LATE CARDINAL ANTONELLI.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2835, 16 March 1878, Page 2

LATE CARDINAL ANTONELLI.

(To the Editor of the Kwtniag Star.) Sib, —In the London Times (weekly edition) for the latter part of October and the earlier part of November last you can read a long account of th* trial " got up " by the " Counteaa " Lambertini And her kind friends to obtain from the nephew of the late Cardinal Antonelli some share of the money bequeathed by the Cardinal. You will there see that the " Countess" swore most positively that ths Cardinal was her father; but still, and Btrauge, she could not inform the Court, when pressed by the counsel of the nepiiews, if she had been baptised or not, where she was born, or when she was bocn. Sbeuould not tell in what part of the world the registry of her birth or baptism could be found, nor could sho tell what countrywoman her mother was, or eren that she- ever taw her. Of course when the case was brought to this " fix " the Court could not go much further; but rather than appear to decide hastily, the judgment was deferred, and now I see, under the heading " News by the 'Frisco Mail" in the Auckland Star of last Wednesday (13th inst), these words:—" The verdict in the Cardinal Antonelli case .is adverse to the claim of his reputed daughter, the Countess Lambertini." The same appears in the London Tablet of July 26, and also that the counsels of the " Countess" were leading Freemasons, a»d more —that the whole trial was a scheme " got up" by them to damage in the eyes of the Catholics the character of the late Cardinal. No one can deny that tbe verdict at once trans* forms our quondam "Countess" into her original colors —• a disreputable and contemptible impostor. But still, " Lie on my friends, lie boldly : If yon throw mud against a white wall some of it will be sure to stick." (Voltaire, vol. 1, page 398). Some such motive must have prompted the men who made this tool of a Countess their mud for daubing the character of a man lying in his quiet and silent grave.—l am, &c, A Catholic.