MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 116, 16 July 1875, Page 16

MISCELLANEOUS.

1 1 i When Cardinal Manning waß a Protestant parson he uttered this beautiful sentence on " worldly ambition" so worthy of a Christian. ; "It is not only by simoniaeal contracts, that men may obtain holy functions by barter with the enemy of the Church. The use and laying out of natural gifts and powers, such as intellect, learning, dexterity, eloquence, and, much worse, of the gifts of the Spirit, so as to attract the notice of those in whose hands is the disposal of dignities and preferments ; the willing acceptance of prominent places ; the doing of acts in a direct line of suggestion or invitation of ulterior ends ; the outrunning of the providence of G-od ; the overpassing of limits which He has drawn along our paths into spheres where we no longer have Bis sanction, which in themselves are lawful, but are not for vs — in these ajid many other ways men do distinctly transfer the intention of then* heart and its affections from G-od, as the guide and disposer of their life, to an unknown power, which is partly Belf, partly the world, and covertly his who, through the world and ourselves, leads us captive at his will." Assuredly such a man is one who may well be entrusted with the highest offices. Mr. Gladstone complained in the ' Quarterly Review' article that Pius IX. was against the liberty of speech. His Holiness condemned merely that unlimited or licentiousness of speech which the Italian Q-overnment, so much lauded by Mr. Gladstone, is equally ready to repress. A meeting -was lately planned in Borne of persons anxious to protest publicly against the high price of apartments, and against those proprietors of houses who exacted exorbitant rent. This meeting was suppressed by the Italian police, and to judge by the printed circulars for convening that intended meeting, it is not extraordinary that it met with no favour from the Government. Persons were invited to assemble xoiihout weapons of any kind, and without purpose of disturbing public order. The intended meeting was to have been held in the Pizza Navona, and the circulars with the italicised words ■were actually printed. Those circulars convey a curious commentary upon the happy state of society in Rome upon the present regime, and the suppression of the meeting is strangely at variance with the supposed freedom and independence of Italian citizens. None of the Liberal journals in Rome noticed either the projected assembly or. its unceremonious suppression. Telegraph clerks will hear with alarm of telegraphic paralysis, a new malady reported "by a French physician to the Academic des Scicncies.' An employe, who has been engaged in a telegraph office for fcine years, found that he could not form clearly the letted "XT, by two dots and a stroke ; I, by two dots, and S by/iwo dots. On trying to trace the letters his hand became Btiff and cramped. He then endeavored to use his thumb alone, and this succeeded for two years, when his thumb was similarly attacked, and he subsequently tried the first and second fingers, but in two months these were also paralysed. Finally he had. recourse to the wris% which also shortly became disabled. If he forced himself to use his hand, both hand and arm shook violently, and cerebral excitement ensued. It appears that this disorder is very common amongst telegraph clerks. Spelling matches are the latest .pastime across the Atlantic, and are now frequently held publicly for charitable purposes. Highly educated people often come to grief in these matches, and at one which recently took place in Indianopolis, the first person who missed a word was a Professor who had formerly been Superintendent of Education of the city, and was still editor of an educational journal. The unlucky Professor spelt allege with-a " d," and was derisively presented with a huge cabbage bouquet as a reward for his failure. After all, the Professor was only a little old-fashioned in his spelling. A curious bet, the ' Continental Herald' tells us ha 3 been made "by a well-known pedestrian and guide of Pan and Nice, who has wagered that within a certain time he will capture a living izard in the Pyrenees, will bring it to Paris, conduct it through the Champs Elysees, and make it mount the Arc-de-Triomphe without touching it with a switch. The izard is the wildest and most unapproachable animal found in the Pyrenees. It jumps from peak to peak at the greatest heights, and is rarely shot even at the longest range. For consecrating the holy oils necessary for the administration of the Sacraments in the Dio ege of Q-neßen, Mgr. Cybichowski has been

condemned as guilty of an illegal eiercise of episcopal functions, and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment j moreover, two of the Cathedral clergy, who distributed the holy oils to the parochial clergy as usual, have been fined 25 markß each. And Prince Bismarck persists in declaring that the exercise and practice of the Catholic religion is in nowise restricted or interfered with. The French revolutionary papers are already hard at work endeavoring to excite ill feeling against the numerous Catholic" clubs which have sprung up of late in all parts of France. They cannot indeed suppress them, but they can calumniate them and thus rouse a bad spirit amongst the lower orders and do much, mischief. Doubtless the Masons do not rejoice in the sight of so many Catholic clubs rising up on all Bides and which tend greatly Scotland, the land of Presbyterianism, cannot also claim the title of the land of steady habits. It seems by recent statistics that .£35,000,000 are expended in that country on whiskey in every year, and that nearly two-thirds of the population are addicted to drink. Archbishop Bayley, in his recent visitations, confirmed 597 persons, sixty-nine of whom were adult converts from various sects, the Methodists and Presbyterians furnishing contingents nearly or quite as large as the Episcopalians. Brigadier G-eneral Thomas M. Vincent, of the War Department, was one of the number. It is said that a strenuous opposition is to be offered in committee to the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill. It having been ascertained that the Duke of Abercorn and Mr. Plunket, being members of a Freemason's Lodge which has not under the Irish Jaw registered the names of its, members, are liable to prosecution for felony, a clause will be proposed by Mr. Butb to indemnify the Irish Viceroy and Solicitor-General from the pains andjpenalties attaching to them for non-compliance. The G-eghan Bill, giving religious rights to the public institutions of Ohio, is quite obnoxious to Protestant preachers. The Rev. C. W. Oushing recently said in Cleveland : — " There is fortunately no penalty attached in case of the violation of the bill, and it would perhaps be the wisest thing that could be done by Workhouse directors and others to pay no attention to the new law." to diminish the number of those who frequent their own " dens of conspiracy." 'La Republic/rue Francaise is particularly bitter in attacking the Catholic clubs and does not hesitate to write of their able director Captain de Mun as a " man dangerous to the peace of his country and a fermenter of anti-patriotic demonstrations." This accusation is manifestly false. Politics are rarely mentioned m these clubs, which, unliks the Masonic lodges, are open to all who choose to enter and assist at their meetings. There are now over six hundred Catholic workingmens' clubs in France, all of which have been created within the past few years, and are under the direction of the great ceutral club of the Quai Voltaire, Paris. It is impossible to speak in too high terms of the zeal of Captain de Mun, to whom these institutions chiefly owe their existence. The Monde published the following on Easter Monday : "We have already spoken of the magnificent demonstration of faith which took place during the past week in Notre Dame, and we are now happy to say that what has occurred in the cathedral happened everywhere throughout the country. We learn that the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, was moved to tears on reading the letters which he received this morning from the parish priests, who assert that in all the churches the number of Easter communions was very great, especially of men belonging to the middle and lower classes who have hitherto kept aloof from the churches. In all the Parisian churches it took at least an hour to administer the communions. All the churches were thronged throughout the day. Marshall MacMahon communicated at St. Clothild<T, at eight o'clock, and remained for the next mass. Mgr. de Sebasti declares that he must have communicated over 4000 persons on Easter Sunday at St Clothilde. Journalistic statistics in the United States show that duringthe past year .£1,600,000 was lost in newspaper enterprise. Anent journalism, the ' New York Herald' is stated to cost over J3500 per diem, or .£IBO,OOO yearly. The daily expenses of the"' Tribune* amount to .£3OO daily, of the ' New York Times ' to £zOO, and the ' World,' from .£l4O to .£l6O. Literary ladies would do well to cross the Atlantic, for fifty-seven are now editing journals in the States.