GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 180, 8 September 1876, Page 8

GENERAL NEWS.

The Holy Father has again refnsed to accept any of the stipend which the Italian Government has annually tendered to him . He •will not receive one fraction from the usurper of his States, following in this line of conduct the example of Pius VII., who would not accept one centime from Napoleon 1., when this Emperor had usurped his States.

Finally, steps have been taken to lessen the effects of the inundation of the Coliseum. Quantities of quick-lime have been thrown upon the ancient remains that underlie the water-line in the portion excavated. Whatever effect this may have in destroying miasma the first result is exceedingly curious. The wa,ter has become of a brilliant green color, and so transparent that the eye can penetrate for several feet beneath the surface. Estimates are being offered to construct a channel so that the water may be carried off, but a well-founded opinion regards this as practically impossible, and that the only means to get rid of the water is to find its source and close that source. Thirty thousand francs are offered for this work.

France, accepting the principle that the best way to secure peace is to be prepared for war, has now a bill before its Legislature, introduced by General de Cissy, Minister of War, for ar> appropriation of 260,000,000 francs (§52,000,000) for works of fortification on the frontier, restoration of the French army, and war material. In the now not expected event of a general war, all that is certain is that, whatever side Germany may take, France will side with the other.

The Shetland papers contain particulars of the descent of two Icelanders into the Icelandic Askya. At 3000 feet below the upper margin the two explorers found themselves on the brink of a lake of seething hot water, apparently of great depth. North of the principal crater there was found an opening about 600 feet wide, from which dense masses of sulphurous smoke issued, accompanied by loud subterranean sounds. The expedition, which is described at great length in the Icelandic paper, has excited much interest among the Icelanders on account of its daring.

The Catholics of Boston hold real estate and personal property valued at $50,000,000.

Large districts in China are threatened with famine this year, owing to the long drought. In Hankow, there has been hardly any rain for months, and the farmers are unable to plant out their rice. In those districts where it has been planted out, it has withered up. From Honan the accounts are still worse ; almost the whole of that province is in a state of famine, through the failure of the crops. No rain has fallen since the eighth month of last year. The people in many places are rising, marauding bands of hungry men are scouring the country in search of food and plunder. Numerous robberies and murders are reported, and unless the paternal Government can devise some effective measures to meet the present emergency, we may hear of another rebellion breaking out. The Mandarins have proclaimed a general fast, and prayers are to be offered up for rain.

Curiously enough, it was the plague itself which came to shield us at Bagdad. No one of the 3,000 Christians was touched by the visitation, while at Hilla and Bagdad the number of Moslems and Jews stricken by it far exceeded 8,000. The Moslems did all they could to hide their deaths, for fear of the quarantine and the medical officers who were deputed by Government to fumigate and disinfect their dwellings. Those superintending officers were all Christians, and the hatred of the Moslems knew almost no bounds against such. A Mr. Paduani nearly lost his life at their hands, and Aratoon, an apothecary residing among them, only saved his life by a timely flight. On seeing with their own eyes the complete and almost miraculous preservation of the Christians from the plague, the Moslems cried out with astonishment, " Miriam the Virgin, peace be unto her, has covered the Christians with her veil !" — Correspondent ' Catholic Examiner.'

Barnum's wonderful tattooed man is a Greek, and says he was in Chinese Tartary in 1867, when a rebellion broke out, and he joined the rebels, was taken prisoner, and with two others was subjected to the tattooing 1 process as a punishment, instead of being beheaded. He is certainly one of the most astonishing curiosities we have ever seen. Every portion of his body, except his ears and the soles of his feet, is covered with figures in blue and red, so as to completely conceal the natural color of his skin. The figures comprise every variety of birds, beasts, and reptiles. Lions, tigers, monkeyß, elephants, snakes, crocodiles, lizards, human figures, peacocks, flowers, stars, and numerous hieroglyphics and other figures are symmetrically arranged, showing very great skill and unwearied perseverance in the work. The process seems to have destroyed the hairs and have left the skin with a roughened yet velvety feel. The man describes the process as having been excruciatingly painful. We can readily understand that it must have been so, as well as highly dangerous to life. The substances used were indigo and cinnabar, leaving vivid and ineffaceable blue and red figures. Captain Constantenus is a well-informed good-sized man, speaks several languages fluently, and is really a great curiosity. — •Providence Journal.' Ever since Bismarck undertook to carry out the anti-Christian programme of the German Freemasons, a frightful increase of crime has been noticed every succeeding year in Piussia. At present the number of criminals waiting to be tried is so great that in various towns judges have to sacrifice their vacations in order to get through the more and more accumulating current business These are sad signs of the times, and if the National Liberals could' be brought for once to tell the truth, they would have to acknowledge that the moral and religious dissolution which is steadily but surely invading all the Protestant provinces of Prussia is the imme-

diate result of their godless legislation. But Freethinkers dislike appeals to truth — in fact they hate truth as coming from religion, from God; the means they usually adopt to defend their own cause, or prove others in the wrong, are nearly always shameless falsehoods.

The San Francisco papers describe an interesting scene in the State prison there lately, where five Chinese prisoners had their pigtails cut off. As it is popularly believed that the culture of the queue is part of a Chinaman's religion, it was thought that some of the prisoners would resist the attempt to deprive them of their pigtails. The first victim was Ah Foo, who appeared much astonished when directed to uncover his head. He tremblingly took his seat, evidently inspired with the belief that he was being prepared for executioa, and his eye 3 filled with tears as he unloosed his queue and allowed it to trail on the floor. The operation -was ' quickly performed, and the denuded heathen retired after casting a long, sad look at his shorn locks, and a fiercely indignant one at the barber. Chung Tung came next, but he manifested the utmost stoicism, and never winced under the terrible indignity. Ah Chu, a boy, and Chung Lung, a vicious looking old sinner, were next led up. Ah Chu was first sliorn, while the other prisoners watched the proceeding with intense interest. Ah Loy was next placed on the bench, and then the oldest culprit was invited to take the vacant seat. He was the first to decline, but the officer shoved him down, and the barber nimbly ran the bright shears through his cherished back hair. It was a very elaborate and gaudy queue, spliced with blue silk, and touched the floor when the owner stood erect. He evidently thought more about his hirsute decoration than all the other prisoners combined. The villainous look which he cast at the barber when he was allowed to stand up and examine the locks which he had cherished for over forty years was hatefully eloquent. j The trio were then mavched back to their cells, with their hats, two sizes too large for shorn pates, pressed down despairingly over their sullen brows.

A party of emigrants camped recently at Point of Rocks Station. About eight o'clock a piercing scream was heard to come from where three or four children were at play, a short distance from the waggons, and on going- to the spot it was ascertained that a child, about three years old, was missing. A diligent search was at once begun, and continued until about 11 o'clock, but proved unsuccessful. At daylight in the morning search was resumed. At the place where the children wore at play large tracks, supposed to be those of a mountain lion, were discovered. These were followed for miles into a large canon, here the child was found on a projecting rock some 200 feet high. After much difficulty the little one was rescued from its perilous position. Its clothes were badly torn, but aside from a few scratches on its face the child was uninjured. There is no doubt that the lion carried the child to where it was found and went after its cubs.

'Vanity Fair' is of opinion that even by land England and Turkey together would be more than a match for the forces that Russia could bring against them : — " We may therefore conclude thab if we were in earnest we could sand to the East an army which, with Staff, Army Corps, Army Hospital Corps, &c, would amount to about 80,000 men. This would be no contemptible force when supplemented by Turkish troops, and would probably suffice for our purpose, for Russia is singularly weak for aggressive purposes, and we doubc if she could cross the Danube with more than 150.000 men ; she certainly could not feed them it' she did. Indeed, we doubt her bcin» able to bring into Bulgaria move than 100,000 men. Many sneers have been indulged in at the expense of the Turks, bin, they fought well under Omar Pacha, especially when led by British officers, and are brave, hardy, temperate, and well armed. We could at a moment's notice give them several hundreds of British officers accustomed to deal with Orientals, and under such we feel sure that they would soon become very effeftive. Nor should we then be at the end of our resources, for 50,000 good native troops could be easily induced to proceed from I India to fight in defence of the Sultan, while at a word we could raise such a conflagration in Central Asia as would throw back the Russians in th it part of the world for years. As regards a campaign in European Turkey, we should derive enormous advantages from the command of the sea. By simply taking post at Varna or some other spot on the coast, we should *o threaten the flank of Russian advance on the Balkans that they would not dare to pass Shumla. Owiug to our defective arrangements, it would be probably several months ere we could place an army in the field, but, on the other hand, Kussia could not cross the Danube without considerable delay.

Bishop Dupanloup has caused an extraordinary sensation among the Radical party in France by a pamphlet he has just published, under the title "Ou allons nous ? " Whither go we ? the learned and zealous Pastor asks, of the Members of the Senate before whom the Higher Education Bill is about to be brought! " I have to deal," he says, " not with serious and earnest observers but with a light-minded multitude of men distracted or burdened with new and more serious revelations. For the people of these days have neither ideas, theories nor systems j they hate God and dream of war. Not content with denying God and religion, they pursue them relentlessly and wage a war to the knife, to the bitter end. Atheism and materialism hold their heads higher than ever ; irreligion and impiety, under every possible form, have taken up' arms ; nay, they seem to be triumphant. And, what is worse than all, under a most fatal illusion, a number of political men of honest purposes, but trusting more than they ought in institutions that have so often betrayed us, and in their own talent, are loath to see that the religious peril is more nigh and more threatening than ever, and that the social peril necessarily follows the religious." Then the Bishop proceeds to show by facts and texts, that there exists in France a vast and deep conspiracy, which has two objects in view: first, to unchristlanize France, and secondly, to come all the more surely to the democratic and social reorganisation of French Society.