General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume v, Issue 232, 12 October 1877, Page 17

General News.

A Pabliamentaby return, granted on the motion of Mr. Meldon shows that there are 2,698 National Schools in Ireland in non-contri-butory unions, which have become entitled to additional grants to the amount of £22,357 14s. Bd. for results fees by reason of voluntary or local contributions to such results fees. However, this amount exceeds the sum actually paid by £627, owing to the failure of local parties in 74 cases to comply with the necessary forms in time to allow of payment being made before the close of the financial year. The amount voluntarily or locally provided in these schools for the purpose of obtaining the additional results fees was £40,560. There were 549 schools in non-contributory unions excluded from the additional grant on account of the voluntary or local contribution being inadequate, and the amount they -would have been entitled to was £3,041. In addition to those were 25 schools to which the Commissioners declined to award results fees in consequence of untrustworthiness of accounts and other serious irregularities. The French serial, the Missions Catholiques, publishes statistics of the number of conversions from heathenism to Catholicity effected in various Eastern settlements during the year 1875. The figures which we subjoin, speak with irresistible emphasis for themselves :— In Madras the number of conversions was 189 ; in Hyderabad, 78 ; in Vizagapatam, 150 ; in Pondicherry, 2,062 ; in Mysore, 350 ; in Coimbatoor, 201 ; in Madura, 600 ; in Qtulon, 1,269 ; in Verapoly, 250 ; in Mangalore, 257 ;in Bombay, 130 ; in Agra, 24 ; in Patna, 231 ; in Western Bengal, 1,614 ; in Eastern Bengal, 522 ; in Central Bengal, 24 ; in the North Birman Empire, 10 ; in the Middle, 187 ; in the Eaat, 315 ; in Malasia, 428 ; in Siam, 443 ; in Colombo, 360 ; in Jaffna, 510 ; making a total of 10,304 conversions effected in a single year. A few friends recently gathered at the house of Mr Wm. Bell, near Sheakleyville, Pa., to congratulate him on the 93d anniversary of his birth. Mr Bell was bom at Glcnavy, in the North of Ireland in 1784. His father was a captain in the rebellion of 1798, and he, a boy of fourteen, rode an artillery horse in the battle in which the rebels were defeated. His horse was shot and fell with him, leaving a scar upon his leg which he carries to this day, He escaped, and evaded the officers of the law till a genoral pardon was declared. Mr Bell was a linen-draper, and his usual market was Belfast, twelve miles distant, to which he was accustomed to walk at least ones a week. He is still able to walk to the village, one and a half miles distant. The Camborne Volunteer Corps had a narrow escape from destruction lately. There was a large muster on the parade ground to take leave of Captain Pike, who has become major. Scarcely had they marched off the ground than the wholo surface of the earth where they had been standing crumbled away with a thundering crash leaving a yawning chasm of 105 yards wide and 600 feet deep. An examination 6hows that an ancient mine existed at the spot, the crown of which had been covered. This had rotted and given way. The danger of " a little learning." as certified in the proverb was very well illustrated by an incident that occurred at the Amiens-street terminus, Dublin, when the emperor of Brazil arrived there. The small crowd assembled cheered ; but one individual — a young man described as well-dressed — hissed, and continued to hiss with such vigour and pertinacity that he was taken into custody by the police. On his way to the police-station he volunteered a brief account of the motive for his action. He had mistaken the illustrious visitor for " the chap that guv up Metz." Brazil was all the same to him as Bazaine. Had he taken the trouble to separate in his mind the personalities of a peaceful emperor and a capitulating marshal, his trip to the terminus would have ended in a less disagreeable manner than it did.— Weeklu News. J The German Embassy to Morocco, on its return from Fez, came near the town of Muley Eclris (or Mulai Idris), upon a monumental structure with a Latin inscription which seems * j indicate that an ol I Roman city, called Volubilis— mentioned by Pliuius (V. 1), and once the most advauced African station of the Roman Empire must have been situated there. The structure is two aud a half metres high and one metre in width. It has a broad border ornamentation, ami is split by a deep fibsurc. One-fourth of it is missing. The inscription. so far as it could be deciphered, lias becu sent to Germany by Dr' Mohr, who accompanied the Embassy. The valuable monumental stone stands, or rather lies, in the neighborhood of three great ruins of Roman origin. The Bishop of Carlisle, presiding at the annual united demonstration of the Cumberland Tempeiauce Society at Keswick, said he had bad much to do with the House of Lords Select Committee on Intemperance, and they had taken a large amonnt of evidence They had already produced one tolerably fat blue book, and would soon produce another, and he hoped that next year, when they put it all together, they would issue a report which would enable them to legislate His Lordship expressed the opinion that the magistrates did not possess so much power in regard to licenses as they ought to have Some witnesses had said that the following scheme was practicable •' Suppose a man was what they called an habitual drunkard—and he would define an habitual drunkard as a man who had been before the magistrates three, or four, or five, or more times— he would put a black mark against that man's name, aud send it round to all the public-houbes in the neighbourhood, forbidding them to supply h[ m with drink. He was sure that neither the Permissive Bill nor "the Gothenburg system would make the people sober, and if any of them lived to the age of Methuselah they would not sec total prohibition. Still, if they could not make people sober by Act of Parliament, they need not make them drunk by Act of Parliament by makin" drinkm" more and more easy. (Cheers.)-- He trusted greatly to social feelin" amongst all classes against drunkenness for the cure of intemperance (Cheers.) ------ i.. An official decree i& published commuting "or "remittinc the scn.ten.ces rf forty-eight Communist convicts, *

The following list of the numbers of women employed in a few of the London trades is taken from the Census Returns of 1871. It wiU be seen from this list that the number of London workwomen is sufficient to admit of the formation of several large unions:— Milliners and dressmakers, 58,460 ; ehirtmakers and sempstresses. 26,875 ; tailoresses, 14,780 ; machine workers and machinists, 10,724; bookbinders, 5,272 ; shoemakers and bootmakers, 4,699 ; artificial florists, 4,360 ; boxmakers, 3,718 ; upholsteresses, 2,852 ; staymakers, 42ii ; trimming makers, 2,011 ; hat manufacturers, 1,757 ; furriers, skinners, 1,650; brush and broom makers, 1,560: envelope makers. 1,212 ; umbrella makers, 1,147. On Sunday, at the Roman Catholic Church, Chelsea, the Rev. B. O. Watson, for about twelve years curate of Christ Church and fit. Johns, St. Leonards-on-Sea, locally noted for its Ritualistic practices, was received into the Roman Catholic Church. The rev. gentleman had previously issued a pamphlet, published by a well-known Roman Catholic firm in Paternoster Row, entitled " An Apology, respectfully addressed to the clergy and congregation of Christ Church and St. ?fr n %t' Leonards-on-Sea," in which he gives his reasons for leaving It Lr v ? ell of Engtend." " I can assure you," writes Mr; Watson, " I felt the humbug of the thing so bitterly that more than once, when we were piously walking down that church singing *We are not divided, all one body; we are one in faith, in doctrine, one in charity, I was on the point of flinging my book at the boys' heads, and leaving you then and there." ii I* 0 ** 1 ,? 11 article si S ned "Berlin" in the Financial Opinion, <w* cull the following extract respecting the policy of the dovelike Bismarck :— " The bitterness with which our High Churchmen view Prince Bismarck's warfare against the authority of the Roman Church is not easily described. 'If that is continued, fifty years hence we all shall be Roman Catholics.' These words were spoken the other day by a gentleman who occupies a very high military rank, and wjio, trom his position, and for other reasons, is one of the most influential men in the country, a great favorite at court, and, in fact, a dangerous rival of Prince Bismarck. And he said it to the wife of tne ambassador of a Roman Catholic power. The notability who spoke thus cannot have thought of becoming a convert himself in that time, since he is now about seventy years old, aud cannot expect to live another fifty years. But all the more important do his words appear to be, for they not only enable us to measure the depth of sympathy felt in the highest circles with the Church, but also to inquire what turn German affairs would take if the forces at work for the overthrow of the chancellor succeeded, and Prince Bismarck were to leave his post to a successor who is neither able nor willing to nni&li the great undertaking against Rome. A bather interesting litle debate has taken place in the House, on the second reading of the Government Bill to create a British Confederation in South Africa. The second reading was moved by thft Under Secretary for the Colonies who declared that the adoption of the Confederation principle, which had been for Canada only a matter of convenience, was for South Africa a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Strange, what is convenient for Canada, and necessary tor South Africa should be a thing not to be thought of for Ireland I bir Charles Dilke, in opposition to the Bill, asked in what manner it was proposed that the Transvaal State (recently seized by the British Government) and the Orange River Free State (which they mean to seize by-and-bye) would have the opportunity of declaring whether or not they wished to become members of a Confederation of British btates. lo this too pointed question no answer was given. The British Government and their men of business will not trouble themselves about statutes and the like when they want to make the Transvaal and the Orange River State come into their political embrace.-* weekly Aem. Theke deaths occurred from being struck by lightning durin* a recent storm in Cavan, besides injuries to a large number of tof. mals and other valuable property.