THE ODDEST JOUENAL IN NEW YORK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 4, 23 May 1890, Page 7

THE ODDEST JOUENAL IN NEW YORK.

The oddest journal in the metropolis is the so-called newspaper published by the Mongolians of Mote street. It is written with a camels-hair pencil upon vermillion paper and ii pasted upDn the wail of No. 16 of that thoroughfare ani en thg two large telegraph pole«j which i-tand between Chatham square and Pell street. All day long it is read and studied by almond-eyed crowds. Even in the evenings, a belated laundryman can be seen running his eyes over the tea-chest characters, Yesterday I was one of the throng, and, thanks to a friend who is a good Chinese scholar, wa9 enabled to get a fair knowledge of the day's issue. There was considerable similarity between it and our own dailies. There was the latest proclamation Irom the Emperor of China ; a communication from the Embassy of Washington ; a letter from the Consul ; an account of an antiChinese outrage in Idaho ; a news item of a flood in China ; a dozen of " Want ads " ; a few laundries for sale ; a death notice, and a call for a meeting of some benevolent society. The editors are called scribes, and write at the order of their customers, charging a good figure for their skill with the brush. The favourite editor is said to mak* as high aa 20dols. a day ; but, beyond his eiitorial work, he writes cards, literary composition and prayer tickets for his customers.

One feature of this strange journal is worthy of imitation. If a member of a trades union is thrown out of employment, he puts up a notice to that effect, and thereupon every other member is bound to help him to a job. The result is that within 24 hours the applicant usually has a number of offers from every sort of business in which Mongolians engage. If he is sick, he or a friend announces it in a similar notice, and his society thereupon sends him a doctor and a committee to nurse and take care of him until he his well. If impecunious, they pay all his expenses, even going so far as to settle his rent.— Exchange.

The oldest inhabited town in the world is said to be Damascus. Fashionable girls are discarding the old-time gold and silver thimble for one of delicate porcelain.

" What is a bishop 1 " was the qustion put tbe other day by Mgr. Billard, Bishop of Carcassone, before an immense congregation assembled to witness tha consecration of the new Bishop of Soisaons in the Cathedral of Rouen. Mgr. Billard answered his own question by a splendid discourse which has been commented on in various quarters. Before defining the rSle of a bishop, he quoted St. Jonn (Jhrysoatom :—": — " Speak not to me of thrones or of diadems. Every phase of earthly greatness is infinitely surpassed by the greatness of the priesthood." " If," said the preacher " these words of St. John Cbrjsostom apply to the Bimple priest, does not their significance increase when we apply them to the bishop, the priest par excellence ? Is be not a second Moses, and do we not see in him that sacred thing which the ages of faith called a ' second majesty,' the first being the adorable majesty of God? Woe to tbe sectaries who do the santanic work of snatching souls from God. With them the true bishop is no longer gentle as a lamb. Ec exerts rather the strength of the lion in endeavouring to rescue from tbe hands of their enemies the souls dear to God. He is ready to shed his blood for these souls. The cross which he wears on his breast is a perpetual exhortation to selfsacrifice. Were there a figure in marble symbolising the liberty of the Church it should be veiled at this hour to represent the sorrow of her bishops and of all her true children. To use the words of the great Finelon at the consecration of the Elector of Cologne, ' O God, grant to Thy Church other Ambroses and other Augustines — pastors' who do honour to their mission by their Apostolic courage.' "