GEORGE IV.: AND THE EMANCIPATION BILL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 108, 22 May 1875, Page 7

GEORGE IV. : AND THE EMANCIPATION BILL.

In reviewing the recently published " Greville Memoirs," the • Times ' remarks that : — " As is well known, George IV., instead of laying his head on the block for the Protestant religion, had, like other kings before and after him, to accept the inevitable, and to give his assent to a Bill brought in for Eoman Catholic relief, It caused great disgust among the old Tory party, most of whom voted against it, while others sulked and woiild not vote at all. Sir Eobert Peel resigned his seat for the University of Oxford on the question, and was defeated by Sir Eobert Inglis, whom many of us remember at Oxford for so many years. Sitting for Westbury, Peel brought on the Catholic question on the 6th March, 1829, and in the debates which followed a speech was delivered by Lord Palmerston which astonished everybody." In the Lords the question was put for the first reading of the Bill on the 4th of April, and was carried by a greater majority than was expected — 105, the numbers being 217 to 112. On the 14th of May, after the Bill had been read a third time in the House of Lords, the King came to town and held a levee, at which he was ' remarkably civil to all the peers who had distinguished themselves in opposition to Govemmnent in the late debates, and he turned his back on the bishops who had voted for the bill.' O'Connell and Shiel were both at the levee ; the former had been presented in Ireland, so had not to be presented again ; but the King took no notice of him, and when he went, he said to somebody near him, ' the fellow what does he come here for ? ' The 'Times' adds, with a comprehensible sneer — " It was evident, however, that the days of this dignified Sovereign were drawing to a close ! "

The Roman, correspondent of the • Catholic Times' -writes : " A diabolical attempt to assassinate the Bishop of Leghorn was made in his cathedral on the 28th of January, during the singing of the Salve Eegina, which is solemnly chanted* in a special votive service held every year to commemorate the deliverance of the city from the earthquakes that so desolated it in the last century. Just as the Bishop, having left his throne, had knelt down before the altar, a massive Orsini bomb of zinc was thrown into the centre of the sanctuary, close to where the Bishop knelt. The Church was thronged with worshippers, but by God's providence, no one was hurt but an acolyte, who received a splinter of the shell in his knee. He is not, however, permanently injured. "What the bomb failed to do, panic might have accomplished, if the Bishop, with heroic calmness, had not turned round and addrsssed them, bidding them to be at ease. With this interruption of only a few minutes the service went on. A piece of the shell was projected right across the cathedral into the orchestra, but no one there was hurt. The author of this hellish intention has not yet been discovered." Death op the " Irish Giant." — James Murphy, jun., aged thirty-six years, the Irish Giant, died in Baltimore, on February 26, of bronchial affection. He was about .eight feet high, and weighed 350 pounds. The Canadian Cabinet are unanimous in recommending that an amnesty be granted to all persons connected with the North-west troubles, except Kiel, Lepine, and O'Doaohue, who are to be banished for five years. <