EUROPEAN NEWS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1620, 16 October 1874, Page 393

EUROPEAN NEWS.

■'•;;•' ■•; mail items. "'"•■ :■■ ■; The English pilgrims arrived at Pontigny on the 2nd '. September. The party numbers'.3l3, arid includes' Archbishop Manning, tire Earl of Gainsborough, and some' other members of the nobility! 'The groat German Sanc/erfest was held at Waterloo on 2nd September. .' Tho eruption of Etna shows no abatement. The inhabitants are fleeing from the villages- at the foot of the mountain, but it is thought no', harm will' oe. done. The direction taken by the lava stream is remote, from the cultivated parts of the inipuntain. .; , "'; v The anniversary.of/the battle of Sedan was observed throughput, Germany as'a holiday,' The Prince of Wales was present at a banquet in the evening. " Russia has sent special agents to Spain to report on the military positions of the contending Republicans and Carlisle. It is reported that order will soon be restored. All foreign monks and nuns are being expelled from Berlin. It is reported that Spain purposes to sell Porto Rico, West Indies, to Germany. This has siuco been denied, but not officially. Marshal Bazaine proceeds to England shortly, Victor Hugo has declined the invitation to attend the Peace Conference at Geneva. He says peace cannot be established until another war has been fought between France and Germany. He points to the hatred between the two countries, and declares that war will be declared between the principles of Monarchy. and Republicanism. A letter from the Marquis de Safaraga, charge d'affaires of. the Carlists, regarding the shooting of some Republican prisoners, says Republican soldiers had previously shot and bayoneted wounded Carlists lying in the hospital at Olothe. No one regrets the sanguinary, character the war has assumed more than Don Carlos ;' but when tho enemy will not respect the ordinary usages of civil warfare, no means are left to tho Royalist generals but retaliation. The apprehensions concerning "a second year of famine in India have ceased. There has been a partial failure of crops in some districts, but no more than in ordinary years. Paris journals publish an official despatch acknowledging that the Spanish Royalists fired on the German gunboats Albatross and Nautilus. Tlie despatch declares the vessels were endeavoring to land armed men, under the pretext of exercising the crews; and in conclusion, says that the Carlists will recognize no combination of Serrano and his accomplices, but will exact respect for Spanish territory, and will resist the bravado of the German Government.' Five hundred English Agricultural Unionists have sailed for Canada. The German Government will not interfere with the national affair's of Spain. A letter from Bazaine reviews the late Franco-German war. Bazaine complains that he was the victim of the army, and that the army had but two supporters — the Emperor and Thiers. He says he would not have attempted to have escaped had Macmabon seen fit to lessen the severity of his captivity, fie considers now that during his trial he should have used the same weapons .as did Macmahon, by which ho would have shown that Macmahon was defeated, and evacuated Alsace, by which he was the author of the disasters of the army. Macmahon \va's as unfortunate at Sedan as he (Bazaine) had been at Metz, as Trochu and Ducroitwere at Paris, and as Bourbaki and Clenchart were in the East. But Macmahon forgot all this when he became President. The Firebrace divorce case has again been brought before the court on the question of alimony. The court strongly urged liberality towards Mrs Firebrace. While the Queen and Prince of Wales ■were at Aldershot, witnessing a sham fight, the Prince of Wales was thrown from his horse, but sustained no injury. Tlie Prince of Wales gave a fancy dress ball at Marlborough House on the 22i(d July. The costumes were scarcely ever surpassed for variety and magnificence. Tho whole affair was a brilliant success. Princess Louise, in tho garden of Draper's Hall, distributed medals and money prizes for cultivation of window plants by poor people. Addresses were given by the Marquis of Lome and Dean Stanley. An annuity of £15,000 has been voted to Prince Leopold', with a barren protest, only by Mr Tayl6r;_ r ' In commemoration' of the 'Duke of Edinburgh's marriage arid the Czar's visit, a; baronetcy 'has been conferred' on the L6rd : Mayor, Mr' Lusk, while, sheriffs Johnson and Whetham are knighted. .. Among recent civil list 1 pensions are grants to MrF. T. Tupper, Miss Jewsbury, Miss Meteyard,'and two sons, and daughters of Dr. Livingstone. . >* ~, At a sale of thoroughbred yearlings at Middle Park,' several horses fetched from 2,000 to 3,ooo.guineas each. Jl : ' ' The British exports'' for July are 38 .'bullions' sterling,'showing a f |uci'ea«e; of 1-f millions.' The .imports were 32§ millions sterling.' ''['''' Hungarian 1 papers proppse a Catholic Congress tit Pegth in September, to promote the formation of an international Papal pavty jn, Europe,

Eight hundred men have been thrown out of ernplovinent .by the irruption .of water in the Shiro- Oaks Colliery near "\Vorksop.'_', ~ ' ; :; A'marble statue" of Sir Titus Salt, erected by public'subscription, was unveiled at- Bradford on August Ist by the Duke, of Pevonshire. . ,A large :anddistingpishod company .witnessed the. cererhohy. . .' '" " .On the occasion of Professor Fawcett's speech at Brighton the other'day, the report of which occupied more than two colnmns of the. Scotsman, a,: curious, instance was afforded of mernory such as it no.tp often equalled. A gentleman who went down to Brighton in order .report the speech for fourteen riewspapers/called upon the professor : some time before its delivery, and explaining, the.nature of his business, requested the favor of a statement of the principal points of the speech. Professor Fawcett very courteously pvopbsednot only to give him the substance of his speech, but to rehearse the whole of it for him. This he did, and the reporter took it down. .Later on, while the speech proper was being delivered, the original copy made at the rehearsal was checked over word for word, and from beginning to end ; so perfectly had the speech been committed to memory, there.was not one single mistake, except that in one place a word was substituted for its equivalent in 'the : notes. '. !; The -European Mail says:—The raid against the Roman Catholic clubs and societies ( continues in Germany.. Through--put all the provinces, the police are actively searching the rules of the societies and the list of arid shutting up the clubs when there is the least excuse to' do so. The Roman Catholios have managed within the last thirty years to spread a network of combination over all Germany, in order to get the rising generation, and especially the young workmen—who, they foresee, will be a great political power in future—completely into their power. The young lad who is preparing for confirmation is already a member of a boy's after confirmation he passes into a higher club—and. when he gets married, into a third. The young women are similarly enrolled into a Piusverein. These clubs, in close coiibination with the socialist societies, manage all elections, civil and Parliamentary. In a Catholic town or village, the nominee of the Catholic Club is the mayor, and in large districts they manipulate the election for Parliament. When the history of tho present struggle comes to be written, and it is seen how Rome endeavored to subjugate Germany to herself, it will also be seen what an important element in the struggle these journeymen's clubs are. "I write under correction," a correspondent says, " when I say that they do not exist in Prance —at any rate, the Ultramontane journals do not plead it. There are i«t present 533 of such clubs established, and Germany rejoices in 420 out of the number. They are thus distributed : Prussia 249, Bavaria 118, Baden 27, Wuretemburg 19, Saxony 7, and Hesse 6. Besides these, Austria has 85, Switzerland 15, Holland 4, and Denmark, Italy, and Egypt one each. These numbers arc quoted in the Cologne Gazette from the Ultramontane journal of the same place, and if they are correct the fact needs explanation, that Italy should possess only one such club, while Protestant Prussia has 250, and even Protestant Switzerland 15. In Berlin alone there are fifty of these societies, and eight of them have just been shut up by the police. They are so well organized that, like the Orders, they have a general, who is at present a priest at Cologne, and every diocese has a president nominated by the Bishop. They exhibit the fullest specimen of clerical centralization and supremacy. In the eyes of the Government, therefore, they are political weapons in the hands of their foes, and thus are fair objects of attack." The German Ultramontane paper records five arrests of Roman Catholic priests, 11 expulsions, and 20 sequestrations of Church property, in addition to the dissolution of four Catholic societies and inquiries into six others, one of which has since been dissolved. These figures furnish an idea of the severity of the struggle which is now going on, and the bitterness of the controversy may be judged from an article in a Hesse Cassel paper. Alluding to Prince Bismarck's mention of " blood and iron " as the only solution of. certain political questions, it expresses surprise that Kullmann, on being told by the Prince that fellow-countrymen should not shoot one another did not give a biting retort. The Pope, in acknowledging an address from the Mayence '■ Catholic''Union, remarks that while he himself is shamefully treatod by impious men, Catholicism in Germany is exposed to a protracted and bitter persecution. Ho rejoices that German Catholics are determined to defend the rights of the Church and to emulate tho example of their Bishops, who aro suffering the greatest extremities. He confidently hopes that God will have mercy on his people and speedily deliver them out of the hands of the wicked, breaking their power and giving victory and peace to the Church after the assaults it has so valiantly withstood. Tlfe absence of any allusibn in this letter to the attempted assassination of Prince Eismark is,commented on by the Liberal papers.