CLIPPINGS FROM HOME PAPERS.

Evening Star, Issue 3427, 14 February 1874, Page 3

CLIPPINGS FROM HOME PAPERS.

THE RELIGIOUS EIGHT IN GERMANY. The battle of Church and State in Germany has been inaugurated in good earnest. The Prussian Parliament on December 29, began the second debate on the Civil Marriage Law, This measure has excited the keenest interest throughout the whole coimtry, Protestants, as well as Catholics, finding themselves affected by it. Up to the last hour the Government itself was divided on the matter, and the Emperor William strongly opposed it for a long time. Like other measures of the kind, while it excites the wildest opposition among the religious parties, it does not go far enough for the Liberals, who object to the retention of the civil registers of marriage by the ecclesiastics. At first Bismark had not intended that this should be the case, and the German papers attribute the alteration to a desire, in which Herr Falck shared, to pacify the Upper Chamber. Contrary to expectation the Lower House refused to pass the measure as it stood, and the Liberals, proving too strong for the Government, rejected the article empowering priests and pastors to retain this Herr Falck had declared that from a practical point of view, he attached considerable importance to the retention of the privilege by the clergy. He had some reason to say this, for the change in the bi.1,1, wi.il affect tffe interests of Protestant pastes as well as of .the Remap Catholic priests. $ member of tfye Progressist party, Herr Richter, came to tffe rescue, asd proposed a compromise,' wlffcli Landtag eventually accepted, apd under which the ecclesiastics may retain the registries until January Ist, 1577- there seems to be some doubt whether the Government will accept an alteration which will disturb the whole mechanism of their Bill, At the same time they cannot afford to offend the Liberals, who are their chief allies in the great battle against Papal supremacy. [We have since learned that the Bill passed—Ed, E. S ] BEAUTIES OF FANTEE NATURE. Itjis wed known that the Fantee v.dor is of a very retiring disposition, excessively discreet and infinitesimally daring, just, in fact, what we English arc accustomed to call ample cowardice. The confimatory incidents, however, may here be narrated for our further instruction. In one of these, “ a detachment of miserable Fantees” was slowly advancing enemy-wards under the command of Lieutenant Cochrane. The gallant officer’s engineers were for some time entirely taken up in the attempt to prevent his wretched followers from tailing off. At last ko saw that no lighting could be g%t out of them ; and, in a contemptuous tone, he gave the word to retreat. A general stampede at once occurred, In the course of which the brave skedaddlers fired off as many guns at as many ventures, and contrived to kill twenty of their own party. Valorous incident No. 2 has to do with certain Fantee clerks employed in a mercantile establishment at Cape Coast Castle, These brave beings, chancing to hear that the Ashantoes were m full retreat, leaving their General behind them, a prisoner, refused to make another entry, or do another stroke of work. They would rush into thick of the fight—nothing should stop them—and they would not return till they had exterminated the Ashantees, or had fallen victims to their own unprecedented courage. Accordingly, they laid down their pens, and marched against the foe. 'I bey had not gone far before they discovered that an Ashantee General’s chair and not an Ashantee General, had been captured, and that matters had been generally exaggerated. Thereupon these dark youths altered their minds, and nobly resolved to forego all chancbes of distinction, or extinction in the field, deciding that it was their

duty to stay at home, and defend their employer’s premises from all attacks. It is said, by the way, that the said premises were as safe as they would have been in London. MISCELLANEOUS. The ‘Daily Telegraph’ has been caught in the act, being detected and exposed by the Times of India,’ in filching and dressing up in its leading columns an article which had shortly before appeared in its Eastern contemporary. The two articles have been published in parallel columns, and the other papers have been very jocular over the circumstance, and about the method of manufacturing “ telegraphese,” which one journal assures us is as easy as potichomanie, when you know how to do it. No one is sorry for the ‘ Telegraph,’ which is always boasting about its immense circulation, and whose articles are almost always shallow and thoughtless, though often specious and mischievous. Archbishop Manning has started a kind of crusade—somewhat after the Father Matthew style—against the drinking habits of the day. The other night he appeared, supported by several fathers of the Church, in Trafalgar square, and from the base of the Nelson Column addressed several thousand persons in favor of temperance. He urged a “strike” against drinking, and said that although he wished publicans no barm personally, he should like to see their trade at end, and themselves engaged in ’a better business. Numbers of people came forward after the address and signed the pledge. The teetotal efforts now being put forth on all sides, and by all persuasions, are very significant.