GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 176, 11 August 1876, Page 9

GENERAL NEWS.

On Friday, April 21, at Galway, in consequence of a request from the Rev. Mr. O' Sullivan, the Protestant rector, who stated that a Protestant pauper -whom he had known as a parishioner for eight years, on entering the workhouse, just before her death, sent for a Catholic priest, and died without his having had any opportunity of knowing from the woman's own lips the reality of her desire to change her religion, the Board of Guardians unanimously passed the following resolution : — " That the master shall, as the law directs, on the change of religion of an inmate whose life is in danger, when requested, send for the clergyman of the denomination which such inmate wishes, but allow the clergyman of the religion tinder which h.e or she has been registered to the presence of such inmate, merely to ask in the presence of the master the truth of his or her wish to change, and the master shall permit no discussion." A correspondent writes to the 'Journal des Del>ats/ from Geneva, as follows : " The new ' Catholic national religion/ invented

and pampered by Germany, appears not likely to live very; lone 1 , In Germany, in spite of the denials on the part of the national^ press, the movement remains absolutely stationary ; in Switzerland' " it visibly dwindles away. The churches are empty, and. if a 1 congregation does perchance assemble, it is only to hear some newcomer. At Berne, money is wanted for neophytes; in the Jura they trouble themselves no more about the new pastors than as if they never existed ; in Geneva each year demands new sacrifices. In short, all this movement, provoked for political purposes, is perishing with the policy which called it into being, and it will not be long before the whole affair will be nothing but a souvenir of the past." There are over 1700 parochial schools in the United States,educating hundreds of thousands of Catholic children without any expense to the Protestant public. M. De Lesseps has returned from his five months" trip to Egypt. He has ascertained that Fort. Said is not likely to be 1 filled in with sand, as predicted, the work done by the dredging machines last year being still open. In winter, when the Bitter lakes are full, a tide sets into -the canal, which turns the current toward the Mediterranean. In summer when the level of the lakes has been lowered by evaporation, the current turns in the opposite direction. Formerly rain was unknown on this part of the Bed, Sea, but since the building of the canal showers have fallen regularly about once a fortnight. The result has been to start vegetation up, even on the Asiatic side, in the most wonderful" manner. Civilisation, therefore, changes the climate as well as the face of the country, and if things go on as they have begun, the sands of the isthmus will be covered with forests in another, fifty years. There was a thrilling incident on the Kansas and Missouri bridge at Leavenworth recently. Two men, who appeared to be very drunk, were crossing the bridge from the Missouri to the Kansas side. About the middle of the bridge they got into a, quarrel, and commenced knocking each other about. The fight was observed by several spectators on the Kansas shore, and they saw a sight worth seeing. One of the men knocked the other clear off the bridge, and he somersaulted through the air sixty-five feet to the surface of the water. How far he went under, nobody knows, and nobody ever expected to see him alive again. But he soon rose and swam ashore, and scrambled out of the Missouri flood uninjured and perfectly sober. As soon as he saw what he had done, the victor ran with all his might back to the Missouri side, and he is probably running yet away from his supposed murder. The other refused to state the cause of the quarrel or give names. He also went back to Missouri after his friend, doubtless to finish, the fight. New Orleans has a religious who proposes to rival the famous Nun of Kenmare in literary reputation. Miss Carrol, formerly, of Clonmel, county Tipperary, who joined the Sisters of Mercy at Cork in 1853, and went to America in 1856, has founded the magnificent convent of her order in New Orleans. This institution shelters destitute servants, and has found situations for 735 in five years. It supports an orphan asylum, with 200 inmates, who are not only educated to fill good positions but so trained as to make skilful housekeepers. The good Sisters, who number 42, of various nations, have also charge of the prison, the industrial school, and the schools of the French church. To return to Miss Carroll, however. Her first work was a life of the holy foundress of the Order, Miss Catherine McCauley. She has since published " Hours of Childhood," and "Glimpses of Happy Home." She has translated, in several volumes, the " Life of Sfc. Alphonsns," and " Love of Jesus Christ," and she is at present engaged on a, memoir of Father Duffy, who died two years ago, after performing wonders in the raising of convents and asylums. This learned lady, it will be seen, is nearly as " lazy " as as the monks, and as little deserving of the praise of the industrious, ascetic and self-denying Protestant clergy. Catholics, however, rejoice in knowing that she has many rivals, in benevolent activity at least, among the other orders of the Church. A few days ago, the ' Times ' published a brief telegraphic despatch from Dodge City, Kan., announcing that a band of vigilantes had hanged two men near Fort Dodge for stealing horses in Summer county, Kansas. Subsequent inquiries, made by the griefstricken father of one of the men hanged — a young man named Calahan, son of a preacher in Topeka — proved beyond a doubt that Calahan was guiltless of any connection with the crime. He was engaged in gathering buffalo bones on the plains, and had been hauling some bones from his " dug-out " to the railroad when one of the horse thieves came to his place. He gave him shelter. While he was here the vigilantes from Summer county came up, and arrested both parties, and, notwithstanding Calahan's protestation and his endeavor to show that he lived there, and had not been to Summer county, took him with the guilty man and hanged him then and there. The Rev. Mr. Calahan says that his murdered sen was in no way implicated in this crime. — 'Kansas (Mo.) City Times/ The Germans never could have wrought out such a mode of revenge, so sure, so effective, and so mortifying, as the French are wreaking on the German nation. The whole country is flooded with notices, pamphlets, and addresses from Bon Marche and all other leading houses in Paris, containing samples and prices of good, fashions, models, etc., that are so much better, cheaper, and more tasteful than German work and goods, that scarce a woman, even if she have but one dress a year, does not order it from Paris. The merchants here have protested, appealed to the national pride, and used every exertion to break up this ruinous competition, but even with the submissive German woman the one womanly weakness is too strong to yield. A pretty dress and a cheap dress are irresistible. A society is about to organise to petition the Crown Princess to be its ruling head, whose object is to banish French goods and French modes, and originate their own fashions.