General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 392, 15 October 1880, Page 9

General News.

Great Britain's exports to the United States are constantly growing. Iron, cotton, and wool are going out in greatly increased quantities. In certain branches the exports to this country alone must have had a great effect on the home market, and must have proved one bright spot in a very dark sky. The situation in England, both politically and commercially, is so dark, so dismal, and so threatening that any break is grateful. England is in a sad predicament, and the day or reckoning that Mr. Jennings talks about may be nearer at hand than is imagined. England has ruled the world, but the rule is breaking. Spain once ruled the world, so did France, and even insignificant Holland. But all passed away, as England's is slipping now. There can be no doubt about who will emerge to assume the sceptre. The hands point to this side of the Atlantic. — N.Y. Cammercial. American oysters are taken to Europe now, not alone for immediate but for prospective consumption. The Schleswig owners of oyster beds have already laid down a good many American oysters, and a new company has just been formed for doing the same thing on a vastly increased scale, 80, with each year, America becomes more and more the food supplier of the old world, as well as on an augmenting scale, the recipient of her surplus population. According to the TiOndon Spectator there is probably no position in the world more difficult to fill than that of the editor of an English comic paper with a great reputation already made. Punch, it believes, could be destroyed as a property in a single number. The wife of Col. Don Piatt has joined the Catholic Church, and will build a new Church at Mackinac, Mich., where her husband owns a beautiful summer residence. Cardinal Manning stopped at Milan on his road home from Rome, and the Pungolo states that on visiting the cathedral he said : " It would be my desire, my ambition, to erect a cathedral in London which, if not equal to this, would still be an imposing monument of Christianity, and my predecessors left nic a considerable sum to effect such an enterprise ; but in existing circumstances I have thought it best to devote the interest of that capital to creating a seminary in London." He expressed a desire to possess some relic of San Carlo Borromeo, and one of his vestments was accordingly presented to him. Lord Ripon's private chaplain, formerly of Oriel College, Oxford, has left England for Bambay. Father Henry Schoniberge Kerr, late of the Royal Navy, and grandson of the late William, sixth Marquis of Lothian, is temporarily the new Governor-General's spiritual adviser, pending the arrival of the former. The Irish correspondent of an Eastern paper thus describes the parochial duties which the ever-faithful priests of Ireland hare to perform for their flocks in this time of fever and pestilence : — Father Lof tvs, of Charlestown, who is described as a tall, powerful man, and the only nurse the poor creatures in the hovel haye — God bless him ! — only the other day was seen to take four of the poor creatures off their straw, dress them, and lift them, one after anothei, in his arms — they breathing fever into his face-, all the time— and put them into the cart which took them off to the hospital. Everybody hut the big hearted priest had desei ted them. The story of Father Lof tvs is the story of Father Stcnson, of Ballaghadereen ; of Father Purcan, of Carrycastle ; of Father Conlan, of Swinford ; and of the parish priest of Curry, in and on the borders of Slipo, whosj last words to Mr. Fox were a declaration before Almighty God that three hundred and fifty families of his pariah wou'd die of starvation unless something was done. " Would die of starvation." People have actually died of starvation. The Liverpool Catholic Times says of the new editor of Punch : — It is not generally known that Mr. Burnand was atone time on the point of entering a Religious Order. After leaving Cambridge and joining the Catholic Church, he took up his quarters with the London Oblates of St. Charles Borromeo, of whom Cardinal Manning wa* thee the Superior ; and there remained until he convinced himself that he had not a vocation for the cloister. A list of all those who have made a similar discovery would be curious, and not pleasant to read. Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt, for instance, was educated in a convent ; and at the end of htr school caretr she passionately declared that she would either be au actress or a nun, the whole of th.j gay world knowing which of the strange alternatives she finally adopted. M. Renan himself, the French infidel, was intended for the priesthood, his master at St. Sulpice (Bishop Lupanloup, of happy memory), familiarly calling him " the pet of the Seminary. ' Gounod, too, was anxious to be a priest, but his directors thought that the real scope for his fine talent lay outside the c ler«ry-house : and another star of the musical world, Madame Albani, was eager to enter a convent in her sixteenth year. The following is a translation of one of the letters of resignation of the French magistrates who declined to enforce the decrees against the Jesuits :— '• Montbrison, July 4, 18S0. Monsieur le ProcureurGeneral, — I have the honour of sending you my resignation of Substitute of the Procurntor of the Republic of Montbrison and to request you to forward it to the Keeper of Seals. In the face of acts hostile to religion and contrary to law. and perpetrated on the 30th of Juue, I caunot, as a Catholic nor as a iiacistrate, retain in the ranks of the public Ministry a post in which I have always served with justice, and appear, by so doing, to accept even the appearance of any solidarity whatsoever with the men of the Government. Be kind enough, M. le Procnreur-General, to accept the assurance of my respect. Gaston dc Champ, Substitute of the Procurator of the Republic at Montbribou." The Holy Father has sent to Mgr. Siciliano di Rendi, Archbishop of Benevento, the sum of 2.000 franc* towards the completion of the works recently undertaken in the now church etectcd there in honour of Santa Maria delle Grazic. This church is a monument of the piety , and devotion chtrished towards the Blessed Virgin by the people of

Benevento, who, being delivered through her intercession from the scourge of cholera in 1837, are desirous of perpetuating the memory of that benefit. The construction of this church was begun in 1839, and the Holy Father, then Delegate Apostolic at Benevento, by direction of the Archbishop, Cardinal Bussi, laid the foundation-stone with all solemnity. — Ace Maria. Buddhism is becoming as fashionable among tho cultured ones as Ritualism was once. The success of Arnold's " Light of Asia " has been grcnt, and the Vedas will doubtless soon be used as missiles by the unscrupulous railroad boy and have a place on the newsstands next to Bob Ingersoll's lectures. When Madame Blavatsky was here, she made several converts among the worshippers of " colour and " pnssion," and her proceedings in India are watched with much inteicst by those persons who think that the highest effort the human mind can make is to deny God. It is wonderful that Buddhism should be accepted in this age when common-sense is supposed to rule men. Buddhism, however, is a rather different thing in India from what it is here, and Madame Blavatsky finds that its tenets are not fixed, and that, in order to teach the Buddhists what Buddhism really is, she will have to declare herself infallible, and define the faith for them. She is alieady disgusted with the lack of uniformity among the Brahmins. Buddhism is, like old carvings .and barbaric bric-a-bac, very picturesque ; but it is not a strong thing or a vital thing. The man who can to-day nccept Buddha, in place of Our Lord, goes back two thousand years, and is cither insane or utterly eaten up by the affectation of the time. — Catholic Revlen: Another inexcusable and horrible collision has occurred. This time on the Detroit River. Father Bleyenbergh, of Detroit, had premised a pleasure trip to the altar-boys attached to his church, and had fulfilled his promise. The boys, tired out with their day's pleasure, crowded into the cabin of the steam yacht Mamie which had been chartered for the occasion. About ten o'clock, on July 23rd — a moonlight night — the yacht ploughed its way through the waters, and Father Bleyenbergh sat, with the elders of his party, on the front of the yacht. Two steameis, the Garland and the Fortune, were in sight. Father Bleyenbergh seems to think they were racing. Suddenly the Garland loomed up larger, and he instantly divined with horror that a collision was imminent. The Mamie whistled and soon after the Garland replied, but bore down directly on the fragile yacht, fairly cutting it in two. At the moment the collision seemed inevitable, he shouted to his friends and the children to come to the front, and some of them obeyed. He felt the boat give way beneath him, and caught hold of a rope on the Garland. A young lady did the same. Four boys who were saved crowded out of the cabin window of the yacht and threw themselves into the water. They were picked up by the life-boat of the Garland, which was not, however, lowered without much difficulty, as — according to the testimony of a passenger — the rigging was out of order, and consequently lives (15 boys drowned) were sacrificed that might nave been saved. Judging from the report in the dailies, it would seem as if the Garland and Fortune were racing and that the Mamie had not time to get out of the way. Collisions have become epidemic ; and may be expected t* continue epidemic as long as the present loose system of steamboat inspection is permitted to continue. In all the recent collisions the ligging of the life-boats were out of order. Precious minutes were wasted in disentangling and cutting ropes which should have given way at the first touch. — Catholic lievien: In our perambulations about town we have not for a long time had the pleasure of seeing a lady (with even moderate pretensions to fashion) really walk. No doubt, ladies progress along the side walks, or wherever they may happen to be ; but walking with the head erect, the well-balanced body, and the limbs moving freely and gracefully, is a lost art. How can women walk with their heels raised two or three inches above whore nature intended that they •hould be, with the aich of the foot entirrly destroyed by the throwing forward of the weight of the body upon the wrecked toes, still farther made miserable by their being pinched up together, pressed one on the other, and even oumpled up in hideous and painful deformity ? Doctors lecture in vain, and insrument-makers rejoice over the " high heels " which throw the body out of balance, twist the backbone, and render necessary the aid of stAl props and crutches. A notion has got into women's heads that the foot looks smaller and more dainty when seen from the front encased in the high-heeled shoe. Would that some power would give them the gift to see the effect of the back of their ankles and the thickness and coarseness that high heels give to what should be the slender, elegantly-modelled column rising above the arch of the foot ! High heels, it is true, are following the wake of civilisation as represented by French fashions, wherever they are introduced ; but it was not on such heels as these that the grace of Greek women and the stateliness of Roman matrons, the attractive gait of the women of Circassia and Georgia, India, and Egypt, weie borne about. — London Paper. Mr. Santley, the famous baritone, has embraced the Catholic Faith. Speaking of Mr. Bright, Lord George Hamilton says he is liberal enough about land which he does not own and about a Church to which he does not belong ; but touch the question of trade, aud particularly that branch of trade with which he is personally concerned, and it will be found that a more selfish obstructive never ' entered the House of Commons. Does Lord Goorge mean, asks the Pall Mall Gazette, that Mr. Bright ever wilfully obstructed the business of the Legislature in order to serve his own personal ends and those of a firm at Rochdale with which he is or was connected ? Does he mean that Mr. Bright ever selfishly opposed th« Treaty of Commerce with France, that he ever selfishly advocated the imuoution of duties upon Australian wool or American cotton or the colours used in dyeing ? A most disgraceful scene, says Vd?iiti/ Fair, took place recently at Newmarket. England. A number of ladies of high position and rank and well known in society, assembled after dinner at the house of one of their number to play baccarat. The hostess took the bank, together with a gentleman of the party ; but at her first deal an objection was made to her manner of dealing. She dealt again, when

another point was raised, and thereupon ensuod the most discreditable " row " that probably ever took place between ladies. Smokinj and swearing, the heroines of the affair hurled every kiml of uncomplimentary remark at each other for the space of something like half an hour, to the great fright of such of them as still retained the ordinary timidity of womanhood. At length the "row" ended, but so great an effect was produced by it that it was thought necessary by the hostess to ask an exalted personage to come down and play the next night at the house in order to rehabilitate it and her, which the personage was good-naturedly pleased to do. It is right to add that the hostess herself is said to have acted properly throughout. But the point is, that it is a simple disgraca that ladies should gamble at all in this businesslike and professional man nor, that it is doubly disgraceful that they should gamble as they do with mere paper, and that it is trebly (Vts'Tracefal for them to adopt the manner* of scullery maids and the language o£ coal-heavers. While this scene was taking place inside the house the crowd were engaged in killing a policeman outside, while the doors were not even shut. It reminds one of the preliminary scenes of the Fronch Eevolution. A bull-fight here under the auspices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty io p.nimals is a novelty even in New York which is accompanied by surprises and sudden shocks. The presence of Mr. Borgh, who seems to have had authority to interfere in favour of the bulls, but no authority to take the pait of the men engaged in the sport, was not stimulating to the Spanish gallants; the bulls walked over the track, and the gailj caparisoned " fighters " showed wonderful ability in jumping fences. The large audience chiefly composed of Americans, was not slow in expressing its disapproval of the bloodless proceedings ; and the affair was not a success because those assembled wanted to see a real bull-fight and could not tolerate a sham. In ,spite of the united effort of the dailies to show that Americaus are too sensitive and highly civilised to tolerate those picturesque and barbaric exhibitions that have afforded so many texts against Spanish cruelty, it is plain that a bull-light wanting in the excitement of blood-letting would not bj really patronised by the enlightened American. The exhibition was attended by many ladies, very few of whom were Spanish, and the majority of the lookers-on were evidently not of foreign birth. The attempt of the moral aud high-toned dailies to make people believe that NewYorkers are so much more civilised than the unfortunate and benighted Spaniards, is amusing and palnably transparent. There is a naivete unworthy of the cynical newspaper-man in the admission that Mr. Bergh was the most unpopular man in the assemblage, and that another bull-fight would not be tolerated in New York because of its lack of excitement. The New York press is rarely virtuous, but when it is virtuous, it lays it on thick. If Mr. Bergh could be kidnapped after the manner of Charley Ross, real bul'-fights might hecoine a New York institution and draw crowds from the " province," as a certain spectacular play did a few years ago before the New York public? h<*d become " converted." Dr. Begg, on the 12th July evening, delivered a lecture in Edinburgh on the " Results of the Covenanting Struggle," in the course of which he argued that there could be no Established Church without uniformity of worship, and that every minister of the Established Church is doubly bound, both by Church aud State, to observe the simple worship of Pre»byterianism, otherwi&e he is guilty of double perjury, haa forfeited all right to his stipend, and ought either to repent or be expelled. At the conclusion of his lecture, Dr. Begg submitted a new form of the Solemn League and Covenant which he thought might suit the condition of things at the prehent day. A Chicago boy stole 350d015. from Imh employer, and started westward to iight the Indians. VV'hcu overtaken he was d res-sod in fringed buckskin, and across his shoulder was a rifle, while hia pockets were stuffod with knives, pi>tol*, and ammunition. General Hancock U a man of handsome presence and mo-<t agreeable manners. He is perfectly straight i a.blonde, with a rich skin and blue eyes, and light hair, now turning grey ; and his address is both courtly and simple. Several processes of canonization ars now pending before the proper authorities in the Archbishopric of Naples. Three of them have just been concluded ; that of the venerable servaut of (Jod, Gennaro Maria Sarnelli, of the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer ; of the venerable Brother Luigi of the Holy Crucifix, a professed Alcantariu priest ; and venerable Placidus Bacchcr, a secular priest. The preliminary process concerning the validity and importance of the cause, was approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in November 14th, 1878 ; and that approbation confirmed by the authority of the Holy Father, January Bth of this year, the degree of approval being published in Rome towards the end of February. — Messenger of the Sacred Heart, By special request of the Protestant of the neigbbonrhood, tho Rev. Father Moriarty, of Chatham village, N. V., lectured in the Baptist church at East Chatham, on the evening of July 15, the Bubject being, "What the Catholic Chujch has done for Civilization." A large audience, compobed of Protestants of different denominations, assembled from the surrounding country, and, what was altogether unusual in a church edifice, greeted the lecturer with frequent and warm applause. At the conclusion of the discourse, the pastor of the Baptist church, the Rev. Mr. Ashley, proposed & vote of thank*, which was enthusiastically responded to by the entire assemblage. A wine merchant at Rheimp, in France, is the owner of two hundred bottles of champagne he says he will not sell nt any price, because it was the only lot in any cellar of the city that escaped the clutches of the German soldiers during the war of 1870. A Commission of Inquiry has been held in Knock to investigate the truth of the matter. Witnesses who were curod were called to give their sworn testimony to the miracle, all of which must go to the court of Uome, which is to pronounce the judgment. In Montreal lately there was a procession of Catholic societies numbering over two thousand porsons from Notre Dame Church to the Jesnit Church on Bleury street. The demonstration was intended as a protest against the expulsion of the Order of Jesuits from France*