and his office a sinecure. The following particulars relative to the parentage of Mr. Sims Reeves are said to be authentic : — Corporal John Reeves, the son of a coachbuilder in Sheffield, joined the band of the Royal Horee Artillery in 1806, having previously served in the Marines. His son, the present Mr. Sims Reeves, was born in 1821. Corporal John Reeves was a splendid singer and a good instrumentalist, while the quantity of old music lying in the library of the Koyal Artillery band bears witness to his remarkable superiority as a penman. He was discharged in 1843, and died at Foot's Cray, ia Kent, in 1861. When Sims Reeves reached the age of nine or ten years he was attached to the band as a treble singer, and being rather promising, application was made for him and another boy to be enlisted. But there happened to be a number of orphans whose fathers were killed in the Peninsula, and whose mothers were anxious to have them enrolled; and when the permission came, a year or two later, Corporal John Reeves informed Mr. M'Kenzie, the bandmaster, that a clergyman of Foot's Cray having taken notice of his son, he thought he would be able to do better for him.