General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 40, 28 January 1887, Page 13

General News.

In spite of his great age Father Beckx, the General of the Jesuits, who is now in his 92nd year, is still able to go out. Though stooping somewhat, Father Bockx looks as if he might live for years. Father Joseph, the celebrated Trappist friar, died at Gethsemane Abbey, New Hope, Kentucky, last ironth. He was known in the world as M. Cordia Collier, and a generation ago was famous as a vocalist. He was a native of France, from which he was exiled in 1648 because he wrote a revolutionary song. He died at the venerable age of 78 years.

The San Diego (Cal.) Herald tells the following feat by a young lady named Miss Lawrence :— L ast Tuesday a band of wild cattle were being driven through the streets, when one of them singled out a child at play and started for it. The vaquero, who was drunk tumbled from his horse, and attempted to turn the furious animal. At this moment Miss Lawrence came along, and taking in the situation at a glance, sprang into the saddle, ran down the wild steer, threw her shawl over its head just as it was about to gore the child, then rode up to the child, and, without leaving her saddle, reached and lifted it into her lap, and carried it off in safety. This was not only an act of heroism, but an exhibition of horsemanship such as few persons could equal.

The Nuncio at Madrid has been instructed by the Vatican to protest against the interference of the civil authorities in the religious celebration of marriages as contemplated by the new law. He has also— acting on instructions from the Vatican— asked the aid of Spain in conjunction with that of Austria, to ameliorate the present intolerable position of the Holy See. A Requiem Mass for the late King Alfonso was celebrated last month in the Church of San Francisco, Madrid. It was a most imposing ceremony. Two thousand persons were invited. The church looked magnificent. The dome alone had 1,700 lights, and the effect was dazzling, The catafalque was almost hidden beneath wreaths of roses.

Prince Nicholas of Mingrelia comes from a whilom reigning dynasty, which claims direct descent from King David of Israel, and is, therefore, not to be compared with the mushroom, though mighty houses of to,day, The prince is a highly educated, accomplishe i, courteous gentleman of European type. He was educated abroad, as well as in Russia, and speaks several European languages besides his own.

The discovery of a Greek city on the banks of the Dnieper is announced in the last number of the Russian Historical Messenger About five versts below the village of Bielozersk are the ruins of a city which have just been explored. Traces have been found of streets regularly laid out, the foundation of houses, stoves filled with cinders pots, and the remains of bones, pits to hold grain, drainage pipes, many domestic articles, fragments of statues and handsome cornices, pieces of lead, and some Greek money with the inscription " Olbia " i'o all appearance this is the site of the Greek city of that name. As yet only a tenth part of the ruins has been explored. Next spring the excavations will be continued, and the kourgans close by will be examioed.

Mr. John O'Leary made a remark at the Manchester Martyrs' demonstration at Ennis the other day which has not attracted the attention it deserves :—" It has been often noted, I believe as deepening the pathos of the last scene of all that these men met their death amidst strange, unsympathising faces, mirroring of hearts hardened against Ireland and her wrongs. If these hearts have been somewhat softened of late, who can tell how much of this we may not owe to Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien ? . . . Perhaps, then, in a deep oratonc sense, these meu may have died for England, too, however little they were conscious of it." This is a true and profound reflection. Englishmen would do well to ponder it deeply. Mr. O'Leary represents an influential section of Irish opinion ; that which ardently longs for the chance of freeing this island from English rule by shot and steel, if less sharp weapons will not convince England of the ineradicablcness of Irish aspirations. There is more seed of amity between the two nations in the remark of the stern Irish rebel than could be picked out of the file of the leading newspaper of England for the century.— United Ireland. Mr. Swinburne, says the Globe, is a gentleman whose poetry has not always commanded our admiration ; hut he has lately rhymed ia such gallant style in defence of the Union, and laid about him so stoutly with his two-dged poetical sword amid disunionist knaves that we cannot refuce to say a word for him when he is lying wounded in the house of his friends. For some one has dared in a Republican contemporary, to compare the great Algernon Charles with that really inferior litterateur, Mrs. Sairey Gamp. Not as a poet, but as a writer of prose, is he hauled into this annoying comparison ; bat even so, it is vexatious for a genius, who in prose style is a compound of Boanerges and Bobadil, to be treated to this humiliating pirallel We are anxious, then, to express our dissent from this unjust insinuation. We do not believe that Mr. Swinburne has fashioned the form of his writings after the model supplied by Mrs. Gamp's conversation There are points of resemblance, no doubt -such glimpses of likeness as will often be found in the writings of two immortals There is a concatenation of phrase, a sort of breathlessness of hurrying verbiage to be found in both. The poetical figure called Apostrophe is frequently employed both by Swinburne and Gamp, and the Aposiopesis of the latter classic is sometimes effectively introduced by the former. We must also add that those Swinburnian " daughters of dreams and of stories,,' Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores, felise, Yolande, and Juliette bear a suspicious resemblance to that mythical Mrs. Hams created by the fertile imagination of Mrs. Gamp. But there, in our opinion, the resemblance absolutely ceases. We are convinced that Mr. Swinburne will occupy a higher pUce in litrature both as pros.- writer and poet, than M<u Gamp, and we hasteq to offer him our s^ m^athy under this unkind attack