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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 44, 25 February 1887, Page 18

Four acres of the town of Shenar.doah, Pa., caved in with 50 houses, from two to four feet, on account of the weakening of the walls of the colliery over which the town is built. Mgr. Carini, the professor of the newly instituted chair »f paleography at the Vatican, in commencing his couise, exhorted the students of the different countries who attend his lectures to compose poems in various languages in honour of the sacerdotal jubilee of his Holiness. The poems will be printed and presented to the Pope. The Marquis of Ripon reached Hawarden lately on a visit to Mr. Gladatoae, where Mr. John Morley had already arrived and Earl Spencer was expected. The Time* says it is conjectured that the development of the Unionist policy in li eland has sometb"ng to do with the sndden gathering of the Lioeral leaders at Hawarden Castle. There is such a thing as unseasonableness, even in the matter of conversion. A priest in one of our Boston parishes tells a half-annoy-ing, balf-amusin^ experience of his own, when he was awakened at one o'clock in the morning, some time ago, by a furious ringing at bis door-bell. On answering the call, he found that his untimely visitor was a man who wanted to " take the pledge " there and then. Although he bore evidence that the reform .vould not be out of place, the acuteness of his remorse was hardly appreciated by the good pastor. — Pilot, In Austria. Count Taafe has been Prime Minister ia the Cisleithan Monarchy since 1870. Count Taafe is an Irish peer, whose family have been settled in Austria since the deposition of the Stuarts. He is by far the most influential personage in the Empire, for the Emperoi has the strongest affection for him, treats him en camarade, and takes his advice in all things. He is a short, stoutish man, with a rather Italian head, long, straight black hair, a skipping sort of walk, twinkling eyes, and a Rabelaisian mouth, broadened by continual smiles. Father Labelle, who is the head and front of the scheme HI bring the French Canadians back to Canada from the United States, by offering them farms in the Province of Quebec, expresses confidence in being able to bring a greater number of his countrymen back next year than he has done any year since the beginning of the undertaking. He is devoting all his time to the work. A gentleman to whom I spoke assured me, says a correspondent, that more than 100,000 French Canadians have been brought back from the United States since 1880. He said it was owing to this fact that the French Canadians had so suddenly become a political power in the Protestant province of Ontario. " From being a handful a few years ago," he said, " the French Canadians now Dumber 130,000 souls in that province." Pamphlets in large quantities are, he told me, sent from Montreal to the different French Canadian settlements in the various States of the Union, and special inducements are offered to those who will return.