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New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 96, 27 February 1875, Page 12

Mr. G. A. Sala, in the " Echoes of she Week," which he -writes •weekly for the ' Illustrated Weekly News/ recently related a pretty anecdote of Pius VII. This Pope, whilst staying in Paris for the coronation of Napoleon 1., in 1804, paid a visit to the Imperial Printing Office. As his Holiness passed through one of the rooms, one of the workmen — a free-thinkig republican, presumably — declined to take off his hat in the Pontifical presence, whereupon the mild old Pope went up to him, and, gently removing the refractory compositor's chapeau, laid his hands on his head, saying, " There, my son ! The blessing of an old man will do you no harm." The compositor, we are told, deeply moved by his kindly behaviour, sank on his knees and burst into tears. The Pope has lately given an audience to the new SuperiprGeneral of the Christian Brothers and his assistant. After the audience, the Holy Father said graciously to the two Brothers, " Come, and take a walk with me," and as they accompanied him in his walk in the Vatican gardens, his Holiness inquired how many children there were in the Christian Brothers' school in Paris. He was told 30,000. " Why, that is an army," said the Pope. He then inquired minutely into the working of the Institute of the Christian Schools, and spoke with esteem and regret of the late Superior-General, Brother Philip. On the next morning, th,e dignitaries of the Institute then in Home were invited to be present at the Pope's Mass; namely, Brothers Jean Olympe, Superior-General ; Judore, assistant ; Floride, Procurator-General in Rome ; Kotnuald, Vicar j and Simeon, the director of the French school in the Palazzo Poli. The Vienna ' Tagblatt' says that at Mariahilf, a number of young men have formed an association to which none but the sons of houseowners are admitted, and the members of which engage to marry none but dowerless girls without prospects, under a fine of 10,000 florins, to be devoted to the endowment of a poor couple. A Chinese Young Men's Christian Association has been organised in San Francisco. In the euphonious language of the Celestials, it is known as Van Hok Chog To Uni. A woman died lately in New Jersey from the effects of excitement, produced by reading the fictitious account in the 'New York Herald* of the escape of wild animals from the Central Park. The • Lancet ' states that the female opium-smoker mentioned by Dickens in " Edwin Drood," under the name of " Lascar Sal," died miserably a short time back in a court at Blugate Fields. She was attacked with scarlet fever, and her low vitality soon succumbed to the disease. 'La Presse ' says there are now in Paris a husband and wife, named Vanner, from the department of the Haut Bhin. The husband was born in the reign of Louis XV., and the wife in that of Louis XVI. M. Vanner has lived under a dozen different governments ;he is 105 and hip wife 95. There are few centenarians in Paris, but among them is M. de Waldeck, the artist, who is in his 108 th year. " Fasting girls " have been common enough in Europe of late, but a dog in a trance is a novelby. This phenomenon is a Parisian spaniel which, has been sleeping thirty-two days.