ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1913, 23 June 1869, Page 3

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

(From the Home News.) Meantime the temporal head of the Church pursues the quiet tenor of her way, visits a few artists’ studios, especially those in which anything connected with the Prince Consort memorial is to be seen, attends to charitable duties, and holds an occasional court. Her Majesty has now retired to Osborne for a short time, the health of Prince Leopold being again so precarious, that on one occasion he was not allowed to travel by railway. The Prince and Princess of Wales went from Egypt to Constantinople, where they were received by the Sultan with the most splendid and graceful hospitality. The Princess is the first lady whom a Sultan has ever conducted to the banquet, and in addition to this distinction, every conceivable attention was paid to the royal guests. When they visited the bazaars and ordered articles, it was found that the venders were forbidden to take money—the Saltan was responsible. The Father of the Faithful also escorted their Eoyal Highnesses tr the opera, and endured it all, though bored. And it is said that he has given his portrait to the Princess, set with such diamonds as are read of only in the ‘ Arabian Nights. ’ The glories of this visit to the most beautifully situated capital in the word are now over, and the Prince and Princess share the humbler hospitalities of Athens, where they will not remain very long, and it is the Queen’s wish that they return in time to adorn our early season. Of the Duke of Edinburgh, our Australian readers can give us information. Prince Arthur is in Ireland, where he has been well received, and his putting on k a frieze coat, and being cheered as Prince Patrick, Lave been features of his progress. The Dublin festivities went well, though Cardinal CuUeu did his best to spoil the freemasonic ball, by publishing a letter declaring the excommunication of any Catholic who should attend a festival of a “ secret society.” It is rather too ludicrous to apply such a name to the masons, as if they really had any secret or other tie besides that of being very jolly and exercising some charity; but the Church is old and spiteful. The attendance was very brilliant, and it is said that the fair Catholics of Dublin pout much displeasure at the cardinal for spoiling their harmless amusement. Another eminent member of the Catholic Church has not been so consistent. Borne does object to secret societies, and so far Dr Cullen was in the right. But the Fenians are a secret society, and on the whole rather more mischievous than the masons. But Or Manning has been smiling on a deputation that attended him iu order to get him to permit petitions for the imprisoned Fenians to be signed at the chapel doors, and though he could not exactly grant their request, he made a most mischievous speech about the difference between political and other crimes, and professed the utmost sympathy for the “poor men” who are in prison for sedition and attempted murder. This kind of demonstration is both impolitic and ungrateful at a time when Englishmen are doing all in their power to remove the last remnant of injustice from Ireland. It will not be remembered to the advantage of Dr Manning, especially if his lesson about the comparative harmlessness of political offences should bear fruit. The lesson, moreover, is false, for the political offence, by which he must mean such a crime as was perpetrated against the Duke of Edinburgh, is surely a worse and a wickeder thing than the blow given in a moment of personal hate and anger.