General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 313, 18 April 1879, Page 19

General News.

.. Tn e Roman correspondent of the Liverpool Daily Chronicle writes— •• It is probable that the constant reference to Rome by the Ritualists will cause many individual secessions. The general of a religious order who resides here has received a letter from several of the members of an institute which adopts the title and follows the rule of which he is the chief exponent. The document sets forth that the writers are gravely anxious about their position, and ask counsel trom one whom they claim as their lawful superior. An answer has been sent to the effect that the archives of the Order have been con;2fL? 0T the lasl tw> enty-five years, and that the names of the petipfters are not in the list of novices received during that period. Iwo of these gentlemen have already been received into the Church Rome, and it is not unlikely that their example will be followed by many more. J Once more the Indians have expressed their desire and preference for Catholic priests. « Sptted Tail " said recently :« I would like to get a Catholic priest— those who wear black dres es." And " Red Cloud s plait was this : "We should like to have a schoolhouse— a !? r Kf ?. ne> • * wiU hold P lenty of people. We would like to have Oathohc priests and Catholic nuns, so they could teach our people how to write and read, and instruct us how to do." " Red Cloud " a ? iJ- S P° tted ' rail " are tw .° prominent chiefs. " Young Man Afraid of His Horses," " Little Big Man," and every influential or observant « a^ g u a PP roache '* b 7b 7 the commissioner duplicated these desires. V\ ithout an exception," says a correspondent from the Indian country, " the entire race regards the presence of Protestant missionaries as inutile, if not demoralizing." r> JF**} Dow makes tne following suggestive comparison :— ln 1866 Portland, where I reside, was visited by a tremendous conflagration. len thousand people were turned out into the streets, and ten millions of dollars went up in smoke in a day. But, notwithstanding that, the valuation of the city was never so large as now, and last year its valuation was increased by the sum of 480,000 dollars, while Boston, with free rum, ran down 70,000,000 dollars, and that city and New York have run down their valuation in the last five years many hundreds of millions of dollars. They have been wasting the products of their industries in the purchase of alcoholic liquors, while we have been saving as well as earning, by putting the liquor traffice under the ban of the law, and crushing out the grog shops and the beer shops— those horrid instrumentalities for the pauperizing the brutalizing, and criminalizing the people— all of them who come under the malign influence. The Cincinnati Commercial has published a horrible detailed list of the misdeeds of Protestant clergymen in the United States during the year 1878. The names of fifty-five ministers are given, with the charges against them which are unfit for publication in a respectable paper. Fifty-five convicted culprits out of a class that is expected to lead in morality and intelligence is a showing that may well cause people to stop and demand what it all means ! A post office clerk in France has invented a new sort of envelope which will record the post-marks in colour on the letter inside, even more legibly than the original stamp, which is often blurred and rendered indistinct by too much or too little ink. This result is accomplished by applying to the inside of the envelope a cheap preparation by a process toat does not increase the price of the envelope. 1 lie pressure of the dark stamp contermarks on the letter inside, tn a distinct and durable manner, the figures and letters of the stamp. The introduction of this envelope would be a boon to business men who have correspondents who forget to date their letters.