General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 16, 14 August 1885, Page 13

General News.

The French chamber of deputies refuses to exempt priests from serving in the army reserves. . , - <- \; -=• Considerable efforts have been ma 1c to do honour to the Irish Bishops during the stiy of their Lordships at Rom?. Thus we learn that the entire College of the Propaganda gave one evening an academical seance at which the praises of St. Patrick were celebrated in a great number of poom* composed in An astonishing variety of languages. As is well known, the Btu lei its of the Propaganda Are themselves natives of many countries, and accordingly moat of the languages of Europe and Asia, living and dead, were laid under contribution for the purpose of extolling the Patron of Ireland and paying a well merited compliment to the representatives of the Irish Episcopate, Tn Hebrew and Chaldean, in Persian and Russian, Eng ish and Italian, not to spe ik of the Chinese and other Eastern tongues, the virtues of St. Patrick were extolled and the events of his life narrated. Other entertainments of a like nature have been given in honour of the Prelates. It need hardly be said that the reception of the Irish Bishops by the Holy Father himself has been of the warmest character.— B -mbay Catholic Examiner. ' Several French papers have expressed their surprise Ht the increase in the number of murders during the last few years ; bat; the criminal statistics for 1884, which Have j isi. been published, afford an ample explanation of this, for they tell us that, though twenty-five persons were condemned to death, only three weto ex-j-cnted. When it is considered that, in addition to those condemned to death, at least twice as many were found guilty of wilful murder, but with " extenuating circumstances " (which makes it impossible for the court to pass the capital sentence), it is apparent I'that only three oil of seventy or eighty murderers were sent to the scaffold. It is a bad sign, too, that French juries are acquitting a larger proportion of prisoners ; and out of 3,299 cases tried by jury last year more thau 800 resulted in a verdict of acquittal. This is equivalent to a proportion of 24 per cent., whereas ten years ago the proportion waR about 17 per cent. ; and half of the total number tried at the assizes had one, or more than one, previous CJnvictioa recorded against them . "The Polyglot Academy," given in honour of the Irish bisheps now in Rome, w 8 held in the Church of the Propaganda on th<j lltu May. Besides their lordships,, a number of Italian ami other bishops and dignitaries of the Church w»jre present. Cardiuals Simeoni, Angelo Jacobini, and. Massaia-represented. the Pr»p-itfand«v The proceedings, which were in every way remarkable, included the recital of a larsj* number of short essays an i poem*, all dealing with Ireland and her Patron Saint, in most of the important languages of the world, national songs being interspersed. Many of the themes were peculiarly interesting. Thus the subject of the recitation in classic Chaldean was " St. Patrick an I his love of Ireland"; in Georgian, "St. Patrick an i Civilisation " ; in Albanian " O'Connell " ; in Sclav, " Irish foundations in Italy " | in Polish, " Cardinal Cullen," etc. Eugene Davis' poem, " Visions of Erin," was very feelingly delivered by th<s Rev. John Mauron, of the diocese of Dublin. A continental journal declares that ths proceedings add new glory to the prestige enjoyed throughout the entire world by the unique institution of the Propaganda.— Daily Chronicle. Says our vigorous contemporary, the Western Watchman, ol St. Louis : — " The preaches hay* discovered that one-half .Qt,thiß_city._ are Germans, of whom the majority are Ca'hrfics. About one-fourth of our population are Irish, of whom nearly all are Catholics. The other 200.000 are made uo of infidels and unchurched descendants of English, Scotch and Dutch heretics. Le« than 20,000 are members of Protestant denominations. It would seem that there is ample field for the zeal of Protestant preachers in this city without organjsing missions to Catholics." Half German and one fourth Irish, ?oir vice versa, with a strong sprinkling of Fi encti, Italian, and Poj tuguese, is the usual composition of wh it certain eat semed contemporaries call an " Anglo-Saxon community."— Pilot. ' Christian Augensch.la2.er. a German emigrant who arrived in the steamer Westnhalia from Hamburg, has probably lost bis reas >b becausi of a startling experience which befe'l him on lan ling. He hvi smuggled his favourite dog B ucher on board the n timsr ac Hamburg, and the animal subsiqueitly got into trouble by escaping fram the steerag « and helping himself to ra-'at in the cook s galley, the master whereof threw him overboard. Vuii was on Thursday, May 21. On landing the following Tv -sday, Auge ac llager beheld on the' dock a dog wonderfully like his own. " Coma here, Blucher," said be, and the dog came. Augenschl igjr threw up his hands, exclaiming, " Mein LieberG>ttl itii Blucuer's ghost 1" and thea swoone i. Hejwas taken care of by a fellow-p .s-enger, but it is feared that he will become permanently insane. The presence of the dog is accounted for by the fact that he was enabled to sustain himself in the water several hours by the buoyancy of a bjef'a pluck, the meat he had stolen from the cook's galley, until he happened to ba picked up by some sailori on the steamer Nornnndie, which, after the dog^ was picked op, passed the Westphalia and reached New York fist, In Rome the calibration of thu cenle lary of St. Gregory VII. wa9 pistponed to June 1. Curious destiny, it must seem to thoso outside the Church. An imnrisonel Pope celebrates tie eigh h cen« tenary of an exiled Pope, with as little fear of the future as if Pope* had n'evar died in exile or had not worn the chiins of prisoners. Si, while L"o is celebrating this anniversary, so full of the Uasons of hope that follow trials overcnn", we find one department of fie Va'ican disturbing the European bulanca by retnin-lini? the wjrld that '• the question of the Pope's leaving Home remains always open," and another re living the Pope's orders to plan a gigan ie scheme of education, ju9t as if the Pope would never leave bis Eternal City. It is not he who is temporarily enc impel on the Tiber, bat the Ban lit who levies blackmail at his palace door. The robber will go, and the Pope, even though he were to temporarily retire, will finally remain the victor.— Catholic Review.