Gerenal News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 430, 8 July 1881, Page 7

Gerenal News.

It is hardly necessary for Mr. Gladstone to introduce an emigration clause into his Land Bill, seeing that the Irish are emigrating fast enough already. Ninety-four thousand people left the shores of Ireland last year and it is anticipated that one hundred and fifty thousand more will cross the Atlantic or some other ocean, this year. What more does the man want The communions on Easter Sunday at Notre Dame Paris, were extraordinarily numerous. For three quarters of an hour, at the end of Mass, three Priests distributed the Holy Communion simultaneously to the men. At the same time the women received in the different side Chapels. When the communions were finished. P. Monsabre gave a short sermon and then the Te Deum was sung. The Parish of Notre Dame is one of the smallest of Paris, 4500 souls; but the Easter communicants number each year about 10.000. The effect of the Coercion Act is v now visible. As predicted here long since it has done no good of any kind, but, on the contrary, much harm. It has not cowed the people. It has embittered them against the Government. The " outrages" that previous to its enactmenc were rather nominal than real have since grown in number and in gravity. Mr. John Dillon, a member of Parliament, has been put in jail. Mr. Davitt was already in jail. A number of others who were active in organising what is a perfectly legitimate agitation, approved of in the main by the Irish bishops and clergy have been put in jail, and are being put in jail. That is the one word now most frequent in Ireland : •' Jail, jail, jail." And to cap the climax, a Catholic priest is at last sent there to join the other prisoners. — Catholic Review. Another " village ruffian and dissolute character" has been arrested in Ireland under the Coercion Act in the person of the Rev. Father Sheehy, of Killmallock, one of the purest and most patriotic men in the country. By the irony of fate no sooner does an Irishman become useful to his country than he is straightway clapped in a British dungeon. It has been so since the English connection began and it will be so until it ends. While the legislators are babbling in Westminster the island is drifting into anarchy and confusion, the people are having resort to violent measures to resist oppression, or flying across the Atlanic, and the feeling is gaming strength that no good can come from an English Parliament. — True Witness. Dublin, May 19. — A large force of military and police proceeded under command of Major Vandelim, of the 9th Regiment, and Major Rolleston of the Royal Marines, to-day, to New Pallas, County Limerick, to aid the Sheriff in evictions upon an estate. Early on the march the force was met by a large body of people who followed them, yelling, shouting, and pelting them with stone 3. Amid a shower of missiles the Sheriff succeeded, after much difficulty, in evicting a few families. He then proceeded with his escort to a distant part of the estate, but it was discovered that the people had left their homes and had taken possession of a large castle upon the estate, which they had loop-heled and put into such a thorough state of defence that all ideas of dislodging the occupants and serving writs were abandoned for the day. Stones still continued to be showered upon the police and the military, and so threatening was the aspect of the people who thronged round the force that Major Rolleston ordered the police to load their rifles and the military to fix their bayonets, and warned the people that if they persisted in their hostile conduct he would read the Riot Act, and if they did not disperse within a short time he should feel it his most painful and awful duty to order the constabulary to fire and the soldiers to charge. The warning had the desired effect and the people dispersed, but not before Lieutenant Gowan, of the 9th Regiment, had received o blow from a cudgel. Several persons have been arrested, including Gowan's assailant. To-morrow morning the flying column, with four pieces of artillery will proceed with the Sheriff to execute the writs upon the people in the Castle. A verdict of " wilful murder " has been found in Roscommon against the policemen who shot two peasants a few weeks ago. The policemen fired without any justification, and the verdict is right according to the laws of England. We have often said that the Irish constabulary ought not to be armed with deadly weapons. Every day adda to the evidence that we have been right. — Universe. Under the heading, Quid Pro Quo. the Shamrock thus pithily puts it : "What England took from Ireland : land, language, parliament ; what England gave to Ireland : land laws, poor houses, and jails." The arrest of Father Sheehy is the first arrest of an Irish priest •ince the days of the old Penal laws for an offence of the kind. A large increase in the number of agrarian outrages, and a Beries of collisions between Parnell's followers and Forster will likely follow. It was announced this time last year that John Rea. the Belfast attorney, was dead, but a cablegram received a few days ago states that he committed suicide. Which of the reports is correct ? John Rea was an eccentric character. He was one of the Traversers with O'Connell in the State trials of 1843, but afterwards adopted the Young Ireland platform, and still later dubbed himself an OrangeFenian. He was the terror of the courts of justice, and it is said, with what truth we know not, that his obstructiveness caused the death of a mayor and two judges. On a certain occasion, while on trial for libel, he is reported to have said : " Gentlemen of a well packed jury, convict me if you can, I defy your verdict." On another occasion he forced his way into the English House of Commons, and it took the whole staff of that august assembly to remove him. If the cable report is correct his end has been a melancholy one. Peace to his ashes ; no matter how eccentric his conduct, he was a true Irishman who loved his country in her misery. — True Witness. The debate in the House of Commons on Father Sheehy's arrest continued until midnight of 19th May, and revealed a remarkable agreement among the various sections of Irish Liberal members in

condemning the action of the G6vernm«nt in refusing to give a full explanation of the causes which led to the arrest on "reasonable suspicion." The moderate members predicted that worse results would follow from an act which would be regarded as an insult to the religious sentiment of the Irish nation in classing the priest as a " village ruffian." The Government's offer to hold a morning sitting t» discuss the arrest is oondemned as illusory and worthless because the Ministers would not pledge themselves to give full information of the specific acts on which the warrant for the arrest was based. They would only produce a general charge without affording an opportunity to the House or the country to examine into the evidence on whicb the charge is based, The discussion was carried on by the Irish members with great acrimony, and seemed to distress Mr. Gladstone very much. One of the members said that the Chief Secretary would henceforth be known in Ireland as " Priest-hunting Forster." The National Land League of Great Britain have issued a manifesto describing the present struggle as a battle between a nation and a foreign garrison. " Thousands of Irishmen in England and Scotland are themselves evicted tenants, and the address asks them to evict the landlords in return, and to prepare to work at the polling. London, May 17.— A Wiesbaden correspondent sends the following : — The recent stay of the Emperor William at Wiesbaden was considerably shortened in consequence of certain letters which were received by Court officials, and which contained friendly warnings of ■ome desigti against the Emperor. These letters are said to have come from England. Consequently great precautions were taken during the Imperial stay here. Herr Madai, Chief of Police of Berlin, arrived with an extra force of detectives. The parade on the 6th inst. took place in front of the Colonnade for the first time instead of in the Wilhelm Strasz, where it is generally held. The large {.lace in front of the Kurau? is more easily surrounded by police and soldiers and the public are kept at a great distance from the Imperial party. On the last Sunday which he spent here the Emperor abstained from going to church. This was quite contrary to his regular custom. On the day of his departure no visitors were received at the Schloss. Even the usual offeringsjof flowers and bouquets were rigidly rejected. For the same reason the Emperor did not carry out his original intsntion of going to Frankfort on' the 10th instant, to be present at the opening of the Patent Exhibition. The exact time of his departure from home, which took place nine days earlier than was originally planned, was kept secret. The local papers published different accounts of the Emperor's intentions, and the Imperial train passed quickly through Frankfort, arriving at Berlin last Monday evening in safety. On May 10th ten years had elapsed since the treaty of peace of Frankfort put a formal end to the Franco-German war that had been declared by France " with a light heart" on July 15th, 1870, and was practically brought to, a close by the surrender of Paris on Jan. 28th, 1871. France has by this time fully recovered from the effects of this most disastrous of all wars ever sustained by her, but Germany has not ; quite the reverse. Ten years ago she was ever so much more prosperous and flourishing than she is now. Our contemporary, the Germania, hits the nail on its head in an article on the subject, from which we translate the following :— " What could not have been accomplished for the good of the nation had not the unhallowed conflict between Church and State come in between? Without entering further on the merits of the case, we may aver that the development and exacerbation of the conflict is entirely owing to the action of the State, and consequently it is the duty of the State now to try and restore that peace which they have disturbed." Still there is very little prospect of^peace yet. The persecution of the Church continues without intermission, with neither truce nor armistice. Things must get worse yet before Bismarck will come to listen to reason. — Universe. Prince Bismarck is supposed to have won a diplomatic victory by arousing Italy against France, and that Berlia has worked for this. Mr. Tuke has a long letter in the London Times on the subject of Irish emigration. He points out that during 1880 no less than 95,857 persons, in nearly equal proportions of male and female, left Ireland — a number only twice exceeded since 1851. During the last twenty-eight years no fewer than 2,657,187 emigrants have left the country ; and in face of figures such as these it may well be asked whether it is desirable that the State should do anything to increase the depopulation. Mr. Ira Payne, the celebrated pistol shot, has made a match ia England of a most peculiar nature, staking £100 that he shoots one hundred grapes consecutively from the hand of a lady, each grape to be held by its natural stem. A Mr. G. W. Moore stakes £100 that the feat ia not performed. The distance selected is eight paces, and the weapon to be used a pistol. The Church-hating Radicals of Belgium, who profess to be so particularly foad of education, though many of them are illiterate enough, are very busily engaged in doing away with those very schools to which the country has hitherto been indebted for the training of youth. Wherever there exists a school superintended by the Brothers or Sisters of the Christian Doctrine, it is sure to be put on the list of the proscribed institutions. There is one little understrapper especially, a man called Hevard, who has been particularly active in putting schools down. Last weak he turned the Sisters out who kept an elementary school, consisting of three classes, at Staden. A godless school was to have been set up on itg ruins, but he was reckoning without the generosity and single-rnindedness of the Catholic gentry of the district. A wealthy lady had one of the classes accommodated in her castle, and for another room was found by public subscription in a warehouse. The Sisters were worrying about the third of the classes. Then Mynheer van Conninck, a large landowner, stepped forward and said, "Never you mind; I shall take charge of it." So he had a large room set apart for it on one of his estates close to the old place. In this way the Catholic people of Belgium manage to counteract the effects of a godless law. — Universe.