GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 117, 23 July 1875, Page 16

GENERAL NEWS.

Perhaps the most impressive sermons that are preached against intemperance now-a-days, are those delivered by judges from the "bench. The English judges in particular, seem very outspoken and practical in their demuiciation of a vice which lies at the root of most of the crimes which men commit against their fellows. Recently one of them said: "The places of judicature which I have long held in this kingdom, have given me opportunities to observe the original cause of the enormities that have been committed for the space of over twenty years ,- and, by duo observation, I have found that if the murders, manslaughters, burglaries, robberies, riats, tumults, adulteries, fornications, and other enormities that have happened in that time were divided into five parts, four of them have been the occasions and products of excessive drinking in taverns and alehouse meeting." No doubt our own judges could offer testimony equally emphatic against this degrading vice. The ' Journal de Br .xelles ' publishes the following °article conconcerning Archbishop McCL'skey's new dignity: "Some years ago Lincoln — who was destined to die an unhappy death — was 'President of the United States. The statesman foresaw the intention of Pius IX., and the act which he has accomplished to-day. He sent to Rome a well-known diplomatic who called upon Cardinal Antonelli, and as he only spoke Englioh, he used as interpreter ouo cf my friends, who told the cardinal that President Lincoln begged tho Pope to give' cardinals to the United States, as America would gladly see the Catholic Church in her dominions possess the same splendor she doos in Europe. The diplomat© asked also to bo permitted to make his demand in person of the Pope. Cardinal Anfconclli was amazed, and replied, ' But the Popo has never sent a cardinal to America.' ' The very reason why they ought to do so now ; but we do not want his HolineßS to send us a cardinal ; we want America!* cardinals, American, mindyou, American cardinals.' He repeated the word ' American ' in that dry tono peculiar to his countrymen. ' The United States are very far off,' exclaimed the Secretary of State; 'how could the American cardinals get to Borne in time for the conclaves ? ' ' Hub your Eminence over been to Arneria ? ' ' No, certainly not.' ' I have just come thence. I have been there fix times. It took mo nine days to go from Now York to Southampton, ami five more to perform the journey from Southampton to here. The United States are at the doors of Rome. You speak of conclaves. Why in days "one by it took a cardinal a month to go from Sovillo or Dublin to Ro'vre, now they come in a few days, and we arc only m the abcof rapid transit.' The Cardinal could not see it in (his light at all, and repeated hid objections, but yielded at last to the diplomat's request to be led into the presence of the Pope, who manifested quite different views from those of Antonelli, and said, ' I think President Lincoln is a gre.it man, and that he is quite right. And, indeed, Eminence, I have always thought God reserved me the consolation of endowing America •with Princes of the Church. Remember, lam the first of the successors of St. Peter who has over been to America.' The greatness of the Pope's character was easdy seen in his trait. He received the American diploinate with kindness, made him presents, and, moreover. ' gavo him a mosaic table for President Lincoln, and accepted the idoa ' of creating" at a future and convenient dale an American cardinal." ' Modern " Civilization," heaven save the mark, is not an object , of special reverence in Dr. Brownson's oyos. He sums up American and English civilization in the following pregnant paragraph : "England is the best representative of modern" civilization, and, after England or G-reat Britain, comes oxir own Republic. England is precisely the country in which we find the greatest poverty and the most squalid wretchedness ; and hundreds and thousands of working-men and women in our own country are out of work because there is no work for them to do, and must starve unloo-3 kept alive by public or private charity. Moral principles are sacrificed to material interests, and with them the material interests themselves. The said result of modern civilization in the material order, in relation to the well-being of the laboring cla ses, as evinced by the frequent strikes and destructive combinations to' which they are driven, is a sad commentary on " modern civilisation " and the " modern ideas." Those Jesuits who arc at the bottom of every plot of the Catholic Church to stifle science have recently been conducting themselves in a manner to call for the severest censure from every enlightened opponent of " Romanism." The conduct of a pair of Jesuits is thus fully portrayed by our East Indian contemporary, the'lndo European Correspondence: "Some of our readers may occa-ionally come across persons who still believe that the Catholic Church is the deadly foe of science and enlightenment, and that ii 1 she had her way we should be all obliged to believe that the earth is flat and that the sun movco round it. Yel some of thope r>er.. ons may have seen in the ( Times ' not long ago something about an astronomical instrument of M. Janssun's. Of this instrument the ' Times ' says : 'We are not afraid of hewing that it has failed at Kerguolen ; for Father Perry, in whose hands it is, is one of the only men of the English expedition long accustomed to the use of astronomical instruments.' :(ow this ' father Perry 'is a Jesuit of the English Province. The ' Times ' also contains a notice of a work on geology (probably the ono mentioned in our item of news from Belgium in the present number of our paper) which has been ' crowned ' by the Royal Academy of Belgium. Few will suspect that the author is a Belgian Jesuit." The Irrepressible Conflict of the present day, were are told, is between science and the Church. It is to be noted, however, that it is the " ecientists " who toll us this. It is provoking, however, that " Catholics won't scare not a red." They deny the conflict and declare that if it existed, so much the worse for science. We commend this passage from Dr. Brownson's latest ' Review ' to our readers. " Well, gentlemen, what truth of science do you allege the Church prohibits, opposes, or contradicts in her teaching ? We do not ask what theory, hypothesis, conjecture or guess o f so-called scientists she refuses to accept ; but what fact or truth

that you yourselves dare pretend is scientifically certain and unquestionable, that conflicts -with her teaching, or -which she anathemathizes. Think, gentlemen, examine your own minds, and precise your own thoughts. Can you name one ? Suffer me to tell you that you cannot. I have no pride in the fact, "but I belonged to your party before I became a Christian, and I find, in reading you works, nothing, no thought, no theory, no hypothesis, or conjecture even, bearing on the conflict you speak of, that I was not familiar with before any of you were heard of, and before some of you, it mny be, were born. You are none of you original thinkers : you are notorions plagiarists. My own youth was fed with the literature from which you pilfer, and my young mind was nourished with the absurd and blasphemous theories and speculations which you are putting forth at. present as something new, original, and profund — as science even, — but which had become an old story with mo long before yoti reproduced them. We know, minus a few details of variations of phrase, all you can say in favor of your pretended science-, and all you can maintain against the Church. Were we not trained in Boston, ' the Hub of the Universe/ at a time when it was really the focus of all sorts of modern ideas, good bad and indifferent ? What have any of you to teach one who participarod in th Boston intellectual movement from 1830 to 1844 ? We Bostonians were a generation ahead of you. We have the right to speak with confidence, and we tell you beforehand that you have no truth the Chtirch denies, and that you disproved or demonstrated the falsity of no doctrine the Church teaches." From the Dunolly ' Expiesa' we clip the following, the writer of which would appear to have known New Zealand's present guiding spirit in his more obscure days : — "Nuttall, who was then publishing the ' AcUertiser ' at Maryborough, brought a plant to Dunolly, and the paper was called the ' Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser.' Great difficulty was experienced in obtaining an editor and reporters, and Mr. Nuttall applied to me to supply the paper articles and news. I was then so much ongaged that I could not spare the time, and told him so, when he said that the same conhibutions I sent to other journals would do for him. I did not exactly see the force of this brilliant idea, and ho had to seek elsewhere for the help. He at length obtainod an editor, v\ hose articles created great fun m the town, being among the richest things ever &een in print. S .bsequently a gentleman, who has since made a great stir in New Zealand, and who has there mounted to Ihe very top of the political ladder assumed the editorship of the paper, and it was then one of the best conducted provinc.nl journals in the colony. Prior to this the gentleman referred to kept a small chemist's shop at the Hard Hills, and the difference between both his fortune and appearance then, and since, is> Bomewhat re jitirkable. Certainly no one would have thought that he was likely to be the Premier of any colony, and much less that he would make one of the most daring statesmen that the colonies have evor seen. ? r ot only has this been tho case, but he has actually received the honor of knighthood, and his aptitudo for negotiating loans is something purposing evon to those who have considerable experience in that line. Victorii has overlooked the merits of more than one man, who, when he was lost to it, developed extraordinary talents. That the of whom I spe k is a man of consummate ability, and that hrn tak-nts were much underrated in this Colony, there cannot, be a doubt. Ho did commence a political career hsre, bub it was it under the wrong auspices, and he naver managed even to got into the House. Little did the party wljobo cause he espoused, know their man, or they would h-ive moved i^oth heaven and earth to have got him elected." A discussion on the best means of ventilating the Channel tunnel has arisen, one authority maintaining that the use of coke as a fuel for the locomotives must not be thought of, and that some other motive power than steam must be adopted. To renew the air once an hour the draught through it must be at the rate of twenty miles an hour. It is well to consider these things beforehand, but it may with confidence be asserted that if the tunnel can be built it can be ventilated. Tha ex-Ei Qpre&s Eugenic and her son aro in Madrid, on a visit to her Uii^crxal majesty's mother, the Countess dc Montijo. Mgr ."Martin, Bishop of Paderborn, has received an address of felicitation and devotion, signed by 83,000 members of his flock. Father Capccellatro, of the Oratorio of Naples, has written a book upon Gladstone's recent publication, which ia very highly spokon. ox in the Italian press. The London ' Telegraph ' in commenting on the elevation of Dr. Manning, remarks : " Upon a continent (America) which holds Statu Churches in abhorencc, and has enshrined 'freedom to worship God ' among the fundamental axioms of its policy, it is worthy remark that no faith is making greater progress than, that over vhich the Holy Father at Eome presides." An Italian dep'.ty, Signor Tamajor, member for Messina, recently informed the Parliament assembled in Homo, that the conditions of the prisons in Ita'y under the present regime, was infinitely worse than if was under the Bourbons. '"' I have my&eir visited ihera, and I am certain I am justified in declaring them utterly abominable, far wor-e than they were when vibilod by Mr. Gladstone. In two rooms, for instance, which are really two small to contain 80 persons, they now crowd 3SO. The stench in these places is horrible beyond the | power of words. Three times I have appealed to the Minister of the Interior about this, but I have never been answered by his excellency. Tho stale of the Northern Italian prisons is eqjia'ly bad, and until something is done for their amelioration, wo shall be disgraced in the face of .Europe." According to the ' Iron Age,' a wedge or plate of iron has been found iinbedcd in tho masonry of the groat Pyramid, the indications being that it must have been wrought in the ago of Cheops, placed by some authorities as far back as 3,100 yoars ago. This makes the use of iron 2,500 years more ancient than it i.s supposed to he, and affords opportunity for explaining tho cutting of the sharp und wcll-uo 'ined hieroglip'iies on porphyry, granite, and other hard stones employed in the construe lion o!" Ej\ptL.ui pyramids, temples, and tombs. „