NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 214, 1 June 1877, Page 15

NEWS BY THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

We are glad to place on our list of foreign exchanges the Xew Zealand Tablet, published at Dunedin. It is a well conducted paper, and seems to be an able and zealous promoter of Catholic interests. There are two Bishops in New Zealand, one at Dunedin, the other at Wellington, and it is evident that the Church is making great progress in that country, judging from the mention of new churches, convents, and schools in the Tablet. In looking over the first numbers that have reached us we were surprised to come across some pieces from the Aye Maria. The recent illness of the Holy Father was grossly exaggerated by the cable telegrams. It seems that he one day suspended the customary audiences on account of a slight indisposition, and this was magnified into an alarming illness, and gave rise to the most absurd speculations as to his probable successor, &c. His Holiness is quite well again, and has resumed his daily audiences, charming everyone by his accustomed amiability. Our American friends will be glad to learn that steady legal steps are being taken to promote the completion of the O'Connell National Monument, impeded by family strife regarding the will of Foley the eminent sculptor. It is not very long since I epent several hours in the studio, in Osnaburg-street, London, with Mr. Brock, Foley's chief artist, and I am bound to state that neither Europe nor America has such a work of art, in the shape of a memorial, as the O'Connell monument, which Foley left all but completed. Dr. Moran, Bishop of Ossory, is editing the Life and Letters of the late Very Rev. James Maher, D.D , parish priest of Graigne CCarlow), his kinsman, who was uncle to the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin. Dr. Maher's career covered a long and deeply interesting period of the modern history of the Irish Church, from the accession of his bishop, the illustrious Dr. Doyle, to the overthrow of the Irish Protestant Church j nor was his voice or his pen ever quiescent during that half-century. The volume will form an interesting contribution to the modern history of Ireland. The Carlow Post says that every now and again in the antiCatholic Press we come across some flippant reference to the new doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, promulgated to the world by his Holiness Pope Pius IX. It will hardly serve to placate such writers, but still it may do no harm to remind them that the late commemoration of that mystery in December was the fourth centenary Bince the same Feast was, with its own Liturgy, celebrated as a universal Feast by the whole Church. That was according to the constitution of Pope Sixtus IV. published in 1476 ; and, being prior to the establishment of Protestantism, and also prior to the discovery of America, should certainly be old enough to satisfy the average scribbler. The Irish Lord Chief Justice, in opening the Galway Assizes on Monday, was able to state that the country was in a peaceful and quiet state, and comparatively free from crime. Throughout the whole circuit the same satisfactory state of things prevailed. There would seem to be no patriotic Englishman in the West of Ireland committing crime to "foist it upon the Irish." A Bill has been introduced in the Commons to authorize the enrolment of volunteer corps in Ireland, established on the principle and subject to the regulations controlling the various corps at present existing throughout Great Britain and the colonies. The Bill contains forty-eight clauses, which are based on the law at present in force with regard to the organization of the volunteer force in Great Britain, but it has not the slightest chance of obtaining a second reading. We fear the Irish people will have to wait until their Parliament meet in the " old house at home" before they will bave a volunteer force of their own. The citizens of Dublin have assembled in public meeting, and bave adopted the Public Libraries Act with only one dissentient voice. Mr. Gray was the chief mover in this matter, and has done bis work well. One of the resolutions was moved by a Catholic priest, and seconded by a Protestant clergyman. The chief opposition in the Dublin press seems to be on the part of the extreme Protestant party as represented by the Dublin Evening Mail and the old Orange Saunders's News Letter. And yet these are the papers that talk of " Romish ignorance." The Saturday Review, in a recent article on "Federalism, Dualism, and Home Rule," engages in the labor of defining the first two of these forms of government, and showing that the Irish Home Rule demand does not accord with either of them. Federalism and dualism, it says, may be very good things in themselves, and one or other may answer admirably in other countries, but Ireland needs none of tbem, because " Ireland is not as Hungary ■was before 1866, held in bondage by Great Britain." This, to begin with, is a pretty fair specimen of an English blunder. We axe not aware that Hungary was held in bondage by Great Britain before 1866. But we know very well that Ireland has been held in such bondage before and since. In saying that Ireland has nothing to complain of, the Review simply begs the whole question. Surely the Irish people are entitled to have an opinion on that point. Every set of oppressors in the world are always ready to declare that the people under their sway have no just cause of complaint. The Austrian government made exactly such protestations with regard to the Hungarians. " The dualism of Austria and Hungary," says tlie Review, " arose as a medium between the illegal absorption of Hungary by Austria, and a complete separation of Hungary from Austria." So has Ireland been "illegally absorbed" by England, against which absorption the Irish people mean to struggle to the death. But Ireland, says the Review, " is simply a part of the same kingdom with Great Britain," no more, we cay, than Hungary was or is a part of Austria. But Ireland has a constitution, says the Review, to which we reply that ehe has not her own constitution, but a sham constitution forced on her by England, under cover of which constitution she is robbed, depopulated, and degraded by England* Vienna journalists prc-

yious to 1866 could write against the national claims of Hungary just as flippantly as London journalists now write against the claims of Ireland. The battle of Sadowa, which brought the Austrian empire into imminent peril, put an end to such logic as far as Hungary was concerned, and obtained for that country the rights for which her people had long contended in vain. If England should wait for her Sadowa, it may be too late to offer either federalism or dualism, or any other sort of political connection with her, to the Irish people. One day, on the Boulevard Pereire, Paris, a mad dog started in pursuit of a velocipede, mounted by a toy of fourteen named Dupraty, living in the Boulevard, No. 16. The case waa a terrible one, and ended in the fall of the boy. Happily it was in the iron of the velocipede wheel that the teeth of the mad bulldog closed. There ended the first act of the drama. The second follows : In an impulse of passionate joy on seeing her son saved from so great a danger, Mme. Dupraty pressed her lips to the wheel of the velocipede. Some hydrophobic virus had remained on the iron, and after an agony of a fortnight the poor mother died, raging mad. The Journal d 'Alsace says that it receives almost daily communications, which give evidence of the profound emotion caused in every family by the orders of expulsion from the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, recently intimated in the most unexpected manner by the authorities to very many who have expressed their preferences for the French nationality. Young men connected for many years past with commercial and banking houses, heads of firms, fathers of families, all have been affected by an order of this nature coming at a moment whea they least expected it. This rigorous measure, which nothing can justify, in a general point of view, cannot but act fatally in every respect. Not only will it ruin many a bright prospect and prosperous career, and throw the commerce and industry of the annexed provinces into inextricable embarrassments, but it is also sowing in the hearts of the people whom it touches and injures in their affections as well as in their interests, the seeds of a discontent which they take no pains to conceal. A terrible catastrophe has just occurred in France at the village of Port (Ariege). Seven houses, of which five were inhabited by about twenty persons in all, were buried three days back by an avalanche. Several corpses have been extricated, but the work of clearing away the snow presents great danger. Biett, the illicit manufacturer of mataziette, a kind of dynamite, which is prohibited in France, has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment and the payment of a fine of 30,000fr. Fortytwo barrels of his explosive products were placed in the fort of Larmont, where they blew up all the buildings and killed ten men. " A few days since," writes a reporter of one of our French exchanges, " I passed through Beaucaire. I had gone to pray at the tomb of St. Martin at Tarascon, which is only separated from Beaucaire by the river Rhone. A historian, with whom Iby chance became acquainted, kindly offered to accompany me to the hermitage of St. Sixtus, in the environs of Beaucaire. It seemed strange to me that this Bishop, ordained by St. Peter, according to the Roman Martyrology, and first Bishop of Rheiins, has left his work here even after a lapse of nineteen centuries. This was explained to me, however, by nay religious historian, who quoted a still extant tradition and gave other incontestable proofs. St. Sixtus was one of the band of Bishops whom the Prince of the Apostles had sent from Rome to evangelize the Gauls. Having fallen sick at Beaucaire, he remained there and built a little heiv mitage, in which he dwelt for some time. The faithful kept this hallowed spot in great esteem until the times of the Calvinists j and even up to the period of the Revolution, St. Martha and St. Trophimus, first Bishop of Aries, had commenced to sow the Gospel at Beaucaire, and St. Sixtus, during his convalescence, continued the mission. After being fully restored to health he went to Rbeinis, where he founded that episcopal see. St. Denis, the first Bishop of Paris, was among the first band of missionaries sent from Rome; St. Sixtus belonged to the second. A chapel, dedicated to St. Peter, and still to be seen at Beaucaire, not far from the Rhone, seems to have been built by St. Sixtus, even during the lifetime of the Prince of the Apostles." It is stated beyond doubt that King Victor Emmanuel is afflicted with a polypus of the tongue. This does not prevent him from going out, but it is a great impediment in his speech and in I the taking of his meals. The courtiers around the king try to hush the matter up, but in spite of this it is whispered so loudly that before long it will be known everywhere. It is known that about two years ago a scurrilous pasquinade could be seen in the streets of Rome, representing the Pope on one side, and King Victor Emmanuel on the other imposing silence upon the venerable Pontiff, saying: "To speak is silver, but to be silent is gold." This satanic pasquinade finds its illustration in the new law to be enforced against the clergy, but it is said that the king since hia affliction with polypus of the tongue is much concerned about the sanction of this law. May God grant that he reflect twice.— Provagateur Caiholique A telegram from a correspondent of a contemporary at Constantinople says : We are threatened with a complete stoppage of business in the Ottoman post and telegraph offices. The employes refuse to take depreciated paper in payment of their already small salaries, and have sent in their resignations from all parts of the empire. The Grand Vizier bas referred their petitions to the Council of State, but the Minister of the interior has declared that if they will not work for the pay offered they must be dismissed, and other persons put in their places. This is impossible, as there is no reserve, especially of telegraphists. The amount which the German Parliament have been asked to vote for the salary of the German ambassador in London amounts, in English money, to a trifle over £9800, being an advance of £1500 on the vote of last year. In justice to the Opposition it is only fail- to say that our own. ambassador in, Germany receive?

something less than Count Minister has hitherto been credited ■with, his salary being £7000. That is, however, less than other of the British embassies. Our minister at Vienna, for example, has £8000 a year. The British minister at St. Petersburg has .£7BOO. Sir Henry Elliot had .£8000; whilst our ambassador to France has £10,000. Of other ambassadors the British minister at Rome has JcHOOO, and an allowance of £1200 for rent. The United States is ■ not credited with an ambassador, but her Britannic majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary adequately sustains these titles on a salary of £6000 a year. — Mayfair. The return to unity of the Churches separated from the Holy See is a work which many noble souls have laboured to accomplish, and one for the success of which devout prayers are unceasingly offered in every part of the world. An Association for this object has been founded by Rev. Father Schouvaleff, a member of the Order of Barnabites. The rule of this excellent religious Society obliges its members to recite a prayer every day to the Blessed Virgin for the return of the Orientals to Catholic Unity. The Orientals, as is well known, have a great devotion to the Mother of our Lord. Father Schouvaleff is a convert himself, and he feels inspired to labour for the reunion of Christendom. It is not without significance, he says, that the Russians have preserved among the few precious germs of their faith a devotion to Mary. It is not in vain that they invoke her, that they call upon her, that they believe in the Immaculate Conception without perhaps being aware of it, and that they celebrate the Feast of this mystery. Mary will be the link by which the schismatic Church will be reunited to the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church ; she will make of all who love her a people of brothers under the paternity of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. We may rely on the Mother of God for the return of the Oriental and Greek Russians to the Catholic Church. The New England Journal of Education says that at a recent examination in one of the public schools, the question, " Why is Palestine called the Holy Land ?" was put to a class in geography, and elicited from one of the boys the written response, " Because Satan lived there." As a still further illustration of the great ignorance of Scripture which prevails among the rising generation, it speaks of a reading class containing sixteen children between eight and nine years of age, who on coming to the expression in their reading-book, " Since the days of Adam," were asked by their teacher who Adam was. Not one of them had ever heard of Adam or Eve. And yet twelve of them were Protestants, and lived in a land of " open Bibles." But really, such ignorance is discreditable to either Catholic or Protestant, and there is neither reason nor excuse for it. It looks very much as though secular schools, supplemented by "home training," and Sunday-schools were not accomplishing all that was expected of them. A certain class of people are so fond of declaring that the celibacy of the clergy is a dreadful thing, and of urging that they would be so much better fitted to understand and discharge their parochial duties if they were married and had families, that we wonder with what feelings they will read the following, which we copy from the Calcutta Englishman, of February 16th. — " The Rev. Mr. Le Mare, of the London Mission, was staying lately at a station in the Hospet division. The wife of the engineer, Mr. Norfor, died of cholera. The rev. gentleman was requested to read the burial service over the remains of the poor lady, to which request he sent the following reply : •Mt Bear Sic, — I sympathise with you most deeply in your affliction, and were I alone I would feel happy to do all I could to express my feelings j but I have my wife and baby with me, and we feel 60 anxious on account of our child, that I must beg you kindly to excuse my reading the service. — Yours sincerely, E. Le Make.' " — London, Universe. An interesting but not surprising piece of news comes to us from England, on the authority of the London Eclio. The Anglican Church, which ceased to have any connection with the one true Church of Christ 320 years ago, has since then been kept together, in a sort of a fashion, by the authority of the State ; although from time to time large bodies of its members have seceded from it and set up on their own hook. Now, however, it is to be rent in twain. " The Ritualists," says the London Echo, " have decided on the formation of an entirely new communion, and to secede from the existing Church of England, it is said, on the 29th of May next." "An archbishop and two bishops " are to be consecrated by " two foreign prelates" — we suppose these must be Mr. Reinkens and the Jansenist bishop— and, " in order to avoid trangressing the law of the Church," they will take " English episcopal titles which have fejn long in desuetede. Mr. Tooth is to be one of the three. The . Viesal and manual of the new sect has been printed. It contains directions for the administering of the Seven Sacraments " appointed by the Roman and Greek Churches, with the three creeds now in use, and the Decalogue after the English form, thereby closely resembling the Liturgy in use by the Irvingites." It is the inevitable fate of all non-Catholic sects to split up into fragments, and sooner or later this must be the fate of not only the Anglican Church as it now is, but of the two bodies into which it is by this movement to be divided. The Ritualists have as good a right to set up in business on their own hook as had the founders of the sect from which they are about to separate. They number many thousands — their clergymen are highly educated, very zealous, and greatly beloved by their people. Their withdrawal from the Establishment will be a severe blow to that institution, and will no doubt hasten the day of its disestablishment. "A bishop at sea" is not an unfrequent theological aspect in that portion of the "Establishment" known as the "Anglican Communion " which has latterly received so many crushing, though legal, blows. However, human ingenuity is about to find a modus vivendi in the " Anglican " movement, -which the promoters hope will place it beyond the jurisdiction of law. It is now proposed hat the " Anglican movement " shall have a bishop of its own, nd for this purpose it has been deemed " wise and advisable " to aye the eatt bishop niaauiactured oa the "high, seas." We

have seen the head of a government "up iv a balloon ; " we have heard of a " parliamentary bishop ; " and now we are to be treated to the sight of a> " marine bishop." What next ? Professor Gregorovius is the author of a well-known " History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages," which is written in a spirit of bitter hostility to the Popes, and for which the Buzzurri sometime ago bestowed the freedom of the city upon him. In a recent publication this anti-Catholic says that at the time when he was collecting materials for his history the Pontifical authorities allowed him, " with the most praiseworthy liberality," to inspect the copies of the parochial documents prepared by the indefatigable Galetti, and deposited in the Vatican Library. A German paper thereupon asks " whether a sayan standing in the odour of Ultramontanisni" would ever be admitted to the secret State archives of Berlin with the same liberality with which this enemy of Catholicity was granted access to the archives of the Vatican. Sebastopol is now in a fair way of becoming the great commercial port of Southern Russia. For a long time it lay in ruins, but in 1871 a branch railway was begun, to connect it with the main line running north. This was completed in 1875, and a few mouths afterwards the Government announced that Sebastopol was to be made a commercial port. Since that time it has rapidly advanced, and its prospects are bright. Large warehouses and custom-houses have been built, and quays a mile in length, beside which there is sufficient depth of water for the largest steamers. The railway runs along the quay, and in front of the doors of the warehouses, so that the expense of loading will be as light as possible. The distance by Tail to Moscow and St. Petersburg is less than to Odessa, and this, with its advantages over the Sea of Azof ports in its better harbour, which is never frozen over, ensures its future prosperity, although its progress may be slow, owing to its lack of capital. A grim sense of humour seems to pervade the authorities, for they have laid off the Malakoff, Sedan, and Flagstaff batteries, as boulevards dedicated to England, Russia, and France. The population in the spring of last year was estimated at 26,000, and in its new character as a commercial city there is no reason to wish anything but good to Sebastopol. Queen Victoria of England intends to have a magnificent tableau painted representing the Pope and all his Cardinals. It is her admiration for Pius IX. which prompts her to this. Several artists have been appointed to visit the Cardinals and ask permission to take their portraits, as photographs are deemed unsatisfactory. The portraits of several of the Cardinals have already been taken in Rome. The Right Eev. Dr. McKinnon, who is now en route for the Eternal City, is the bearer of a most feeling address to the Holy Father from the Indians of the diocese of Arichat. The address is signed by over one thousand Micmacs, and accompanied by an amount of Peter's Pence which is indeed creditable if the straight* ened. circumstances of the donors be taken into account. It is written in the old Micmac language, and breathes throughout the fervent but gentle spirit of a simple primitive faith, and an unostentatious, childlike docility to the visible Head .of the Church. Of the many addresses of congratulation, of which Pio Nono will have been made the recipient on the occasion of his golden anniversary, few will have a more touching pathos, or will be invested with more historic interest than that sent by those denizens of the inhospitable forests of Nova Scotia. It can at least claim the distinction of being the filial offering of the aborigines — the children of the first Catholics on the continent of America. The Micmac tribe were converted to Christianity in 1604, by the French missionaries who accompanied the early colonists sent by the 'King of France to settle ancient Arcadia. Naturally conservative of the national habits and idiosyncrasies they have adhered with an almost miraculous fidelity to the old faith, and have preserved ib unsullied and unimpaired amid the vicissitudes of well-nigh three hundred years. A faith like theirs is always strong in the very simplicity of its unsophisticated character, and happily has "but little to fear from the false spirit of liberalism or the more subtle rationalism of our nineteenth century. The genuine faith of the poor Micmac is felicitously formulated in this address to the Holy Father. Far the largest number of the people of Austria are Catholics, and yet, strange to say, there has been thus far no Catholic party in the Austrian Legislature. There is a constitutional party, a party of justice, a centrifugal party; then there are the Poles and the Ruthenes, besides the Slovens, and whatever other fantasical names they may be, but as to a Catholic party pure and simple, it remains yet to be formed. This deficiency is now about to be made up. An address has been issued by some of the leading members of the nobility and gentry of the empire for a general meeting of Catholics to be held at Vienna from the 16th to the 19th of April. A brief of the Holy Father bestows the apostolic blessing on the enterprise, which will be headed by the Archbishop of Vienna, Mgr. Kutschker. We purpose in due time to inform our readers of the further progress of this laudable undertaking. A duel has been fought in Belgium between Lieut. Pitrac and Baron de Vaux. The casus belli arose out of a discussion at mess whether M. Thiers was a great military authority. Both parties were wounded, and the ludicrous exhibition came to an end. The wound of M. de Vaux is the more serious, but is not reported to be dangerous. A meeting of Catholic members of Parliament 'was held on Wednesday in the Conference Room of the House of Commons to deliberate upon the presentation of an address to the Pope on the occasion of the jubilee, or the fiftieth year of the episcopate of his Holiness, next Juno. It was unanimously resolved that a suitable address be presented to the Holy Father, and it is not unlikely that a deputation will proceed to Rome to present it. This is an example which it is to be hoped will be followed by the Catholic legislators throughout the vrorld..